Mini-Review Monday: 24 July 2023
8:00:00 AM
Hi hello and welcome to the first Mini-Review Monday! I've been trying to find a good weekly post for Monday's and haven't been very successful. And then I remembered how much I enjoy doing mini-reviews and thought it would be perfect for a Monday post! I'll be sharing a few shorter reviews of some books I've read recently but maybe haven't talked about for longer than a few sentences here and there. I love reviewing books (that's the whole reason I started my blog) but I don't do my long reviews as often anymore, for many reasons. But I still love sharing my thoughts on the books I read and I think mini-reviews are a great way for me to do that! I’ll also be including my favorite quote from each book that I’m reviewing, just for a little added fun and a quick look into the book. Let’s get started!
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Author: Kiersten White
Pages: 288
Genre: Horror
Release Date: 01 August 2023
From Goodreads: "Thirty years after a tragic accident shut down production of the classic children’s program Mister Magic, the five surviving cast members have done their best to move on. But just as generations of cultishly devoted fans still cling to the lessons they learned from the show, the cast, known as the Circle of Friends, have spent their lives searching for the happiness they felt while they were on it. The friendship. The feeling of belonging. And the protection of Mister Magic. But with no surviving video of the show, no evidence of who directed or produced it, and no records of who—or what—the beloved host actually was, memories are all the former Circle of Friends has. Then a twist of fate brings the castmates back together at the remote desert filming compound that feels like it’s been waiting for them all this time. Even though they haven’t seen each other for years, they understand one another better than anyone has since. After all, they’re the only ones who hold the secret of that circle, the mystery of the magic man in his infinitely black cape, and, maybe, the answers to what really happened on that deadly last day. But as the Circle of Friends reclaim parts of their past, they begin to wonder: Are they here by choice, or have they been lured into a trap?”
Mini-Review: I am someone who loves creepypasta stories, and this feels exactly like a creepypasta story. If you’ve never heard of Candle Cove and you like the sound of this book, I encourage you to go check it out because it has a similar concept and it’s great. Okay, let’s talk Mister Magic! This was so so good and actually, my first full Kiersten White book. I’ve read bits of And at Darken and Hide but never fully finished them. This book actually creeped me out at a few points and I definitely monitored the dark corners of my room for any suspicious shadows and/or capes. I will say, I wasn’t expecting this to go where it did or end how it did, but I also don’t know how I didn’t see either of those things while reading. The writing did feel like it was a little slow in places, and occasionally a bit repetitive with the main characters inner voice, but it wasn’t terrible and didn’t ruin my overall reading experience. This was a pretty enjoyable horror book and I am very interested to see if Kiersten White continues in this genre, because I think this was a success. Also, I recommend reading the acknowledgments at the end because it gives insight into the root of this book and it makes a lot of things make sense.
Favorite quote: “It’s a chain, and you’re right—I’m the link holding everything together and it’s all just weight. It’s weight, and it never lets up, and no one else ever holds it. No one else even notices it. I don’t understand how I can be there every moment of every single day and somehow not exist at the same time. Most days I think I’m not even a person. Not to them, not to myself.”
Title: The Only One Left
Author: Riley Sager
Author: Riley Sager
Pages: 398
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Release Date: 20 June 2023
From Goodreads: "At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope
Stabbed her father with a knife
Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life
“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead
Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred. It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything. As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought."
Mini-Review: I don’t think it’s a secret that Riley Sager is one of my all-time favorite authors. I’ve given every book of his five stars, including The Only One Left! This one was, in my eyes, a perfect mystery thriller. It was slow, but not so slow that it got boring, just enough that the tension built at a great pace. The characters were interesting and I really enjoyed following them and trying to figure out which ones were more suspicious than the others. And the plot was insane, holy crap. I can always count on a Riley Sager book to have twists but this one took it as a challenge to see just how many times it could make me freak out and scream about what was happening. By the end, I was crying and could confidently say that The Only One Left was my new favorite book that he’s written. I even got my mom to read it and she had pretty much the same reaction as I did, even down to the crying part! I just really enjoy the way that Riley Sager writes and this one was another easy five star book for me.
Favorite quote: “At seventeen, Lenora Hope, hung her sister with a rope. Stabbed her father with a knife, took her mother’s happy life. “It wasn’t me,” Lenora said, but she’s the only one not dead.”
Title: Yellowface
Author: R.F. Kuang
Author: R.F. Kuang
Pages: 322
Genre: Literary Fiction
Release Date: 25 May 2023
From Goodreads: "Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena's a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn't even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I. So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June's (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves."
Mini-Review: I’m almost positive that any time I’ve spoken about Yellowface, I mention that it was my first experience with an R.F. Kuang book and that I’m so glad for that. I loved this book. I’m not a big literary fiction girlie but this was incredible. Something about how this was written had me absolutely glued to the page and reading big chunks at a time because I just did not want to put it down. And June?! Holy crap she was awful, yes, but so well written! I found myself reading and just somehow knowing that there was no getting through to this woman, so we were just going to be on the choo-choo train to delusional town and I was along for the ride. And the commentary on the publishing industry felt so on point and incredibly necessary. Yellowface felt like R.F. Kuang calling out problematic things in the industry and forcing readers to be more aware of them, because we absolutely should be more aware of them. Everything about this book was fantastic and it was one of the quickest five stars I’ve probably ever given a book. This is also on my top favorite books of 2023 list and I’m not really sure how anything is going to top this, honestly.
Favorite quote: “People always describe jealousy as this sharp, green, venomous thing. Unfounded, vinegary, mean-spirited. But I’ve found that jealousy, to writers, feels more like fear.”
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And that’s it for my first Monday Mini-Reviews post! This was so much fun and I’m really glad I get to share my thoughts on some of the books I’ve read recently. As I said above, I love doing book reviews but the full-length ones that I used to do just aren’t feasible for me anymore, sadly. But I think this is going to be a great way for me to still do reviews going forward and I’m already planning out my next set of mini-reviews! Have you read any of the books I talked about? Did my reviews help you decide if you’d be interested in reading any of them? Are you a fan of longer or shorter book reviews? Let’s open up the discussion down in the comments and please feel free to share a mini-review of a book you’ve read recently! Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you in the next chapter!
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