I would like to, first and foremost, thank Lauren Carr over at Simon & Schuster for sending me not just an ARC of Today Tonight Tomorrow, but the entire adorable press kit box – my very first one! Thanks for believing in the small bloggers, Lauren! As most of you know, I don’t read much YA these days, and I really don’t read a lot of contemporary romances, or what my friends affectionately call “kissing books.” They just do not do…
I usually write some lovely, full-length reviews for books I read, as you know. They are detailed and full of sparkling wit and charm. (Sort of). This … did not really happen in June. It took me most of May to get out of my reading slump, and in June I read fairly quickly, but unfortunately it meant that I went from one book to the next with no regard for any sort of review or review-shaped object. Now I…
I have a “normal” schtick for how I write reviews, and it doesn’t really ever deviate. I make some sassy remarks, explain the plot a little, discuss what worked and did not work for me in the book … but I just can’t do it with this one. Any other book, sure, but it feels wrong, in poor taste, however you want to slice it for me to treat this book with anything but somber, grim-faced acknowledgement. Rating: My Dark…
I read and adored Simone James’s The Broken Girls not too long ago, and had immediately snapped up The Sun Down Motel when it was offered as a January 2020 BOTM pick. I sat it on my TBR shelf and waited for the right time, because I knew that James wrote with themes and that one day it would reach its little tendrils out to me and say “OK Patricia, today’s the day.” Turns out that day was in June 2020, six months…
Wow, Miracle Creek was a rough one. Not because of the subject matter necessarily – unfortunately, I think it fell into the dreaded “everyone hyped this book up so much it’s perfect omg” trap, where everyone told me how great the view from this one hill was but I wound up slipping down into a ravine and stuck with a broken leg yelling up at the sky like “this isn’t what I wanted.” Review: How I’d Describe This Book to a…
I fell in love with this book when I saw its delighful cover on YouTube, back in January. Recipe is made to look like an ancient, faded cookbook – its dust jacket is cracking, and it’s even textured in a couple of ways to make you feel like you’re holding a 70 year old book in your hands, even though it was printed a mere 6 months ago. I purchased this book before a work trip to California, packed it…
I confess I had never even heard of this book, despite its appearances on multiple “best of 2019” websites. But when I signed up for Lauren‘s annotated book swap, I was partnered with the sweet Alicia, who predominantly loves fantasy. I thought to myself, “Ah, fuck.” But I pulled up her Amazon wish list to see if there was a book I had half a grain of interest in reading, and lo and behold, there Magic for Liars sat. Its cover…
Back in January, I read and loved Peter Swanson’s The Kind Worth Killing. I was over the moon having heard of Eight Perfect Murders coming out in March, so I figured I should read an earlier Swanson book before cracking the cover on EPM. When I received my preorder in the mail, I thought two things: “Oh no, deckled edges.” “This book is super short.” Both of these things are true! I don’t like deckled edges, and at just 270 pages, Eight Perfect…
I am so excited to be a stop on the blog tour for The Sweeney Sisters by Lian Dolan, which came out on April 28th! I know contemporaries are not usually my thing, but something about this one drew me in to it on instinct, and I was delighted to be accepted for the tour! There are a bunch of other bloggers on this one – please go check them out over here on the Fantastic Flying Book Club’s web page for…
I will confess that I do not have super high hopes for most YA thrillers. Usually YA thrillers try hard, but there is just something missing – I can’t even quite explain what, but I guess once you get used to the sleezy underbelly of adult murder and scheming, it’s hard to go back to teenagers. But I trust Kit Frick, and when I heard the premise of her next book I just had to give it a shot. I am so…