Book Reviews

The Time Travel Twins Review

Book: The Time Travel Twins
Author: James Patterson and Tad Safran
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers
Year: 2024
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Twins Pew and Basket Church dream of escaping the miserable misfortune of their isolated orphanage. Or, even better, the return of their unknown parents. But even in their wildest dreams, they never imagined the truth : The twins can travel through time.
Armed only with perplexing clues to their past and a time travel talisman that is key to their future, Pew and Basket embark on an epic quest It takes them into George Washington’s war tent and on a hunt for the Liberty Bell, from the battlefields of the American Revolution to a pirate republic in the Caribbean and beyond, all in a race to uncover the secrets of their family – and outsmart time’s greatest villain.
History, mystery, humor, and adventure collide in this delightfully clever romp that heralds the arrival of James Patterson’s newest blockbuster series.”

Review : If you’ve been here for a while, you might know that while I don’t often read and review young adult books, when I do, I tend to find myself disappointed. In general, the young adult advanced copies I’ve read over the years have left me wondering if I’m simply holding young readers to a high standard they may not be able to truly live up to. I wonder often if I’m so far removed from being a young reader that I simply cannot remember what it was like to read books as a pre-teen; my expectations have been dashed so many times. The Time Travel Twins, however, has fully restored my hope and faith in a high quality, enjoyable young adult read. As someone who works fairly hard to avoid a James Patterson adult read, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this advanced copy, but it was genuinely such a fun and enjoyable read, I’m excited for the kids who pick this book up and find themselves sucked into a world full of time travel, mystery, and witty adventures.

Prior to heading to the front of the book for a bit more information about the authors, I’d already decided The Time Travel Twins reminded me a great deal of A Series of Unfortunate Events. The authors have created 12-year-old characters who talk and think like adults, not in a necessarily unbelievable way, but in a funny, charming, disarming sort of way – Basket and Pew, named for the literal church where they were found as abandoned babies, have grown up in an orphanage that’s educated them not as children might be, but as PHD candidates might be. They have amassed a wealth of information from higher education learning in a grueling atmosphere where they’re fed rock hard bread and worms, taught mathematical principals most adults wouldn’t understand, trade wind patterns, ancient ship types, and all manner of seemingly nonsensical information no child would ever need to know. Wink. The authors don’t speak down to the readers, taking several instances throughout the book to break the fourth wall and address the reader with little tidbits to explain complicated or new phrases in a way that feels like the reader is part of the adventure, rather than someone who hasn’t been educated to the tremendously high degree that Basket and Pew have been. It reads like Lemony Snicket wrote the book, and when I read a bit more about the authors, I discovered Tad Safran had, in fact, served as a writer for the Series of Unfortunate Events TV series.

This book is truly what would happen if Lemony Snicket got a little too engrossed in history and began writing historical time travel fiction for kids. It’s great. Where the books deviate from this particular style of storytelling, though, is in the detail and commitment to teaching the reader. Rather than an all out rampage of fun and whimsy and adventure, TTTT is smartly wrapped up in a sneaky campaign to teach the reader the ins and outs of the revolutionary war and, based on the ending, I’m guessing will continue to teach future readers about additional historical events as the series unfolds. It reminds me of the computer games you might, if you were my age, have grown up playing that were thrilling adventures serving as a sneaky vehicle to learn math and English particulars. Every so often the authors break off and give us an illustration of a scene, complete with a small blurb to further explain details either of a specific battle or the details of 1700’s attire that might not be familiar to the reader. It works so, so well. Everything about this book was amusing and charming and informative, giving the reader something to grasp onto and chew on while they found themselves whisked away to the pirate’s republic, or sucked into a time vortex to narrowly avoid escaping certain death.

It should be noted that this book is about as far from low stakes as a younger reader’s book could be. There’s action, adventure, and like I previously mentioned, the threat of certain death. There’s suspense building and nail biting, and to my displeasure, a lot of “but we just had that thing and didn’t know we needed it and now we need to backtrack to get it!” which, ultimately, earned this book one less than a perfect score. It did feel as though we spent far too much time zig-zagging between having the thing we needed and throwing it away, and going back for the thing only to be thwarted in the process. I’m not a side quest kind of person, if you can’t tell! All in all, the book felt like it was about 50 pages too long, all thanks to the back tracking and side questing – I think it could have easily wrapped up so much sooner and without any to-do, I doubt you’d have missed out if we didn’t have just one fewer instance of the above scenario.

It’s also worth mentioning that while Basket and Pew are twins, Pew is a Black boy and Basket is a white girl. And they come find themselves in the midst of the revolutionary war. Perhaps you can draw some conclusions on your own here? There’s some talk about racism, slavery, and what it might mean to find yourself in an era where the color of your skin alone could mean your demise. There’s also discussion about what it might mean to change time, to tell general Washington to abolish slavery before the war was concluded, what that might mean for the future of the United States, and why the North had the resources available to win in a battle against the south (the future civil war). The issues are addressed frankly and don’t gloss over them terribly, but are also pretty clearly written from the perspective of two white authors, so there’s certainly something the be desired here when it comes to navigating a character’s existence in a body that’s viewed as less than or other in the midst of war. I know, too, that this is a children’s book and doesn’t need to go into the horrific specificities of what that reality might look like, but there was something about making witty banter over why one simply cannot change time that rubbed me the wrong way and I think that’s worth being said.

Ultimately, this book was an enjoyable read that didn’t sacrifice education or writing quality for fun. It ended on a cliff hanger, leaving the door wide open to future books, and it makes you want to continue reading (for most of the book, anyway. Like I said, it does feel about 50 pages too long). I’m pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this one and suspect many kids will feel similarly.

Advice : This is the kind of book you give to your advanced reader without feeling like it isn’t going to push them to learn something. It’s going to teach not only history but ethics, confirmation bias, and the importance of kindness to those around you, regardless of who they might be (like a pirate). I highly recommend it!

Sword Crossed Review

Book: Sword Crossed
Author: Freya Marske
Publisher: Bramble
Year: 2024
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Mattinesh Jay, dutiful heir to his struggling family business, needs to hire an experienced swordsman to serve as best man for his arranged marriage. A sword-challenge at the ceremony would destroy his desperate bid to restore his family’s wealth.
What he can afford, unfortunately, is a part-time con artist and full0time charming menace, Luca Piere.
Luca, for his part, is trying to reinvent himself in a new city. All he wants to do is make some easy money and try to forget the crime he committed in his hometown. He didn’t plan on being blackmailed into giving sword lessons to a chronically responsible – and inconveniently handsome – wool merchant like Matti.
However, neither Matti’s business troubles nor Luca himself are quite what they seem. As the days count down to Matti’s wedding, the two of them become entangled in the intrigue and sabotage that have brought Matti’s house to the brink of ruin. And when Luca’s secrets threatened to drive a blade through their growing alliance, both Matti and Luca will have to answer one question : How many lies are you prepared to strip away, when the truth could mean losing everything you want?”

Review : The ARC messaging for this book compares it to Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes – my second ARC this year that’s been compared to my favorite cozy, low stakes fantasy world. While I wouldn’t necessarily pick this book up and immediately think “This reminds me of Legends and Lattes“, Marske did deliver on low-stakes and I appreciate that. Marske has created a fantasy world with all the world-building one might hope for and absolutely none of the fantasy, which made the book a bit hard to get through at first – though, the close proximity and suspense of it all made things flow a lot easier as we got into the relationship between Matti and Luca. This is ultimately what led me to give this book four instead of five stars, as there wasn’t a perfect balance between mind-numbingly slow and send-shivers-up-your-spine anticipation. I think the balance could have been struck a bit more seamlessly, but ultimately the writing was great, particularly for an ARC, the storytelling felt solid, and the world-building was pretty good.

I think it’s an interesting concept to create a fantasy book but to include absolutely no fantasy whatsoever. True, there’s some talk of the gods – actually, this ended up being my favorite aspect of the novel, each swear lending itself to more and more ridiculous descriptions of the god’s particular anatomy (someone’s pube being my personal favorite) – but there’s not a single mention of any kind of fantastical creature, anyone who might be anything other than human, or forces that might be beyond anyone’s control. What Marske has created, instead, is a book filled with the day-to-day politics of guild houses and merchant families, what their lives look like as everyday folk who trade and run factories and forge alliances with each other. And ultimately, this is where the book finds Mattinesh Jay – the heir to a guild house that manufactures wool, a guild house that’s fallen on more than it’s fair share of hard times, that’s struggling to survive, and so two families must marry in order to keep the house name from utterly failing. It isn’t a nail biter, there isn’t threat of life or limb (for the most part), and there aren’t any interactions with creatures. From that perspective, I’m not sure if cozy is the right word, so much as slow might be, but low-stakes it most certainly is. There’s absolutely no anxiety-causing battle sequences or war-time scenes, rather we see the politics of daily life and from there our story grows.

I found the pacing to be a bit frustrating, jumping back and forth between incredibly dull and incredibly interesting, it actually took me about half the book before I started to really enjoy the storytelling. I found it dull and hard to follow, though not because it was poorly written, simply because I wasn’t interested in the politics of guild houses. Once things began to get rolling, though, I came to find myself turning pages with gusto, returning to the book to see how the story would play out, and hoping for a bright future for the main characters. In fact, I finally began to enjoy the book so much that the end made me cry a little – so how’s that for making a turn around!

Advice : If you love a slow-burn, low-stakes fantasy or sword fighting, this might just be for you! If you aren’t into queer romance novels, lots of talk about guild houses, or the politics of a fantasy world, you might struggle with this one.

Take All of Us Review

Book: Take All of Us
Author: Natalie Leif
Publisher: Holiday House
Year: 2024
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Five years ago, a parasite poisoned the water of Ian’s West Virginia town, turning those exposed into dark-eyed, oil-dripping shells of their former selves. Used to hospitals and health scares, Ian still takes no chances. He relies on his best friend and secret love Eric to mercy-kill any infected people they come across.
At least until a new report about the contamination triggers an evacuation, and Ian cracks his head in the rush. He always thought he’d die young…but he wasn’t planning on coming back. Much less facing the slow, painful realization that Eric may have left him behind to die.
Desperate to find out the truth before he loses his mind and body, Ian along with two others – his childhood rival Monica and the jaded pepper Angel – journey to track down Eric. What they don’t know is that Eric is also looking for Ian, but he’s determined to kill the monster Ian’s become.
With a perfect blend of teenage deadpan humor, longing, and raw fury, Take All of Us is a smartly layered and terrifying read from an author who knows the genre and constructs it with precious, exploring how queer, disabled, and neurodivergent people are treated in times of emergencies. In a society on fire, Ian, Monica, Angel, and Eric are done with acting how they’re supposed to. This is their world now.”

Review : I’ll be honest, I actually learned more about the plot of Take All of Us from reading the synopsis as I added it to this review than I did from reading the actual book, and therein lies the three star review – at least in part. While Leif has created a mid-grade read that embraces neurodivergence and invisible illnesses, it felt more like a poorly designed plot created specifically to serve as a platform, rather than a storyline that worked hand-in-hand with the characters they created. As if Leif went, ‘I see a hole in storytelling that needs to be filled’, and rather than weaving a super compelling story that just so happened to have queer and chronically ill and neurodivergent people existing within it, they plopped characters into a half formed plot and called it a day.

I’ll admit, I went into this book with a little hesitation. To be clear, zombie stories are not really my thing. I think they’re overplayed, but I know there’s an audience for them, so I was willing to wade into something I don’t prefer for the sake of quality story telling. However, when it boiled down to it, the zombie-ish storyline wasn’t even much of a problem for me. The real problem, it turns out, was how boring the book felt, how contrived the characters seemed to be, and how much I didn’t want to keep turning pages. I’ve encountered this problem once before, during a book that failed to make me care about the characters; I believe it got a similar review from me – and I’ve said time and time again, it doesn’t take quality writing for a compelling story to be told! On the other hand, no matter how well written a book is, if I’m disinterested, I’ll struggle to come back to it, and that’s how TAOU was for me. Leif has constructed a technically well-written book, though I do take some issue with the voice they’ve given to their characters. On the first page Ian thinks “…when me and Eric found the body” and I overlooked the misuse of the subject in this sentence, but just a few sentences later they had Ian thinking “…it was just Eric and me in the park” which immediately took me out of the story and into critical thinking about grammar usage and voice. Being set in a West Virginia town, Leif makes use of the word “ain’t” every so often, which I think makes sense, but I take issue is the way it’s thrown in kind of haphazardly, not the way someone would if they were speaking, but the way someone would if they don’t usually use the word ‘ain’t’ but felt the need to throw it into dialogue to fit the location. It all read a little stilted.

Editing to add : It’s been brought to my attention that Leif is neurodivergent, so my understanding of their neurodivergent character has shifted a bit. Though I stand by the analysis that Leif’s characters are underdeveloped, I in no way want to attack or belittle someone’s lived experience.

I enjoyed that Leif created a story that included chronically ill main characters as well as a neurodivergent pre-teen, Angel. What I didn’t enjoy was how underdeveloped Angel’s portrayal of neurodivergence was. If you googled “what does autism look like” and found a graphic that conveyed flapping hands, avoiding eye-contact, info-dumping, and some level of sensory issues, you’d be looking at exactly who Leif wrote Angel to be. However, the autism and neurodivergent spectrum truly is just that, a spectrum. People exist along the spectrum in so many wide-ranging ways, to distill it down to it’s most base understanding felt contrived, like the characterization was missing it’s humanity, the thing that makes Angel more than a googled graphic. With Monica and Ian, our two chronically ill characters, we do see more attempts being made to characterize what life looks like when living with an invisible illness. However, there’s so little given to Monica in terms of character development, that it almost feels unnecessary – which isn’t really what I was hoping for in a book with not one, but two characters who exist within the realm of invisible illnesses. While I find both chronically ill and neurodivergent portrayals to be important in the literary world, I would have liked to see more development of all three characters. And there was still so much more developed between Monica and Ian than there was with Angel, they could have all been served by more thorough or complex character building.

Ultimately, I got to the climax of the book, found it unengaging and disinteresting, and I found myself skipping over most of what happened just to get to the end. And I think that says it all, don’t you? During the part of the book I should have been the most invested in, I found myself the least invested. At the end of the day, this storyline didn’t grab my attention or push me to want to continue to read. I realize that’s, in part, a personal opinion and not completely a reflection of an ill-written book, so I gave this one a little over 50%.

Advice : If you really loved zombie books, this might be a good one for you. If not, well, it might not be it.

Can’t Spell Treason without Tea Review

Book: Can’t Spell Treason without Tea
Author: Rebecca Thorne
Publisher: Bramble / Tor Books
Year: 2024
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “All Reyna and Kianthe want is to open a bookshop that serves tea while firelight drifts between the rafters. However, Reyna works as one of the queen’s private guards, and Kianthe is the most powerful mage in existence. Leaving their lives isn’t so easy.
But after an assassin takes Reyna hostage, she decides she’s thoroughly done risking her life for a self-centered queen. Meanwhile, Kianthe has been waiting for a chance to flee responsibility – all the better that her girlfriend is on board. Together, they settle in Tawney, a town nestled in the icy tundra near dragon country, and open the shop of their dreams.
What follows is a cozy tale of mishaps, mysteries, and a murderous queen throwing the realm’s biggest temper tantrum, where these two women will discover just what they mean to each other…and the world.”

Review : This is another first for me, notably from the same publishing house as the last book I reviewed, a book that was originally independently published in 2022 and has now been picked up by a major publisher, scheduled to be re-released in 2024. I thought it looked familiar! Turns out I’ve been seeing people post about Can’t Spell Treason without Tea for a little while after it’s independent publishing. With the popularity of Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes, it’s little wonder a book that credits Baldree’s debut novel with it’s inception, has done so well! I have also found myself swept up in Baldree’s world, searching for additional cozy fantasy novels since finishing both his books, so this was a welcome surprise.

Thorne has successfully created a cozy, relatively low-stakes, fantasy novel that seems to check all the boxes for me. There’s rich world-building without the confusing word salad that sometimes accompanies fantasy novels, I never once struggled to visualize the queendom or any of it’s surrounding countries; there’s just enough mention of tea blends, baked goods, and rolling fires without going so far down the rabbit hole that the entire story becomes a cook book; and there’s mystery and adventure, peppered with betrayal, gryphon flights, and just a dash of magic. It’s the perfect blend of everything I’m looking for in a cozy, no-anxiety, fantasy novel. Thorne sets us up well for additional books, something I’m greatly anticipating (I know there’s a second book coming! It, like the first book, was also originally independently published, but will be re-released later this year). I even tried to buy book two in it’s independent form, but it’s already been marked up to roughly $150 so, like the rest of you, I will be waiting until the fall for the second installment. And that’s about as high of praise as I can give – I never attempt to buy a sequel of a copy I’ve been gifted as an ARC, I try my hand at getting the review copy for the next book in the lineup, and if I don’t get it, I move on.

There were a couple instances where I felt this book could have benefitted from some additional editing, but I suspect that may come with a bit of time, experience, and additional books. None of it felt so grievous that I wouldn’t read more in the future or wouldn’t recommend the series to friends (which I have already done!), but it’s worth mentioning. First, I realize the series is literally called Tomes & Tea, but the overuse of the word “tome” grated on my nerves throughout the book. I think this book, and subsequent books, would benefit from occasionally referring to books as something other than tomes, but that’s a personal preference on my end and perhaps it doesn’t bother anyone else. And second, there were several instance of dialogue that felt so stilted, it was clear this is a debut novel – and I do thin that’s okay! Like I said, I think some of these small errors will be adjusted with time and experience and I expect that book two, and any further books Thorne decides to write, will likely improve. There’s a lot of overuse of the word “girlfriend” in conversation that doesn’t read true to spoken dialogue, or overly formal wording that doesn’t quite strike me as realistic to a verbal conversation. I’m aware that this is a fantasy and not meant to be realistic, but I do expect dialogue to be at least convincing.

Advice : I highly suggest you mark this one on your calendar! If you love cozy, low stakes, but highly enjoyable, smut-free fantasy, this will be right up your alley. If you enjoyed Travis Baldree’s books, this one is definitely for you.

The Coven Review

Book: The Coven
Author: Harper L Woods
Publisher: Bramble / Tor Books
Year: 2023 & 2024
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “I was raised to be my father’s weapon against the Coven, who had taken everything from him. I would do anything to keep my younger brother from suffering the same fate. My path lead me to the prestigious halls of Hollow’s Grove University, where witches learn to practice their magic free from human judgement.
There I come face-to-face with the beautiful and infuriating Headmaster, Alaric Grayson Thorne. He despises me just as much as I loathe him – in spite of the fire that burns between us…”

Review : This is a first for me, a book that has been previously published being sent out as an advanced reader copy. I admit, it took me a little bit of digging to figure out why I received an uncorrected advanced reading copy of a book that was published in 2023; it seems this marketing campaign is running ahead of a special edition publication of The Coven debuting in August of 2024, a month before the sequel releases. Whatever the case, this book has been circulating and doing surprisingly well over the last few months, so by the time I received an ARC, opinions had already filtered their way to me. I received this book and immediately heard from a friend how much they enjoyed it, I know the author has amassed a monstrous following on social media, falling into the category of fantasy romance which means the loyal fans are deeply loyal. I had expectations, to say the least.

Unfortunately, The Coven lived up to the low, low bar of my expectations. Now, before we dive in, please don’t get me wrong! I’m not here to shame anyone for reading smutty fantasy novels, I don’t look down my nose at the books or the readers of the genre. At all. However, it has been my experience that many of these fantasy romance authors, in an effort to churn out as many books as possible for their droves of die-hard fans, often sacrifice quality for quantity. Or even quality for smut. It’s fair to say that I went into this book with a bit of trepidation, knowing Woods’ second book is set to debut just a year after her first – a timeline which is pretty drawn-out as far as fantasy books are concerned lately. I expected this book would sacrifice plot for smut, but what I didn’t expect was the shoddy writing (though, perhaps I should have given the passive voice used in the synopsis).

*Spoilers Ahead*

The Coven is a hard to follow fantasy that very clearly draws on so many fantasy and witchy tv shows. Unfortunately for Woods, I too have watched so many fantasy and witchy tv shows, meaning my mind immediately jumped to all the storylines she’s at times all but outright copied. First of all, the vampire-witch romance trope is unbelievably overplayed, but if you’re going to go that route, at least stray away from names used in tv shows like Vampire Diaries (*cough* Alaric *cough*). I find it hard to believe that any reader interested in a book like The Coven hasn’t also watched Sabrina, Legacies, or A Discovery of Witches. Like I said, the vampire-witch struggle and eventual romance is played out. There’s something deeply aggravating about a controlling, toxic male vampire who for some unknown reason just cannot resist the temptation of an “impossible” and frustrating female witch. We’ve seen it played out hundreds of times through so many fantasy books, movies, and tv series…it’s not compelling. Pun not intended. There’s nothing about an over-done trope that makes me want to continue turning pages. It makes me want to throw the book in the trash.

My second issue with The Coven is that while I can appreciate that Woods chose to include content warnings at the beginning of the book, clueing the reader in that the central male character is nothing but toxic, at the end of the day the portrayal of a controlling, manipulative, and coercive relationship is at best disquieting and at worst misogynistic and traumatic. I have yet to decide where Woods falls on the spectrum with her male main character (MMC) – a content warning isn’t enough, simply choosing not to write toxic men into stories where the reader is meant to find their humanity and fall in love with them is more of what I’m looking for. And this leads me to my third grievance with The Coven, which is the, frankly, hard to believe convolution of the storyline that means we readers cannot actually find humanity with Woods’ MMC because he is, in fact, the literal devil. Woods has created a universe where magic is readily available to those who have magical family lines they’ve been fortunate to be born into. Magic, then, is available through whatever means your family line is able to work with : air, earth, water, life, crystals, and the cosmos. However! In Woods’ universe, this ever-present magic is only available through these forms thanks to a blood pact that was made with the literal christian devil, Lucifer Morningstar. I told you, convoluted.

It’s this blood pact that brings me to my fourth grievance with The Coven : setting. While this book is modern, the witches and their family lines all stem from Salem, MA, as if that trope weren’t played out enough already, though as you can see, Woods is not one to run from an overdone trope. Though we’re to believe that Salem is the pinnacle of witchy activity (and not, I don’t know, any of the sites where thousands of people were burned overseas thanks to an unrelenting witch-trial that barely made it’s way to the States), Woods chooses to use the name of someone who didn’t exist in real life as the witch-mother herself, she who made a pact with the devil. It’s like there are all these puzzle pieces and they’re all close enough to fitting, so you shove and shove at them, hoping they will eventually fit, only to realize they’re pieces from two different puzzles.

Finally, my last, and possibly my biggest frustration with The Coven is the slipshod writing Woods employs. We can see it first in the synopsis, an ever-present passive voice. All I could think as I read this book was how much my high school english teacher would have despised it (content aside). He drilled into my head on a regular basis how insufferable a passive voice is, and to this day it lives in my brain : thou shalt not use a passive voice. The Coven is a lot of “what had happened” – again, as you can see from the synopsis. The writing doesn’t improve as the book continues and given that this is an ARC of a book that’s already been published, I don’t suspect additional editing will truly occur here. This book is how it is, passive voice and all. Woods could have benefitted from removing about 50% of the occurrences of the word “that” as well, something that I would think any editor would notice in a first or second draft. Again, this is an ARC for an already published book. It is what it is.

Advice : If fantasy smut is your thing, this book is pretty dang boring. If quality writing is your thing, run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. Don’t. Bother. It’s a waste of money and time. Trust me.

Devil is Fine Review

Book: Devil is Fine
Author: John Vercher
Publisher: Celadon Books
Year: 2024
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “From acclaimed novelist John Vercher, a poignant story of what it means to be a father, a son, a writer, and a biracial American fighting to reconcile the past.
Reeling from the sudden death of his teenage son, our narrator receives a letter from an attorney : he has just inherited a plot of land from his estranged grandfather. He travels to a beach town several hours south of his home with the intention of immediately selling the land. But upon inspection, what lies beneath the dirt is much more than he can process in the throes of grief. As a biracial Black man struggling with the many facets of his identity, he’s now the owner of a former plantation passed down by the men on his white mother’s side of the family.
Vercher deftly blurs the lines between real and imagined, past and present, tragedy and humor, and fathers and sons in this story of discovery – and a fight for reclamation – of a painful past. With the wit of Paul Beatty’s The Sellout and the nuance of Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, Devil is Fine is a darkly funny and brilliantly crafted dissection of the legacies we leave behind and those we inherit.”

Review : I had absolutely no idea what kind of wild ride I was getting myself into when I opened this book – full disclosure, the synopsis gives approximately 10% of the book away (okay, maybe I exaggerate…45%?). I started it a couple evenings ago and (spoilers), much like our protagonist, found myself losing time. I looked up two hours later, half the book read, and breathed out for the first time in who knows how long. Woah.

*Due to the little information provided by the synopsis, the majority of this review will contain spoilers, you have been warned.*

I absolutely demolished this book. I can’t even explain to you how quickly I devoured it. So much so that it wasn’t until this very moment I sat down to write this review that I realized we never get the narrator’s name. The novel begins with the narrator sitting in traffic on his way to his teenage son’s funeral, stopped somehow by construction, watching a construction worker do a dance while our narrator has a panic attack. A writer and tenure-track professor, our narrator is a biracial Black man working through what it means to exist in a post-2020 world where his audience and colleagues have largely appeared to have moved on from the protests and interests that were front and center just a few years ago. Finding the book he’s been working on tossed aside by one publishing house after the next, he finds his tenure tracked job suddenly on the rails. Unless he can get his new book picked up immediately, he risks losing his secure job. In the midst of the turmoil and trauma of not only losing his son but the prospect of losing his job, he receives a letter from his attorney : a large piece of property on the coast of Pennsylvania that was willed to his son has now passed to him. Our narrator decides to take a few extra days of bereavement leave to have a look, put the property on the market, and take a trip to a place he has hated since childhood – the beach.

It’s hard to fully explain the depth of surrealism that Vercher’s able to achieve in this work. Devil is Fine presents itself as a pretty realistic book grounded in a pretty realistic character, someone we might see teaching classes and publishing books, someone we might see on social media, someone we can relate to immediately as grounded in reality. It’s when our narrator makes his way to the sea, though, that the thread holding reality and dreams begin to unravel. On a cocktail of anti-anxiety medications, our narrator (who has been sober for 17 years) finds himself saying yes to a drink at the bar attached to his small rental at the beach. As it turns out, the property he’s inherited has not come with any kind of structure so he rents from a bartender / realtor / bike shop owner who serves as his off-the-wagon enabler, serving drink after drink after damned drink to a man who very clearly should not be served in the first place. There are so many moments of frustration and grief that swirl throughout this story, and this relationship between alcohol, medications, and those who egg him on while simultaneously providing a form of magical-comedic-grounding relief is one of them.

As our narrator dives deeper into the all too familiar taste of alcoholism, he begins to find himself plagued by sleep paralysis – or so it seems. Waking to find emails sent, book proposals drafted, and responses given in the middle of the night, what should ultimately be a fairly benign experience begins to take on supernatural undertones. When our narrator, in a fairly drunken haze, steps barefoot onto his beachfront property one night, he unexpectedly, and painfully steps on a dead jellyfish, stung even in it’s death. Now he’s not only battling alcohol and medication induced sleep demons, he’s also battling physical pain. The boundaries around the natural world begin to swim and blur and fracture, creating ghostly appearances, pulling mementos from his past into his present, and allowing him to have, what had until now been a one-sided conversation with his son, a two-sided conversation with the dead.

It is during this unraveling of reality that our narrator comes to find that the sprawling beachfront property he’s inherited is actually a former plantation, owned and passed down by the members of the white side of his family. Through this dream-like experiences, our narrator begins to confront the very real demons of his past, the generational curses that follow family members, and perhaps even emerge from beyond the grave, and the father-son relationships that not only created his relationship with his son but mirror his relationship with his own father. It’s through this reality bending that our narrator begins to find the space to heal the wounds that have lead to the at times fractured relationship he and his son shared. We begin to see reality for what it is, not something that exists in one time and place, but something that bends and moves, shaping and folding itself over generations, creating and dissolving into each family member until they’re ready and capable of finding the healing necessary to move forward.

Advice : I cannot recommend this book highly enough. This is hands down one of my top books of the year. It’s expertly crafted, full of intricate detail, and that ending! My god! The ending! I won’t spoil it for you, but trust me when I say this is a must read.

The Manicurist’s Daughter

Book: The Manicurist’s Daughter
Author: Susan Lieu
Publisher: Celadon Books
Year: 2024
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Susan Lieu has long been searching or answers. About her family’s past and about her own future. Refugees from the Vietnam War, Susan’s family escaped to California in the 1980s after five failed attempts. Upon arrival, Susan’s mother was their savvy, charismatic North Star, setting up two successful nail salons and orchestrating every success – until Susan was eleven. That year, her mother died from a botched tummy tuck. After the funeral, no one was ever allowed to talk about her or what had happened.
For the next twenty years, Susan navigated a series of cascading questions alone – why did the most perfect person in her life want to change her body? Why would no one tell her about her mother’s life in Vietnam? And how did this surgeon, who preyed on Vietnamese immigrants, go on operations after her mother’s death? Sifting through depositions, tracking down the surgeon’s family, and enlisting the help of spirit channelers, Susan uncovers the painful truth of her mother, herself, and the impossible ideal of beauty.
The Manicurist’s Daughter is much more than a memoir about grief, trauma, and body image. It is a story of fierce determination, strength in shared culture, and finding your place in the world.”

Review : I was really excited to dive into this advanced copy memoir after reading the letter to the reader Lieu included with the book – but I’m realizing now that much of what was covered in the letter isn’t touched on in the back cover synopsis, so I’m not sure you’re seeing the wild ride that her letter was, so I’ll share a bit of it here with you : “For the last two decades, no one in my family has ever spoken of her or how she died. I would ask questions, but they said I was being too emotional or stuck in the past. Desperate for answers, I joined a cult, tracked down the family of my mother’s surgeon, and sought justice through the help of spirit channelers.” This is all within the first few sentences in her letter to the reader! What a wild ride, I thought, I couldn’t wait to get into the meat of this memoir.

A comedian by trade, Lieu writes in a way that showcases her humor, leading us through her life as the youngest daughter of Vietnamese immigrant parents with off the cuff remarks that leave you laughing out loud, winding deftly through the trauma and emotional turmoil of losing a parent so young, guiding us through struggling to find answers while upholding a nearly impossible personal and familial standard; from feeling lost while navigating ivy league schooling to searching for answers from beyond the veil, Lieu takes us on, what ends up being, a winding and at times rather bumpy road. From the beginning, Lieu makes it clear that body image, food, and self worth are deeply connected within her family – something we can see clearly played out in the tummy tuck operation that ultimately takes her mother’s life at a mere 38 years old. Not only is Lieu constantly criticized for any weight she might put on, she’s also forced to consume every single piece of food that’s put before her, at least once to the point of vomiting. Lieu struggles so desperately for answers as to why her mother might have felt the need to have a cosmetic procedure for so much of her life, all the while laying it out methodically for the reader to understand, like a neon sign flashing in front of our eyes.

It’s for this exact reason that this book should be read with caution – tread lightly my friends, if you have struggled with disordered eating this book may present complications for you. The majority of the book revolves around food, so much so that part of the advanced reader copy package included a few postcards with pictures of traditional Vietnamese foods on them. While I think the point that Lieu is trying to make is an important one, there are a lot of complex emotions and ties to food in this book that may bring up some difficult emotions in the reader. Lieu refers so fondly to the dishes her family members made while she was growing up, speaking kindly of the foods her relatives make when she comes home to visit as an adult, while simultaneously speaking poorly of her body, her body image, and the way her body is objectified by those around her. It’s complex and confusing at times, but only in the sense that those who have not navigated this ground themselves may struggle to understand the difficulty one faces when they’re told over and over to shrink themselves. This book requires a content warning.

There are some pacing issues I struggled with in this memoir, places where Lieu spent so much time, chapters even, and places where she jumped around almost frantically. You probably know how much I hate being told what’s going on, and while Lieu doesn’t do this, there are connections she asks her reader to make that at times aren’t given enough context to make on our own. I’m a little perplexed as to why the pacing is so frenetic an uneven, with certain aspects of her personal story garnering so much attention while others warrant no more than a sentence or two. The time frame is a bit scattered, at times being not quite chronological, jumping from the past to the present of Lieu’s own life, and I feel she might have benefitted from gently tweaking the format.

These few issues aside, I found Lieu’s work to be an important embrace of family history, of breaking down the barriers that exist between family members, and of honest inspection of how generational curses impact our lives. In writing this memoir, Lieu is doing the work to heal not only her own self, but the individual members of her family, and past generations of her family as well. It’s an important read, but it does come with some necessary warning.

Advice : If you enjoy a memoir I really think this is going to be right up your alley. If you’ve struggled with disordered eating, I might avoid this one for your own sake.

Rise of a Killah Review

Book: Rise of a Killah : My Life in the Wu-Tang
Author: Ghostface Killah
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Year: 2024
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Dennis Coles – aka Ghostface Killah – is a co-founder of the Wu-Tang Clan, a legendary hip hop group who established themselves by breaking all the rules, taking their music to the streets during hip hop’s golden era on a decade-long wave of releasing anthem after classic anthem, and serving as the foundation of modern hip hop. An all-star cast who formed like Voltron to establish the pillars that serve as the foundation of modern hip hop and released seminal albums that have stood the test of time
Rise of a Killah is Ghost’s autobiography, focusing on the people, places, and events that mean the most to him as he enters his fourth decade writing and performing. It’s a beautiful and intense book, going back the the creative ferment that led to Ghost’s first handwritten rhymes. Dive into Ghost’s defining personal moments, his battles with his personal demons, his journey to Africa, his religious viewpoints, his childhood in Staten Island, and his commitment to his family (including his two brothers with muscular dystrophy), from the Clan’s early successes to the pinnacle of Ghost’s career touring and spreading his wings as a solo artist, fashion icon, and trendsetter.
Exclusive photos and memorabilia, as well as graphic art commissioned for this book, make Rise of a Killah both a memoir and a unique visual record, a “real feel” narrative of Ghost’s life as he sees it, a one of a kind holy grail for Wu-Tang and Ghost fans alike.”

Review : Chronicling his life, from formative childhood years growing up in the West Brighton projects, to being introduced to kung-fu movies in his early teens, to forming the Wu-Tang Clan, crafting his Toney Stark persona, and everything in between, Ghostface Killah takes the reader on journey into stardom and the drive to simply make it in Rise of a Killah. It would be difficult to listen to music or engage with pop culture without encountering Wu-Tang clan, either having listened to their music or running into one of their cult-like followers. However, for someone like me, who has listened to their music over the years and enjoyed their work, though isn’t a die-hard fan, this book felt a little lacking. This book is very clearly geared toward the ride or die fans, the fans who’ve followed Ghostface and Wu-Tang Clan, who know the ins and outs, the ups and downs of the Clan and are familiar with the intricacies already – prior to reading the book – but I’ll get into that.

Rise of a Killah reads like a conversation, and that’s because it is a conversation. This book has been transcribed, and while I’ve enjoyed that style of reading in the past, there were very few moments during the course of this book that I didn’t feel this would be better suited as a docu-series. I enjoyed reading Ghostface’s story, he is, and has been, open and vulnerable about things that were, and continue to be, hard topics for people to talk about. I found it invaluable to read about his experiences with his mental health struggles, with how he wishes friends would reach out when they see those they’re close to having a hard time, and the way he found peace through speaking openly with RZA about what he was experiencing. During a time when it wasn’t nearly as acceptable to speak about your mental health or wellness, Ghostface leaned into being open with those around him – much the same way his lyrics spoke to things people weren’t rapping about at the time, like growing up in the projects and buying welfare cheese. He talks about the pressure he felt from a young age, living with a single parent and two wheelchair bound brothers, both of whom had muscular dystrophy, and how that helped shape his experience and push him into spaces with people he might otherwise not have come into contact with.

However, there were so many instances in the book that felt like partial stories, partial retellings, so many aspects left out, that the book felt lacking, at times even incomplete. And don’t get me wrong, I understand not everything can or should be included in an autobiography, I’m not naive – I just wish there had been more meat on the bone here. For example, toward the end of the book, Ghostface’s manager, Mike Caruso, speaks with the transcriber, going back in time and sharing his side of how things were happening mostly with the Def Jam label. Ghostface had already covered the years that Caruso was covering, yet we got infinitely more detail and more interesting stories from him than we did from Ghostface. I don’t think this is a poorly told story, but I do think the format choice is wrong for the impact the stories could be making. I found myself thinking over and over again that this would be the perfect documentary or docu-series, I would thoroughly enjoy watching this, having moments where the narrative could cut away and more details could be provided; at the end of the day, if I wanted to full understand this book, I’d have to spend as much time googling things as I did reading it. Had this been less of a transcribed conversation and more of a video interview, I think the impact would have been monumental. Instead, it falls a bit flat and leaves me with more gaping holes than I had before I read it.

I think the final release of the book will be a huge deal for fans of Ghostface and Wu-Tang Clan, it’s filled with photos, illustrations, and lyrics that will have fans drooling. The book talks a lot about Ghostface’s iconic wardrobe choices, from the diamond studded robes to his gold armbands, and details how colors impact his mental state in a way that profoundly influences his work. This is a great book for those fans who have been with Wu-Tang Clan since the inception, who collect every piece of merch, attend every show they can, and know all the infinite details.

Advice : If you’re a die-hard Wu-Tang Clan or Ghostface Killah fan, this is it. You’re going to want to mark your calendar for May 14th 2024 and be sure to grab a copy. If, however, you aren’t a day one fan, this might end up feeling confusing and hard to read. It definitely has its audience, but I think the broader appeal might be lost.

Middletide Review

Book: Middletide
Author: Sarah Crouch
Publisher: Atria Books
Year: 2024
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “One peaceful morning, in the small Puget Sound town of Point Orchards, the lifeless body of Dr. Erin Landry is found hanging from a tree on the property of prodigal son and failed writer Elijah Leith. Sheriff Jim Godbout’s initial investigation points to an obvious suicide, but upon closer inspection, there seem to be clues of foul play when he discovers that the circumstances of the beautiful doctor’s death were ripped straight from the pages of Elijah’s own novel.
Out of money and motivation, thirty-three-year-old Elijah returns to his empty childhood home to lick the wounds of his fertile writing career. Hungry for purpose, he throws himself into restoring the ramshackle cabin his father left behind and rekindling his relationship with Nakita, the extraordinary girl from the nearby reservation whom he betrayed but was never able to forget.
As the town of Point Orchards turns against him, Elijah must fight for his innocence against an unexpected foe who is close and cunning enough to flawlessly frame him for murder. For fans of Where the Crawdads Sing, this scintillating literary suspense seeks to uncover a case of love, loss, and revenge.”

Review : Okay, Middletide is my first DNF (did not finish) of the year. And while I would normally not review a book I didn’t finish, I’m trying to be better about reviewing every advanced reader copy I get this year; while this may be a shorter review than most, I’m going to let you know why I chose not to finish this one. I had immediate red flags right from the start with the author’s note to the reader explaining that while Sarah Crouch took inspiration from the Lummi and Navajo Nations, the indigenous group she writes about is fictional. There was something about fictionalizing a group of people that didn’t sit quite right with me, something that continued to itch at the back of my mind as Crouch introduced us to Nakita and her father, to members of the fictional Indigenous group who also happen to be Christians (her father being the Christian pastor on the fictional reservation). The more I think about it, the more it rubs me the wrong way. Not only was the narrative not served by a white woman writing in a fictionalized Indigenous narrative, but the insistence that they be Christian rather than connected to their Indigenous beliefs felt off balance, at best. I think it’s also worth mentioning that Crouch wrote Nakita as living in a three story home on the reservation, take that how you will.

Crouch puts a great deal of emphasis on her main character, Elijah, being a homesteader; surely through her long-winded descriptions of the food he makes for himself and the plant-life that surround his small off-the-grid-esque cabin she earned the “for fans of Where the Crawdads Sing” title from the synopsis. However, if you’ve been here for a while you might remember that I gave WTCS a 2.5 stars for it’s lyrical writing and I still chose to give Middletide half a star less. Where WTCS crafted an effortlessly beautiful story full of natural elements and wonder, Middletide felt like effort. Crouch included so many drawn out descriptions of Elijah’s food that it became repetitive and frustrating early on, but when Elijah began killing his own food with equally long winded discussions about his bow and arrow, well, this vegan was out.

**Spoilers Ahead**

I was willing to overlook and plow through some of the frustrations I’d come across, hoping to find a quality murder mystery at the heart of this debut novel, but when the narrative took a swift turn into the unbelievable, I flipped to the end, discovered the twist I predicted immediately was true, and shut the book. Crouch asks the reader not to suspend belief, but to be so carried away by cozy conversations about food that we forget the nature of the characters she’s crafted for the reader. When the narrative changes on a dime, it becomes hard to reconcile who we’ve come to see with what she’s asking us to believe – and the real kicker is, if you’ve been reading thrillers for some time, it’s especially hard to reconcile because the plot eerily mirrors another’s work. Jumping from Elijah’s third person narrative to the diaries of a woman he’s been seeing, Crouch asks us to believe that Elijah has been an unreliable narrator and instead believe the diary entries we’re reading, which do not correspond with the third-person telling we’ve been getting until this point. I have a hard time with this, as Crouch is asking us to believe that she is the unreliable narrator as the author of a third-person narrative. Had Elijah’s perspective been first person, I would have had an easier time believing his account might not be entirely truthful, and the twist would have taken hold. Instead, the diary entries we read are so out of sync with what we’ve come to know over one hundred-some pages that it’s impossible to believe them, which is unfortunate because the plot twist reminded me immediately of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. And sure enough, when I flipped to the back of the book…the diary entries were faked in order to frame Elijah for murder.

Advice : This book certainly has an audience that I think might enjoy it, and if you fall into the homesteading, living off the land, the main characters date but don’t even kiss for months, kind of camp, well this might be for you. If you aren’t, or you’ve read Gone Girl, don’t bother. You already know how it ends.

This Ordinary Stardust Review

Book: This Ordinary Stardust
Author: Alan Townsend
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Year: 2024
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “A decade ago, Dr. Alan Townsend’s family received two unthinkable diagnoses: his four-year-old daughter and his brilliant wife had developed unrelated life-threatening forms of brain cancer. As he witnessed his young daughter fight her tumor during the courageous final moths of her mother’s life, Townsend – a lifelong scientist – was indelibly altered. He began to see scientific inquiry not just as a source of answers to a given problem, but also as a lifeboat – a lens on the world that could help him find peace with the painful realities he could not change. Through scientific wonder, he found ways to bring meaning to his darkest period.
At a time when society’s relationship with science is increasingly polarized, Townsend offers a balanced, moving perspective on the common ground between science and religion through the spiritual fulfillment he found amid grief. Awash in Townsend’s electrifying and breathtaking prose, This Ordinary Stardust offers hope that life can carry on even in the face of near-certain annihilation.”

Review : Alan Townsend begins This Ordinary Stardust by talking about just that : stardust. He begins by explaining that, while he doesn’t love the cliche, “When viewed in our most elemental form, people are trillions of outer-space atoms, moving around temporarily as one, sensing and seeing and falling in love” (1). This outlook will go on to permeate the entirety of the narrative, from Townsend’s own work as a biogeochemist in Amazonian and South American fields, to the life he creates and grapples to understand with his wife, Diana, and young daughter, Neva. He meticulously creates a narrative in which we are immersed in the beauty and fragility of life, both planetary and human, where we cannot look away even for a second, even when it grows difficult. Townsend lets us in on the fact that he doesn’t subscribe to organized religion early on, but does pepper the book with words from the bible and the talmud – showing us how science and religion aren’t as far apart on the scale as one might assume.

Bouncing back and forth between the past and the present in the early pages of the book, Townsend eventually settles fully into the present around the three quarter mark. He lays the groundwork for us, showing us the work that he did as a scientist (literally) in the field, studying the impact of logging in the Amazon on fields, on the remaining plant and animal life, later studying similar things in South America. He introduces us to his wife as he was introduced to her: shit-eating-grin, brimming with life, never stopping her scientific inquiry into bacteria, never slowing down for anyone. We come to know and love Diana as he sees her, a force to be reckoned with, someone who is not only destined for greatness, but becomes the greatness she was destined for. I knew from reading the back cover that this would be a difficult book to read, especially as I grew to love Diana more.

Fortunately, the majority of the book is comprised of lyrical prose, of the excitement that comes from a scientific mind experiencing the natural world, and of Townsend’s own deep connection to the Universe. We discover early on that Neva, at a mere four years old, was diagnosed with a brain tumor that grows near the occipital lobe. We spend time with the family as they navigate a scary and unexpected circumstance with a daughter who is as bright, inquisitive, and stubborn as her mother. As they navigate the fragility of life, Townsend muses over the way Diana dives into the realm of science as a means to maintain a level of control and distance from the situation, never stopping to question, working to better understand the available options and proceed in the best way possible. Townsend takes the opportunity to discuss the way the brain exists when it’s presented with the space for curiosity, how it perseveres, and the way plasticity comes into the picture, quoting scientists and C.S. Lewis alike.

After the majority of Neva’s tumor has been removed, tragedy hits their family again, this time with a blow to Diana and another, completely unrelated, brain tumor. Unfortunately for Diana and her family, the tumor(s) she’s diagnosed with have no known cure. Though there are several experimental therapies and trials she can take part in, the brain tumor(s) that Diana suffers from are detrimental – most people do not survive the year. Townsend finds himself in the intersection of caring for a young daughter who has had her own experience with a brain tumor, and caring for a wife who is dying. It is science which bridges the gap for him, leading him through the understanding that while science is not perfect and there’s no certainty, there’s a degree of stability to it that weaves it’s web into our lives and threads itself through all the ways we interact with the world. In a quote from Mary Oliver, “All things are meltable, and replaceable. Not at this moment, but soon enough, we are lambs and we are leaves, and we are stars, and the shining, mysterious pond water itself” (3) Townend reflects that it’s through science that we find, what he calls, “no purer love” (7).

As the book wound its way down, I found myself reading more and more slowly – being less and less quick to pick it back up, not because I didn’t enjoy it but because I was delaying the inevitable. It was challenging to read the last quarter of this book and that’s because Townsend did such a remarkable job. Of course I fell in love with Diana, the spunky, big-hearted, stubborn, amazing, wonderful woman that she was. Of course my heart was broken when she left. Of course. And in truth, this is the kind of story I might normally avoid specifically because of the heartbreak. But I’ve finished the book and have no regrets at all. Townsend has created a beautiful gift to the world with This Ordinary Stardust. So has Diana.

Advice : This is a must read. If you enjoy the natural world, this book is definitely for you. If you enjoy science but find yourself gravitating away from dry lectures or cite-laden books, this one ticks all the boxes. Run to grab it as soon as it’s available.