monarchbooks's Reviews (547)

I don't know what I was expecting going into this book but it was not what I got. Every page shocked me. A bit wordy and heavy on metaphors. Unexpected queer rep. 

Thank you to NetGalley, Gordon McAlpine's publishing team, and Dreamscape Media for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review (unpaid).

I would also like to pay respect to Gordon McAlpine, who sadly passed away in 2021 to cancer. While I had not heard of him before this work, I am sad that it is his last and plan on working through his backlist as his writing captures the human mind in a way I have not read before.

I was enraptured by the first half of this book which consisted of mostly ruminations of Dr. Evelyn Grace Wilford and her conversations with Dorothy Gale and I do wish we had gotten to see more of that. Evelyn's main goal was to assess Dorothy's psychological state and yet we hear so little about or from Dorothy and more about how Evelyn simply believes Dorothy could not have committed the murder. 

About halfway through, Evelyn becomes obsessed with finding the actual murderer and we become focused on her perceived psychological state(s) of the murder suspects (

and none of her thoughts on the actual murderer

). I think this would have worked better as 1) a psychological assessment of Dorothy or 2) Evelyn spiraling into her insanity as she obsesses over Dorothy and the murder (or both), and not simply a commentary on religious groupthink. As is, I find it a little disappointing. 

⚠️⚠️⚠️ WARNING: Do not read when hungry.

Thank you to NetGalley, Casey McQuiston, and St. Martin's Griffin for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review (Unpaid).

How do I describe this book in more than one word? It is simply art. Food and music and poetry and literature and film and wine and food (yes I know I said it twice) and nature and paintings and sculptures and the human body and carbs, so many carbs - art is infused in every single sentence - it consumed me. I underlined so many sentences to share with my best friend when this book releases because I need her to be consumed by this masterpiece as well. 

On the craft of writing, I would like to applaud Casey McQuiston for their detailed descriptions of literally everything but also for being able to write two so similiar but also so utterly unique point of views in this novel. I was worried when it switched to Kit's pov, it would sound too similiar, but it DIDN'T. I was amazed really. On a similiar note: WHAT A FANTASTIC CAST OF CHARACTERS. So distinct, so easy to obsess over, so many beautiful faces and voices and minds to love. 

Thank you to NetGalley, Anna Marie Tendler, and Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review (Unpaid).

While this book is about a journey of mental health and self improvement, it is also a love letter to art, to Tendler's dog Petunia, and to the people who listen - without judgement. Many readers who pick up this book right now will likely only know who Anna Marie Tendler through the lens of her overpublicized marriage, and I am not all that different. I went in knowing about that marriage, Petunia, and photography and I came out feeling as if I walked through Tendler's mind (though I know that this book is not the entirety of her being). It was such a vivid telling of her experience and as I am writing this, her words bounce around in my mind because reading them felt like seeing myself in a new light. I am awe of her writing and will follow her career with a new appreciation.  

I wholly reccommend the Spotify playlist Tendler curated for this book with the same name under her user AMT, along with:

I just didn't enjoy the first book and while I wanted to give the second a chance, I think I need some time before i read it 

If you've ever watched She's the Man and been like "I wish the movie leaned into the obvious bisexuality that is Shakespeare's Twelfth Night", this is absolutely the book for you. I laughed, I cried, I prayed for the health and happiness of Amanda Bynes... in short, I loved it.

Also, pls get out of my brain Alexene Farol Follmuth, I do not appreciate my whole personality being spelled out and torn to shreds in the form of Viola.

While listening to The Beanstalk Murder by P.G. Bell, I found myself reminded of the books I would read when I was younger, not just fairy tales, but children's books in general. It was a refreshing wave of nostalgia in a world where it seems children are no longer able to just be children. The mystery was really well done and

I somehow did not guess where it was going even though, looking back, it was spelled out for readers pretty early on.

Thank you to NetGalley, P.G. Bell, and Brilliance Publishing/Audio for allowing me to read this in exchange for a honest review (Unpaid).

Kalynn Bayron tried to tackle a lot in this book -  not only a re-imagined Snow White retelling that is nearly nothing like the classic we know, but an intertwining of many fairy tales and how they come to exist and how their stories get manipulated - and it was, simply, a lot to tackle in one book. For a large part of the book, I felt it did not work as a Snow White retelling at all and that only changed - for me - within the last 100 pages. While there were definitely parallels before that, it was just so far from the original. 

Despite the fact that perhaps Bayronn tackled too much in this novel, I did really enjoy it. I loved trying to figure out the mystery along with Eve, and reading about the desperation that drives one to a monster's door, and I also loved the array of characters. Bayron is really good at creating distinct and realistic characters that each have their own unique motivations and morals.

One of my favorite characters was Queen Saana, who watched over Eve beyond the realms of her humanity.

I also have two tiny little qualms that don't really matter in the scheme of things but:

This book was heartbreaking for so many ways between

the death of Momoko and Tomo's past

but also because of Takako's struggle with not only her identity but everyone else's. The fact that she always imagined Tomo and Wada as the people everyone loves and they thought the same about her makes me overwhelmingly emotional. However, one of the saddest parts for me was when Eric Ozawa dedicated his translation of this book about the love of reading to his sons. 

"This is the end of Oz." YOU WROTE 8 MORE BOOKS