I've heard nothing but absolutely, incredible, fantastic things about this book. A book about a slam poet, written by a slam poet. A novel in poetry. A book about a girl with Dominican parents living in Harlem. Everyone loved it. It won the National Book Award for Young Adult literature in 2018. I had been … Continue reading The Poet X – 4/5
I was dreading this Read Harder prompt—"A book of manga." I've never read manga before in my life, not even anime. A few graphic novels, but nothing serialized. While I was excited about most of my reading prompts, I was almost positive I was going to hate this one. I picked the first volume of … Continue reading Hunter x Hunter, vol. 1 – 5/5
Nick Cutter has been on my radar for awhile. His books have delightfully creepy covers and often feature front-cover blurbs from Stephen King, who is my one great literary love. I read Nick Cutter's debut novel, The Troop, last year for a book club and absolutely loved it. It was horrifying, but not just for terror's sake. … Continue reading The Deep – 4/5
I've talked before about how much I loved Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. I loved it so much that I haven't read anything else she's written! But this book, the first in the Miss Marple series, fits a number of challenges—"Female detective" for #Booked2019, "A cozy mystery" for Read Harder, and "A book set in an abbey, cloister, … Continue reading The Murder at the Vicarage – 4/5
One of my favorite books from 2018 was The Radium Girls by Kate Moore. Not only was Moore's writing super compelling, but she highlighted the important work women did and suffered before that we had all forgotten or ignored. The women who worked for the Radium Dial Company died horribly and painfully because of their work. Because … Continue reading Rise of the Rocket Girls – 5/5
I made this little book live so hard. I used Binti by Nnedi Okarafor to fill three different prompts—"A book by an author of color set in or about space" for Read Harder, "a book set in space" for Popsugar, and "a novella" for Reading Women. I don't read a lot of sci-fi or a … Continue reading Binti – 4/5
The Book Riot Read Harder challenge is, well, hard. It always look deceptively easy, but as I start thinking about books to fit the challenge prompts, it's much harder than I initially thought. One of the prompts this year is a comic by an LGBTQIA creator. I always find this prompts hard simply because not … Continue reading Lumberjanes, vol 1 – 5/5
Let me tell you a story. Last year, the weekend before Valentine's day, my husband and I were newly engaged and planning our wedding long-distance. I was in grad school in Cincinnati and he was working in Indiana. Luckily for us, I was going to be working a conference that weekend in Indianapolis and we … Continue reading The Snowman – 4/5
It had been a long week. Work had been busy. All of my recent reads had been three-stars or less. I needed a really good book, because I was well on my way to a reading slump, and I have a hard time getting out of those. It was a late Saturday night, maybe 9 … Continue reading No Exit – 5/5
Note: This book is categorized as a Netgalley review. I received a free e-copy of this book from Netgalley and Simon & Schuster in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. I requested a copy of this book from Netgalley for two reasons: one, that cover looked delightfully creepy and it was billed as The Handmaid's Tale meets Westworld. I have only seen trailers for Westworld, but it looks really engaging and any book blurbed as "The Handmaid's Tale meets something" is going to be some sort of feminist dystopia, … Continue reading Girls with Sharp Sticks – 3/5
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