*** Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an audio version of this.

Roland Chesters recounts his life and the lives of many others in this memoir about being a person who has been diagnosed and is living with HIV/AIDS. The author captures what it looks like when your world is absolutely turned upside down by those three letters, and how we can all do better as a society to learn and educate others on this topic.

The writing of this book felt very conversation-like and I think this added to the casualness of how we should approach HIV/AIDS. Many of the people who spoke about their diagnosis were open about how they had never thought it could have been them with HIV/AIDS and how they believed it was a death sentence. But after receiving more information about managing and living with it, it just became a task to do throughout their day. I think these stories are so important because they educate and give us information to break the stigma.

I enjoyed this book so much, and I think it is an important book for everyone to read. It's very real and there are moments where you will find yourself laughing, crying, and cheering.

No One is Talking About This

This novel is a very strange yet harsh reality of what it is like living in the social media age. Patricia Lockwood captures the impact the internet has on our language, personality, and our relationships. While the internet gives us access to information immediately, it may also be hindering our ability to function and deal with life outside of ‘the portal’.

I enjoyed how familiar the characters were and how everyone in this novel could be someone that you know. This isn’t to say all of the characters were likable, (there were definitely some characters I disliked), but they felt very real. The details put into the writing of this book made the content and the characters so enjoyable as well.

I personally don’t interact much on social media so I did find myself in disbelief or rolling my eyes at some of the things mentioned. This could just be a harsh reality, but I just felt myself cringing internally at some of the characters’ actions. It also felt like there was no real “plot” to the book, which that could just be the plot of the book: to have no plot.

I do like this book and I enjoyed listening to it, but I don’t think this is a book for everyone. IT almost felt like two books in one and both were vastly different from each other.

This crime drama follows the story of Lex Gracie, a woman who escaped from her family's house of horrors as a child. Now, as an adult, she is tasked with settling her recently deceased mother's estate and is forced to reconcile with all of her siblings. This book is about a a family torn apart by their past and how the horrors they faced play a role in their lives as adults.

I enjoyed the writing of this book. It flowed very well and I think the author knows how to structure sentences well in order to set the 'tone' of their writing. The writing style played a big role throughout the book and it set up the ending for a great twist, I was quite surprised by it.

Unfortunately the ending was the only plot part I enjoyed. The entire book felt very dull and anticlimactic. There are flashbacks to Lex's past but I don't think these added anything to the intensity of the story. I was expecting more twists and turns but this kind of settled around a 'family drama' type of book.

Overall, I thought this book was okay. The story was interesting to some extent, but just felt very 'eh'. If you enjoy reading about drama and like crime undertones, this is a book for you.

This cult thriller is about a woman's struggle with reconnecting with people from her tragic past and it explores how love and trust can be used against you. This book also explores the reality many people are faced with when the question to have children arises and the stigma surrounding people who choose not to become parents (more specifically mothers).

I really liked the writing in this book. The author knows how to set the tone and use language to set up the creepy atmosphere; it felt very believable and not eye-rolling at all. The twists were also very unexpected, I think the author knew how to set the plot up and make sure it all worked well together.

I think the characters could have used a bit more development, it wasn't until nearing the end I found myself actually seeing the characters past their 'robotic' personalities. I will say this book did feel a bit too mild to be categorized as a 'horror', but it definitely has dark aspects. I wished there were more intense scenes throughout the book and not just at the ending. A lot of the 'horror' scenarios could have been explored more to add even more to the story.

I enjoyed this book and I think it was well done. It may have been too mild for my taste, but it had very important plot points and was interesting to read. TW: sexual assault and rape. It was not very graphic but it was still present so if you are sensitive to this content, I advise you to skip reading this.

I really enjoyed this book and it was probably my favorite of the entire series. The amount of culture portrayed in each of these books is outstanding, but this book especially highlighted what it means when all of the cultures are in conflict with each other. Binti is meant to be the unifier, but she must overcome many obstacles within herself before she can help others.

I really enjoyed how much story was packed into this one. The other novellas felt as if nothing happened up until the very end, while this one starts off right at 100% intensity. The intensity lasted up until the very end and made the book that much easier to breeze through.

There were some “past” perspectives told throughout the book, and they did add some importance, but they were very scattered and too few and far between. It almost felt unnecessary to have these perspectives because Binti learns of the past herself.

Overall, this is a good read. The entire Binti series is a great read, but this book just puts the icing on any sci-fi cake.

I absolutely loved this book. The writing was fantastic, the storyline was unexpected, and all of the characters felt so real and I thoroughly enjoyed reading each perspective. The author has a unique ability to give each character their own voice, and one of the characters is a house cat, what’s not to like?

I thought the story was so well thought through, every little thing was taken into consideration and there weren’t any loose ends. This book is also so twisty turny, you think you know what’s going on, but oh you are so wrong. And, a cat perspective!? We all want to know what our cats are thinking, and Catriona nailed it.

I will say this book is DARK. TW: child abuse, torture, body horror. This is not a book for the tender hearted.

I thought this book was good. I am not a big scifi/fantasy reader, but I was able to listen to the audio version of this with a full cast so it was actually very fun to listen to. The characters, and there were many of them, had great development and sometimes even surprised me with their actions. I found myself enjoying listening to each character and being able to put a voice to everyone. The full cast made it really easy to follow along. At first, the scifi seems daunting to someone who isn’t familiar, but as the story progresses, it becomes second nature.

There are a few things I did not like about this book. One of those things was how damn long the book is. Even listening to the audio at 2x speed was hard to get through. There were some scenes that I felt didn’t add anything to the overall story and could have easily been cut out. Another thing I disliked was the Princess Irulan inputs, this sort of spoiled the story and left little to the imagination since she is recounting what you have yet to read. I prefer to read about what happens, not be told what happens from a characters’ diary.

Overall, this book was good. If you enjoy sci fi and have a good chunk of time to dedicate, I would recommend this. If you’re like me and have a hard time reading sci fi, I recommend getting an audio version.

This book is about a young woman who finds herself ‘lost at sea’ during the height of the 2008 recession. Mona had high hopes of landing her dream job, earning lots of money, and making a name for herself. But as the shit hits the fan for the US economy, she ends up moving back in with her parents and must find a way out of her situation.

I thought this book was good. It was an interesting story and had really great perspectives about the many things women in the workforce face. The characters themselves weren’t the greatest and I found myself rolling my eyes plenty of times, but I think this cringe factor is due to the time period. 2008 doesn’t seem that long ago, but this book proves that 2008 was in fact: a long ass time ago.

TW: self-harm / cutting. Uhm this was just kind of thrown in and I don’t think it was necessary. How the characters interacted with self harm just seemed so unlikely and unrealistic.

This book was a thrilling murder drama about six college friends who all have very dark pasts - pasts that are bound to come up at their graduating class reunion. Each character must face their past and finally solve the murder they all wanted to leave behind.

I thought this book was very well crafted. It flowed nicely and was a page turner for me. There were many parts throughout the book that surprised me and I really enjoyed that about this book. The characters were hit and miss at times, but overall I think they were just reflections of all the bad characteristics we all have.

Overall, this book was a great read. It was twisty and turny and was just a really great story.

TW: sexual assault. It’s not heavy on the details, but it is present.