Tag: reading

Book Review, Memoir, Nonfiction

Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Memoir

I have no idea how this memoir got on my radar, but once I started it, it was hard to put down. Belle Burden unflinchingly details her relationship with her husband, from its whirlwind beginning through, decades later, his sudden decision to leave her and their children shortly after the pandemic began.

Through her writing, Belle does a wonderful job of reconstructing her relationship so the reader understands how her husband showed up and presented over the years and the life they built together. It allowed me to understand her shock and her yearning for answers. It made me wonder if writing this served as a way for her to work through everything.

Belle also shares candidly things she wishes she had done differently during her marriage, and makes a strong case for financial literacy and staying involved in your finances even if your partner mostly “handles” them. She highlights different people’s reactions to her husband’s choice and how they reflect societal norms.

The extent of Belle’s privilege that was included was a little offputting to me, although I guess I’d rather she be candid about it than not. It just made me think about how much worse a situation like this could be for someone without her kind of upbringing and wealth, which I don’t think was her point, but in a way maybe including this made its own additional point.

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Book Review, Fiction

Culpability by Bruce Holsinger ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Fiction

Culpability is an ambitious fictional exploration of the increasing role of AI in our lives and the ethical considerations around it. The book starts with a family getting into a car crash that kills two people. Who was driving? Was it technically the autonomous car, or teenage Charlie who was in the driver’s seat? In the wake of the incident, the family retreats to a rented house on the Chesapeake Bay to try to lay low and process what happened. As each one grapples with the fallout, we slowly learn that they are all harboring secrets related to the crash.

The family drama and secrets kept me most drawn to this story. Although I didn’t really like any of the characters, I wanted to know what they were hiding from one another and how it was all going to come to light. That part of the story did not disappoint. Lorelei, Charlie’s mother, is a leader in the AI space adding an extra wrinkle to the discussion about AI within the story and influencing perspectives and motivations.

Despite a very interesting and timely premise, I felt like this book had a lack of focus that kept it from totally working for me. There was a whole second ‘incident’ with Charlie that popped up partway through the story and seemed totally weird and unnecessary. For me, it took away from the main issues at the center of the book, in terms of both technology and the family drama.

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Buy Culpability at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Fiction, Romance

Charm City Rocks by Matthew Norman ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Romance

I read Matthew Norman’s holiday romance at the end of 2025 and loved it so I was excited to pick up Charm City Rocks for that reason and because I love the celebrity romance trope. Billy’s meddling son Caleb semi-accidentally reaches out to Billy’s former rock star crush, Margot Hammer. Pushed back into the spotlight by a documentary about her old band, Margot’s PR team encourages her to take the opportunity to travel to Billy’s town.

Billy and Margot’s chemistry was so palpable and I had a wonderful time watching their relationship grow. The descriptions of their behavior while doing regular things together made me root for them so much. I also enjoyed the way social media and the fanfare around them as a couple played into the story – which is unusual for me because I don’t usually like pop-culture making its way into books I read.

All the characters were really lovely. I liked the exploration of Caleb’s non-traditional family life and how strongly all the adults in his life supported him. I also appreciated a romance about characters who were older than their twenties.

Charm City Rocks is exactly what I’m hoping for when I pick up a light romance.

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Buy Charm City Rocks at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Fiction, Magical Realism

The Second Chance Cinema by Thea Weiss ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪
Genre: Magical Realism

One night, Ellie and her fiancé Drake come across a glamorous old school cinema they’ve never seen before only to discover that the one thing it’s showing is memories from each of their lives. After their first showing, they struggle to decide if they should return and risk uprooting secrets they’ve been keeping from each other.

I love movies and I love magical realism, so by all accounts this book should have been totally my thing. I really struggled with the main characters though. They felt incredibly one dimensional to the point where I didn’t care about them or really buy into their love story. There kept being things set up as big secrets from their pasts and I kept waiting to be shocked, but everything felt very blasé to me.

The main redeeming element of this book was the cinema because I could perfectly imagine its glitzyness and I liked the zany employees there. It felt like much more of a fleshed out world and concept than the rest of the book. I would have loved to spend more time there, rather than out in ‘real life’ with Ellie and Drake.

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Buy The Second Chance Cinema at an indie bookstore near you
These Summer Storms on Goodreads

Book Review, Fantasy, Fiction

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Mass ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Fantasy
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

I have heard sooo many good things about the Throne of Glass series and despite my difficulty getting into fantasy, I’m so glad I picked it up. I think part of what was helpful for me is that there wasn’t an overwhelming amount of worldbuilding at the beginning. It was integrated really naturally throughout the story. 

Celaena is an assassin fighting for her freedom. She has been chosen to compete against twenty-three other people and if she wins, she will leave prison and become the king’s champion. Before too many of her competitors are disqualified, however, they begin to show up dead.

There were so many pieces to this book that made it really bingeable: a love triangle, the competition itself, the mystery of what was killing people, the glamor of the castle and royalty within it, and hints of magic. I found the competition maybe slightly less compelling than the rest of it, but I loved Celaena’s solo adventures through the castle she was staying in and seeing her relationships grow and change.

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Buy Throne of Glass at an indie bookstore near you
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Book Review, Fiction

The Compound by Aisling Rawle ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Fiction

I was obsessed with the concept behind this book. It takes place on the ‘set’ of a reality show much like Love Island in which contestants must pair up into couples as a safety net to remain on the show. The compound they are staying with starts out trashed from the previous season of contestants and with few supplies and they must complete tasks or challenges to gain things, which they often then promote to watchers back home.

The setting of this compound was so vivid to me and I loved the way it changed throughout the story as contestants were rewarded or punished for their actions. It was also clear that the outside world was in some way dystopian, making the motivation to stay on the show and in the compound that much greater. I love it when a setting feels almost like a character in itself and that was definitely the case in this one.

Lily, our narrator, is extremely beautiful but doesn’t have much else going for her (in her own words). She doesn’t really have much of a personality, but I think that was largely the point. She’s exactly the type of vain, fame-hungry person you might expect to be on this kind of show. I appreciated getting to know the other contestants through her eyes and trying to figure out who would be trustworthy.

I’m a big fan of reality tv, which I think added to my enjoyment of the premise, but the unsettling, cutthroat nature of the game upped the ante. There were elements of desperation in the game that reminded me of The Hunger Games in the best way.

I was expecting there to be a little more to the ending, which is why this didn’t quite make it to five stars, but I loved it nonetheless.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy The Compound at an indie bookstore near you
The Compound on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, Magical Realism

Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪.5
Genre: Fiction

Cassandra, our neurodivergent main character, has always needed things to be done in a certain way and tends to struggle to understand other people’s perspectives. When she unexpectedly discovers that she has the ability to go back in time, she uses it to her advantage to learn more about the people and experiences around her and play out scenarios in a way that she’s happier with. Most notably, she attempts to keep her job and her boyfriend, both of which she loses at the beginning of the book.

The premise of this story was so intriguing to me. I love magical realism and have enjoyed a lot of similar types of books. Unfortunately, the way time travel was used in this book was a) incredibly repetitive and b) undefined to a point where it was confusing what the rules of this new ‘ability’ were.

I really enjoyed the way that Cassandra (sometimes) learned and grew from her power, but often she was just hitting rewind willy nilly to her heart’s content when she said something slightly wrong. I also didn’t particularly appreciate how much effort she spent trying to change herself for a man and using her powers to keep herself in situations that clearly did not serve her. I found it to be incredibly frustrating.

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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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Buy The Sun Sets in Singapore at an indie bookstore near you
The Sun Sets in Singapore on Goodreads

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

The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Fiction

The Castaways tells the story of four Nantucket couples who comprise a friend group. When one of the couples is killed while out sailing, it acts as a catalyst for the unraveling of years’ worth of secrets the group has been keeping from one another.

Although the central event in the book is the sudden loss of Greg and Tess, it also takes the time to share past vacations the full group has taken together. Hilderbrand shows us that the full group dynamic is not representative of the individual relationships within it and draws back the curtain on them one at a time. Yes, that means there are a lot of different points of view, but that kept things interesting for me. We got to see things through a lot of different perspectives.

It was a little slower moving than some of Hilderbrand’s other books, but the central mystery about what happened to Greg and Tess kept me locked in. 

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