Review: EVERYDAY ANGEL by Victoria Schwab

 

Rating: 4/5 stars

I’m obviously not the target audience for this series, but I decided to read it anyway because I’m trying to read everything Victoria Schwab has written. I still really enjoyed this series though, and I think it would be especially great for the target audience of 12-year-old girls.

Aria is a guardian angel, and she has to earn her wings by helping three different girls through tough moments in their lives.

Each book is a standalone story following a different girl with a different problem. In the first installment, Aria helps Gabby deal with her brother’s sickness. In the second book, Aria helps Caroline deal with bullies at school. And in the last novel, Aria helps Mikayla learn to balance her happiness with her passion for dance.

Each book discusses friendship and family and the importance of helping others and being a kind person. These books are very wholesome and fun, and I know I would have absolutely loved them as a young girl.

Book 1, New Beginnings: 4/5 stars
Book 2, Second Chances: 4/5 stars
Book 3, Last Wishes: 4.25/5 stars

Review: A STUDY IN DROWNING by Ava Reid

 

Rating: 4/5 stars

I was not prepared for how much I liked A Study in Drowning. This is my first novel by Ava Reid but it definitely won’t be my last because I absolutely loved her writing style. 

We follow Effy, an architecture student who wishes she were a literature student. She finds solace in the classic novel Angharad written by the mysterious Emrys Myrddin, and then one day she is given the opportunity to redesign the Myrddin estate and she couldn’t be happier. 

While working on her plans at the Myrddin estate, a literature scholar named Preston shows up and is determined to prove Myrddin’s works weren’t actually written by him. At first, the two butt heads over their differing opinions of Myrddin, but eventually some secrets come to light that cause them to join together against dark forces. 

A Study in Drowning is a magical and atmospheric novel with a dark setting, historical undertones, discussions of academia, old secrets buried in a crumbling house, a soft romance, and ethereal and captivating writing. I really enjoyed the novel, and I liked that it had a completely different feel from the generic YA novel format. I would absolutely recommend this book. 

Review: HAIRBALL by Matt Kindt

 

Rating: 1.25/5 stars 

I'd never heard of this graphic novel before and just happened to see it as available to download on Edelweiss. Pitched as Junji Ito meets Hayao Miyazaki, Hairball seemed like the perfect story for me because I love Hayao Miyazaki and I'm becoming more and more interested in horror stories this year. Plus, I love cats. 

Unfortunately, I did not like this book. I didn't care for the actual story, the characters, and especially not for the art style. The art was almost hard to look at, it was so bad. 

I really don't know who to recommend this book to, because it's definitely not one for Hayao Miyazaki fans. If you are interested in a cat that's a literal demon and is tearing a little girl's life apart to the point that she starts going crazy and has to go to therapy because of this cat, then you might enjoy this book. But it wasn't for me. 

Review: DEFIANT by Brandon Sanderson

 

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

I was extremely excited to read Defiant as it was one of my most anticipated books of this year. It both did and did not live up to the hype for me. Let me explain.

Defiant is much darker than previous installments. It’s not as lighthearted and funny. I know Spensa has grown and evolved as a character over the past three books, but that also means her personality has become more somber and she no longer is full of bravado and anger like she was in the beginning books. This book is also primarily about Spensa, and there are hardly any scenes involving M-Bot or Doomslug, my two favorite characters and the source of the majority of the comic relief. So needless to say, this book just felt different. The last twenty percent was actually quite violent, too, which felt a little out of place considering how Spensa has changed during this book. 

I did enjoy the book as a whole, though, and Defiant was still a satisfying series conclusion full of unexpected twists that we’ve all come to love from Brandon’s books, but it also just felt like it was missing something. I can’t really put my finger on what exactly, and I wasn’t necessarily disappointed by the book, but I also wanted something more. 

I think that, overall, fans will enjoy this book and enjoy the conclusion to the Skyward series. We do get tiny cameos from many characters we’ve come to know throughout the whole series, including some new POVs besides Spensa’s. This series is the first true science fiction series I’ve read since space-based sci-fi isn’t my preferred genre, but I did still enjoy the series and I enjoy Brandon’s storytelling and characters. I’m excited to see what the future holds in the Skyward Legacy series coming out sometime next year. 

Review: THE NEVER-ENDING END OF THE WORLD by Ann Christy

 

Rating: 4.75/5 stars

This book is fantastic! I would even say it’s one of the most interesting and most unique science fiction novels I’ve read.

I won a copy of this book from a Goodreads giveaway, and I’m glad I did because I don’t think I would have ever picked it up otherwise, but I ended up loving it.

The Never-Ending End of the World is a science fiction dystopian novel with a slight mystery/thriller aspect to it. The world has essentially “ended” as most people and things get stuck in time loops, and those select few not stuck in the loops have to navigate the new world around them.

I loved getting to know our protagonist, Coco, and that we get to see her learn and grow across decades of her life. It’s not often I read a book that covers such a vast timeframe and I enjoyed the experience. Not only do we get to see so many characters develop in so many ways across the span of the novel, but we also get to see how the world post-apocalypse might function.

Those people stuck in loops relive the same moments over and over again, anywhere from just a few seconds up to a twenty-or-so-hour loop. And they absolutely must not be disturbed or they will react with extreme violence toward the person who broke their loop.

Coco sets off to explore the world and find other non-loopers like her, and she ends up finding a whole community. The book follows their lives as they forage for food, build homes and families, and ultimately try to figure out a way to stop the looping and learn why it happened in the first place.

The Never-Ending End of the World features a unique concept that I really loved, fun characters, and immersive worldbuilding. And it’s a standalone! I would recommend this book to any fans of dystopian science fiction who love character-focused stories.

Review: EVERYTHING THE DARKNESS EATS by Eric LaRocca

 

Rating: 3.25/5 stars 

A string of mysterious disappearances in a small town has everyone on edge as they wait to see who will be taken next. The police are doing nothing, the residents are scared, and the darkness is coming. 

This novel has the feel of a collection of short stories that are all interconnected. There is no single main character or group of protagonists, but instead there are snippets of various people’s lives throughout the novel, all of them coming up multiple times and all being related in some way. 

I enjoy Eric LaRocca’s writing style. This is my third novel by him, and even though none of his books have received five stars from me, they have still all been great reads that I would recommend to horror fans. I will continue to read whatever new books he publishes in the future. 

Even though I liked this book overall, I didn’t, however, particularly love the supernatural aspect of the story. There is a source of darkness that is said to be God incarnate in the world and it is maliciously evil, and I didn’t like seeing God being portrayed in that way. I’ve never been the biggest fan of reading about deities in fiction, even fantastical and mythological ones, but I prefer it even less when the god in question is our actual God. 

Likewise, I enjoyed the first 60% or so of this novel more than the back half. Can’t really say why’s specifically—maybe something to do with the weird rituals toward the end? Either way, I still recommend Everything the Darkness Eats. It was compelling and eerie, and the characters were fun to get to know. 

Review: FOUR FOUND DEAD by Natalie D. Richards

 

Rating: 3/5 stars

I picked up this book because the author was visiting my local bookstore and I wanted to attend the event, but I felt that I should read at least one of her books beforehand. 

I liked the premise here: seven teens are working late at the movie theater on the last night ever it will be open. But once all the customers leave, the manager essentially locks them in and starts getting a little violent. The teens escape to the attached abandoned mall as they try to outrun their manager who is killing them off one by one as they are looking for a way to ultimately escape the entire building altogether. 

I love the idea of an abandoned mall as the setting for a thriller. And the novel takes place in Sandusky, Ohio, which I have been to multiple times! So I thought that was pretty neat. It was also exciting to know from the beginning that four of the characters were going to be dead by the end of the book, so I try to guess whose untimely end was going to be next. 

I enjoyed Four Found Dead, but it was also very middle-of-the-road. The setting and the synopsis made the book sound like it was going to be better than it actually was, which is to say that the execution is what was lacking. I flew through the first 50%, but after that it wasn’t as “thrilling” as I expected it to be. The narrative felt a little repetitive at times, too. 

Overall, this was a fine thriller while I was reading it, but it will likely not be too memorable in the long run. I was able to meet Natalie Richards at the author event, and she was a delightful and fun person to chat with. I ended up grabbing two other books by her that sounded like they would be more my style as I’m definitely interested in reading more of her novels in the future. 

Review: THE TREES GREW BECAUSE I BLED THERE: COLLECTED STORIES by Eric LaRocca

 

Rating: 3.2/5 stars

“You Follow Wherever They Go”—1.5/5 stars 

Not off to a great start. This story really did nothing for me and I’m not sure what the point of it was. It was also very short, and I’ve noticed that the shorter the short story, the less likely I am to like it. 

“Bodies Are for Burning”—3/5 stars 

This story definitely has tense undertones, and the author writes it in a way where you feel kind of nervous and worried for the character the whole time. I thought it was well-written and an interesting concept. Enjoyment-wise it was middle-of-the-road for me though. 

“The Strange Thing We Become”—4/5 stars

I enjoyed the forum-post style this story was told in. It was counting down to an event, giving it that ominous air of something gone horribly wrong but you don’t know yet what happened. This story was sad but also compelling. I think I liked it. 

“The Trees Grew Because I Bled There”—4/5 stars 

Well if that wasn’t the most disturbing story I’ve ever read. It definitely goes head to head with “Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke,” but I really don’t know which one was more egregious. This story was creepy and unsettling, evoking feelings of imminent disgust and ominous dread lingering in the distance. Definitely worth a read for any body horror fans out there. 

“You’re Not Supposed to Be Here”—3.5/5 stars 

I didn’t particularly enjoy most of this story, but it had a very impactful ending. The ending completely threw me for a loop and made me rethink the whole of the story up to that point, which I think is the mark of a twist done well. This story will definitely stick with me. 

“Where Flames Burned Emerald as Grass”—2/5 stars 

This story ventures into some animal-themed horror. All of LaRocca’s stories that I’ve read have interesting concepts and masterful executions, but not all of them are enjoyable for me to read, and this is one of those. I don’t love reading about kidnapping as that is a truly terrifying concept to me, and this narrative bordered on that. I’m not totally sure what the point of this story was or what the title is referring to, either. 

“I’ll Be Gone by Then”—3.5/5 stars 

Starts out as a pretty normal story with a few morbid moments throughout, but then concludes with an eerie and unsettling ending that kind of turns the nature of the narrative on its head. I liked this story, but didn’t love it. 

“Please Leave or I’m Going to Hurt You”—4/5 stars 

This wasn’t horror, just kind of sad and maybe a little uncomfortable to read, but not horror by any means (as far as I can tell). I enjoyed the story, but this is one where I don’t fully understand the implications of the ending. The romantic in me also wished for a different outcome.