Tag: 6 Rating

Kate’s Review: “We Did Nothing Wrong”

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Book: “We Did Nothing Wrong” by Hannah Jayne

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, December 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher.

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

Book Description: Lia thought of the dark night, of the broken street light.

Had Diana gone out to meet her? Had she been waiting for her, alone in the park? Or had someone been waiting for Diana?

Lia and Diana are the It girls of Empire Hill High. Their lives are perfect….until Diana disappears and the rumors start flying. Everyone thinks Diana is a runaway, including the police. Lia is secretly convinced it’s all a prank. Then she finds a crushed red rose tied with a candy-cane ribbon where Diana went missing. And next to it, a  YOU. It’s the same ribbon Lia’s received on gifts from a “secret admirer.” Did someone come for Diana that night? And will Lia be next?

Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for sending me an ARC of this novel!

It had admittedly been a little bit of a dry spell for YA thrillers before the past couple of weeks, but with “Heart-Shaped Lies” being spotlighted last week I broke that streak, and now I follow that up with “We Did Nothing Wrong” by Hannah Jayne. If the last YA thriller was a soapy murder mystery, this one is solidly missing person, a sub-genre I enjoy very much. So when I read the description for this one with a missing girl at its heart and a left behind best friend who is frantic (and feeling a little guilty), I was very eager to check it out. And it had some mixed results.

Firstly, however: the good. I will say that by the time we were getting to the last third of the book, the pace really picked up, the red herrings and reveals were flying, and I was quickly charging through because I was so interested in seeing how it was all going to shake out. I’d keep thinking “Diana has to be alive, right?” only for a few minutes later to think “No, Diana’s dead, that has to be it”, and then keep flip flopping as Lia keeps digging in and finding more clues. I liked that Lia was also what I would consider a ‘more realistic’ teen detective, as she has kind of been thrust into it out of desperation for Diana’s sake AND her own guilt about how their relationship had been as of late (namely, cheating with Diana’s boyfriend Eli), and therefore is more harried and chaotic as opposed to calculating and methodical. And finally, I also appreciated how Jayne tackled the role that law enforcement was playing in this story, as they go through the motions looking for Diana, but aren’t REALLY trying too hard, convinced that she’s a runaway and therefore not a priority. It’s a sadly common narrative in real life abduction cases sometimes, and having a story with a not necessarily malevolent investigative team, but certainly an inept and lazy one, was an interesting choice for this book to make, and it was one that worked for me.

But unfortunately, the pacing was a bit off in this book, with a lot of slow but not super engaging build up dominating for a little too long for me. I thought that the book was spinning its wheels for awhile, with a lot of it being Lia dealing with her guilt about her friendship with Diana growing distant, and her poor decision to sort of pursue Eli behind Diana’s back. We get some background throughout of their complicated relationship, one that certainly felt genuine (because as someone who DID have a very complicated relationship with one of my best gal pals in high school it was very relatable). But the ruminating and angsting on Lia’s part was a bit repetitive, and by the time we had finally gotten to the uptick in action and a very satisfying finale I felt that it was a little late getting there.

All in all “We Did Nothing Wrong” was pretty run of the mill. When it finally got going I was entertained, but I think we needed to get there sooner.

Rating 6: Once the pace picked up near the end I became invested, but it took a bit to get there.

Reader’s Advisory:

“We Did Nothing Wrong” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on the Goodreads shelf “Missing Girls Books”.

Serena’s Review: “The Kiss of the Nightingale”

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Book: “The Kiss of the Nightingale” by Adi Denner

Publishing Info: Tundra Books, October 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: from the publisher!

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

Book Description: 1890, Lutèce: In this city, Talents are everything: precious gems that gift unrivalled skills to their owners. The most coveted, Elite Talents, are claimed by the aristocracy, passed through generations by blood magic.

Cleodora dreamed of inheriting her father’s Tailoring Talent, but when he died, the magic died with him. Now she’s left with empty promises, a dress shop she can’t keep afloat, and her bed-ridden younger sister.

But everything changes when she meets the dark-eyed Lady Dahlia Sibille. Dahlia offers Cleodora a Singing Talent – a chance to save her beloved sister and rewrite her own fate. From the first instant, Cleodora is bewitched… There’s just one catch: she needs to steal an Elite Talent from the prestigious Lenoir family.

As Lutèce’s nightingale, Cleodora is the star of the opera’s galas and balls, worlds away from the darkness and dust of home. But the handsome yet infuriating Vicomte Lenoir is nothing like she expected.

Soon, the Vicomte’s teasing smiles win her over, even as Dahlia’s seductive whispers linger in her ears. Torn between Dahlia, who gave her everything, and the Vicomte, who holds the price of her freedom, is Cleodora in danger of losing it all? Or can she prove that magic isn’t the only gift that counts?

Review: Anytime a publisher releases a fantasy book set in Paris with an elaborate mask on the cover, you know they’re trying to pull in the “Phantom of the Opera” fans. Works on me every time! Obviously, reading the book summary, we see an even more direct connection with our main character performing at the opera. However, the read-alikes don’t ever directly mention “Phantom” but instead reference Leigh Bardugo and Bridgerton. All of this to say, I wasn’t quite sure exactly what I was going to get when I picked up this book!

Unfortunately, I did struggle a bit with this one. However, I always want to start with some positives, and for this one, that definitely comes down to the overall tone and vibe of this world. As the cover promises, the story takes place in whimsical, lush, and extravagant version of Paris. The author’s writing was particularly strong in these descriptive areas, with a heavy focus on the fashion of this world (unfortunately, I’m one of those readers who needs less as far as these sorts of descriptions go, but for others, this will be a real strength!).

I had a bit of wavering appreciation for the main character. On one hand, I always love stories that revolve around sisterly relationships, and when the story was focused on this, I enjoyed it most. However, as the story progressed, I became more and more frustrated with her decision making and internal thought process. More than once she comes across as incredibly incompetent. I also dislike main characters who are immediately the best at everything, but here we had the other side of the coin. In the same vein, I didn’t particularly enjoy the romance. All of the relationships felt very bland and one-note, and the primary love story never really captured me.

However, my biggest issue came with the world-building. The concept was both too simple and too complicated at times. For one thing, I simply don’t understand why these gems wouldn’t be being stolen all the time by everyone. The story presents Cleodora as this rare being for this approach, but honestly, this is such a basic response to this sort of inequality (where the thing causing the inequality comes down to a basic, material item that is easy enough to steal) that it’s hard to buy that this isn’t a near-universal problem in this world. Beyond that, for being so incredibly powerful, we don’t really see the ways in which a society made of people with these sorts of gifts would be changed from our own. There should be many areas of life that would be directly affected by this. How does law enforcement work? Politics? Wouldn’t corruption being an almost crippling problem within this society?

There were also many nods to “Phantom of the Opera” but not enough to make it anywhere near a direct re-telling. Instead, it walked some strange line where it was clearly influenced by this tale, but also wasn’t interested in following much of the plot of that story. It was odd more than anything else. I’d say, this book would be of most interest to YA fantasy readers who enjoy lush worlds with an emphasis on the descriptions. However, the characters and world-building were on the weaker side.

Rating 6: The writing hits some nice notes with its descriptions of elaborate settings and ballgowns, but the world-building leaves much to be desired.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Kiss of the Nightingale” can be found on these Goodreads lists: Edwardian Fantasy and Fantasy with a healthy dose of romance.

Book Club Review: “Spells for Forgetting”

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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. This June we celebrated our 10 year anniversary of book club. So in celebration of that milestone, we are re-visiting authors we read way back in those first few years of our book club. 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: “Spells for Forgetting” by Adrienne Young

Publishing Info: Delacorte Press, September 2022

Where Did I Get this Book: Edelweiss+/owns it

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

Book Description: A deeply atmospheric story about ancestral magic, an unsolved murder, and a second chance at true love.

Emery Blackwood’s life changed forever the night her best friend was found dead and the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her. Years later, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence on the misty, remote shores of Saoirse Island and running the family’s business, Blackwood’s Tea Shoppe Herbal Tonics & Tea Leaf Readings.

But when the island, rooted in folklore and magic, begins to show signs of strange happenings, Emery knows that something is coming. The morning she wakes to find that every single tree on Saoirse has turned color in a single night, August returns for the first time in fourteen years and unearths the past that the town has tried desperately to forget.

August knows he is not welcome on Saiorse, not after the night everything changed. As a fire raged on at the Salt family orchard, Lily Morgan was found dead in the dark woods, shaking the bedrock of their tight-knit community and branding August a murderer. When he returns to bury his mother’s ashes, he must confront the people who turned their backs on him and face the one wound from his past that has never healed—Emery.

Repeat Author: Adrienne Young

Kate’s Thoughts

I will admit that this book had been on my physical home pile for the longest time, because Serena gave it to me for Christmas one year and while I was absolutely interested in reading it, I just never got around to it (like so many books I own). So when it was a Book Club pick I was pretty thrilled to finally sit my butt down and read it. And I did so while up North next to Lake Superior, which was the perfect vibes for this book. I ended up really loving it.

As someone who is a big witch enthusiast (in media, literature, and real life), I really enjoyed the way that Young had the magic in the story, and how it wasn’t super overt or ‘stereotypical’. but was still very mystical. A nice mix of “Practical Magic” and the ideas of women being healers and guides. I also really enjoyed the overall mystery at hand, with Emery (and the whole community) still reeling from the death of her best friend Lily, and how her boyfriend August was suspected and then absconded with his mom before anything could really come of it. It fuels suspicion as well as longing for Emery, and it makes for a very loaded moment of reunification when August returns years later. The mystery itself was pretty well done, with perspectives from not just Emery and August but also from other members of the town as they get single chapters for themselves. It’s pretty clear that August is innocent for the reader, but while that may have dulled the suspense for some people I actually liked that the focus wasn’t on did he or didn’t he, and instead was on ‘if not him, who?’.

I also liked the small town secrets themes in this book. I’ve always enjoyed it when authors peel back the somewhat gilded facades of close knit communities that feel safe, only to reveal the darker undertones of the people who tout the supposed safety. I didn’t have as hard a time guessing who was actually responsible, but I felt that the mystery was less the point and it was more about love, loss, and secrets kept hidden. And in those ways I really liked this book.

I will definitely have to read more Adrienne Young. I’m glad that I finally got around to this one!

Serena’s Thoughts

Obviously, I loved this book when I read it a few years ago and nothing really changed when I read it for the second time! I can’t remember what time of year I read it during last time, but this one really hit all of the fall vibes for me this go around. I’ve also now read another of Young’s books that fits into the same lyrical fantasy sort of sub-genre that I’d put this one in and, while I liked that one too, I think this is the better of them. There’s a nice balance between all of the elements that make it the kind of book that would appeal to many different readers. The second-chance loves story is sweet. The small-town drama and murder mystery is compelling. And the touches of magic are full of whimsy without ever distracting from the more pressing plot points.

As a fantasy fan first and foremost, I think the fact that the magic is such a lowkey portion of this story and that I still loved it as much as I did speaks to Young’s talent as an author. There’s just something about her style of writing that grabs me. It’s, yes, lyrical at times, but she also aptly captures human nature as well, highlighting the best and worst of people’s feelings and instincts. Even the villains in this story are understandable, even if they are ultimately horribly wrong in their actions. So, too, our main characters are flawed and much of the story is them coming to understand one another as adults, years past the heady bloom of teenage love.

I was incredibly excited to have an excuse to re-read this one. And it was even more of a joy as I was able to jump from this book right into my galley copy of her next book that’s due out in January and seems to have many similarities in tone and vibe. Count on a review for that one near the publication date!

Kate’s Rating 9: A taut mystery, a malevolent small town, and some creepy witchy beats really made this a winner for me!

Serena’s Rating 9: Young captures not only the whimy of small-town life, but also the darker undercurrents of a close knit community with a long and storied history.

Book Club Questions:

  1. This book covers many subgenres, from small town romance to mystery to fantasy. How well did these genres blend together? Which elements were your favoirte?
  2. Throughout the book, we get to see chapters from various townspeople’s perspectives. Did any of these stand out for you? Is there one of these characters you’d like to hear more about and why?
  3. Did you have any theories about Lily’s death or the fire at the apple orchard?
  4. We see the romance play out both in the past and in the present. Did you like this relationship? How did you feel about Emery and August?
  5. What did you think about the way the story wrapped up? Was there more you’d like to know?

Reader’s Advisory

“Spells for Forgetting” is on these Goodreads lists: Spooky Season Reads and Charming Magic.

Next Book Club Pick: “The Familiar” by Leigh Bardugo

Ripley’s Reviews: “Ripley’s Game”

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“Ripley’s Reviews” is an ongoing series where I will review every book in Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripley” Series, as well as multiple screen adaptations of the novels. I will post my reviews on the first Thursday of the month, and delve into the twisted mind of one Tom Ripley and all the various interpretations that he has come to life within. Up next is the third book in the series, “Ripley’s Game”.

Book: “Ripley’s Game” by Patricia Highsmith

Publishing Info: Random House, March 1974

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

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

Book Description: Living on his posh French estate with his elegant heiress wife, Tom Ripley, on the cusp of middle age, is no longer the striving comer of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Having accrued considerable wealth through a long career of crime—forgery, extortion, serial murder—Ripley still finds his appetite unquenched and longs to get back in the game.

In Ripley’s Game, first published in 1974, Patricia Highsmith’s classic chameleon relishes the opportunity to simultaneously repay an insult and help a friend commit a crime—and escape the doldrums of his idyllic retirement. This third novel in Highsmith’s series is one of her most psychologically nuanced—particularly memorable for its dark, absurd humor—and was hailed by critics for its ability to manipulate the tropes of the genre. With the creation of Ripley, one of literature’s most seductive sociopaths, Highsmith anticipated the likes of Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter years before their appearance.

Review: We took a break last month from my “Ripley’s Reviews” Series due to Horrorpalooza (though you got TWO in September), but we are now back to this project and Tom Ripley continues to be loathsome and a literary legend. I was not familiar with the premise of “Ripley’s Game” before I started researching this series, and when I did get to this title I didn’t really know what to expect. I mean, outside of Ripley being the worst. And the worst he was. And it may be getting a LITTLE hard to handle for me.

Highsmith does breathe some new life into her Ripley stories with this third entry, as not only are we now delving somewhat into a Mafia thriller, but we also have two narratives we are following this time around. The first is, of course, that of Tom Ripley, who is still living his best life on his French estate with his vapid wife and all his ill gotten wares. He is approached to be a hitman for an acquaintance, but has no interest and instead suggests his friend seek out a man named Jonathan Trevanny, a lower class man with cancer, as he only ha a few months to live, surely, and may want the money to support his wife and child after he passes. Thing is, Trevanny doesn’t only have months to live, but the rumors make him think that perhaps he IS dying faster, and decides to take on the hits to keep his family supported. But Ripley can’t help himself, and inserts himself into Trevanny’s life further, and with that he’s up to his old tricks. I liked that we got to get into Trevanny’s head in this one, as it really showed his motivations and his anxiety and panic as he and Ripley are engulfed into Mafia dealings and the dangers that come with that. It was certainly interesting going in that direction as well, as you kind of wonder if Ripley may be biting off more than he can chew (but then we know he isn’t; we still have a couple books left). Also, this is another Ripley story that feels VERY queer coded, what with Tom once again obsessing over another man and inserting himself into his life. I know Highsmith had a lot of self loathing regarding her sexuality, and it’s interesting knowing that AND seeing Tom have these moments and layers.

But something that I did notice this time around is that I am starting to be a bit put off by Ripley and the things that he is doing. And I don’t mean that in a pearl clutching kind of way, after all this is Tom Ripley we are talking about here. It’s not like I think that he’s just ‘misunderstood’ or whatever. But I think that this time around, unlike in the two previous books, mostly the first book, Ripley seems to be absolutely destroying the life of Trevanny for no other reason than pettiness and a misplaced obsession. It’s one thing if Ripley is going in and wreaking havoc on the likes of the Greenleaf family, in that even though I’m not letting him off the hook for Dickie’s murder, at least there is some villainy of the selfish millionaire class that makes it feel more ‘fun’ in a way. Kind like in the “You” books where Joe Goldberg is a villainous murderer and stalker, but the people he is up against are all so unlikable and vile in their own ways that it’s more satirical and entertaining (while still making the various murders of the women he’s obsessed with just horrifying). In this book Ripley is gaslighting and setting up a lower class picture framer WITH CANCER to commit murders and drive him to the point of insanity all because he insulted him at a party once, and we don’t REALLY get the sense that Highsmith was unpacking the parallels of having a fun villain while dealing with the horrible things he’s done. I’m kind of grappling with this and trying not to feel like a hypocrite, and maybe that’s a feeling I have to own and Highsmith had the last laugh here. But this one felt a bit more misery filled than the previous two books, and as such I didn’t enjoy it as much.

We will see where we get with the next in the series, “The Boy Who Followed Ripley”. I don’t think that the bloom is off the rose yet, and I WILL say that I will be VERY interested to tackle a film adaptation of this one down the line.

Rating 6: I was quite in favor of two perspective narrative, but this was Ripley at perhaps his most vile, and the humor and satire didn’t balance it out as much for me this time.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Ripley’s Game” is included on the Goodreads list “The Vilest Man in Fiction”.

Kate’s Review: “This Girl’s A Killer”

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Book: “This Girl’s a Killer” by Emma C. Wells

Publishing Info: Poisoned Pen Press, September 2024

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

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

Book Description: Meet Cordelia Black. Cordelia loves exactly three things: her chosen family composed of her best friend Diane and her goddaughter; her hairdresser (worth every penny plus tip); and killing bad men.

By day she’s a successful pharmaceutical rep with a pristine reputation and a designer wardrobe. By night she’s culling South Louisiana of unscrupulous men—monsters who always seem to evade justice, until they meet her. It’s a complicated yet fulfilling life that requires complete and total control at all times. But when the evening news starts throwing around the words “serial killer,” pressure heightens for her in the South, and it’s only exacerbated when Diane starts dating a man Cordelia isn’t sure is a good person—someone who might unravel everything Cordelia has worked for. Soon Cordelia’s world spirals, and she loses her grip on those tightly held threads that keep her safe.

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

Horrorpalooza is over, and now I start to work back towards the books that I read before October that didn’t fit a horror theme to fit within that month’s review schematics. We had a cartel thriller on Saturday, and now we get back to good old fashioned women’s centric thrillers with Emma C. Wells’s novel “This Girl’s a Killer”. This has been on my list for awhile now, and now the time has finally arrived. With admittedly mixed results.

There were definitely things that did work, however. Most obviously to me is that I do love stories like this, with sarcastic and quippy morally grey narrators doing pretty terrible things but for fairly understandable reasons. I enjoy the idea of a pharma rep named Cordelia (I just kept thinking of Cordelia Chase from “Buffy”) being professional and put together by day, and then murdering abusive and violent men by night after the legal system fails to do anything about them. I enjoyed the story arc at hand, with her having an ‘oh shit’ moment when finding out that her company is recalling the drug she uses for her schemes (as it works SO WELL to knock men out you see), and then things slowly falling more and more out of control. Partially because she kind of starts dating a cop, partially because she really hates her best friend Diane’s new boyfriend. The thriller aspects are more about how and whether she will get away with her crimes, but it’s also a little tongue in cheek which gives it a bit of zip.

But on the flip side, it isn’t really anything that I haven’t seen before in the women’s centric poppy serial killer tale. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as I did find this book to be a very quick read and an entertaining one at that. After all, who doesn’t like to read about terrible predatory men getting justice doled out from a pissed off woman with a serial killing habit to feed? The problem is that Cordelia as a protagonist is trying to be “Promising Young Woman” vis a vis “Dexter”, but I didn’t feel like she had the complexities to back it up and is instead a bit of a caricature without the depth I was hoping for. Girlboss serial killer who loves her bestie and her high fashion labels and aesthetic is fine, but I was really hoping that she’d be a bit more interesting. I have similar criticisms for the supporting characters, with said bestie Diane being a little on the saccharine side and her daughter Samantha being precocious as hell bordering on a little unbelievable. As an escapist bloody romp this works, but I think that had the characters been stronger it really could have knocked it out of the park, and it didn’t quite get there.

It’s kind of strange to refer to a story about a serial killer in designer clothes as ‘cozy’ reading, but if you like thrillers you will probably feel that same vibe. Overall “This Girl’s a Killer” is pretty fluffy thriller fun that doesn’t take itself super seriously. I can dig that vibe this time of year.

Rating 6: Fun for what it is, but none of the characters moved outside of static two dimensional personalities and the story suffered for it.

Reader’s Advisory:

“This Girl’s a Killer” is included on the Goodreads list “Best Serial Killer Books”.

Kate’s Review: “The Demon”

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Book: “The Demon” by Victory Witherkeigh

Publishing Info: BookBaby, October 2024

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

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

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

I can’t believe that we are about two thirds of the way through October already. We’ve tackled a few sub genres this Horrorpalooza, from vampires, to ghosts, to serial killers, to the apocalypse, and now we are taking on another popular horror trope: demonic possession. It’s not a trope that I read that much, but if there is a generally tantalizing hook with a story I will give it a go, and “The Demon” by Victory Witherkeigh has that hook: A creature called the Demon has recently possessed the body of the Girl, but cannot remember why it has done so, and now has to figure out what it’s mission is, while also dealing with a true human horror: freshman year of college.

The horror… the horror… (source)

It was a roll of the dice, as it’s a sub genre I’m wary of and it was a book I hadn’t heard of, but that hook, man. I couldn’t pass it up. And the hook was everything I wanted it to be! There were other aspects, however, that didn’t work as well.

First thing I will do is talk about what I did like about this book, and that is the fact that the premise is strong as hell and that a lot of the time we got some really solid moments with this premise in mind. I have always loved a story about an otherworldly being taking on the body/identity of a human and having to learn to live like a human, from Jeff Bridges in “Starman” to the demi goddess character Illyria on the show “Angel” (absolutely rotten than the show was cancelled so shortly after her character debut; I just loved her). So I absolutely loved the way that The Demon is having to not only adjust to living in a human body, but also having to maneuver through college of all things. So many great moments happened with this concept, whether it was the Demon dealing with roommates, student groups, or having to get a prescription for birth control. I also liked seeing the Demon make connections with other humans, be they awkward and romantic, or gentle and familial with one of the few actually okay people in The Girl’s family, namely her grandmother. All of these beats worked really well for me, being a huge sucker for this kind of trope. I also liked the way that Witherkeigh addresses themes like colonialism of the Philippines and racism that comes with that.

On the flip side, I wasn’t aware that “The Demon” was a sequel to another book called “The Girl” until I had started reading it and began to wonder if I was missing some context due to how much info wasn’t really established. Since I hadn’t read the first one in the series, I was definitely missing some context as to the Demon’s motivations, her relationship with Death, and the ins and outs of The Girl’s family and her relationships and their motivations. It was like diving into a story starting in the middle, and that made things confusing. Admittedly this isn’t really the fault of the book as the assumption would obviously be that I WOULD have that context, but in this situation I didn’t. So that isn’t necessarily a ding on the story as a whole, but it did affect my personal experience with it. The other thing was that at times this book did feel a little meandering and unfocused, with a structure that felt a bit like a set of vignettes that had a thread through that could have been stronger and more taut.

So this was a bit of a unique situation and I don’t know if I can fully review “The Demon” as I didn’t approach it with the context that is assumed to be had by a reader. But I did really enjoy the moments of a fish out of water as the Demon tries to survive college.

Rating 6: A really cool premise with some really fun moments, but I definitely missed some context and some of it felt unfocused.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Demon” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on the list “Demonic Possession”.

Book Club Review: “Attachments”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

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. This June we celebrated our 10 year anniversary of book club. So in celebration of that milestone, we are re-visiting authors we read way back in those first few years of our book club. 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: “Attachments” by Rainbow Rowell

Publishing Info: Dutton, April 2011

Where Did We Get This Book: The library!

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

Repeat Author: Rainbow Rowell

Book Description: “Hi, I’m the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you…”

Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It’s company policy.) But they can’t quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.

Meanwhile, Lincoln O’Neill can’t believe this is his job now—reading other people’s e-mail. When he applied to be “internet security officer,” he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers—not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.

When Lincoln comes across Beth’s and Jennifer’s messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can’t help being entertained—and captivated—by their stories.

By the time Lincoln realizes he’s falling for Beth, it’s way too late to introduce himself. What would he say . . . ?

Kate’s Thoughts

This was one of the book club choices that I was most intrigued by this cycle, as I have read a fair number of Rainbow Rowell stuff, but I haven’t read any of her adult novels (“Fangirl” may fall into this? I think I was told it was New Adult when I read it for grad school). So going in to read not only and adult one, but also her first novel, was interesting to say the least! I also found it to be VERY of the time it came out, while still having some enjoyable things that held up in the modern day.

For one I really liked the email banter between Beth and Jennifer, as I have had work friendships like this where we just bullshit all day to offset the drudgery of being on the clock (admittedly my experience with this was working on the floor of a museum and finding other floor staff to chat with). Rowell has always had a zippy charm in her dialogue, and I really believed that Beth and Jennifer were best friends and work besties to boot. There were plenty of laugh out loud moments for me with these two, as well as some really well done bits of pathos in regards to Jennifer’s pregnancy journey as it has its ups and downs (definitely know there’s a content warning in this regarding miscarriage). If this book had been all about their friendship laid out in epistolary form, I’d have been wholly sold.

However, this is a romance novel, and when it comes to our male romantic interest Lincoln I just didn’t click with him as well. I’m not going to say that he’s a Joe Goldberg type like some people do, as I really don’t see his inadvertent stalking as malicious or devious, but it was interesting seeing it play out as cute when nowadays we are a little more sensitive to these kinds of things (I also would be a huge hypocrite to call it out as I absolutely LOVE “You’ve Got Mail” and Tom Hanks is kind of doing this to Meg Ryan in that movie). But my biggest gripe was just that I didn’t find Lincoln super interesting, as he falls into a lot of well worn tropes now, like the fact that he’s a HUGE CINNAMON ROLL NERD while also being INCREDIBLY ADONIS HOT. I also think that I needed a bit more direct interaction between Beth and Lincoln to really feel like the pay off at the end was real.

All in all, “Attachments” was fine. It was a quick read and it was a fun book club discussion!

Serena’s Thoughts

My experience reading Rainbow Rowell is pretty much identical to Kate’s. I believe we were both first introduced to the author in library school and then both proceeded to be assigned and read the same two books from her. I enjoyed them both, for the most part, but they also fall well outside my usual reading preferences, so I’ve never returned to the author. That being the case, I was excited that this was a bookclub pick which essentially forced my hand on the matter!

I also agree with much of Kate’s assessment, however. I, too, was much more invested in the female relationships and the themes of friendship, grief, and support that were explored throughout the story. Not only was the dialogue between them hilarious, but through their relationship, the story dives into the deeper elements of the story. Dialogue has always been a strong suit of Rowell’s, so perhaps this was no surprise. But it was a nice reminder of what I enjoyed most about her other books!

Like Kate, however, I was less invested in the romance. Which was a bit of a problem, as the book is first and foremost a love story. I, too, struggled to truly buy Lincoln as a character. Much of his characterization seemed to directly contradict itself. On one hand, he was presented as this nerdy guy who lived at home. But on the other hand, he’s this super hot guy who comes across as very charming. Obviously, nerdy guys can be attractive as well, but the entire premise of the book seemed to rely on the fact that he’s existed on the periphery of people’s lives, going unnoticed. Which…I just find hard to buy.

Nothing about this book was outright bad, but it did feel very average throughout most of it. I found myself struggling to want to finish it and simply not that invested in the romance at its heart. Part of this could just be the fact that I don’t typically enjoy contemporary romcoms, however, so take my review with a grain of salt!

Kate’s Rating 6: It’s cute enough and I liked the banter between Beth and Jennifer, but I wasn’t as invested in Lincoln and the romance didn’t really click for me.

Serena’s Rating 6: Same, same. There were bright moments, but it’s hard to truly rate a romance highly when you didn’t really care about the love story itself.

Book Club Questions:

  1. How did you relate to the time period setting of this book, as it takes place during Y2K? If you remember this time, what were you doing on New Year’s Eve before 2000?
  2. What were your thoughts on the romance between Lincoln and Beth? Did it work for you? Why or why not?
  3. What did you think about the two different writing styles, one being epistolary the other being more traditional narration?
  4. What were your thoughts on Jennifer’s pregnancy storyline?
  5. How do you think this story would change if it were taking place in the 2020s?

Reader’s Advisory

“Attachments” is included on the Goodreads lists “Internet Rom Coms”, and “Nerdy Guys Are Hot!”.

Next Book Club Pick: “Spells for Forgetting” by Adrienne Young

Kate’s Review: “Nightmare of a Trip”

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Book: “Nightmare of a Trip” by Maureen Kilmer

Publishing Info: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, September 2024

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

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

Book Description: A horror-tinged National Lampoon’s This is one family getaway they’ll never forget… Leigh Somerset wants to spend some quality time with her kids before they grow up, and her husband has always fancied himself sort of a Clark Griswold figure. So the Somersets will be spending their family vacation on the road, driving from suburban Milwaukee to Orlando, Florida. Already off to a rocky start, when they stumble upon an abandoned, half-burned farmhouse in Indiana, the Somersets inadvertently unleash an eerie past that will follow them the rest of their trip. From creepy indoor waterparks to paranormal-activity plagued Cracker Barrels, it’s one thing after another in the pursuit of the great American summer road trip. Will the Somersets be able to shake these bad vibes and get on with family bonding, or will the road less traveled become the highway to hell?

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

My family never did a huge cross country road trip when I was a kid, though we did take four-five hour trips to visit relatives in Iowa or drive to the Apostle Islands on occasion. I think that my parents knew that none of us had the wherewithal to do the long drives across multiple states, and since we could afford plane tickets, that’s what we did. But even with the smaller road trips I was compelled to pick up “Nightmare of a Trip” by Maureen Kilmer. I had enjoyed another of her books, and the promise of a haunting story mixed with “National Lampoon’s Vacation” is hard to resist. Unfortunately, my high hopes were a bit dashed this time.

First what I did like. The entire concept of a stereotypical American family road trip being waylaid by supernatural hijinks is a pretty fun idea. Given that I found Kilmer’s book “Suburban Hell” to be a fun satire on American suburbia I was hoping that “Nightmare of a Trip” would have a similar execution and also be a fun satire. And there were definitely some fun things about this book. The idea of a Cracker Barrel being thrown into chaos due to poltergeist activity is hilarious, and I also enjoyed the stress and exhaustion of Leigh and Nick as they are trying to take their kids on a memorable family vacation while also keeping their shit together. Because there were a couple nights at Disney World this past Spring where once the kid was in bed my husband and I just collapsed in a puddle of burn out, and Kilmer nails the feel. It’s also the kind of spooky story that I would be more than confident to recommend to people who want something a little scary to read for Halloween, but not TOO scary. I definitely think it’s important to have varying degrees of horror stories for readers, and “Nightmare of a Trip” would be a pretty safe choice that still gets the reader in a scary story mood.

On the flip side, however, “Nightmare of a Trip” didn’t have the same oomph that “Suburban Hell” did, as I wasn’t nearly as invested in the characters this time around. Sure I found some of them realistic, as mentioned above, but Leigh as our narrator was pretty bland. I appreciate a harried mother character, but I was hoping that we would get a bit more exploration beyond a harried mother, especially since I find the greater strengths in books like this to be the characters when the horror is muted a bit. Along with this, the humorous/satirical elements of this book, which should have been the biggest narrative strength, just didn’t land as well as I had hoped it would. It isn’t BAD. It just isn’t very interesting. Pretty middle of the road. And that’s fine! I had just hoped for more.

“Nightmare of a Trip” is a quick read that is light on scares but still entertains. I had hoped it would be as enjoyable as “Suburban Hell”, but even if it didn’t live up to my expectations I still found it mostly fun.

Rating 6: It’s fun and frothy and probably a good choice for someone looking for some lighter horror this Halloween season, but it was pretty middle of the road.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Nightmare of a Trip” is included on the Goodreads list “All the New Horror, Romantasy, and Other SFF Crossover Books Arriving in September 2024”.

Book Club Review: “Summer Days and Summer Nights”

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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. This June we celebrated our 10 year anniversary of book club. So in celebration of that milestone, we are re-visiting authors we read way back in those first few years of our book club. 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: “Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories” by Stephanie Perkins (Ed.)

Publishing Info: St. Martin’s Griffin, May 2016

Where Did We Get This Book: The library!

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

Repeat Author: Stephanie Perkins

Book Description: Maybe it’s the long, lazy days, or maybe it’s the heat making everyone a little bit crazy. Whatever the reason, summer is the perfect time for love to bloom. Summer Days & Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories, written by twelve bestselling young adult writers and edited by the international bestselling author Stephanie Perkins, will have you dreaming of sunset strolls by the lake. So set out your beach chair and grab your sunglasses. You have twelve reasons this summer to soak up the sun and fall in love.

Kate’s Thoughts

WAAAAY back during our first cycle of Book Club get togethers one of our members chose the anthology “My True Love Gave To Me”, which had a bunch of then in demand YA authors writing holiday themed romance short stories. We all generally enjoyed it, with some authors standing out quite a bit. So it was fun when one of our other members picked the summertime follow up “Summer Days and Summer Nights”, harkening not only to a repeat author, but also continuing into the quasi-sequel. And much like the previous book in the series, I had some authors who really stood out this time, while others kind of fell back to the wayside.

Unsurprisingly it was the works by Leigh Bardugo, Libba Bray, and Brandy Colbert that I enjoyed most, as I do like those authors in general and I liked their own interpretations of a summer romance short story prompt. You have some fantasy bittersweetness from Bardugo’s “Head, Scales, Tongue, Tail”, you had some horror humor from Bray’s “Last Stand at the Cinegore”, and you had some genuine teenage love story and ache from Colbert’s “Good Luck and Farewell”, and they ran such tonal gamuts and yet completely fit into the prompt it was charming as hell to see. That said, many of the other stories in this anthology were hit or miss for me, some being enjoyable, others just falling flat. Which is probably just due to the fact that romance isn’t really my thing unless it meets certain parameters. Also something to note is this book came out in 2016, and it’s kind of a fun snapshot into which YA authors were being approached with these kinds of ‘let’s cover a broad range of in demand voices’ anthologies.

Overall, it was a perfectly fine summer read for our Book Club, with some strong stand outs from authors who have maintained their popularity over the years. If you want to cling to summer for one last hurrah, this could be a good fit!

Serena’s Thoughts

As readers of this blog know, neither Kate or I read tons of short story collections. I’m perhaps more on the record for usually actively avoiding them. And yet, somehow this is the first of THREE short story collections that I am reading and reviewing this month! You’ll see two back-to-back short story reviews coming from me next week. I had some control obviously over those, but it’s just fate that the bookclub book also fell in this rare category!

And I agree with much of what Kate said. For me, this collection really lived and died on the strength of the individual authors of each story. And, like Kate, I found myself naturally gravitating towards the authors I enjoyed outside of short story collections. I, too, very much enjoyed the Leigh Bardugo story, as it neatly highlighted so many of the strengths of her writing: bittersweet fantasy stories, complex characters, and beautiful turns of phrase.

I also really enjoyed Veronica Roth’s entry. Like so many of her books, her story was incredibly unique, pushing the boundaries of fantasy and science fiction in new and fresh ways. My one critique of this story is that as much as I love a happy ending, I do think this is a case where Roth was held back by the prompt of a love story collection which required happy-ever-after endings. From my experience, Roth has zero qualms about ending her books in tears, and I think this short story would have actually been stronger had it been allowed to be a bit darker towards the end.

There were also a number of authors who had fallen completely off my radar! Libba Bray being one of them! I read and reviewed her YA fantasy trilogy on the blog years ago, but as I hated (HATED) the way that trilogy ended, she’d fallen completely off my list of authors to follow. I did enjoy this story from her, however.

All this said, as a whole, I did struggle with this book. Other than the few stories I’ve mentioned here, I didn’t connect with many of the tales in this book. I’m not really the target audience for many of them, and obviously, I have my own personal hang-ups with short story collections. When your go-to read is epic fantasies that often come in around 55o pages, you really do struggle with the entire concept of a short story. But even putting that aside, I do think that a large chunk of these stories fell solidly in the “just ok” category. Many of them weren’t offering much new to readers and some of them employed “neat little stylistic tricks” that were frankly just annoying. If you’re a love of short stories and romance (and maybe check out the author list ahead of time to see how many of them you already enjoy), you may like this one.

Kate’s Rating 6: The stories I liked I REALLY liked, the others were pretty hit or miss bordering on meh.

Serena’s Rating 6: A few stands outs weren’t enough to save this reading experience for me, unfortunately. But fans of the individual authors involved may want to page through it and selectively read those stories!

Book Club Questions

  1. Did you have a story in this collection that you connected with the most? What about the least?
  2. Were there any authors in this collection that you were unfamiliar with before you picked it up? If so, did you discover any new authors you definitely want to read more from?
  3. In terms of authors you did know from this collection, did any of them surprise you with what they put forth as their story?
  4. Were there any stories in this collection that you would like to read more of, perhaps in a series of short stories or in novel form?
  5. This collection came out in 2016 with popular YA authors from that period making up the story set. If they were going to do another collection like this with present day popular Young Adult authors, who do you think would be part of that collection?

Reader’s Advisory

“Summer Days and Summer Nights” is included on the Goodreads lists “Summer Themed YA”, and “YA Anthologies”.

Next Book Club Pick: “Attachments” by Rainbow Rowell

Kate’s Review: “This World Is Not Yours”

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Book: “This World Is Not Yours” by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

Publishing Info: Tor Nightfire, September 2024

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

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

Book Description: This World is Not Yours by USA Today bestseller Kemi Ashing-Giwa is the perfect blend of S.A. Barnes’ space horror and Cassandra Khaw’s beautiful but macabre worlds. An action-packed, inventive novella about a toxic polycule consumed by jealousy and their attempts to survive on a hostile planet.

After fleeing her controlling and murderous family with her fiancée Vinh, Amara embarks on a colonization project, New Belaforme, along with her childhood friend, Jesse. The planet, beautiful and lethal, produces the Gray, a “self-cleaning” mechanism that New Belaforme’s scientists are certain only attacks invasive organisms, consuming them. Humans have been careful to do nothing to call attention to themselves until a rival colony wakes the Gray.

As Amara, Vinh, and Jesse work to carve out a new life together, each is haunted by past betrayals that surface, expounded by the need to survive the rival colony and the planet itself.

There’s more than one way to be eaten alive.

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

When “This World Is Not Yours” by Kemi Ashing-Giwa ended up in my inbox, the cover alone caught my attention. I mean dang, look at that cover. The expression on that person’s face! And looking more into the story itself, I was absolutely intrigued by the premise of a space colony with a strange ecosystem, and a ‘toxic polycule’ (we all know that I LOVE that kind of drama). And the phrase ‘There’s more than one way to be eaten alive’? GIVE IT TO ME NOW. Suffice to say, I was going into this novella with some high hopes.

First the highlights. I am always game for a sci-fi/space horror tale that brings up some of the perils of colonialism, especially on an unfamiliar planet with an unfamiliar ecosystem and with mechanisms that aren’t fully understood. This is one of the reasons I loved “Annihilation”, and the Gray and New Belaforme colony really reminded me of that novel in a number of ways. Secondly, the space horror in this book is unrelenting, it builds some good tension, and when the tension breaks it is GORY AS HELL and in the best and most horrifying ways possible. First with the tension bit. There was one moment where someone was literally swimming in The Gray and I am pretty sure I clamped my hand over my mouth because I knew that could NOT be a good idea, but Ashing-Giwa takes her sweet time in pulling out all she can from the suspense. And then when we do finally get a pay off for it, and the tension breaks into a gory, terrifying mess?

It was disgusting and absolutely nasty. Which is exactly what I want from space based body horror. ( source)

All of this was spot on.

That being said, and this is in a lot of ways a ‘me’ issue, I wasn’t as enthralled with the Science Fiction stuff. I am at the point where I need to just tell myself ‘look Kate, even if it’s Space Horror, Sci-Fi isn’t your thing’ and maybe not take it on. And in “This World Is Not Yours” we get a lot of that, with colonies, space intrigue, Science Fiction scenarios involving populations and ecology, and lots of references to tech that kind of made me skim the pages a bit. I will reiterate that these are all things that are to be expected in this genre, and people who like that will probably like how it is done in this. So that negative aspect is probably on me. But along with that I didn’t feel like I really got to know our characters as much as I would have liked, especially Jesse, one of the cornerstones of the polycule that has been forced upon our main characters. I understood his connection to Amara, but the connection to Vinh was more talked about than really demonstrated. I think to buy some of the high stakes moments at the end I needed more from Jesse. I also needed more development of Vinh’s assigned husband Henry, because Amara REALLY hates him and I understood why she would hate him as a jealous wife, but he seemed pretty bland until there were a couple of hail Mary moments of terribleness that felt like they were there to be like SEE THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD HATE HIM that didn’t feel super earned. On top of that, Amara and Vinh as the couple we are supposed to be rooting for didn’t really click with me. But this could have been solved had we explored them more, and I think that we probably needed more pages to do so.

So all in all “This World Is Not Yours” was a bit mixed for me. The space horror at its peak was fantastic. But it wasn’t as centered as I had hoped it would be.

Rating 6: When the space horror was in full force it was terrifying. But a lack of character development and a little too much Sci-Fi made this not the home run I had hoped for.

Reader’s Advisory:

“This World Is Not Yours” is included on the Goodreads list “Queer Polyamory”.