Spoiler-Free Reviews!
This page features the books and games I've reviewed in the past. I'll slowly be adding to this list, once I figure out exactly how many I need to post here! Doing my best to keep them spoiler-free, while also enticing you to choose your next read.
The Rating System
1 Star - I read the book, and either I barely finished it, or DNF.
2 Stars - Was intrigued by the topic or cover, finished book but was not for me.
3 Stars - This was a good book. There may have been parts I didn't like.
4 Stars - This book was incredible. I loved almost every aspect of this book.
5 Stars - This book left it's mark on me, and I will always recommend it.
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1 Pepper - There is no spice in this book, or very little.
2 Peppers - May have fade-to-black scenes or cute flirts. YA fiction or lower.
3 Peppers - Has an average amount of spice, definitely enough to quality as adult fiction.
4 Peppers - High level of spicy scenes, have a poker face if you read in public!
5 Peppers - More spice than plot. Not for the faint hearted!
The Atlas Six (#1)
Olivie Blake
My first introduction into Dark Academia, and I could not put this down. Think Clue, but in the modern universe of X-Men. However, be prepared to put the book down and Google some of the topics. The cast has some distinct players, each so well-written and fleshed out I'd buy any book with them in it. An actual love triangle (hexagon?) where it isn't two men backing a woman into a corner. Most of the plot happens past 80%, and in book two.
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"The moral of this story is: Beware the man who faces you unarmed. If in his eyes you are not the target, then you can be sure you are the weapon."
#Fantasy #DarkAcademia #ScienceFiction #LGBT
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Zevin
This book felt like it was written for me. In an almost eerily accurate way. Follow Sam and Sadie across the thirty years of their relationship, a story that will grab you by the collar and force you to read. An alternating narrative, a blend of reality and game worlds, and thought-provoking plot. I will openly admit I had to put it down to outright sob at times. Keep tissues nearby.
“What is a game?" Marx said. "It's tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It's the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.”
#Fiction #Romance #VideoGames #MadeMeCry #Disability
Fairy Tale
Stephen King
I grew up reading Narnia, and this is about as close as I could get for nostalgia's sake. I've been a King fan since 11/22/63 and I had to read it for school. King always drags me into the worlds he creates, and I had to read all 600 pages just because I needed to know what happened to Radar, the goodest girl. The ONLY downside to this massive book, was the sheer number of character names. There's a point where King introduces almost 20 characters in one go, and I lost the ability to differentiate any of them. The first third of the book is a slow build, and you don't even see this amazing world until the second half of the book. If you can make it that far, you'll be well rewarded.
“You get used to the amazing, that's all. Mermaids and IMAX, giants and cell phones. If it's in your world, you go with it. It's wonderful, right? Only look at it another way, and it's sort of awful. Think Gogmagog is scary? Our world is sitting on a potentially world-ending supply of nuclear weapons, and if that's not black magic, I don't know what is.”
#Fantasy #ScienceFiction #ReadForTheDog #WaitWhoIsTalking
Pretty Girls
Karin Slaughter
This is an extremely graphic book. Slaughter is known for heavy topics, and this is a prime example. If you cannot stomach to read this type of content, I would suggest another author.
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The story is interwoven between the father's diary entries, and the viewpoint of the two remaining sisters of a girl who went missing. Losing a child this way rips a family apart, and Slaughter masterfully relays this pain to the reader. Clever storyline, and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time I was reading. When I had to put it down, I couldn't stop thinking about it. A truly engrossing psychological thriller.
“Marriage. That’s what he called it, though men like Paul do not marry women. They own them. They control them. They are voracious gluttons who devour every part of a woman, then clean their teeth with the bones.”
#Fiction #Thriller #Suspense #ExtremelyGraphic #Horror
Saturn Run
John Sandford & Ctein
Usually, science fiction is the last thing I can read. Something about the fake science impairs my ability to immerse myself in the story. But this, this absolute masterpiece, is what convinced me to go back into the genre.
Something alien is near Saturn, who will make it there first? What is it? Who is it?
It is no small amount of time to travel to Saturn's rings, and there are plot twists, turns, and loop-de-loops all the way there AND back. There are some graphic scenes, but they are mostly there to humanize the characters, not further the plot. The characters themselves are easy to relate to, and I got really attached. Really.
For a First-Contact sci-fi, I demolished this in maybe three sittings. For new readers, 'hard' science fiction strives for scientific accuracy and logic. Be ready to Google some technology, Sandford and Ctein take no prisoners.
“Trust no one, everything breaks, nothing works as advertised, and if anything can go wrong, it will.”
#Space #HardScienceFiction #FirstContact #RollercoasterPlot
My Killer Vacation
Tessa Bailey
What starts as a cute vacation romcom turns into a murder mystery with sexual tension. A one-sitting read, where you almost feel bad for Myles, you cheer for Taylor, and you wonder when Jude grows up! I was giggling the entire time I was reading this, I almost forgot to try and solve the murder. Loved the twist ending, and there are now new ice cream standards. The perfect read after a heavy thriller, filled with sarcastic banter, and of course a few close calls. Also featuring my new favorite insult; "emotional availability of a banana".
“Come back here.”
“I don’t think I will.”
“Half pint.”
“I have a name.”
“Come back here and tell it to me, then."
#SexualTension #Romance #Vacation #SunshineGrumpy #MurderMystery
A Flicker in the Dark
Stacy Willingham
Published in The Review, Vankleek Hill. Ontario.
A woman whose father admitted to the deaths of multiple young girls 20 years ago, is now seeing parallels to suddenly missing girls in her new town. A search and reach for control where there is none to be found.
The feeling women get when they are told that there are paranoid or overly emotional burns strong, as you follow Chloe throughout this hair-raising story. The last few chapters had so many plot twists, It felt like a fever dream.
Wrapped up in blankets, I still couldn’t escape the chill that this book brought. If you manage to put it down, you’ll think about it all day until you crack it back open again. I give it a 10 out of 10.
This was the debut novel Willingham wrote. If she makes more books like this, it might start a cult following.
“And in that moment, the moment of the crash, it made me realize that monsters don’t hide in the woods; they aren’t shadows in the trees or invisible things lurking in darkened corners. No, the real monsters move in plain sight.”
#Fiction #Suspense #UnreliableNarrator #Thriller #Crime
The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller
I live for mythology retellings, and despite knowing the general story already, I fell hard for this version. Names and places, and the sheer accuracy. I cried several times reading this, and props to any book that does that, but the ending. Oh my I'm glad I had a cat to squeeze to death. Worth every single second of devastation. There are so many quotes I have engraved into my brain, and the poetic style so easy to read.
”My pulse jumps, for no reason I can name. He has looked at me a thousand times, but there is something different in this gaze, an intensity I do not know. My mouth is dry, and I can hear the sound of my throat as I swallow.
He watches me. It seems that he is waiting.”
#LGBT #GreekMythology #Historical #Romance #DamnYouMadeMeCry
People We Meet On Vacation
Emily Henry
Sometimes you need a feel-good romance between heavy topic books or high fantasy, and this was a great read for that. I take issue with the title mainly because it isn't about the different people you meet on vacation per se, but the ones you go on vacation with. After this read I was looking at cheap flights to New Orleans and adding things to the bucket list!
Spice level wise, this falls more on the Young Adult scale where it's merely a plot point. The back and forth timeline, where you go through the past vacations and then to the current setting, took some getting used to and I wasn't a massive fan.
“I still have a lot to figure out, but the one thing I know is, wherever you are, that’s where I belong. I’ll never belong anywhere like I belong with you.”
#Romance #Travel #CloseProximity #PeopleWeGoOnVacationWITH
The Terminal List (#1)
Jack Carr
I picked this up from my local library after seeing the Amazon ad for the show. And of course, had to read the book first!
If you like action movies, like the Expendables, Reece is John Wick with surgical precision, but he doesn't lose a dog.
There is immense detail on every page, almost overwhelmingly. You learn as you go, and it's a crash course into American politics, corruption, gun preferences and more. Reece is a killing machine, and goes from being a SEAL to a domestic terrorist. He's creative when he gets stuck, and still has a moral compass that he sticks to by the end of the book. Definitely trying to get the rest of the series.
"Combat was also about discretion, and he never regretted not taking that shot. Sometimes the most important shots in battle are the ones not taken."
#Military #Thriller #NoHoldsBarred #Action #ThisIsABookAboutRevenge
Daughter of the Moon Goddess (#1)
Sue Lynn Tan
“Why would you want to look like her?
Why would a falcon want to be a nightingale?”
#ChineseMythology #YAFiction #Fantasy #MulanButBetter
Love on the Brain
Ali Hazelwood
#STEM #WWMCD #Romance #Fiction #Nerdy
Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir
“Human beings have a remarkable ability to accept the abnormal and make it normal.”
~
​“But I have to save humanity first. Stupid humanity. Getting in the way of my hobbies.”
#ScienceFiction #FirstContact #SpaceThriller #HumansPackBondWithAnything
A Dowry of Blood
S. T. Gibson
“You did not let me keep my name, so I will strip you of yours. In this world you are what I say you are, and I say you are a ghost, a long night's fever dream that I have finally woken up from. I say you are the smoke-wisp memory of a flame, thawing ice suffering under an early spring sun, a chalk ledger of depts being wiped clean. I say you do not have a name.”
#Fantasy #Vampire #Gothic #Queer #ThePROSE
Where the Crawdads Sing
Delia Owens
“I wasn't aware that words could hold so much. I didn't know a sentence could be so full.”
#HistoricalFiction #MurderMystery #MarshGirl #StoryofSurvival
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
V.E. Schwab
“The old gods may be great, but they are neither kind nor merciful. They are fickle, unsteady as moonlight on water, or shadows in a storm. If you insist on calling them, take heed: be careful what you ask for, be willing to pay the price. And no matter how desperate or dire, never pray to the gods that answer after dark.”
#Romance #HistoricalFiction #TimeTraveller #Remember #Angst
