Reviews

I don't hand out five stars lightly, but Release Me absolutely wrecked me in the best possible way. I went into this wildly excited. I've been a devoted Tahereh Mafi fan for years because of how masterfully she builds character development and spins gorgeous, descriptive prose. So, I had sky-high expectations, and somehow, she still managed to exceed them.

I went into The Thirteenth Child with high expectations. It is spooky season, the leaves were changing, and I was hunting for a deeply atmospheric, eerie gothic fantasy to kick off my spooky season reading list. Having seen so many people raving about Craig’s ability to weave dark folklore, I practically scrambled to open this one up as soon as the weather turned chilly

Let’s be real for a second: as an adult reading this, I am definitely not the target demographic. Reading a middle-grade chapter book with shorter prose and early-reader themes is obviously a different experience when you’re older. But as I was turning the pages, I kept catching myself thinking: “Oh man, elementary-school-me would have devoured this in one single afternoon.”

3.5 Stars...Finished. Currently staring at the wall, deeply conflicted, and questioning my entire identity as a Pierce Brown apologist.

How to Love Your Mornings is a really great reminder that being a "morning person" isn't about what time your alarm goes off, it’s about how you enter the day and who you wake up to be.

"Play isn’t about what we accomplish; it’s about who we become in the process."

Tahereh Mafi could write a 300-page grocery list and I’d still mark it as a 5-star read.

f you pick up Building a Life Worth Living expecting the gripping, highly stylized, and often chaotic narrative arc of a typical mental health memoir (like Kiera Van Gelder’s The Buddha and the Borderline) you might find yourself shifting gears pretty quickly. Where other memoirs in this niche lean heavily into the "entertainment" value of severe psychological distress, Marsha Linehan offers something profoundly different: a masterclass in radical acceptance, delivered with t

The first half of Kiera Van Gelder’s memoir is a raw, agonizing, and deeply necessary look into the chaos of BPD. Van Gelder doesn't hold back. She captures the intense emotional volatility, the desperate longing for connection, and the agonizing friction of navigating a mental health system that often treats BPD patients like lost causes. If the entire book had maintained the vulnerability and pacing of those early chapters, this would easily be a 4 or 5-star read.

I went into Bob Proehl’s Dragon Day expecting a high-octane fantasy, but what I actually got was basically World War Z meets Reign of Fire.

I went into Merideth Hite Estevez’s The Artist’s Joy expecting a "creative recovery" manual. Practical advice on overcoming perfectionism, tips for setting up a routine, and some inspiring anecdotes. What I actually found was something far rarer and deeply resonant.

Let’s be completely honest for a second. When an author announces a spin-off or a continuation series that resumes in the book a decade later, the collective fandom holds its breath. We’ve all been burned before. We’ve all seen perfectly wrapped-up series get dragged out of retirement just to dismantle the happy endings we fought so hard for.

Look, I know what you're going to say: "If you don't like standard, formulaic romance books, why are you reading Carley Fortune's debut lakeside romance?"

But The Night We Met completely caught me off guard. Abby Jimenez managed to pull me into a contemporary romance and actually keep me there, which is a minor miracle in itself.

I went into Strange Beasts looking for a very specific flavor of fiction, and on an atmospheric level, it absolutely delivered. If you are a fan of the classic, high-stakes psychological warfare of a Sherlock Holmes vs. Professor Moriarty dynamic, this book captures that exact retro, Victorian-esque tension beautifully. But instead of just keeping it grounded in pure deduction, the author injects a healthy dose of the supernatural, giving the whole story a dark, eerie edge th

You know those rare books that don't just feel like a story you’re reading, but a place where you belong? That is exactly what Stormforged by Jessica Stiles did to me. I went into this expecting epic fantasy, high stakes, and cool magic. I came out of it feeling like I just spent months in the trenches with people who have now permanently taken up residence in my heart

I have a bit of a confession to make: I give almost all of TJ Klune’s books 4 stars.

Can we just take a collective sigh of relief? Because after the agonizing, circular drama of The Elite (where I genuinely wanted to shake America by the shoulders and tell her to make a life choice) The One was exactly what I needed. It completely turned the momentum of this series around.

There are books you read, and then there are books that live in your periphery like a ghost you’ve grown too comfortable with. Yesteryear is the latter. I went into this expecting a standard contemporary narrative about memory and nostalgia, but Caro doesn’t do "standard." This was refreshing in a way that felt like a cold glass of water to the face (startling, sharp, and impossible to ignore).

If the first book in The Selection series was a glittering, high-stakes Cinderella story with a dystopian edge, The Elite is the messy, frustrating morning after. I wanted to love this. I really did. But reading this felt a bit like being stuck in a revolving door: lots of movement, very little distance covered, and by the end, I’m just dizzy and a little annoyed.