Last Night in Brooklyn is Xochitl Gonzalez’s latest novel and was published just this year. Like Olga Dies Dreaming and Anita de Monte Laughs Last, the focus of Last Night in Brooklyn is the Puerto Rican diaspora and the lives of Black and brown people in New York, but it doesn’t feel like a retread. It is an interesting story of the hedonistic lives of creatives living in a Brooklyn on the cusp of change.
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Old Soul is a horror novel that I had been waiting to come out in paperback, and to be honest I am glad I did not spend the money on the hardcover version because as much as I enjoyed the story, I was disappointed to find this novel not scary at all and the ending REALLY PISSED ME OFF.
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Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi is one of those books I keep seeing on lists of books you should read and after many years, curiosity finally got me to the point of reading it. It is a strange little book that I don’t think is for everyone, but I really like it.
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The Marrow Thieves sat in my TBR pile for a long time because I wasn’t sure I was ready for another story that was going to make me sad as well as infuriate me. But my TBR pile recently got low enough that it was time to read The Marrow Thieves, and I am glad that I did. It makes sense that this powerful story has ended up on so many “best book” lists.
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There is something about the way the plot of this book is described on the inside cover that led me to believe that Wildwood is a survival thriller. It is more of a lighthearted survival story than a thriller. Kind of disappointing, but I still found myself engrossed by this novel for reasons other than plot and character.
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I was looking forward to reading Helpless because I really like Jessica Knoll’s Bright Young Women and grew to like Luckiest Girl Alive, but I don’t know what the heck this is. I am so disappointed with this novel because it is not at all what I expected from someone who wrote such an emotionally devastating and thoughtful story like Bright Young Women.
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To be honest, I am not sure if I was just not in the right head space to read No Friend to This House because I am experiencing Greek mythology fatigue, or if No Friend to This House is just not as good as Natalie Haynes’s previous novels, because I found this one to be boring.
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I really liked Alix E. Harrow’s Starling House, so when I saw The Everlasting in my local independent bookstore, I knew I should read it, especially after reading the synopsis, and it turned out to be better than I hoped it would be.
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Lady Tremaine is Rachel Hochhauser’s first novel. It is a retelling of Cinderella from the perspective of the “wicked” stepmother. I’ll admit the pretty cover is the reason why I bought this book, and it is always a treat when the story turns out just to be as good as its cover.
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Evelyn Clarke is the pseudonym for V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke, and The Ending Writes Itself is their first novel written together. It is an entertaining mystery story, although I found it too easy to figure out whodunnit.
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