On The Come Up and The Poet X: a Double Review
These books share a lot of similarities and both were fantastic, so I’m reviewing them together. Both are about teenagers dealing with racial identity, religion, friendship,…
Review: The Farm by Joanne Ramos
I really liked this slow-burner of a novel about a program for the wealthy who want surrogate parents. Ramos creates what I found to be a…
Review: Normal People by Sally Rooney
I loved the way this book begins, because I identified very much with Marianne, one of its two narrators. Marianne and Connell are two teens in…
Review: Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
I had to force myself to finish this book, and that’s never a good thing. At times this book was nicely written and I found myself…
Review: Bellflower by Mary Vensel White
In 2012, author Mary Vensel White sent me her book The Qualities of Wood, a small town mystery about a compelling main character and a complicated…
Review: The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker
I requested this book on NetGalley, mainly because it had an endorsement from the author of Station Eleven, and because the premise of a virus that…
Mini-Reviews: Lethal White, In the Distance, I Am I Am I am, We Were the Lucky Ones
I didn’t have a chance to review any of the books I read in December because I was traveling, so I’m posting some mini-reviews of the…
Review: Becoming by Michelle Obama
By now you’ve heard raves about Michelle Obama’s memoir, and I can echo those. Her book was exactly what I was hoping for: well-written and insightful,…
Review: All the Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy
I liked this book though it didn’t resonate emotionally as much as I expected it to. It’s a story of man in India who is recalling…
Review: Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri
I loved this debut fantasy novel by Tasha Suri. It’s well-written and creates a fascinating world with a terrifying villain. It’s inspired by the Mughal Empire…
Review: A Dangerous Duet by Karen Odden
I really enjoyed this Victorian-era mystery/thriller by Karen Odden, although I did have some issues with the pacing at the end. Nell Hallam is a young…
Review: Those Who Knew by Idra Novey
Those Who Knew is a novel about a senator with a violent past in a small unnamed island country. It’s about about the intersections of politics,…
