This mystery spans the fall of the Berlin Wall in the late 1980s and contemporary America, with 3 narrators (including a disabled Middle Eastern immigrant teen). It was an easier read than expected, though not as engaging as hoped for.
The Heartbreak Bakery is a sweet, diverse YA that follows Syd, a baker who’s figuring out themselves and love as they emerge from a 4-year situationship.
This Darkness Mine is a disturbing rabbit hole that captivated me, first for the similarities between high school me and the MC, and then for the MC’s psychopathic behavior.
This was such a mixed bag, for me. Great LGBTQIA representation, complex adult feelings, older protagonists, and (I think) lampooning of classic romance tropes. On the other hand, the pacing was inconsistent, the MMORPG references were distractingly exclusive, the book was twice as long as it needed to be and the secondary characters fell flat.
I had a hard time putting Undead Girl Gang down. It’s very well paced, with plenty of great characters, mystery tension, humor, and great Wiccan representation.
Emily Henry explores grief in a poetic but genuine, raw way with this novel. If you’ve recently lost a close loved one, it may not be a good time to read this unless you *want* to cry a lot.
I’ve been meaning to read this book since Jennie at The Nail Coven reviewed it on her book blog in 2015. It’s a fun contemporary romance that doesn’t rely on all the tropes, but has enough of them to keep you feeling cozy.
Well Played is the sequel to Well Met, which I loved. It has some pros and some cons, so let’s break those down here.
This sweet contemporary YA retelling of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey hits all the right notes. I really enjoyed it, even though the MC was dangerously close to how I was in high school.
The combination of girl-escapes-cult (a favorite trope of mine) and retelling of a lesser-known fairytale, with the juxtaposition of sickening brutality with hard-earned self-knowledge and even maybe a little hope, was truly impressive.