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Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson

Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson

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Yellow Wife is at times a difficult novel to read. Not because it’s boring or poorly written, but because of its honest depiction of its subject matter: slavery in antebellum US. Sadeqa does not shy away from vividly describing the horrifying treatment of African American slaves by their white masters. I’m not going to go into detail as it was difficult enough to stomach it while reading it. There were a few scenes in this novel where I had to stop reading for a moment and talk myself back into reading more. I’m not sharing this with you to turn you away from reading this novel. I think you should read it. I just can’t believe that people would treat other people the way white slave owners treated their slaves. But I don’t want to turn this review of Yellow Wife into a discourse on slavery. This novel speaks for itself on that subject.

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The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

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The Golem and the Jinni is a long read, but worth every moment I spent on it. I really enjoyed this novel! I was first interested in reading this novel when it was published in 2013, but unfortunately never got around to it at the time. Silly me! I could have had this novel in my life for so many years! If you enjoy historical fiction and are interested in supernatural creatures from other cultures, then I highly recommend you read this novel.

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The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman

The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman

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The Devouring Gray isn’t a standout young adult novel, which is probably why I hadn’t heard of it until I came across it while browsing books on Book Outlet. Or maybe Herman’s publishers just didn’t do a good job of advertising it. However, I did enjoy reading this novel and became invested in the characters and the story, so if you also enjoy reading YA novels, you should give this novel a read.

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Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

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The only book I had my furbaby Kika model before he passed away in May 2020 🙁

I originally wrote this review in January 2020, back when this website was still a twinkle in my eye (ahh I miss those pre-COVID days). I love, love, love this novel:

Leigh Bardugo is a bestselling YA writer known for her “Grishaverse”, an alternate universe she has created through her novels, starting with the Shadow and Bone trilogy, continuing with Six of Crows, Crooked Kingdom, and more recently King of Scars, which is based on Tsarist Russia and is full of magic and the supernatural. Her books are being made into a series on Netflix (yay!), and I highly recommend them, if you are into the YA genre.

When I first heard that she wrote an adult novel, I wasn’t immediately excited. I realize that adult novels can contain magic and the supernatural, but that’s not what I think of when I think of adult novels, and I don’t read a lot of adult novels with supernatural and/or magical plots. For some reason I expected Bardugo’s “adult” novel to be completely different from her YA novels and more grounded in (our) reality. When I realized that it would, in fact, contain supernatural elements, then I became eager to read it, and I had a really hard time putting down this novel until I finished it.

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Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart

Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart

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I almost didn’t buy Genuine Fraud because I am not a fan of another novel by E. Lockhart, We Were Liars, which got rave reviews because of it’s so-called shocking ending, but which I did not find shocking at all or even original. Yet I was tempted enough to buy Genuine Fraud because of the gimmick Lockhart uses in this novel: telling the story backwards. Again, not an original concept, but one that I will always be intrigued by mainly because I’m curious if the writer can pull it off and tell an interesting story that makes sense. Lockhart does pull it off in Genuine Fraud, but to mixed results.

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The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn

The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn

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I wasn’t sure if I would like The Woman in the Window. I thought it might end up disappointing me like The Girl on the Train did, another novel about an “unreliable” narrator; however, I was pleased to find that I enjoyed The Woman in the Window and it kept me guessing until the end, unlike The Girl on the Train which I very disappointingly figured out the whodunnit not even half way through reading.

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The Girls by Emma Cline

The Girls by Emma Cline

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to get sucked into a Charles Manson-esque cult? The Girls by Emma Cline is a not so subtle riff on Charles Manson and his “family”, down to the horrific murders that Manson urged his followers to commit. In this novel the infamous cult leader’s name is Russell, but he is physical described like Manson, he plays guitar like Manson and he is even friends with a famous musician so that he can get a record deal like Manson. However, this novel is really about Evie Boyd.

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Sin Eater by Megan Campisi

Sin Eater by Megan Campisi

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Has anyone heard of sin-eating? I had no idea sin-eaters were an actual thing until I read Sin Eater by Megan Campisi. Of course, I had a go down the Google rabbit hole after I finished reading this novel to learn more about sin-eaters. It was an actual custom practiced in many countries, more particularly in Scotland, Wales and England, were a person, the sin-eater, would consume a ritual meal in order to take on the sins of a deceased person. The last known sin-eater apparently died in 1906. It is interesting the things that people believe in, and it is also interesting that anyone with such beliefs would willingly take on the role of sin-eater.

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The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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I first became aware of The Song of Achilles when I read Miller’s other book Circe (published after The Song of Achilles. I also highly recommend you read it), then I started to notice it pop up on lists of must-read books. If you have any interest in Greek mythology or tragic love stories, I highly recommend this book. I only know the bare bones about Greek mythology myself; before reading this novel, my knowledge of Achilles was limited to him being a great hero with a weak heel. The Song of Achilles tells the story of Achilles through the perspective of Achilles’ great love, Patroclus. Miller based her novel on Homer’s the Iliad, where Achilles is a strong fighter and difficult to kill (but doesn’t have a vulnerable heel) but she diverges from the Illiad by writing the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus as a romantic one.

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