About: Disorientation is a gripping campus novel that uses satire to confront bias and complicity in academic spaces.
(more…)Book Review: Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou
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King Arthur and Her Knights, A Series by K.M. Shea
K
4-stars • The series King Arthur and Her Knights is an entertaining and light-hearted gender-bent King Arthur retelling that follows Brit as she’s pulled back in time to unite Britain by assuming the position of King Arthur.
(more…)A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas
A
Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses
Release Date: February 16, 2021
<strong>Synopsis</strong>
Nesta Archeron has always been prickly-proud, swift to anger, and slow to forgive. And ever since being forced into the Cauldron and becoming High Fae against her will, she’s struggled to find a place for herself within the strange, deadly world she inhabits. Worse, she can’t seem to move past the horrors of the war with Hybern and all she lost in it.
The one person who ignites her temper more than any other is Cassian, the battle-scarred warrior whose position in Rhysand and Feyre’s Night Court keeps him constantly in Nesta’s orbit. But her temper isn’t the only thing Cassian ignites. The fire between them is undeniable, and only burns hotter as they are forced into close quarters with each other.
Meanwhile, the treacherous human queens who returned to the Continent during the last war have forged a dangerous new alliance, threatening the fragile peace that has settled over the realms. And the key to halting them might very well rely on Cassian and Nesta facing their haunting pasts.
Against the sweeping backdrop of a world seared by war and plagued with uncertainty, Nesta and Cassian battle monsters from within and without as they search for acceptance-and healing-in each other’s arms.
<strong>Ending</strong>
HFN
<strong>Representation</strong>
• Bisexual side character
• Supporting character of colour
• Supporting character of colour
<strong>Possible Triggers:</strong> Yes
• Discussion of past r@pe and sexual assault
• Attempted r@pe
• PTSD
• Depression
• Suicidal ideation
• Violence with blood and gore
• Discussion of past physical abuse
• Attempted r@pe
• PTSD
• Depression
• Suicidal ideation
• Violence with blood and gore
• Discussion of past physical abuse
<strong>Safety Rating:</strong> Safe
• No cheating
• No OW/OM drama
– Nesta has *not* been celibate since meeting Cassian
– Cassian has been celibate for 2-years
• Does have the Hero and Heroine pushing away
• Does have a separation between the Hero and Heroine
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
• No OW/OM drama
– Nesta has *not* been celibate since meeting Cassian
– Cassian has been celibate for 2-years
• Does have the Hero and Heroine pushing away
• Does have a separation between the Hero and Heroine
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
Format: Kindle
Rating: 4.25/5 stars
(more…)Lyrical Yet Underwhelming: Sisters of Sword and Song by Rebecca Ross
L
Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 23, 2020
<strong>Synopsis</strong>
From the author of The Queen’s Rising comes a thrilling YA stand-alone fantasy about the unbreakable bond between sisters. Perfect for fans of Ember in the Ashes, Sky in the Deep, and Court of Fives.
After eight long years, Evadne will finally be reunited with her older sister, Halcyon, who has been proudly serving in the queen’s army. But when Halcyon appears earlier than expected, Eva knows something has gone terribly wrong. Halcyon is on the run, hunted by her commander and charged with murder.
Though Halcyon’s life is spared during her trial, the punishment is heavy. And when Eva volunteers to serve part of Halcyon’s sentence, she’s determined to find out exactly what happened. But as Eva begins her sentence, she quickly learns that there are fates much worse than death.
<strong>Ending</strong>
HFN
<strong>Representation</strong>
No strong representations of the following:
• BIPOC characters
• LGBTQIA+ characters
• characters with a disability
And doesn’t address fatphobia
• BIPOC characters
• LGBTQIA+ characters
• characters with a disability
And doesn’t address fatphobia
<strong>Possible Triggers:</strong> Yes
• Murder
• Betrayal of mentor/mentee resulting in imprisonment
• Torture
• Death of a sibling
• Death of a parent
• Betrayal of mentor/mentee resulting in imprisonment
• Torture
• Death of a sibling
• Death of a parent
<strong>Safety Rating:</strong> Safe
• No cheating
• No OW/OM drama
• Does have the Heroine pushing the Hero away
• Does have a separation between the Hero and Heroine
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
• No OW/OM drama
• Does have the Heroine pushing the Hero away
• Does have a separation between the Hero and Heroine
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
Format: Hardcover
Rating: 3.75/5 stars
(more…)Magical and Entrancing: Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
M
Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 4, 2019
<strong>Synopsis</strong>
All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery—magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power.
Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth’s desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.
As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught—about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.
<strong>Ending</strong>
HFN
<strong>Representation</strong>
• Bisexual Hero
• Asexual supporting character
• Asexual supporting character
<strong>Possible Triggers:</strong> Yes
• Murder
• Allusion to torture
• Gaslighting
• Allusion to torture
• Gaslighting
<strong>Safety Rating:</strong> Safe
• No cheating
• No OW/OM drama
• Does have the Hero pushing the Heroine away
• Does have a separation between the Heroine and Hero
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
• No OW/OM drama
• Does have the Hero pushing the Heroine away
• Does have a separation between the Heroine and Hero
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
Format: Hardcover
Rating: 4.75/5 stars
(more…)Gut-wrenching and Healing: The Cabin by Jasinda Wilder
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Series: Standalone
Release Date: October 22, 2020
<strong>Synopsis</strong>
One year ago, I buried my husband.
One year ago, I held his hand and said goodbye.
Now I spend most of my days lost somewhere between trying to remember every smallest detail of our lives, and trying to forget it all. I fill my hours with work until I’m too exhausted to remember him, to feel anything at all.
One year, 365 days—and then one knock at my door changes everything. A letter from him, a last request, a secret will:
My dearest Nadia,
Trust me, my love. One last time, trust me. Sometimes the epilogue to one story is the beginning of another.
<strong>Ending</strong>
HEA (married and expecting a baby)
<strong>Representation</strong>
• Black Biracial supporting character
<strong>Possible Triggers:</strong> Yes
• Cancer
• Death of loved ones
• Grief
• Depression
• Suicidal ideation
• References of miscarriage
• Death of loved ones
• Grief
• Depression
• Suicidal ideation
• References of miscarriage
<strong>Safety Rating:</strong> Not Safe
• No cheating
• No OW/OM drama
— But the Heroine’s husband dies from cancer at ~30% into the novel. So, the reader gets his POV. He’s really the first Hero.
— The Hero (who the Heroine eventually gets with) is also grieving *his* dead wife
• Does have the Heroine pushing the Hero away
• No separation
• No OW/OM drama
— But the Heroine’s husband dies from cancer at ~30% into the novel. So, the reader gets his POV. He’s really the first Hero.
— The Hero (who the Heroine eventually gets with) is also grieving *his* dead wife
• Does have the Heroine pushing the Hero away
• No separation
Note: the Safety Rating is Not Safe because the reader reads the Heroine’s husband — who she’s very much in love with — die on page in both their POVs.
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
Format: Kindle Unlimited
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
(more…)Heartbreaking and Moving: Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano
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Series: Standalone
Release Date: January 6, 2020
<strong>Synopsis</strong>
One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Among them is a Wall Street wunderkind, a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy, an injured vet returning from Afghanistan, a septuagenarian business tycoon, and a free-spirited woman running away from her controlling husband. And then, tragically, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor.
Edward’s story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place for himself in a world without his family. He continues to feel that a piece of him has been left in the sky, forever tied to the plane and all of his fellow passengers. But then he makes an unexpected discovery–one that will lead him to the answers of some of life’s most profound questions: When you’ve lost everything, how do find yourself? How do you discover your purpose? What does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live?
Dear Edward is at once a transcendent coming-of-age story, a multidimensional portrait of an unforgettable cast of characters, and a breathtaking illustration of all the ways a broken heart learns to love again.
<strong>Ending</strong>
HFN
<strong>Representation</strong>
• Black Gay supporting character
• Latina supporting character and side character
• Asian side character
• Latina supporting character and side character
• Asian side character
<strong>Possible Triggers:</strong> Yes
• Frequent Harry Potter references; J.K. Rowling is transphobic
• MC dealing with the death of his whole family and being the sole survivor of a plane crash (when he’s a child)
• Discusses miscarriages
• Supporting character has cancer
• MC dealing with the death of his whole family and being the sole survivor of a plane crash (when he’s a child)
• Discusses miscarriages
• Supporting character has cancer
<strong>Mature Themes</strong>
• PTSD
• Grief of losing family
– Also, the grief of not being able to have kids
• Non-descriptive sex
• References to abortion
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
• Grief of losing family
– Also, the grief of not being able to have kids
• Non-descriptive sex
• References to abortion
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
Format: Hardcover
Rating: 5/5 stars
Trigger Warning: This book has frequent HP references. For other triggers, please read the ‘Possible Triggers’ tab above for details. (more…)Frustrating and Unconvincing: Dear Emmie Blue by Lia Louis
F
Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 14, 2020
<strong>Synopsis</strong>
In this charming and poignant novel, teenager Emmie Blue releases a balloon with her email address and a big secret into the sky, only to fall head-over-heels for the boy who finds it; now, fourteen years later, the one thing Emmie has been counting on is gone for good, and everything she planned is up in the air.
At sixteen, Emmie Blue stood in the fields of her school and released a red balloon into the sky. Attached was her name, her email address…and a secret she desperately wanted to be free of. Weeks later, on a beach in France, Lucas Moreau discovered the balloon and immediately emailed the attached addressed, sparking an intense friendship between the two teens.
Now, fourteen years later, Emmie is hiding the fact that she’s desperately in love with Lucas. She has pinned all her hopes on him and waits patiently for him to finally admit that she’s the one for him. So dedicated to her love for Lucas, Emmie has all but neglected her life outside of this relationship—she’s given up the search for her absentee father, no longer tries to build bridges with her distant mother, and lives as a lodger to an old lady she barely knows after being laid off from her job. And when Lucas tells Emmie he has a big question to ask her, she’s convinced this is the moment he’ll reveal his feelings for her. But nothing in life ever quite goes as planned, does it?
Emmie Blue is about to learn everything she thinks she knows about life (and love) is just that: what she thinks she knows. Is there such thing as meant to be? Or is it true when they say that life is what happens when you are busy making other plans? A story filled with heart and humor, Dear Emmie Blue is perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and Evvie Drake Starts Over.
<strong>Ending</strong>
HFN
<strong>Representation</strong>
• Biracial supporting character
• Lesbian supporting character
• Lesbian supporting character
<strong>Possible Triggers:</strong> Yes
• Sexual assault (referenced and inferred but never described)
• Death of loved one from cancer
• Bullying
• Parental abandonment
• Betrayal (A trusted person saying that the Heroine is to blame for her assault)
• Death of loved one from cancer
• Bullying
• Parental abandonment
• Betrayal (A trusted person saying that the Heroine is to blame for her assault)
<strong>Safety Rating:</strong> Safe with Exception
• No cheating
• Does have OM drama (kind of a love triangle situation)
• Does have OW (both the love interests have significant others… so the Heroine is kind of the OW in this big 😅)
• Does have the Hero and Heroine pushing each other away
• Does have a separation between the Hero and Heroine
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
• Does have OM drama (kind of a love triangle situation)
• Does have OW (both the love interests have significant others… so the Heroine is kind of the OW in this big 😅)
• Does have the Hero and Heroine pushing each other away
• Does have a separation between the Hero and Heroine
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
Format: Kindle
Rating: 3/5 stars
(more…)Riveting Yet Demoralizing: If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
R
Series: Standalone
Release Date: April 21, 2020
<strong>Synopsis:</strong>
A riveting debut novel set in contemporary Seoul, Korea, about four young women making their way in a world defined by impossibly high standards of beauty, secret room salons catering to wealthy men, strict social hierarchies, and K-pop fan mania.
“Even as a girl, I knew the only chance I had was to change my face… even before a fortune-teller told me so.”
Kyuri is a heartbreakingly beautiful woman with a hard-won job at a “room salon,” an exclusive bar where she entertains businessmen while they drink. Though she prides herself on her cold, clear-eyed approach to life, an impulsive mistake with a client may come to threaten her livelihood.
Her roommate, Miho, is a talented artist who grew up in an orphanage but won a scholarship to study art in New York. Returning to Korea after college, she finds herself in a precarious relationship with the super-wealthy heir to one of Korea’s biggest companies.
Down the hall in their apartment building lives Ara, a hairstylist for whom two preoccupations sustain her: an obsession with a boy-band pop star and a best friend who is saving up for the extreme plastic surgery that is commonplace.
And Wonna, one floor below, is a newlywed trying to get pregnant with a child that she and her husband have no idea how they can afford to raise and educate in the cutthroat economy.
Together, their stories tell a gripping tale that’s seemingly unfamiliar, yet unmistakably universal in the way that their tentative friendships may have to be their saving grace.
<strong>Ending:</strong>
Surprisingly hopeful
<strong>Representation</strong>
• South Korean main and supporting characters
<strong>Possible Triggers:</strong> Yes
• Parental abandonment
• Physical assault (on-page and off-page, one instance resulting in one main character, Ara becoming mute)
• Emotional abuse
• Discussion of abortion
• Discussion of miscarriage
• Cheating
• Discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation
• Discussion of murder and suicide of sex workers
• Physical assault (on-page and off-page, one instance resulting in one main character, Ara becoming mute)
• Emotional abuse
• Discussion of abortion
• Discussion of miscarriage
• Cheating
• Discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation
• Discussion of murder and suicide of sex workers
Title
Miho’s relationship with her boyfriend: Not Safe
• Does have cheating
• No OM
• Does have OW
— He cheats on her with a sex worker (a friend of Miho’s roommate) and is engaged to a woman from a family of similar economic wealth to him
• Does have Miho pushing Hanbin away
• No separation
• Does have cheating
• No OM
• Does have OW
— He cheats on her with a sex worker (a friend of Miho’s roommate) and is engaged to a woman from a family of similar economic wealth to him
• Does have Miho pushing Hanbin away
• No separation
Wonna’s relationship with her husband: Safe with Exception
• No cheating
• No OW/OM drama
• Does have Wonna pushing her husband away
• Does have a separation between Wonna and her husband (a permanent one, I think)
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
Format: Hardcover
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
(more…)Striking Yet Harrowing: Searching For Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok
S
Series: Standalone
Release Date: June 4, 2019
<strong>Synopsis:</strong>
A poignant and suspenseful drama that untangles the complicated ties binding three women—two sisters and their mother—in one Chinese immigrant family and explores what happens when the eldest daughter disappears, and a series of family secrets emerge, from the New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Translation
It begins with a mystery. Sylvie, the beautiful, brilliant, successful older daughter of the Lee family, flies to the Netherlands for one final visit with her dying grandmother—and then vanishes.
Amy, the sheltered baby of the Lee family, is too young to remember a time when her parents were newly immigrated and too poor to keep Sylvie. Seven years older, Sylvie was raised by a distant relative in a faraway, foreign place, and didn’t rejoin her family in America until age nine. Timid and shy, Amy has always looked up to her sister, the fierce and fearless protector who showered her with unconditional love.
But what happened to Sylvie? Amy and her parents are distraught and desperate for answers. Sylvie has always looked out for them. Now, it’s Amy’s turn to help. Terrified yet determined, Amy retraces her sister’s movements, flying to the last place Sylvie was seen. But instead of simple answers, she discovers something much more valuable: the truth. Sylvie, the golden girl, kept painful secrets . . . secrets that will reveal more about Amy’s complicated family—and herself—than she ever could have imagined.
A deeply moving story of family, secrets, identity, and longing, Searching for Sylvie Lee is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive portrait of an immigrant family. It is a profound exploration of the many ways culture and language can divide us and the impossibility of ever truly knowing someone—especially those we love.
<strong>Ending:</strong>
Tragedy; HFN
<strong>Representation</strong>
• Chinese main and supporting characters
<strong>Possible Triggers:</strong> Yes
• Racism
• Statutory r@pe
• Discussion of suicide
• Emotional and physical abuse
• Infidelity
• Statutory r@pe
• Discussion of suicide
• Emotional and physical abuse
• Infidelity
<strong>Mature Themes</strong>
• Childhood abandonment
• Missing person (the resulting grief that goes with that)
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
• Missing person (the resulting grief that goes with that)
• See Ending for HEA status.
• See Possible Triggers for Abuse and OTT sad parts.
Format: Hardcover
Rating: 4.75/5 stars
(more…)
