This book is feral, visceral, and meandering.
Think The Hunger Games + The Handmaid’s Tale +The Crucible +Wilder Girls.

I can’t say I liked this book too much. I liked the ideas, the terrifying world that the girls lived in, but found the plot to be lacking. What was the point of it all? I found the mid-book romance disturbing and unnecessary. When the girls return home, there is no resolution? But maybe, that’s how it is.

There were some weirdly unconnected elements in the book. I felt like it could have benefitted from some more world building.

The Grace Year, in a way felt like the opposite of Patrick Ness’ The Knife is Never Letting Go- a world with no women and men constantly hear each other’s thoughts.

Have you read The Grace Year? What did you think of it?

CW: dystopia, patriarchal society, suicide jokes, hanging/ gallows, public punishment, burning alive, purity culture, victim blaming, human trafficking, cannibalism, castration, body horror, gore, cult behavior, violence, hysteria/ mob mentality, poisoning, disease, marital rape, magic

What even was this book? I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be historical fiction, magical realism, or flash fiction. The genres were poorly blended, the story and characters messy, and I couldn’t tell what this book was attempting

CW: domestic violence, communism, folk magic, folklore death, political unrest, alcoholism, rituals, witchcraft, public shaming, paranoia, sexual assault, torture
_______________________________________________________

Ok, so this book’s plot is awful. Fake dating to real dating, plus parental issues. However, it’s funny. Like, laugh out loud in a -crowded -grocery -store -with -a- mask-on- funny.
It’s also crass, juvenile, and heartbreaking. Yoon gets the voice of a teenager right without sounding like he’s trying too hard. I wish Q had been given more of his own story- I wanted to know more about him. I’m disappointed that Q’s story arc was kind of thrown in at the end .

Frankly in Love is about straddling two worlds, not belonging in either, falling in love, and growing up.

I read some reviews that complained about how laughter and accents were written out. I recommend listening on audiobook- the narrator is excellent!


CW: profanity, teen drinking, teen off page sex, racism, racial slurs, disownment, drunkenness, lying, infidelity, shooting/ gun violence, hospital, cancer, microagressions, violence- hitting, panic attacks, vomit

This was one of my most anticipated reads of the year. I grew up listening to my grandma’s stories of growing up in Mexico, about spirits and ghosts and witch doctors.

The first 2/3 of this book had me. It’s deliciously atmospheric, creeping, and unsettling. The third act, however, fell completely flat. It felt unplanned. I was hoping for something bigger, more sinister. There was such a build up and the ending came so abruptly.

I’m a fan of Southern Gothic literature, and this felt like a neighbor. The mountain mining town reminding me of a childhood vacation I’ll need to tell you about. If you scare easily, or gross out easily, this is not the book for you. I took a lot of notes on this book. Definitely a spooky season read.

CW: General spookiness, sleepwalking, nightmares, body horror/ gore, poison, sexual abuse, boils, arranged marriage, blood, illness, eugenics, murder, curse, incest, suicide, spirits, haunted house, colorism, racism, seizure, patriarchal control, birth, pregnancy, miscarriage, witchcraft, herbalism, depression, neglect, sexual assault, gaslighting, cannibalism, murder of a child

This one hurt, y’all. I expected to love this book, tear through it in an afternoon. It took me five days to read it. Maybe I just didn’t get it. Maybe I misread the synopsis. Maybe my expectations were misplaced.

The glass hotel starts out all atmospheric and spooky, very much in the vein of the shining. Then splits into this weird mystery-thriller with a constantly shifting POV. I knew it was about a Ponzi scheme, but I’d hoped it would be more haunted hotel time than rich people problems. There were ghosts, though, so ten points for that.

Would you ever stay in a remote and/or haunted hotel?

CW: Drugs, addition, ghost, death, suicide, prison, hallucinations, psychosis, dead parent, drowning, grooming, panic attacks, disappearance, OCD -like behaviors, contracted mistress

I feel strange trying to review this book. It’s made of incredibly heavy topics, but is also about people being people, and nothing, and everything. There were so many lines that struck me, either with poignancy or hilarity or both. I absolutely love Backman’s style, but I know he’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Please be sure to read the content warnings on this one as suicide is a central theme.


CW: suicide as a central theme, hostage situation, anxiety, depression, death of a spouse, pregnancy,general trauma, OCD- like behaviors, drug addiction, christmas/ New Years

Goodbye Vitamin hit me in a million different places. It’s funny and conversational, yet sad and weird and lonely.

I moved home after college, jobless. Then I stayed home because my mom’s health was declining. She was diagnosed with lupus. I found myself in a caregiving role years before I anticipated. My mom cannot drive anymore and has trouble with day-to-day tasks. While my college and high school peers were traveling, getting their dream jobs, getting married, and buying houses, I was in a weird limbo state.

While reading Goodbye Vitamin, Ruth’s struggles with being at home with her family were so familiar to me. Someone else gets it! It’s weird! But it’s also ok.

I also saw my grandmother in Howard. My grandmother has dementia. She is far away sometimes. Sometimes, she is in the 80’s. She is currently in a care facility because she fell and broke her hip. My family cannot visit her or hold her hand. Her English is mostly gone. She still wants to paint and make jokes.

Goodbye Vitamin was soothing for me to read. There are a lot of very hard things we have to do, but sometimes, we just have buy the chicken rotisserie because why not?

CW: memory loss, dementia, break up, New Year’s Eve, death of parents, adoption, food descriptions, alcoholism, infidelity, drugs, sexual harassment of a minor, mention of suicide