5 Rating – The Library Ladies

Serena’s Review: “The Encanto’s Daughter”

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Book: “The Encanto’s Daughter” by Melissa de la Cruz

Publishing Info: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, March 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: NetGalley

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: A young woman claims the throne of a realm inspired by Filipino mythology in this YA romantic fantasy, the first in an enchanting new duet by #1 New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz.

MJ Rodriguez has spent her life hiding in the human world, keeping a heavy secret. She’s half-encanto. As the only child of King Vivencio of the Sirena Court, she’s also next in line for the throne. And now, upon her estranged father’s sudden death, MJ must claim her place as rightful heir.

In wondrous Biringan, the road to the throne is paved with thorns. Without a reigning monarch, the realm has spiraled into disarray. MJ has to win over a backstabbing council that objects to a half-human ruler. And when it looks like her father’s passing wasn’t natural but possibly inflicted by a curse, she must hunt down the sorceress behind this merciless magic.

In a bind, MJ forges an unlikely alliance with the striking Sir Lucas of the feared Sigbin Court, and soon, she loses her heart to the mysterious knight. But with peril looming over Biringan, the princess must decide if she can both open herself to love and carry the weight of the crown.

Review: So, I’m going to just say this up front: I mistook this author for another “Melissa” author when I initially requested this book on NetGalley. I’ve only read one other book by de la Cruz, and to say it wasn’t a favorite is probably an over-statement. I think it might be one of my lowest rated books on the blog, actually. That said, even after I realized, I still wanted to give this one a shot. Over the last year or so, I can think of a few examples where I’ve really loved books by authors who didn’t work for me the first time around. So, who knows? This could have been another situation where, with a new project, my mind could be changed.

All of that nice intro just to find out…nope, turns out everything that I disliked about the first de la Cruz book was more a feature of her writing than a bug. Ah, well, worth the shot I guess! But, as always, let’s talk a bit at first about the things that did work for me. Really, not much did. But I can see more where things would work for other readers whose tastes differ from mine. I did like the elements that were drawn from Filipino mythology (I especially appreciated the author’s note about this), and I wish there had been even more of these elements included on the whole. By the end, I still felt like we’d only scratched the surface of what could have been a rich fantasy tapestry. I also think that many of the choices made with regards to characterization and plot will appeal more to younger YA readers, so they may find more to like in this book than I did.

But for me, this was really a disaster of a read. Both the characters and the plot felt like cardboard cut outs of the most stereotypical elements of storytelling that on could cobble together. From the ridiculousness of the “magical royal school” setting, to the plot quickly devolving from MJ taking seriously her task to learn to take the throne in only a month’s time to instead partaking in juvenile bickering and drama. And to people these scenes, we have all of the stereotypes you can imagine: quirky best friend? Check. Mysterious romantic interest? Check. Hot girl that the main girl must hate? Check. This last one was most disappointing to see. I vaguely remember having problems with this in the other book by de la Cruz I read, this propensity to making the main female character seem special by degrading the other women around her. It was distasteful then, and it’s pretty depressing to still see it popping up here in YA fiction years later.

Beyond this, it felt like the book didn’t know what it wanted to be. You have, of course, the boarding school aspect. But the story also has elements of a fantasy thriller and then a murder mystery is introduced. And yet, even with all of these elements, I found myself so, so bored while reading this. Not being able to connect to any of the characters is always an uphill battle as far as engagement with a book goes, but it also felt like the pacing of this one was simply very slow. It felt like nothing was really happening for large chunks of the story. And as it went, it was easy to guess exactly where every plot line was going which sucked any tension out of the experience. And then we get to the end and what do we get? A cliffhanger!

I really disliked this book. The writing felt limited, the plotting was questionable, and the characterization could be reduced to stereotypes. All of that said, I know this author is popular with a lot of readers, so if you’re a fan of her previous books, take all of this with a massive grain of salt. Also, if you’re very dedicated to checking out a book that draws from Filipino mythology this might be worth a shot, though, I have to say, I feel like there have to be better examples out there than this. Overall, while I’m glad I gave this author another shot in the service of not having fixed opinions of an author based on one reading experience, after finishing this one, I’ll think I’ll call it quits.

Rating 5: At best it doesn’t stand out from the pack of other YA fantasy stories, and at worst, it’s a muddled mess of stereotypes and predictable plot lines.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Encanto’s Daughter” can be found on this Goodreads list: Asian YA/NA Books 2024:

Book Club Review: “Much Ado About Nada”

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We are part of a group of librarian friends who have had an ongoing book club running for the last several years. Each “season” (we’re nerds) we pick a theme and each of us chooses a book within that theme for us all to read. Our current theme is Centuries, where we were given a random century and had to pick a book based during that time period. For this blog, we will post a joint review of each book we read for book club. We’ll also post the next book coming up in book club. So feel free to read along with us or use our book selections and questions in your own book club!

Book: “Much Ado About Nada” by Uzma Jalaluddin

Publishing Info: Berkley, June 2023

Where Did We Get This Book: The library!

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Century: 21st

Book Description: Nada Syed is stuck. On the cusp of thirty, she’s still living at home with her brothers and parents in the Golden Crescent neighbourhood of Toronto, resolutely ignoring her mother’s unsubtle pleas to get married already. While Nada has a good job as an engineer, it’s a far cry from realizing her start-up dreams for her tech baby, Ask Apa, the app that launched with a whimper instead of a bang because of a double-crossing business partner. Nothing in her life has turned out the way it was supposed to, and Nada feels like a failure. Something needs to change, but the past is holding on too tightly to let her move forward.

Nada’s best friend Haleema is determined to pry her from her shell…and what better place than at the giant annual Muslim conference held downtown, where Nada can finally meet Haleema’s fiancé, Zayn. And did Haleema mention Zayn’s brother Baz will be there?

What Haleema doesn’t know is that Nada and Baz have a past–some of it good, some of it bad and all of it secret. At the conference, that past all comes hurtling at Nada, bringing new complications and a moment of reckoning. Can Nada truly say goodbye to once was or should she hold tight to her dreams and find their new beginnings?

Kate’s Thoughts

We all know that I am probably the least Jane Austen knowledgable person in our book club, as I always mention it whenever we tackle something Austen related because I can almost guarantee that I won’t have the context of the story in my mind. And this is very much the case in terms of “Persuasion”, as unlike the likes of “Pride and Prejudice”, “Emma”, “Sense and Sensibility”, and “Northanger Abbey”, not only have I not read it (or a zombie iteration of it), I haven’t seen ANY adaptations of it. So I was going in pretty much clueless with “Much Ado About Nada”, with no knowledge and only a Wikipedia summary to guide me. And that was just the first in a series of things that didn’t really click for me with this book.

First the good. I am always looking to expand my romance knowledge, especially when it is from more diverse perspectives which can lead to themes that may not be seen in other romances I’ve read before. And in this case, I really enjoyed following Nada, our modern Muslim protagonist who is trying to navigate a few pretty substantial setbacks in her life, such as a career defining idea being stolen from her, as well as running into an old flame named Baz at a Muslim convention. I think I’ve only read one other romance novel that has a modern Muslim couple, and which explores the dynamics of their romance through their cultural values and expectations, and I love having more at the ready for when I do find myself recommending books to others or to colleagues who are looking for certain stories for their community. This is all great.

But the downside is that 1) having no knowledge of “Persuasion” made it hard to find the comparisons and analogs, which is half the fun of these kinds of adaptations, and 2) the romance between Nada and Baz was a bit hard to buy. I think that Jalaluddin was fairly successful and translating the main romantic conflict in “Persuasion” to this more modern story (no spoilers from me here), and I generally liked the inner conflict of Nada and her somewhat prickly personality, but the chemistry wasn’t really there for me. And on top of that, this is a more chaste romance, and while that isn’t inherently a bad thing when it comes to romances for me, as while I do like a slow burn with a sexy pay off I also enjoy PG rated cuteness from time to time, if there’s no chemistry for said cuteness it just isn’t going to click for me.

I wholly get who the target audience is for “Much Ado About Nada”, but it isn’t me. This is a classic ‘Your Mileage May Vary” situation.

Serena’s Thoughts

Hi, it’s me! The resident “Jane Austen” expert! Not only have read all of the Jane Austen novels, but I devoted an entire year of the blog to reviewing the books and various adaptations. So, to say I’m familiar with “Persuasion” is an understatement. But in this case, I’ll say that Kate really didn’t miss out on much being unfamiliar with the story! Other than a few character names that are pulled from the original story and the broadest definition of “loose” references to the story, this book wasn’t served at all by being marketed as a “Persuasion” adaptation. Not to mention the wild decision to give it this title, clearly implying that this should be an adaptation of “Much Ado About Nothing,” not “Persuasion. Seriously, it’s crazy to me that anyone thought this was a good idea!

I’ll agree with Kate about the book being a useful lens through which to learn more about modern Muslim culture and dynamics, and some of Nada’s exploration of the challenges before her were definitely interesting. It’s also useful from a librarian perspective to have book like this to point readers towards when they’re looking for romances that are closed door or prioritize different values with regards to intimacy and marriage.

That said, I didn’t particularly enjoy this read. Not only is this simply not my preferred style for a romance story, but I struggled to really like Nada or Baz. At various points I thought each of them could do better than the other. Nada, in particular, was perhaps the harder for me to swallow, simply because this had been marketed as a “Persuasion” adaptation. The original character, Anne, is one of the most solidly “good” heroine of all of Austen’s leads, perhaps rivaled only by Eleanor from “Sense and Sensibility.” That being the case, it was hard for me to reconcile that character as an inspiration for Nada, a woman who could come across as a bully at times and as someone who blamed those around her for her own situation at others. Neither of these traits could ever be laid at the feet of Anne Elliot. Now, Captain Wentworth was a more conflicted character, so some of Baz’s more frustrating moments could be argued as more in line with the original. But regardless, purely from an enjoyment perspective, I struggled to care about either of these two, either alone or together.

Overall, I didn’t love this one. It’s useful for reader’s advisory purposes for specific readers, but I’d not likely recommend it to general romance fans.

Kate’s Rating 5: I’m not as familiar with the source material and it wasn’t really for me as a romance, but I definitely know exactly who I would recommend this to and that’s always a plus.

Serena’s Rating 5: In this case, knowledge of the source material wasn’t necessary; and when readers do have it, they may find themselves more annoyed than anything with some of the major changes here that made an originally beloved heroine less likable in her new form.

Book Club Questions

Did you think this was a successful retelling of “Persuasion”? Why or why not?
What were your thoughts on some of the themes within this novel, like trauma, relationship dynamics, and secrets within families?
What did you think of Nada and Baz’s relationship? Did you think it was an intriguing romance?
How do you think that this novel fits within 21st Century Literature, specifically the romance genre? Are there aspects that you feel represent romance themes in the 21st Century?
If there were more books in this series following other characters, would you read them?

Reader’s Advisory

“Much Ado About Nada” is included on the Goodreads lists “Derivatives of Jane Austen’s ‘Persuasion'”, and “South Asian Contemporary Fiction”.

Next Book Club Pick: “The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne” by Elsa Hart

Serena’s Review: “Gothikana”

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Book: “Gothikana” by RuNyx

Publishing Info: Bramble, January 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: An unusual girl. An enigmatic man. An ancient castle. What could go wrong?

An outcast her entire life, Corvina Clemm is left adrift after losing her mother. When she receives the admission letter from the mysterious University of Verenmore, she accepts it as a sign from the universe. The last thing she expects though is an old, secluded castle on top of a mountain riddled with secrets, deceit, and death.

An enigma his entire life, Vad Deverell likes being a closed book but knowing exactly everything that happens in the university. A part-time professor working on his thesis, Vad has been around long enough to know the dangers the castle possesses. And he knows the moment his path crosses with Corvina, she’s dangerous to everything that he is.

They shouldn’t have caught each other’s eye. They cannot be. But a chill-inducing century-old mystery forces them to collide. People have disappeared every five years over the past century, Corvina is getting clues to unraveling it all, and Vad needs to keep an eye on her.

And so begins a tale of the mysterious, the morbid, the macabre, and a deep love that blossoms in the unlikeliest of places.

Review: I was eager to check out this book when I saw it was slated for publication from Tor this winter. For one thing, it was hugely popular as a self-published titled, and I always love to see indie authors picked up by large publishing companies. Second, Tor has had a great track record this last year for putting out some really great SFF books. I’ve reviewed a ton of them and almost all of them have been positive reviews. Third, the description for this book likens it to “Beauty and the Beast.” I’m a simple person: if you tell me a fantasy story is inspired by “Beauty and the Beast,” I’ll probably read it. So, where did all of this lead me? Well, unfortunately, to a pretty steep disappointment.

I do try to start with the positives, but unfortunately, I really don’t have a lot. Really, the best I can say is that the overall concept was creative. I was drawn in by the book description, and I think if the execution had been up to snuff, than it would have been enjoyable read. Also, a lot of people do like this book. I can’t say I understand why, but they do. So clearly there’s some positive appeal for readers here that I’m not seeing, and if you’re interested in this book, there are a whole lot of people out there who would say go for it!

For me, however, right away I knew there would be problems with the writing. I read an ARC version of this book, so I can’t confirm for a fact that some of my complaints won’t have been corrected in finalized versions, but I’m doubtful. Usually, the kinds of changes you’ll see between ARCs and finished versions are last minute spelling or punctuation problems, like a dropped period or something. But here, the writing failures were way beyond this. Honestly, I was a bit shocked. In many ways it read like a bad stereotype of what self-published books can be: clunky writing, odd word choices, lack of useful descriptions (we got enough superficial stuff about fashion to last a life time) leaving the reader stranded in a wasteland. The sentences structure would be fragmented on one page, and then fall into run-on sentences on the next. Honestly, within the first few chapters, the number of times I had to stop and re-read a sentence to try to understand what was being said was shocking. It was the kind of reading experience where I was spending more time mentally re-writing and re-structuring sentences than I did absorbing that actual story.

Moving beyond the actual functionality of the writing, the style itself was also frustrating. This is a perfect example of writing that simply tells you what you’re meant to feel and see, rather than making any sort of effort to lead readers along in an organic, “showing” manner. This style didn’t help the fact that this book very much felt like it was all vibes and no actual world-building. Whenever I stopped and tried to think about how some of the fantasy elements worked, I became frustrated. I kept waiting for some sort of resolution or explanation for various plot elements that were introduced, but by the end, it became clear that tight structure and plot was not the priority. Instead of addressing the various mysteries that are brought up, the book ends with a sputter…something something magic…something something the mountain itself! If the answer to your numerous mysteries in a FANTASY NOVEL is “whelp, magic” than you didn’t have any mysteries to begin with and what story are you even trying to tell here?

I also very much struggled with the romance. I didn’t care for either character, our leading lady or Vad (the name alone!). At best, it was under-developed and I couldn’t understand why either character was interested in the other. At worst, it wasn’t helped by dialogue that had me experiencing indirect embarrassment for the characters. This also had a hirer level of spice than I was anticipating, which isn’t necessarily the book’s fault. But what I’m coming to understand about myself as a romance reader and my approach to spice levels is that it has much less to do with how spicy the book is, and much more to do with the overall approach to these scenes. There are certain descriptive words that I just don’t like in my romance scenes. And there’s a very fine line where these sorts of scenes can stray into the corny, and the minute that happens, the romance is drained and it all gets a bit of an “ick” sheen. Again, this is going to be very subjective from one reader to another. But all of the problems I had with the writing in general just compounded the problems I had with the romance aspects.

Overall, I can’t recommend this book. The romance aspects are subjective, for sure, and some readers might like these sorts of spicy scenes. But the writing was actually just bad, and there’s no two ways about it. Romantasy is having a big moment currently, which means that readers can hold their books to higher standards than this one had to offer, I’m sorry to say.

Rating 5: Honestly, if I hadn’t requested an ARC, thus feeling more obligated to give it a full review, I would have DNF’d this within the first 25%, the writing was that bad.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Gothikana” isn’t on any Goodreads lists, but it should be on Popular Gothic Fantasy Books.

Serena’s Review: “What the River Knows”

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Book: “What the River Knows” by Isabel Ibanez

Publishing Info: Wednesday Books, October 2023

Where Did I Get this Book:

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Bolivian-Argentinian Inez Olivera belongs to the glittering upper society of nineteenth century Buenos Aires, and like the rest of the world, the town is steeped in old world magic that’s been largely left behind or forgotten. Inez has everything a girl might want, except for the one thing she yearns the most: her globetrotting parents—who frequently leave her behind.

When she receives word of their tragic deaths, Inez inherits their massive fortune and a mysterious guardian, an archeologist in partnership with his Egyptian brother-in-law. Yearning for answers, Inez sails to Cairo, bringing her sketch pads and an ancient golden ring her father sent to her for safekeeping before he died. But upon her arrival, the old world magic tethered to the ring pulls her down a path where she soon discovers there’s more to her parent’s disappearance than what her guardian led her to believe.

With her guardian’s infuriatingly handsome assistant thwarting her at every turn, Inez must rely on ancient magic to uncover the truth about her parent’s disappearance—or risk becoming a pawn in a larger game that will kill her.

Review: I’ve been highly anticipating this book ever since I saw it floating around as a title that was releasing this fall. While the author’s previous book wasn’t a homerun for me, I did enjoy it and was excited to see what she had in store next. I also liked the sound of this one, with its mixture of fantasy and historical genres. All of that said, luckily for me I didn’t see the fact that it was also being promoted to fans of “The Mummy” (Brendan Fraiser version!) until after I had read it cuz…yeah, that’s probably one of my favorite movies and this book ain’t that!

This book really didn’t work for me, but as always, I want to start with some positives. First off, I think the true strength of this book comes in the form of dialogue. There were some genuinely funny lines that had me chuckling, and I liked our main characters best in these moments. Once they went back to their internal thoughts, I immediately went back to having problems with the story. I’ll also say that for readers who enjoy will-they/won’t they rather angsty romances, this one might be a good fit. But ultimately, I do think the book struggled in many different arenas.

First off, the pacing of the book was odd. It was one of those strange cases where the action almost started off too quickly. In this instance, I was told quite quickly why I should care about Inez and her concerns, but I wasn’t given enough time with the character to actually establish this myself. Instead, the plot starts off right away and Inez’s decisions immediately come across as foolish as best and downright ridiculous at worst. Foolish decisions can work, but the reader needs to care about the character and understand them as a person to be willing to go along with silly choices without damaging the perception of the character. That said, I’m not sure I was ever going to like Inez, as things didn’t improve as the story continued.

Once she met Whit, Inez became even more difficult to sympathize with. It’s a classic “lust at first sight” situation, and her continued interest in what she soon learns is a man in a committed relationship was pretty unappealing. From a basic structure standpoint, much of the “tension” of the story is built around rather ridiculous inner angst, rather than any actual build-up in the romantic interactions between them. We don’t get any real movement on that front until well past the 50% mark. Whit was fine as a leading man, but he also didn’t strike me as standing out from “classic good looking guy,” complete with all of the stereotypical descriptions that come with that type of character.

Beyond the characters, I also was disappointed with the world-building. There was so much potential to this world, and I was immediately intrigued by the concept of magic that was halfway forgotten and the ties to Egypt and the history of archeology at the time. But…it just kind of went nowhere? Especially the magic. There was never any greater explanation about how any of this worked, why it would ever be forgotten if it was as powerful as it seemed to be, and how any of it really worked together.

Lastly, I have to admit that I was immediately put on my guard in the very first chapter when the writing itself seemed to falter over fairly basic concepts. I can point to two points in the first few pages where the writing actively changes tenses between first person past and first person present and this continued throughout the book. This is just sloppy writing, unfortunately. These weren’t changes used to break between perspectives or chapters, but switches made from one sentence to another. It was incredibly distracting and threw me out of the book each time it happened. Other readers may be less bothered by things like this, so if you’re the sort who doesn’t bat an eye, this may not even be noticeable. But as it significantly impacted my experience of this book, I have to mention it.

I won’t be continuing with this series. And, honestly, given the pacing of the romance and the conclusion of this book, even if I had been enjoying it more, I think I would have struggled to want to continue, as I don’t think this ending lands well at all. Given a quick glance of the Goodreads page, I know that my opinion is a minority opinion, so definitely still give this book a go if you’ve been greatly anticipating it. However, if you love “The Mummy,”… temper your expectations.

Rating 5: Struggles all around: an unlikable leading lady, a strained romantic plot line, and some writing missteps that I just couldn’t get past, unfortunately.

Reader’s Advisory:

“What the River Knows” can be found on these Goodreads lists: Archaeology in Fiction and Palm Trees.

Kate’s Review: “A Twisted Love Story”

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Book: “A Twisted Love Story” by Samantha Downing

Publishing Info: Berkley, July 2023

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Wes and Ivy are madly in love. They’ve never felt anything like it. It’s the kind of romance people write stories about. But what kind of story? Because when it’s good, it’s great. Flowers. Grand gestures. Deep meaningful conversations where the whole world disappears. When it’s bad, it’s really bad. Vengeful fights. Damaged property. Arrest warrants.

But their vicious cycle of catastrophic breakups and head-over-heels reconnections needs to end fast. Because suddenly, Wes and Ivy have a common enemy–and she’s a detective.

There’s something Wes and Ivy never talk about–in good times or bad. The night of their worst breakup, when one of them took things too far, and someone ended up dead. If they can stick together, they can survive anything–even the tightening net of a police investigation.

Because one more breakup might just be their last…

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this novel!

As we all know, I really enjoy books that have soap opera levels of drama, and if you have it happening within one of my preferred genres that’s all the better. This usually happens within thrillers, and I am far more likely to read one if it has some interpersonal dramatic nonsense to pad out and prolong the mystery and suspense. With all this in mind, “A Twisted Love Story” by Samantha Downing really caught my eye. The cover is pretty neat for one, and for another it promised two toxic people in an on again and off again relationship whose terrible romance led to something deadly. That just reeks of the kind of extra-ness that I love in a story. And I have also had luck with Samantha Downing in the past. So really I thought this was going to be a slam dunk. And, unfortunately, it was not.

But, as we always do, let’s start with the good. The premise definitely has a lot of promise, and there were things that I did like about it. I particularly liked it when we had a POV focus on the detective that is kind of keeping her eye on Wes and Ivy, Karen, as we get enough insight into her character to make her pretty fleshed out and interesting in her motives for doggedly pursuing cases that involve abusive relationships. Is it a unique insight? Not really. But it’s still fun to get into her mind and to see how this has become a bit of an obsession for her, and how her own experiences and biases can affect her ability to do her job to a certain extent.

But ultimately, I had a hard time getting through this book, and I think that the main reason for that was that Ivy and Wes are very, very unlikable, and not really in the kind of fun way that I look for in ‘people behaving badly’ books. At first I enjoyed seeing their weird egging each other on dynamic, but it was a pretty static relationship progression in that they were always really shitty to each other, and weren’t really fascinating or well rounded to make up for it. I do love a hot mess of a story, I will be the first to admit that, but Ivy and Wes just didn’t interest me. There wasn’t anything really ‘fun’ about their really toxic relationship, and I just had a hard time keeping interested mainly because not only were they difficult, the supporting characters weren’t really engaging either. And to make matters worse, the mystery itself wasn’t super enticing to me. I kind of figured out one of the twists pretty early on, and on top of that it just wasn’t very compelling of a mystery. We know that Wes and Ivy did something really bad during one of their toxic meltdowns and then never spoke of it again, but I wasn’t given much reason to really care about what it was because they were such trash people that the suspense wasn’t there.

And then there is also a random curveball thrown in that I couldn’t make heads or tails of as to why it happened. I don’t want to spoil anything and it was probably a way to keep the detective connected to Wes and Ivy, but it felt clumsily done. Overall, a lot of it fell pretty flat for me. Which is too bad because I definitely was enticed by the description!

So ultimately “A Twisted Love Story” wasn’t for me. I can appreciate a story of awful people doing awful things, but ya gotta give me a little bit of fun with that, and this one didn’t feel like a lot of fun.

Rating 5: Two reprehensible main characters and a kind of weak mystery made “A Twisted Love Story” less of a fun sudsy read and a bit more of a slog.

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Twisted Love Story” is included on the Goodreads list “2023 Mystery Thrillers Crime To Be Excited For”.

Kate’s Review: “Motherthing”

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Book: “Motherthing” by Ainslie Hogarth

Publishing Info: Vintage, September 2022

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: A darkly funny domestic horror novel about a woman who must take drastic measures to save her husband and herself from the vengeful ghost of her mother-in-law.

When Ralph and Abby Lamb move in with Ralph’s mother, Laura, Abby hopes it’s just what she and her mother-in-law need to finally connect. After a traumatic childhood, Abby is desperate for a mother figure, especially now that she and Ralph are trying to become parents themselves. Abby just has so much love to give—to Ralph, to Laura, and to Mrs. Bondy, her favorite resident at the long-term care home where she works. But Laura isn’t interested in bonding with her daughter-in-law. She’s venomous and cruel, especially to Abby, and life with her is hellish.

When Laura takes her own life, her ghost haunts Abby and Ralph in very different ways: Ralph is plunged into depression, and Abby is terrorized by a force intent on destroying everything she loves. To make matters worse, Mrs. Bondy’s daughter is threatening to move Mrs. Bondy from the home, leaving Abby totally alone. With everything on the line, Abby comes up with a chilling plan that will allow her to keep Mrs. Bondy, rescue Ralph from his tortured mind, and break Laura’s hold on the family for good. All it requires is a little ingenuity, a lot of determination, and a unique recipe for chicken à la king…

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

I am very thankful to say that I have a pretty good relationship with my mother in law. I’ve known her since I was a teenager, which probably helps, but she has always been very kind and supportive and has been perfectly fine keeping healthy involvement and boundaries when it comes to the family my husband and I have built. That said, I am always down for some juicy literary drama regarding in laws from hell, and based on the description “Motherthing” by Ainslie Hogarth should have fit the bill. We have a toxic mother in law, a harried wife, and the promise of a funny domestic horror story involving a haunting perpetrated by a terrible woman, with a daughter in law determined to stop it. That is what I thought this book was going to be.

Well. I didn’t think it was most of those things.

We’ll start with the good. It was funny! When we meet our first person protagonist Abby we have a stressed and damaged daughter in law whose mother in law Laura has just killed herself, possibly one last manipulation directed at Abby’s husband Ralph. From the jump it is clear that Abby has a lot of mental and emotional issues, and said issues aren’t just because of Laura. But her stream on consciousness narration is at times incredibly humorous, like laugh out loud so, especially if you are into dark humor. And I also applaud how Hogarth has attempted to tell this story in a unique narrative style, flipping from first person narration, and sometimes to stage directional narration styles, as combined it does get the point across that Abby is becoming more and more unhinged as the story goes, and as she is feeling haunted by her dead mother in law in a literal sense while also being haunted by her neglected childhood and her desire to have a mother figure in her life (as well as have a baby so she can be the perfect mother). All of this worked for me.

What didn’t work for me as much was how everything kind of played out. Unique writing to be sure, but it is also very stilted and very strange. I am sure that it is deliberate and to make the reader feel as disoriented as Abby and to convey her mental state, but I found it aggravating as the story went on, and it felt rather repetitive as well. And to be quite honest, the description of this book makes it sound like we are dealing with a quasi comedic ghost story involving a toxic mother in law and the beleaguered daughter in law who has to play ghostbuster. But instead we get more of an exploration of a woman on the brink of complete mental and emotional breakdown, and boy oh boy does it go to very out there places. I do think that the problem is how it is described as opposed to the actual execution, because if my expectations had been a little more in line with what was presented it possibly would have gone over better. But as it was, I didn’t know what I was getting into and it soured the entire experience. I want to know if something is going to go surreal so I can get in the right mind frame. Going into this thinking it’s a domestic horror comedy isn’t going to manage expectations properly.

“Motherthing” didn’t click for me. If you like weird fiction elements to your horror it may click for you!

Rating 5: While it had some very funny moments, it was a little too weird for me and didn’t really deliver on what it was promising in the description or marketing.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Motherthing” is included on the Goodreads list “Birmingham Feminist Book Club”.

Kate’s Review: “Very Bad People”

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Book: “Very Bad People” by Kit Frick

Publishing Info: Margaret K. McElderry Books, April 2022

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: In this dark academia young adult thriller for fans of The Female of the Species and People Like Us, a teen girl’s search for answers about her mother’s mysterious death leads to a powerful secret society at her new boarding school—and a dangerous game of revenge that will leave her forever changed.

Six years ago, Calliope Bolan’s mother drove the family van into a lake with her three daughters inside. The girls escaped, but their mother drowned, and the truth behind the “accident” remains a mystery Calliope is determined to solve. Now sixteen, she transfers to Tipton Academy, the same elite boarding school her mother once attended. Tipton promises a peek into the past and a host of new opportunities—including a coveted invitation to join Haunt and Rail, an exclusive secret society that looms over campus like a legend. Calliope accepts, stepping into the exhilarating world of the “ghosts,” a society of revolutionaries fighting for social justice. But when Haunt and Rail commits to exposing a dangerous person on campus, it becomes clear that some ghosts define justice differently than others.

As the society’s tactics escalate, Calliope uncovers a possible link between Haunt and Rail and her mother’s deadly crash. Now, she must question what lengths the society might go to in order to see a victory—and if the secret behind her mother’s death could be buried here at Tipton.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

I had some pretty grand plans for myself nearing the end of March. I secured a solo trip up to the North Shore, bringing a book stack and my Kindle and thinking that I’d spend my days in nature and my evenings reading… Well, my faith in good weather was foolhardy, as that first day it was snowing and the wind chill made the temperatures outside feel like it was 18 degrees. I don’t know why I didn’t consider that, being Minnesota and all. But it DID mean that I got a LOT of reading done, and when I sat down with Kit Frick’s newest book “Very Bad People”, I found myself tearing through my eARC. The pacing was great! The mysteries were appropriately engaging! We had a secret society with some potentially nefarious members! Spending all the time inside was turning out okay for me…. Until we once again hit the dreaded ‘and it all falls apart in the last third of the book’ situation.

As per my usual strategy, I’m going to start with what I liked. And the potential for this story just oozes off the page. It has so many things that work for me on paper. I love boarding school thrillers, I love people who get in over their heads in frog in the boiling water situations, and I love moral ambiguity and questions. I also really liked Calliope as our main character, as she felt rounded and real and like someone who would be completely into being included in a secret society like Haunt and Rail. I also liked the school history and history of the secret society as a whole. On top of that, it was so fast paced and engaging that I was eager to see what was going to happen next, and how the connection of Haunt and Rail across the generations was going to come into play.

But I just didn’t like how a couple of the big arcs shook out. Like, at all. And I’m not certain if it had to do with the structure and set up feeling unbalanced with the conclusions, or straight up personal preference on my part and my own sore spots and biases coloring my judgement. I’m half tempted to go on a rant here, but am also kind of not wanting to spoil anything because I think that people would probably do better with it than I did…. What the hell, let’s just go half and half and throw in a

Skip to the next paragraph if you so choose (source)

The book opens with a recounting of the tragedy that has haunted Calliope for a few years: the car accident that killed her mother and nearly killed her and her two sisters. There has always been question as to what happened, as Calliope was asleep, and her two sisters either couldn’t remember what happened or was two young to do so. Calliope sees a man in town during a trek from the Tipton grounds, has her memory jumped, and is convinced she saw him the day of the accident. She starts trying to piece together who he was, as well as his connection to her mother, AS WELL AS her mother’s connection to the Haunt and Rail Society, which leads to the supposedly accidental death of another student during her mother’s time in the club. Calliope starts to surmise that perhaps the Haunt and Rail members had something to do with the student’s death, and her mother’s death was actually someone trying to shut her up. It’s a great premise….. But it isn’t the case. What IS the case is that Calliope’s mother was ACTUALLY LEAVING HER HUSBAND FOR HER HIGH SCHOOL BOYFRIEND AND TAKING THE KIDS WITH HER ON THE DAY OF THE CRASH. It’s all coincidence. And it’s awful. It immediately turned me off from the mother as a character who was, until that point, a formative and powerful drive for Calliope and her connection to the Haunt and Rail assholes. I get what Frick was trying to do, to say that some things are random and terrible (and it does have another connecting point, ultimately), but it left such a sour taste in my mouth. I don’t even think of myself as some kind of Puritanical scold, but once it was revealed how profoundly selfish the mother was being in wanting to uproot her kids from the life they knew with their father (with no indication that he’s a bad or even emotionally incompatible guy; HE SEEMS LIKE A REALLY GOOD LOVING GUY?), with NO actual exploration into her motivations outside of ‘oh, my high school boyfriend is back in my life and THAT’S EXCITING’, it wrecked that entire thread. Okay, I’m not going to elaborate further into the other reveals and twists and turns, but that was just too much. It derailed the emotional crux.

And then a lot of the other characters were frustrating and shrill in their characterizations, especially some of the Haunt and Rail members. It wasn’t even that their motivations and thoughts were things I disagreed with. I found myself quite sympathetic to the matter at hand, as a matter of fact! But I didn’t think that Frick did the due diligence to show enough complexity to their ‘arbiters of justice in their own minds’ themes until too far into the narrative. By then I had kind of stopped caring about their motivations and was more blinded by how their zealotry was damaging to those who didn’t deserve it, and I don’t think that it was properly grappled with.

Talk about running off the rails. There was so much promise with this book for the first two thirds. I don’t want to discourage anyone from reading it too much because it could just be a ‘me’ thing.

Rating 5: Lots of built up momentum and promise ends with a couple of clunker reveals.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Very Bad People” is included on the Goodreads lists “2022 YA Mysteries and Thrillers”, and would fit in on “Academia, Magic, and Secret Societies”.

Serena’s Review: “Echoes and Empires”

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Book: “Echoes and Empires” by Morgan Rhodes

Publishing Info: Razorbill, January 2022

Where Did I Get this Book: Edelweiss+

Where Can You Get this Book: Amazon | IndieBound | WorldCat

Book Description: Josslyn Drake knows only three things about magic: it’s rare, illegal, and always deadly. So when she’s caught up in a robbery gone wrong at the Queen’s Gala and infected by a dangerous piece of magic—one that allows her to step into the memories of an infamously evil warlock—she finds herself living her worst nightmare. Joss needs the magic removed before it corrupts her soul and kills her. But in Ironport, the cost of doing magic is death, and seeking help might mean scheduling her own execution. There’s nobody she can trust.

Nobody, that is, except wanted criminal Jericho Nox, who offers her a deal: his help extracting the magic in exchange for the magic itself. And though she’s not thrilled to be working with a thief, especially one as infuriating (and infuriatingly handsome) as Jericho, Joss is desperate enough to accept.

But Jericho is nothing like Joss expects. The closer she grows with Jericho and the more she sees of the world outside her pampered life in the city, the more Joss begins to question the beliefs she’s always taken for granted—beliefs about right and wrong, about power and magic, and even about herself.

In an empire built on lies, the truth may be her greatest weapon.

Review: So, I was sucked into this one by the cover. I’ll even admit that I only barely glanced at the general description before requesting it. That said, had I looked at said description a bit more closely, I might have been a bit more wary. But I also know that a book description isn’t the be all end all of books, and I’ve seen more than one example in the last year where the description completely undersold or misrepresented an excellent story. Unfortunately, this one is pretty much exactly what you’d expect based on its description.

Joss has always lived her life in the spotlight, and until the last year when tragedy struck her family, she’s reveled in it. Still, the show must go on, so Joss dutifully makes an appearance at a grand event. Unfortunately, while there, she gets caught up in a robbery that leaves her in possession of a magical infestation. And in a land where magic is outlawed, she must now creep into the shadowy world of the thieves and outlaws in hopes of curing herself before she is executed. While there, she begins to uncover new truths about her glittering world that throws her entire existence into question.

Sadly, I don’t have a lot of positive things to say about this book. I guess I can say that the writing seems strong enough, and the author was blessedly free of any repetitive word choices or an overly-simplistic style. There was also a fairly high level of action throughout, especially if you’re the type of reader who sees action in some of the smaller, social moments between characters.

Unfortunately, some of that “action” was unnecessary drama. Joss, herself, is introduced as a fairly unlikable main character who is made up of many of the more annoying stereotypes applied to teenage girls. She’s very self-focused, on her looks and her own actions, has made friends with a bunch of “popular girls” who, of course, participate in this the type of sniping and backstabbing that we’ve all seen in one too many teenage movies, and her focus on things like fancy dresses and shopping (while not bad on their own, of course) comes across as frivolous when paired with the rest of her character. The story does go on to reveal much that is wrong with Joss’s view of herself and her world, but for me, it was both too little too late and a bit hard to truly buy any of her changes.

I also had quibbles about how Joss was introduced. The way she talks, interacts with others, and generally carries herself through the world is very much in step with how a 20-something young woman would, decidedly NOT a teenage girl. It read as both unbelievable and, at times, borderline inappropriate. Also, fairly neglectful of her caretakers?

I also had massive, massive eye rolls at romance and the romantic interest. Not only was it all so predictable, but the banter was also very tired and expected. Also, the name “Jericho Nox.” Can’t not mention the ridiculousness of that name. From there, you move on to all of the other non-twists that come through this book. If you haven’t guessed most of them from the book description itself, I’d be shocked.

I was also very confused about the setting of this book. The cover, for one, makes it seem as if it is set in your typical bland, slightly Medieval European setting. But no. There are cars, phones, and a sort of social media apparatus. But also magic that still feels like it would come from one of those second world fantasies. Obviously, urban fantasy exists and that is probably the best subgenre for this. But that, too, didn’t quite fit. I don’t dislike the concept of the world, overall, but as it was, it felt jarring and hard to really place myself within it as a reader.

This book wasn’t really for me at all. Perhaps readers who aren’t as tired of some of these tropes will enjoy it, but I can’t really say anyone should run out and get their hands on it immediately.

Rating 5: Not for me. Too full of tropes and an unlikable main character really hurt it for me.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Echoes and Empires” is on this Goodreads lists: YA Novels of 2022.

Kate’s Review: “It Will End Like This”

Book: “It Will End Like This” by Kyra Leigh

Publishing Info: Delacorte Press, January 2022

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Book Description: For fans of The Cheerleaders and Sadie comes a psychological thriller that reminds us that in real life, endings are rarely as neat as happily ever after. A contemporary take on the Lizzie Borden story that explores how grief can cut deep.

Charlotte lost her mother six months ago, and still no one will tell her exactly what happened the day she mysteriously died. They say her heart stopped, but Charlotte knows deep down that there’s more to the story.

The only person who gets it is Charlotte’s sister, Maddi. Maddi agrees—people’s hearts don’t just stop. There are too many questions left unanswered for the girls to move on. But their father is moving on. With their mother’s personal assistant. And both girls are sure that she’s determined to take everything that’s theirs away for herself.

Now the only way to get their lives back is for Charlotte and Maddi to decide how this story ends, themselves.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

Boy did I think that the timing on this was golden! Around the time that I sat down to start “It Will End Like This” by Kyra Leigh, my favorite podcast was starting their two part series on Lizzie Borden and the Borden Axe Murders. “It Will End Like This” is a YA thriller that takes that story and updates it with modern times and sensibilities, so to me this was going to be the perfect pairing, to my mind.

But I think that it actually worked against the book’s favor, at the end of the day. Which is a real bummer, as I was amped for a YA thriller a la “Sadie” or “The Cheerleaders” that tackled a notorious murder mystery. Because “It Will End Like This” fell pretty flat.

I will start with the positive, and that is the very concept of updating the Lizzie Borden tale with YA protagonists and in a modern setting. There are so many aspects of the original tale (at least how it has evolved over time) that have so much storytelling potential: murder! Potential family strife! A freakin’ axe! I was really hoping for a creative and engaging update that would put all of these Victorian Themes (and all the mess that comes with that kind of baggage) into a modern lens. Like, that is just teeming with potential!

But there were some glaring missteps with this story that reminded me that a story can’t float on potential alone. The first is just a narrative style and set of choices that I didn’t like. For one, while we got a lot of Charlotte perspectives, the Maddi chapters were quite limited. I would have liked to have a bit more of an even distribution for their narrations, unreliability between them notwithstanding. Along with that, it’s all very disjointed, which is a fair choice to make given that Charlotte (and to some extent Maddi) is slowly losing her faculties due to grief, resentment, and rage. But the execution feels a bit heavy handed as well as too messy, and it makes Charlotte and Maddi rather two dimensional in their depictions.

But for me, the biggest issue is that while this book is inspired by the Borden Axe Murders, it’s more inspired by the myths surrounding Lizzie Borden versus the actual case at hand. And this is why my podcast timing probably ruined it for me. This book gives Charlotte and Maddi all the reasons in the world to want their father and stepmother dead, the biggest being that they were clearly having an affair and potentially had something to do with their mother’s very recent death. But the real Lizzie Borden had no obvious motive, as her mother had been LONG dead, and there is no reason to think that her father had anything to do with her death. That’s the big mystery surrounding these murders at the end of the day: Lizzie Borden as a suspect is hard to believe given lack of substantiated motive (note: I say substantiated because of speculation about a lesbian love affair being found out as a motive. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the case, but I don’t know if there is actual evidence to suggest this? And it wasn’t even used in this book as a plot point, so…) and some timing issues on the day of the murders (seriously, the timing would have to be insane for her to pull it all off). Buuuuut there is also a difficult argument to be made for some random person to have done it without being noticed by someone! Instead of taking inspiration from a truly puzzling murder mystery, “It Will End Like This” takes the “Lizzie Borden Took An Axe” nursery rhyme and speculation run amok and ran with that narrative. I think that if the final product had been stronger and less confusing, and had I not JUST listened to a breakdown of the actual facts of the case, I could have overlooked this all, but with all of these issues at hand, it was a bit too much to get over.

“The Cheerleaders” and “Sadie” this is not. I was sad that “It Will End Like This” was the disappointment that it was. I will say that it makes me want to go read other adaptations of the story to see what they do with it. I’m just not sure I’m convinced that Lizzie Borden did take that axe, and this book didn’t rise up high enough for me to look past that.

Rating 5: A good concept is muddled down by confusing narrative choices and straying a bit from the inspirational event it touts in the description.

Reader’s Advisory:

“It Will End Like This” is included on the Goodreads list “2022 YA Mysteries and Thrillers”.

Find “It Will End Like This” at your library using WorldCat, or at a local independent bookstore using IndieBound!

Kate’s Review: “The Ex Hex”

Book: “The Ex Hex” by Erin Sterling

Publishing Info: Avon, September 2021

Where Did I Get This Book: I own it.

Book Description: New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins, writing as Erin Sterling, casts a spell with a spine-tingling romance full of wishes, witches, and hexes gone wrong.

Nine years ago, Vivienne Jones nursed her broken heart like any young witch would: vodka, weepy music, bubble baths…and a curse on the horrible boyfriend. Sure, Vivi knows she shouldn’t use her magic this way, but with only an “orchard hayride” scented candle on hand, she isn’t worried it will cause him anything more than a bad hair day or two.

That is until Rhys Penhallow, descendent of the town’s ancestors, breaker of hearts, and annoyingly just as gorgeous as he always was, returns to Graves Glen, Georgia. What should be a quick trip to recharge the town’s ley lines and make an appearance at the annual fall festival turns disastrously wrong. With one calamity after another striking Rhys, Vivi realizes her silly little Ex Hex may not have been so harmless after all.

Suddenly, Graves Glen is under attack from murderous wind-up toys, a pissed off ghost, and a talking cat with some interesting things to say. Vivi and Rhys have to ignore their off the charts chemistry to work together to save the town and find a way to break the break-up curse before it’s too late.

Review: Though on this blog I’m known as the resident horror, thriller, and graphic novel reviewer (with non fiction on occasion), Serena is fully the romance reader in terms of blog content. But this past year I’ve been reading more romance, if only because of the pure escapist good feeling vibes it has. I mean, during these past couple of years we could all use as many good vibes as we can get, right? So I told myself that I should review at least ONE romance book for the blog, especially if it could fall into the parameters of my other genres. Enter “The Ex Hex” by Erin Sterling, a romance about witches, hexes, lost love, and talking cats. I got it from Book of the Month Club, feeling like it would be a good fit for the month of October, and finally sat down to read it recently. I had made up my mind that it would be a good way to combine my recent genre adventures with the old reliables, so that I would review it on the blog. After all, witches, right? Well…. the results were mixed.

But I will start with the good. Because I like to start on positive notes most of the time. “The Ex Hex” is absolutely cute, and has a fun premise that I just ate up. The idea of a broken hearted witch half seriously casting a hex on a man who broke her heart, and therein cursing him and causing havoc that they have to solve together is a solid premise. I also liked Vivi, said broken hearted witch, as she is plucky, and relatable, and comes from the typical supportive and kooky but ultimately powerful witch family that consists of sarcastic cousin Gwyn and wise aunt Elaine. I also liked Gwyn as a banter-y side character, as her cousinly relationship with Vivi is fun to read about, mostly because Gwyn is clearly the bad girl of the two. I would probably be super into a spin off book with Gwyn, as I see a lot of potential with her. And once the magic in the town of Graves Glen starts to go awry, there are some genuinely entertaining fall out consequences, like a cat that can now talk bust mostly just screams ‘TREATS!’. Because of course that’s exactly what a cat would do if it could talk.

But I think that the rest of the book didn’t really click with me as well. For one, the other half of our romance, Rhys, wasn’t nearly as endearing as Vivi. Like, he was fine as a character, but he was pretty darn boring in my opinion. We have the usual ‘he broke her heart but had no choice and didn’t really want to’ trope, and that’s fine, but it means that the reunification of the two characters really needs to pay off. And this one didn’t. One reason it didn’t bounce back is because I didn’t feel like Rhys did enough apologizing for the way he treated Vivi back in the day, in which they had a very intense romance and he neglected to tell her that he was betrothed to someone else (hence the broken heart and hex). The other reason is that I didn’t really feel the chemistry between the two of them. We are told that they were deeply, deeply into each other, and yes, there are sexy moments and scenes to convince us of this, but I wasn’t ever really into the two of them as a couple, as there weren’t enough little moments of romantic build up for me, or moments of actual resolution of their past issues that felt real and productive. On top of that, I think that the magic aspects of the book probably could have used some more fleshing out, but I mean at the same time we all know that my grasp on fantasy elements can be tenuous as best. But it all just seemed cobbled together to be magical without much thought into how it would actually need to work.

Honestly I feel a little bad, because while “The Ex Hex” didn’t really move beyond the ‘meh’ for me in the romance department, I’ve read some really good romances this year! And also, don’t let my general ambivalence towards this book deter you! It has cute moments and a fun premise. I mean, who doesn’t like witches going on misadventures with sexy results? This could be a good holiday read if that sounds fun, even if the holiday it best matches was over two months ago.

Rating 5: Cute for the most part, but not the highest tier romance I’ve read this year, “The Ex Hex” brings witches into a rom com setting with some mixed results.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Ex Hex” is included on the Goodreads lists “All Hallows Reads”, and “Feel Good Rom Coms”.

Find “The Ex Hex” at your library using WorldCat, or at a local independent bookstore using IndieBound!