Category — Book Reviews

As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she read that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better about doing this.

So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.

These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from May.

Skipping the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes because, yes, I love Sherlock Holmes, but no, you don’t need a review of each short story collection. But since I technically liked it (vs. felt meh about it), I’m mentioning it.

And just in case you read this post and are worried that you’ll learn the name of that book, don’t worry. I don’t list it below.

All Your Twisted Secrets (Diana Urban): I am not the right audience for this book, but I promise you that 15-year-old Melissa would have loved this. It’s a fun young adult mystery with a locked room, ticking bomb, and poorly behaving teenagers. It was like a brain soda: zero nutritional value but totally delicious on the right day.

Just One Damned Thing After Another and A Symphony of Echoes (Jodi Taylor): These are the first two books in the Chronicles of St. Mary’s series. They were both good fun, and I will pick up another book in this series in the future. They’re time travelers—sort of Doctor Who meets Jasper Fforde—and the plotting feels like she was being chased while typing. In other words, a lot of random things happen, one after the other, and each story feels like four books smushed into one. But, again, really good fun, and the perfect read for right now.

Chosen Ones (Veronica Roth): Were there major plot holes in this book. Yes. Was the whole thing set up to be a series and doesn’t completely work on its own? Yes. Even with those two damning facts, I still really loved this read. It wasn’t what I thought it would be, which made me a little disappointed for the book I hoped to get and also pleasantly surprised with the book I got. Think of it like a more realistic epilogue to Harry Potter—what happens to the heroes after the bad guy is vanquished and they’ve saved the whole world? I have something specific about this book to unpack, but I promise no spoilers.

What did you read last month?

As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she read that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better about doing this.

So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.

These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from April.

The House in the Cerulean Sea (T. J. Klune): In another time and place, I may have smiled wanly while reading this book, but encountering it during the pandemic was like being thrown a happiness lifesaver. It is such a sweet story about a social worker for magical children who is sent to a remote orphanage to report on the conditions. I loved every character in the book, and I still have Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea” stuck in my head. But mostly I laughed aloud at a time when I really needed a good laugh.

In Five Years (Rebecca Serle): What you think this book is and what this book actually is isn’t clear until you close the last page. And while that normally would have made me annoyed, in this case, I was blown away. Like literally blown away by the ending. It’s a 3 or 4-star book that becomes a 4 or 5-star if you stick with it to the last page. And I can’t reveal any more than that or you won’t get the big mouth drop when you realize that you had it all wrong.

The Secret History (Donna Tartt): It’s a classic. And there’s a reason it’s a classic. A classmate is murdered—you know from the opening that he’s dead—but it takes the whole book until you understand why and how the murderers did it. It’s chilling, and maybe not the best book to read when we’re all feeling a little stressed out by the pandemic. But still an amazing read to put on your TBR list for another time.

Eight Perfect Murders (Peter Swanson): I enjoyed it, but I also had big feelings about the book (see yesterday’s post). So… I give this one a solid maybe. I have the feeling I’d like other books by the author, though I don’t know if you’ll love this one unless you’ve already read all the books that he ruins or if you really don’t care about spoilers. I do care about spoilers, so I had mixed feelings about this book, but it was an enjoyable read, that fact aside.

What did you read last month?

As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she read that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better about doing this.

So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.

These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from March.

Crooked Kingdom (Leigh Bardugo): This is the sequel of Six of Crows, which I read—and loved—a few months ago. I think I liked this book even better than the first one, and since I rated that one five stars, I guess this one is off the charts? Hearing the backstories made me see all the events from Six of Crows in a different light, and I was so sad to say goodbye to this story on the last page.

Happiness, a Mystery (Sophie Hannah): This is the book I won last month, and it’s set to be published at the beginning of May. I LOVED this book. Instead of a whodunnit, it’s a howdunnit, treating the search for happiness as a classic mystery. If you’re missing The Good Place, you’ll happily sink into this story (especially if you understand that Chidi has been replaced by a British crime writer). It was so so so good. And I totally want to do the idea that comes towards the end of the book (when you read it, you’ll know what I mean).

The Secret Guests (Benjamin Black): It was a solid read. Not gush-worthy, but I’m definitely glad that I spent time with the story. It’s a fictional account of the princesses—Elizabeth and Margaret—being hidden in Ireland during World War II. So it’s The Crown meets Irish history meets a mystery (sort of). It was interesting to read it just as we started to shelter-in-place because the princesses are sheltering-in-place due to the war. It was nice to spend time with characters in a parallel situation.

The Truants (Kate Weinberg): Another solid read. I kept wanting to pick it up, but I also guessed most of the story early in the book. So reading became an act of confirming rather than being surprised. Still, I’m a sucker for any book set at a school, and a large chunk of this book was set at a college. A worthy, four-star read.

Plus, I re-read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which is always enjoyable.

What did you read last month?

As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she read that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better about doing this.

So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.

These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from February.

I had a great reading month.

Followers (Megan Angelo): I’ve written about this book a lot, and I have one more post that I’m waiting to write because it will have spoilers (I’ll warn you, I promise), and I want to give people time to read the book if they’re going to read the book. Contrasting an imagined future with a fictional now gave a deep look into how we use (or abuse) social media and reality television. Celebrity culture, in general. I liked her writing style; I found the whole thing engaging and enjoyable to read.

The Hand of the Wall (Maureen Johnson): It’s the third and final book in the Truly Devious series. It’s such a fantastic set of YA books. Loved, loved, loved them, but I’m a sucker for most books set at boarding schools. I didn’t guess the ending, even though I guessed tiny sub-mysteries along the way. I miss spending time with Stevie, but impressed that the whole series wrapped up nicely.

The Hunting Party (Lucy Foley): A solid four-star read. There were clunky moments in the book, and I didn’t love most of the characters… but somehow the whole thing worked? I know that doesn’t sound like the most generous review, but the story was engrossing. Or, I wanted to keep reading to see what happened next. I almost avoided this book because… not into hunting. But hunting plays a tiny role in the overall book.

The Sentence is Death (Anthony Horowitz): My all-time favourite book of the month. It’s the second in this series––the first was The Word is Murder. This book is just… fun. And funny. And moving. And I loved it so much that I felt sad when the book ended and then panicked when I couldn’t figure out if there was a third book in the works. I love everything Horowitz writes, so I’m not surprised that I liked this as much as I did. But he’s brilliant. Just brilliant.

What did you read last month?

As I say every month, I’m shamelessly stealing this idea from Jessica Lahey. She has a recurring monthly date where she reviews all the books she read that month. Book reviews are important for authors, and I want to get better about doing this.

So. I’m going to review them here and also online, but I’m going to do it a little differently. I’m only going to review the stuff I really liked. I don’t see a reason to spend my time writing about something I didn’t love; it’s just using up more of my energy. So only positive reviews.

These are the books I liked (or mostly liked) from January.

I read a lot of Parnell Hall’s Puzzle Lady books last month, but I’m not going to do a separate review for each one because I wrote about them in December. I still like the series. It’s mind candy.

Six of Crows (Leigh Bardugo): I spent years taking this book on and off my TBR list. I don’t know why I was so reluctant to commit to reading it because it’s FANTASTIC. It’s a book about a magical heist in a vaguely Scandinavian-like universe. I had to read the first chapter twice to figure out what was happening, but I quickly found my footing in the world. My cousin and I read it for our book-club-for-two, and we’re following it up soon with the sequel, Crooked Kingdom.

A Study in Scarlet (Arthur Conan Doyle) and Sign of the Four (Arthur Conan Doyle): I’m re-reading the Doyle canon. While I’m currently deep in the short stories, I wanted to go in chronological order, so I started with the two novella. I’ve always liked Doyle, but I’m getting so much more out of these stories since going on a Sherlock Holmes tour of Edinburgh. That tour was one of the best things we’ve done on a vacation. It has made me think about how much our tangential experiences affect the way we read a book.

What did you read last month?