Book Review, Fiction

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

Set primarily at the University of Edinburgh, I was sucked in immediately by the allure of an academic setting. Pen is attending the university from Canada in part because she believes there’s someone there who can help her understand her parents’ divorce. Her best friend Alice is also attending. I loved their friendship. They had been friends forever and watching them fumble their way through university together, making mistakes as they went, was such an understandable journey.

Pen’s sleuthing skills led her to a wealthy author, Elliott Lennox, in the countryside and she visits his estate in the hopes that he will have information for her about her family. Instead, she finds herself welcomed by his family and drawn to Elliott’s son, Sasha, in particular. Thus her relationship with the family quickly becomes more complex than its mysterious beginning. I adored this family – how warm they were and how they enveloped Pen.

Alice’s storyline felt a little half-baked in comparison to Pen’s and I’m not sure it was really necessary. Although still interesting and a good example of how we may experience and make mistakes through early adulthood, her story felt completely divorced from the central plotline.

There was also on-campus drama that flowed between Pen’s visits to the Lennox estate and these depicted believable college experiences. I did feel that Pen’s relationship with the Lennox family was the most compelling part of the story, but her time at school was filled with enough drama that the book never felt dry.

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Book Review, Fiction

The Sun Sets in Singapore by Kehinde Fadipe ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Fiction

This drama follows three women who are Nigerian ex-pats living in Singapore. Dara is a lawyer fighting for partnership at her firm, Amaka is a banker struggling to keep her finances in check, and Lillian followed her husband to Singapore from the US and finds herself lost when their marriage ends. All three are impacted by the arrival of Lani, an attractive new hire at Dara’s firm.

This book was primarily propelled along by drama amongst the women, their friends and family, and everyone’s evolving relationship to Lani. It was very character-driven, yet I found myself mostly only caring about Dara’s storyline. That said, Fadipe did an incredible job in creating believably flawed women.

The various ways the women obsessed over Lani was a bit much for me at times, but it worked as a means for ratcheting up the tension. This was very much a quick, melodramatic read and although I didn’t connect with the characters all that much, I had fun learning about their lives.

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Book Review, Fiction

I Hope this Finds You Well by Natalie Sue ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

Jolene does the bare minimum to squeak by at her job and gets her qualms with her colleagues out by including her complaints in emails in white text. When she’s caught, HR is supposed to install software to monitor her computer, but instead allows her access to every message being sent in the company.

Jolene’s inner monologue and conflicting interests as to what to do with this newfound information was witty, funny, and sometimes painful. The nuance of office etiquette and the ways people skirt around it were so well summed up in this book.

We get to know Jolene’s mom and their relationship, her neighbor, and a number of her colleagues. I liked how each relationship helped me to understand a different piece of Jolene.

Obviously, things get tangled in a sea of dishonesty, but it helped me to see just how much growth Jolene’s character had. I loved that something negative (snooping on all her colleagues) led to her often understanding them more as people and opening up to them more. It was an unexpected outcome. There was also a really adorable romance that I could not have rooted for more.

There’s depth and darkness to Jolene’s character and a lot of her thoughts about her life are largely negative. That said, her sarcasm and sense of humor lent a light note to the writing. It was a joy to read and I could so perfectly visualize the story.

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Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪
Genre: Romance

I wish I hadn’t bothered finishing this book because it continued to make me roll my eyes the whole way through. Samantha meets Xavier when she brings a kitten she found to his veterinary practice. There’s immediate chemistry, but just one problem, she’s moving across the country to help care for her mother who has dementia.

I really like the chemistry between the two main characters but, as per the entire premise, they’re across the country from each other for most of the book. They’re both completely miserable and it was not enjoyable to read about over and over. It made it hard to root for their relationship.

One of the main things that completely ruined this read for me were the endless references to social media and pop culture. Samantha works in social media for a mustard company and the number of times the author included mustard related instagram captions that were supposed to be funny was absolutely unnecessary. It completely pulled me out of the story every time.

There were about 1,000 things going on in Samantha’s life, none of which were discussed in depth enough for me to care and I was not a fan of the ultimate conclusion. It’s time I accept that this author is not for me.

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Book Review, Fiction

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

Great Big Beautiful Life has so much going for it. It has a grumpy/sunshine romance following Alice and Hayden as they compete for the chance to write the story of the elusive Margaret Ives, an heiress who grew up in a famous family and hasn’t been seen for years. The rumors swirling around her past make this opportunity – to finally bring her life to the public eye – a huge one.

Alice is desperate for her big break, but worried that Pulitzer-prize winning Hayden will beat her. As they bump into each other time and again on the small island, they begin to realize that A. Margaret is not telling them each the same things and B. they are undeniably attracted to each other.

The growing tension between the writers combined with them being competitors and bound by an NDA about their time with Margaret was delicious. I was eager to see how they would navigate the difficulty of their situation.

Much of the book tells the story of Margaret’s past and her family history. It felt like it was trying to be very Evelyn Hugo-esque. I know it was supposed to be scandalous and exciting, but I really didn’t care about her past. It didn’t feel like her character was fleshed out enough for me to be invested in her family history and the excerpts in the past (which was a lot of the book) fell flat for me. Whenever I was reading one, I wished I could rush through to get back to Alice and Hayden.

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Book Review, Science Fiction, YA

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Science Fiction

Oh how I loved being back in the world of the Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins has done it again, this time chronicling the Quarter Quell games, which Haymitch participated in. Knowing Haymitch in the context of the original books, I was intrigued to see how his past informed his future, while also bracing myself because we know from the start things will not go well.

Collins does a beautiful job world-building and showing us how Haymitch has developed strong relationships with those around him despite the unfortunate circumstances in District 12. I was impressed with how fully I felt I understood his life and his place there in the short time before the reaping.

I feel like Collins said okay, the audience knows a few key things that happen to Haymitch already so let me completely throw them for a loop and make them entirely unexpected. The way I had no idea what was coming (see the reaping) even thought I kind of  knew what was coming.

There are a lot of characters, particularly since the Quarter Quell had double the number of tributes as usual, but each kid was so distinct (sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way), that I had no trouble distinguishing between and feeling for them.

The final chapters of this book were shocking in a way that I hated but also so clearly defined who Haymitch becomes. Lucky for me, I haven’t read The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes yet, so I will be heading back into this universe ASAP.

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Book Review, Fiction, thriller

When You Find Me by P.J. Vernon ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪.5
Genre: Thriller

Gray Godfrey is home visiting her family when her husband goes missing after a night out. Gray, who regularly drinks to oblivion, blacked out the night he disappeared and finds herself a suspect even to herself.

The descriptions of how much Gray wanted to drink and how she could sneak a drink and where she could find a drink were about half the content of this book. We needed like three sentences explaining that she was an alcoholic, yet it was hammered into the story incessantly. I found all the characters extremely unlikeable, which made it hard for me to care what happened.

The story is told in alternating viewpoints, which I enjoyed. One in particular, Annie, is a mystery for much of the story and I was eager to find out how her perspective fit into the lives of the other characters and what role she played in everything.

I found the big twist to be kind of a cop-out, but the veryyyy last sentence was really well done, so that was something.

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Book Review, Fiction, Science Fiction

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Science Fiction

I read Mickey7 after seeing the movie adaptation, which I’ll admit, I enjoyed more than the book. This story has a wonderfully wacky sci-fi premise. Mickey is an Expendable. His role, as his colony continues their expedition to colonize a new planet, is to act as an exploratory guinea pig. Every time he dies, he is reprinted and continues as the next Mickey. That is, until Mickey8 is accidentally printed while Mickey7 is still alive.

The worldbuilding was so fascinating in this book. I liked learning about the space exploration and the history of other colonies. Mickey is a historian and sprinkling in the history of his universe added to both his character and my understanding of the present. There were also religious elements brought in, with some people feeling morally opposed to Expendables based on their religious beliefs. It was a well thought out addition that made the colony feel real.

The writing made this book especially amusing, it was funny and sharp and witty, even when the Mickey’s themselves tended to be dumb. It was especially enjoyable to listen to.

I found that the storyline dragged for me. It felt like not much happened for rather large chunks of the book, and there was some repetitive historical context that hammered some points home a little more than necessary. I also much preferred the ending of the movie and the role of the native creatures in it.

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Buy Mickey7 at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Fiction

Come & Get It by Kiley Reid ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Fiction

The premise of this book was so random I genuinely had no idea what was going to happen. I went into it completely blind after seeing it all over bookstagram and receiving a copy from Libro.fm. Agatha, a new professor at the University of Arkansas, is first introduced to Millie, an RA, and her residents, when she interviews them about their perspective on marriage for a research project she is working on. The answers she receives from the girls however, lead Agatha down an entirely different and not entirely ethical road.

There are a bunch of characters in this book and each of them behaves, in some way, badly. I never knew what was going to come out of these girls’ mouths or how someone else was going to twist it. We get the group dynamic of a set of college girls living in a suite and the weird power dynamic with Millie, their RA and her friends. And then Agatha, in a league of her own. Everyone was so messy. Parts of it were so relatable in terms of how gossipy and dramatic people can be at that age, but it always went way farther than I expected, which was fun.

For a book that doesn’t really have a ton of action, which is not my usual vibe, this completely sucked me in. There was backstory about every character and I was interested in finding out more about each of them and what drove their actions.

This book touches on race, money, and power and how a petty, self-serving set of characters interact with these dynamics.

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Book Review, Fiction, thriller

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Thriller

I’m sorry, but just as there are too many podcasts out there, there are also too many books about podcasts out there. It is less and less interesting each time I come across a similar premise. In Listen for the Lie, podcast host Ben Owens is investigating the years-old murder of Savvy, Lucy’s best friend.

Lucy has long been suspected of having a hand in Savvy’s death, particularly since she claims to not be able to remember anything from that night. Now, back home at the same time as the murder is being revisited, Lucy is back in the spotlight.

I listened to this one on audio and it went by very quickly. I did enjoy the way the podcast was included as excerpts within the story. It broke things up and kept them moving.

Lucy’s romantic relationships were kind of a random choice to include. She had multiple romantic encounters throughout the book that just kind of made me think she was less intelligent.

I was very intrigued to figure out who was behind the murder, but it didn’t feel like there was any pressure to figure it out. Things just sort of plodded along and, in my opinion, there was no big reveal.

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