threeandahalfstars | The Bossy Bookworm

Sep 7

Review of One of Us Is Back (One of Us Is Lying #3) by Karen M. McManus

This third book in McManus's young-adult mystery series keeps the surprises coming, ties new twists into early events from the series,...

Sep 6

Review of Only Pretty Damned by Niall Howard

Niall Howard's debut is a noir story about the underbelly of life in a post-World-War-II circus, with a disgruntled clown, formerly a...

Sep 5

Review of The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston

I loved the aunt-niece bond, the peeks into the NYC worlds of publishing and restaurants, and the playing with time. I was irritated by...

Aug 24

Review of This House Is Not a Home by Katlia

Katlia's story is based on actual events, detailing the displacement of Indigenous people and the devastating consequences of greed, the...

Aug 16

Review of Fourth Wing (The Empyrean #1) by Rebecca Yarros

The first in this dragon rider series by Yarros is full of dramaaaaatic teen angst, a cutthroat path to becoming a warrior, bucking...

Aug 10

Review of Those We Thought We Knew by David Joy

David Joy's mystery, Those We Thought We Knew, set in the North Carolina mountains, explores issues of racism, corruption, generational...

Jul 27

Review of Hello Stranger by Katherine Center

I couldn't get past the holes in the premise of this lighthearted, romantic, zany rom-com long enough to buy into the story of an artist...

Jul 12

Review of Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Adjei-Brenyah's novel explores in disturbing detail a version of a society that may feel familiar: a corrupt, greedy prison system; the...

Jul 6

Review of Maddalena and the Dark by Julia Fine

Julia Fine's Maddalena and the Dark is a gothic story set in 1700s Venice in which two young women's lives and destinies become...

Jul 5

Review of Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

Ali Hazelwood's light fiction novel is wonderfully immersed in science, offering a forbidden relationship and an enemies-to-lovers...

Jun 27

Review of Daughter of the Pirate King (Daughter of the Pirate King #1) by Tricia Levenseller

The fun first book in Tricia Levenseller's trilogy about a teenage female pirate captain sets up a long game toward obtaining a key...

Jun 8

Review of Legendborn (The Legendborn Cycle #1) by Tracy Deonn

The first in the series sets up a strong young Black heroine who bucks tradition as she explores her own heritage, flexes her newfound...

May 10

Review of The Wife and the Widow by Christian White

White's twisty mystery is set against the backdrop of an unforgiving winter on an Australian island, with two women attempting to piece...

Apr 26

Review of Burst by Mary Otis

Mary Otis's debut novel explores the complicated mother-daughter relationship between alcoholic, erratic Charlotte and rigid,...

Apr 19

Review of Happy Place by Emily Henry

Six longtime friends gather for one last Maine vacation--but each of them has been keeping secrets that impact their relationships. The...

Mar 29

Review of The Dream Builders by Oindrila Mukherjee

I love a novel set in India, and the details of the sparkling promise and darker underpinnings of the city of Hrishipur were a standout...

Mar 23

Review of The Levee by William Kent Krueger

William Kent Krueger's writing is beautiful, and J.D. Jackson reads the audiobook wonderfully, but I felt impatient with the focus on...

Mar 14

Review of This Other Eden by Paul Harding

Harding bases his slim historical fiction novel This Other Eden on a real-life, racially integrated island off the coast of Maine,...

Feb 14

Review of Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

Kapoor's gritty New Delhi-set novel explores brutal violence and cruelties in an exploration of class divides and the destructive power...

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