Reviews

Audiobook review: The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean

by Stefani

The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean

Published: May 7, 2024 by Simon & Schuster Audio

Buy this book at: Audible / Barnes & Noble / AbeBooks

Synopsis:

Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but Ellie’s reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answers.

It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work.

Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State.

But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken—and who, unlike Ellie, might never return.

The debut thriller from New York Times bestselling author Emiko Jean, The Return of Ellie Black is both a feminist tour de force about the embers of hope that burn in the aftermath of tragedy and a twisty page-turner that will shock and surprise you right up until the final page.

Rating:

Review:

Overall this audiobook was quite good. I enjoyed having a full cast of narrators. All of them were well done and it allowed me to easily tell which perspective we were telling and who was voicing that section of the book. Though, I do think this book had a few too many narrators in general. We got perspective from Chelsey, Ellie in the present, Ellie in the past, and a friend of Ellie’s. While the audiobook narrators did a good job in helping me keep it straight, unfortunately it started to make the narrative feel fractured. It started to feel like we were telling too many stories at once and the compelling pieces of the book got lost in the mix.

Like I mentioned in the progress update, this story is trying to be much bigger than the story of one missing girl. It wanted to be a societal commentary on missing/kidnapped women in general. It didn’t work as well as the author hoped. She made some good points about our society and missing women, but sometimes the point felt forced.

The actual story of Ellie Black was a great story. The story of her captivity was riveting, horrifying and made me yearn for her freedom. I wanted her to escape and regain her life. But I also was saddened because of the lingering trauma I knew she would carry. An integral part of this story is, who took Ellie? And why? I had hoped that we were slowly building to those clues along the way, but I don’t think we ever get any clues in the end. The ending seemed to come out of nowhere. The author gave us no stepping stones to get to this ultimate conclusion. And that left me feeling disappointed when the book concluded. The story was so good for most of the book. I wanted to see Ellie get justice, I wanted to find out why and who. But those answers weren’t satisfying. A satisfying ending is an important piece of my overall feelings about a book, so I can only give this three stars. It’s a good book, but don’t be surprised if you’re left feeling disappointed.

Audiobook review: My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon

by Stefani

My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon

Narrated by: Hillary Huber and Kitty Hendrix

Published: October 3, 2023 by Simon & Schuster Audio

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / AbeBooks

Synopsis:

Alison has never been a fan of Christmas. But with it right around the corner and her husband busily decorating their cozy Vermont home, she has no choice but to face it. Then she gets the call.

Mavis, Alison’s estranged mother, has been diagnosed with cancer and has only weeks to live. She wants to spend her remaining days with her daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters. But Alison grew up with her mother’s alcoholism and violent abuse and is reluctant to unearth these traumatic memories. Still, she eventually agrees to take in Mavis, hoping that she and her mother could finally heal and have the relationship she’s always dreamed of.

But when mysterious and otherworldly things start happening upon Mavis’s arrival, Alison begins to suspect her mother is not quite who she seems. And as the holiday festivities turn into a nightmare, she must confront just how far she is willing to go to protect her family.

Rating:

Review:

This book can be summarized in one sentence: It was so good! Now that I got that out of my system, I will expand a little so that this isn’t the shortest review in history. I have never read this author before but she knows how to set a scene. This entire novel creeped me out. It made my skin crawl. It made me uncomfortable. It made my want to shout at the protagonist “No, don’t do that!”. And then the ending was one that I never saw coming.

I have to give a lot of credit to the narrators of this book. Their pacing was superb! This book is a slow burn, gradually ramping up the creepy factor and I feel like the narrators perfectly matched that tone and pace. Their voice work was also impressive. The subtle differences in tone for Mavis were perfect. Depending on who Mavis was having the conversation with, her entire tone changed and it was eerie.

For the plot, I really identified with Alison. Her story spoke to my own trauma in a lot of profound ways. But she escaped, she survived. She had a husband that adored her and two beautiful girls who had escaped their mother’s trauma. I was so proud of her. And then she got hit with the emotional wrecking ball. Her mother had cancer and wanted to spend her remaining weeks of life in Alison’s home trying to “make amends.” Alison was skeptical, and that made me even more proud of her. Unfortunately, her husband seemed to think it was a good idea! Why not let your horrendously abusive mother move in with us for a few weeks? What harm could it do? The more we learn about Alison and the abuse she suffered, the more angry I became at her husband. How dare he coerce her into letting her mother into their home. He knew the horrors of her childhood. The permanent scars (both physical and mental) that still haunted her. And he was willing to re-traumatize her all over again. Because “it’s your mom.” No sir, no it is not. You do not owe your family anything when they have abused you so thoroughly. Not a single thing. Alright, enough ranting, he really made me angry. But I recognize that if Mavis had never moved in then we wouldn’t have a book, so let’s move on.

The creep factor on this book was at an all time high. From the recollections of the abuse that Alison suffered to the creepy happenings in the present it was all fantastic. I was terrified for Alison and her children. Especially when it seemed like no one believed her. The ending was also shocking and creepy. The author laid out her red herrings perfectly, so I never saw it coming. It wasn’t a twist ending, it made complete and total sense, it was just executed really well. This author will definitely visit my bookshelf again.

Review: Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen

by Stefani

Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen

Published: May 17, 2011 by Little, Brown & Company

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / AbeBooks

Synopsis:

It is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn’t exist. Located a mere seventy-five miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada’s desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the U.S. government-but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades.

Myths and hypotheses about Area 51 have long abounded, thanks to the intense secrecy enveloping it. Some claim it is home to aliens, underground tunnel systems, and nuclear facilities. Others believe that the lunar landing itself was filmed there. The prevalence of these rumors stems from the fact that no credible insider has ever divulged the truth about his time inside the base. Until now.

Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to nineteen men who served the base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92, and unprecedented access to fifty-five additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base, thirty-two of whom lived and worked there for extended periods. In Area 51, Jacobsen shows us what has really gone on in the Nevada desert, from testing nuclear weapons to building super-secret, supersonic jets to pursuing the War on Terror.

This is the first book based on interviews with eye witnesses to Area 51 history, which makes it the seminal work on the subject. Filled with formerly classified information that has never been accurately decoded for the public, Area 51 weaves the mysterious activities of the top-secret base into a gripping narrative, showing that facts are often more fantastic than fiction, especially when the distinction is almost impossible to make.

Rating:

Review:

Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you that I am fascinated by conspiracy theories. I love reading about them. I love investigating why people believe these things. I look investigating instances where sometimes the conspiracy theory was actually the true story. So this book caught my attention for that reason right away. The first big batch of declassified documents relating to Area 51 were released in 2010-2011 and a lot of the information in this book is based off of that release. In addition to the interviews she conducted with people who worked there, it provided a very comprehensive review of the base’s history.

There was a ton of really interesting facts in here. Things that I never expected to find. For example, did you know that eventually the CIA decided that the unknown craft that crashed in Roswell was built by the Soviet Union? The Soviet’s had gotten in touch with some scientists that had been working in Germany while Hitler was in power and asked if they could make a flying disc. Then they put two kids (estimated to be 13 years old or so) into the craft so that people would believe they were aliens. The children were badly disfigured, and the CIA determined it was likely the work of Josef Mengele, also of Nazi origin. The idea was that the Soviets wanted the disc to crash and they hoped that Americans would see the corpses of the children and believe it was an alien craft. They wanted to start a panic. The secondary goal was to let the American President know that the Soviets weren’t intimidated by him and that they could violate US airspace if they wished. Now, that’s the story that the CIA tells and at least one interviewee told. Is that the truth? Maybe. Will we ever know if it is the truth or not? Unlikely.

I loved that this book laid out all the reasons why Area 51 has provided the perfect opportunity for UFO conspiracy theories. All through the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s the US government was out there testing out advanced spy planes. They wanted something that flew faster than Soviet radar could detect and flew higher than their missles could reach. Naturally sometimes people saw these flights. And the citizens would see a plane flying faster and higher than any plane known to exist and naturally they found it extraterrestrial. The CIA tracked all of the UFO reports during these periods and found that most of the UFO sightings were of their spy plane flights. A smaller portion were conclusively identified as other things, weather balloons, other aircraft, natural phenomenon, etc. And a very small percentage of those reports couldn’t be identified. What were they? Well the US government say they don’t know. But all of these reports just further the hysteria and the conspiracy theories.

Before long, Area 51 because the best location for any nefarious government plot. From aliens to the moon landing, if there’s a conspiracy theory out there it probably gets tied to Area 51. But the real history is far more interesting. It’s a history of spy planes, nuclear bombs, testing of worst case scenarios, and place to hide government secrets. There’s a good reason that a large portion of Americans think there’s nefarious things going on at the base. The government has long used the base to do things that were not entirely ethical, not entirely moral, and sometimes not entirely legal either. All of it hidden in the shadows. Hidden from the people that the government says they’re protecting.

Overall, I found this book compelling and entrancing. I couldn’t put it down. Every single page was some new fascinating detail that had been hidden in the world of classified documents for half a century. My only complaint is that perhaps we waited too long for some of the interview details. I found myself wondering why that seemed like a side note, when it was perhaps the most eye opening part of the book. Despite this, the book was excellent and I have very few complaints.

Audiobook review: Small Town Horror by Ronald Malfi

by Stefani

Small Town Horror by Ronald Malfi

Narrated by: Joe Hempel

Released: June 4, 2024 by Tantor Media

Buy this audiobook at: Audible / Audiobooks.com / Kobo

Synopsis:

Five childhood friends are forced to confront their own dark past as well as the curse placed upon them in this horror masterpiece from the bestselling author of Come with Me.

Maybe this is a ghost story…

Andrew Larimer thought he left the past behind. But when he receives a late-night phone call from an old friend, he finds he has no choice but to return home, and to confront the memories—and the horror—of a night, years ago, that changed everything.

For Andrew and his friends, the past is not dead, and the curse that has befallen them now threatens to destroy all that they’ve become.

One dark secret…

One small-town horror…

Rating:

Review:

This ended up being a difficult book to rate. Initially after I finished it I was contemplating three stars. But the more I thought about it, the more disappointed I was in it. So ultimately this falls at a two star, maybe two and a half if I’m feeling generous. This book has also given me a case of “everyone loves it but me”. The book world is RAVING about this book right now. And I can’t quite figure out why?

The writing was good. I have never read Malfi before but his writing was good enough that I’d probably pick up one of his books again. He is very good at creating a creepy feel and an increasing sense of dread. Those are very desirable qualities in a horror author. I also enjoyed the narrator. He kept a good pace, he made the characters inflections and tone unique, and he told the story in a compelling. So, what was the problem then?

I think there were two problems here. First, I don’t believe this book is well suited to an audiobook. We jump around in time quite a lot, and there’s not much introduction to inform the listener about what year we’re in. As a result I felt jarred by the story. I couldn’t remember where in time we were. And so I ended up re-listening to entire chapters because I was thoroughly confused about what was going on. And the characters were also pretty dull people. It wasn’t just the main protagonist, it was all of them. The problem is that it’s very difficult for an audiobook narrator to tell a compelling story when the characters are not compelling. This was another thing that made me tune out of the audio and have to go back and listen again.

Down to the story itself. It was okay. The lead up to the reveal was quite good. The increasing sense of doom and dread was really fun. And I liked seeing how each of the characters came to their conclusion about what was going on, and why they got to that conclusion. It only started to fall apart near the end. It seemed at first like the ending was going to be a twist, it wasn’t actually a curse it was an entirely mundane answer. But then it wasn’t the mundane answer after all, it was the supernatural answer. Then it felt like we went into an infomercial because “wait, there’s more!” It wasn’t just supernatural, here’s the cunning plan, and the unwilling accomplice! “But wait, if you order now you’ll get a free gift!” And even the unwilling accomplice was deceived in this brilliant plan! It was convoluted. Sometimes it’s okay for the simple answer to the correct answer. Sometimes it’s okay for the ending not to have a twist. Instead, I feel like the author was trying so hard to do something unexpected that it just got weird and confusing.

In the end, there was enough redeeming qualities about the writing for me to give the author another chance. But this one wasn’t a hit for me. Or maybe it was, in the end, just me. Because everyone else in the book world seems to love it.

Review: A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

by Stefani

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

Published: April 25, 2024 by Orbit

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / AbeBooks

Synopsis:

Dive into the curious correspondence of Sylvie Cathrall’s delightful debut novel, A Letter to the Luminous Deep.

A beautiful discovery outside the window of her underwater home prompts the reclusive E. to begin a correspondence with renowned scholar Henerey Clel. The letters they share are filled with passion, at first for their mutual interests, and then, inevitably, for each other.

Together, they uncover a mystery from the unknown depths, destined to transform the underwater world they both equally fear and love. But by no mere coincidence, a seaquake destroys E.’s home, and she and Henerey vanish.

A year later, E.’s sister Sophy, and Henerey’s brother Vyerin, are left to solve the mystery of their siblings’ disappearances with the letters, sketches and field notes left behind. As they uncover the wondrous love their siblings shared, Sophy and Vyerin learn the key to their disappearance – and what it could mean for life as they know it.

Perfect for fans of A Marvellous Light and TJ Klune, A Letter to the Luminous Deep is a whimsical epistolary fantasy set in a mystical underwater world with mystery and heart-warming romance.

Rating:

Review:

As evidenced by how quickly I breezed through this book (only halfway done on Friday), it was a lovely read. This book quickly introduces us to our two main characters. The introverted, brilliant, troubled “E”. She lives in an underwater home known as the Deep House. One day she spots a creature through her porthole that she’s never seen before. Struck by its beauty she writes to a well known natural Scholar that she admires, Henerey. The two strike up a correspondence about these creatures and what they could be, and then it moves into more of a general conversation about their lives and interests. The interesting part is that we only learn about E and Henerey through their letters to each other, and to and from their siblings. Even when they meet in person, the only details we know about it are what E shared with her sister, Sophy, about the evening.

Later, when Sophy and Vyerin start to unravel the mystery of what happened to their missing siblings, we also only follow their correspondence with each other. The entire book is told in letters between the characters, occasional excerpts from Henerey’s journals, and a few transcriptions from other scholarly works within the world. It’s an inventive way to tell a story. I also imagine it was quite difficult to write.

Because of the writing style the characters are full of depth and personality. I learned intently who each of these individuals are, and I grew to adore each of them immensely. I also enjoyed that both of the main protagonists deal with mental health concerns or are otherwise neurodivergent. As a neurodivergent individual myself I found it very relatable and genuine. The character building in this novel was top notch. I can’t say enough good things about that aspect. However, the writing did present a challenge when it came to world building. There’s a lot of things that I feel were left out. At the end of the book I knew so little about E and Henerey’s world. And the main culprit to that is the writing style. If E is writing to Henerey, she doesn’t need to explain to him the history of their civilization, he already knows. But I would like it explained to me, because I don’t know. It’s a unique challenge. I feel like the author tried to overcome this with the excerpts from scholarly books in the book, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to know more. I hope we get more in upcoming books.

The romance in the story was sweet and simple. E and Henerey flirted with each other through their individual interests. They each showed an enormous amount of restraint and respect for the other’s boundaries. For example, even after they agreed to meet in person Henerey told her “If you change your mind, even if I’m already on my way, just put a sign in your window that says NO HENEREY and I’ll leave and think none the worse for it.” It was so cute, and so romantic. Each of them met the other exactly where they were capable of existing, and both were content with it. Sigh. I think I might have fallen in love with these two also. They are just so adorable and relatable.

The mystery in the book was intriguing. I started putting the pieces together fairly early, but it didn’t make the journey any less enjoyable. Even though I knew where it was headed, I still enjoyed watching Sophy and Vyerin put those same pieces together. And at the end, we finished one piece of the adventure and looked to the horizon for the start of the next adventure. You can’t ask for a much better ending than that.

Review: Behind the Red Door by Megan Collins

by Stefani

Behind the Red Door by Megan Collins

Published: August 4, 2020 by Atria Books

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / AbeBooks

Synopsis:

When Fern Douglas sees the news about Astrid Sullivan, a thirty-four-year-old missing woman from Maine, she is positive that she knows her. Fern’s husband is sure it’s because of Astrid’s famous kidnapping—and equally famous return—twenty years ago, but Fern has no memory of that, even though it happened an hour outside her New Hampshire hometown. And when Astrid appears in Fern’s recurring nightmare, one in which a girl reaches out to her, pleading, Fern fears that it’s not a dream at all, but a memory.

Back home in New Hampshire, Fern purchases a copy of Astrid’s recently published memoir—which may have provoked her original kidnapper to abduct her again—and as she reads through its chapters and visits the people and places within it, she discovers more evidence that she has an unsettling connection to the missing woman. As Fern’s search becomes increasingly desperate, she hopes to remember her past so she can save Astrid in the present…before it’s too late.

Rating:

Review:

**Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books!**

This book was epically good! The premise of it drew me in immediately. We have all had recurring nightmares before. We have all had dreams that we are terrified of. But, what if you later found out that those recurring nightmares might actually be memories? Memories of a woman who was abducted for a second time and might be in peril from the same perpetrator all over again?

Fern is an anxious and fearful individual. Which makes complete sense given her history. Her mother is an artist who never really wanted to be a mother. As her mother puts it, she got pregnant and they decided to keep the baby and that was good enough. She was disinterested and detached. Fern’s father is a professor. He studies the psychology of fear. He viewed Fern’s childhood as the perfect vehicle for his “research”. For example, leaving her alone in a town that she isn’t familiar with and then waiting until she’s crying and terrified before coming back for her. The more I read about Fern’s family the more I understood her. Of course she’s an anxiety ridden, fearful individual. How could she end up any other way given the parenting she received?

As Fern searches for answers we meet more people from her past who all seemed to prey on her fearful nature. Like her best friend’s older brother. Who bullied them as kids and can’t seem to resist doing it, even as a middle aged adult man. I became rather convinced that Fern didn’t know anyone who wasn’t a completely twisted person, except perhaps her husband. He seemed to be a good quality individual that Fern could rely on. The book quickly turns to Fern’s search for answers about her dreams, and her conviction that they are actually memories. As we went along I developed a theory about who the kidnapper was. I was pleasantly surprised that my theory was correct. It was the right choice. Sometimes a predictable conclusion is the right one. This one was the choice that made the most sense considering everything we learned about the world and these characters.

Even though I guessed who the kidnapper was, the book still had a surprise for me at the end. I didn’t see it coming a mile away. But, it was also perfectly lined up with who these characters are. I always enjoy a story that can surprise me. This book was riveting from cover to cover. I read the last 60 pages in one sitting after spending 12 hours at a theme park. I just couldn’t put it down. So I sat in a dark hotel room and read to the end. It was worth it.

Audiobook Review: Good Girls Don’t Die by Christina Henry

by Stefani

Good Girls Don’t Die by Christina Henry

Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan

Published: November 14, 2023 by Penguin Audio

Buy this book at: Amazon / Kobo / AbeBooks

Synopsis:

Celia wakes up in a house that’s supposed to be hers. There’s a little girl who claims to be her daughter and a man who claims to be her husband, but Celia knows this family—and this life—is not hers…

Allie is supposed to be on a fun weekend trip—but then her friend’s boyfriend unexpectedly invites the group to a remote cabin in the woods. No one else believes Allie, but she is sure that something about this trip is very, very wrong…

Maggie just wants to be home with her daughter, but she’s in a dangerous situation and she doesn’t know who put her there or why. She’ll have to fight with everything she has to survive…

Three women. Three stories. Only one way out. This captivating novel will keep readers guessing until the very end.

Rating:

Review:

The premise of this book was exciting. Women who had been seemingly abducted into lives that weren’t their own, forced to find a way out. Who was responsible? What was the reason? Would they escape? I love a good mystery and I was enthusiastic to see where this book went. The narrator was fabulous, giving each of the women their own personality and inflection, it really made me connect with them individually.

This could have easily been a five star read, if not for the ended. Each of these individual women’s stories were compelling. The women themselves were interesting and unique, I enjoyed their narrative and following along with them. The scenarios played out in a riveting manner, I couldn’t wait to hear what happened next. I was entranced by the book. I developed a theory about what it was all about, who was responsible for the women’s plights.

Then I got to the ending. I was excited! We were finally going to see who the guilty party was! The women were going to get answers. I was going to see if my pet theory was correct. But it wasn’t. And the actual ending wasn’t good either. It was a completely stereotypical trope. It was far fetched. It came out of left field. It made very little sense. And so, I finished this fabulous book with a “huh….so, that was it?” And then I turned to a podcast because it was so disappointing. Overall I really loved this book, and I will likely read other books from this author because I enjoy how she writes, but this one fell flat in the end.

Audiobook review: A Day in the Life of Abed Salama by Nathan Thrall

by Stefani

A Day in the Life of Abed Salama by Nathan Thrall

Audiobook narrated by Peter Ganim

Published: October 3, 2023 by Metropolitan Books

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / AbeBooks

Synopsis:

Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos―the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad’s fate. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian. He is on the wrong side of the separation wall, holds the wrong ID to pass the military checkpoints, and has the wrong papers to enter the city of Jerusalem. Abed’s quest to find Milad is interwoven with the stories of a cast of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and histories unexpectedly converge.

Rating:

Review:

This is another example of a book that tried to do too much, and as a consequence it loses the premise that was promised. I was told that this was a book about a man stuck in the Palestine/Israel conflict. I was told that this was a book about a man whose son disappears after a tragic accident and his journey to try and find his son. Unfortunately, the journey of Abed Salama and his son was only about 10% of this book. At only six hours runtime, it was a short book. And the actual synopsis was only a small part of it.

Quickly after being introduced to Abed and his family, we get a short history lesson in the history of the Palestine/Israel conflict. A lot of other reviewers have felt this was irrelevant but I didn’t mind too much. While the book is titled “a day in the life”, there is a nuance to what someone’s day includes. Your day is never just about a singular 24 hour period. Your family influences your day. Your job. Where you live. The country that you live in. And, in the case of Abed, the long battles between Palestine and Israel influence his day. A single day can sometimes be shaped by 50 years of history. I enjoyed that nuance. I also enjoyed that the author conveyed this point without actually saying that was their point. It’s always appreciated when an author treats me like I am intelligent enough to understand the subtext.

We also get a very long history of Abed and how he grew up. His first wife. His struggles to accommodate his culture and his family. There was a lot of valuable insight to be gained by being introduced to this character in the depth that was presented in this book.

Where it falls off the rails was when we start following other characters. Honestly, I can only barely tell you who these people were. Their narratives are abrupt and presented with little to no explanation. I could piece together that one individual seemed to be the ambulance worker that arrives at the scene of the accident, another seemed to be a politician of some kind, another seemed to be an aid worker. I had a hard time keeping these characters straight because we launch straight into their narrative with no introduction to who they are or how they are relevant to the story of Abed. For some reason we spent an inordinate amount of time talking about a refugee camp in Jordan and the return to Palestine of those individuals who had been living in the refugee camp. I was quickly confused and tuned out because I couldn’t follow what was going on.

We only come back to Abed’s search for his son at the very end of the book. I wanted to spend more time on that, because that’s the story that I was sold. But it wasn’t the story that I got. In total this was a good book, but it got lost in its own narrative and forgot to tell me the story that was promised.

Audiobook Review: The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers

by Stefani

The City of Stardust by Georgia Summers

Published: January 30, 2024 by Redhook

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / AbeBooks

Synopsis:

A young woman descends into a seductive magical underworld of power-hungry scholars, fickle gods and monsters bent on revenge to break her family’s curse in this spellbinding contemporary fantasy debut.

For centuries, generations of Everlys have seen their brightest and best disappear, taken as punishment for a crime no one remembers, for a purpose no one understands. Their tormentor, a woman named Penelope, never ages, never grows sick – and never forgives a debt.

Violet Everly was a child when her mother left on a stormy night, determined to break the curse. When Marianne never returns, Penelope issues an ultimatum: Violet has ten years to find her mother, or she will take her place. Violet is the last of the Everly line, the last to suffer. Unless she can break it first.

To do so, she must descend into a seductive magical underworld of power-hungry scholars, fickle gods and monsters bent on revenge. She must also contend with Penelope’s quiet assistant, Aleksander, who she knows cannot be trusted – and yet whose knowledge of a world beyond her own is too valuable to avoid.

Tied to a very literal deadline, Violet will travel the edges of the world to find Marianne and the key to the city of stardust, where the Everly story began.

Rating:

Review:

The premise of this book is fantastic. A family curse. A missing mother. A deadline to meet or else certain doom. A magical world that might hold all the answers. This book had all the makings of a really excellent novel. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t executed very well. This is a debut novel and I feel like the author didn’t really know how to wrap her arms around this story. It got away from her.

Let’s start with the good stuff. The narrator for this audiobook was very good. Her voice was soothing, her pacing was excellent, and she presented the material in the best way possible. The villains in this book were also fantastic. Penelope is such a great villain, I enjoyed her from beginning to end. Some of the other side stories were very interesting also. I was eager to learn more about certain people.

The biggest problem that this book had was a lack of character building and a complete absence of world building. At the end of the book the only thing I know about Violet is that she’s stupidly naïve and looks a lot like her mother. I don’t know anything else about her. I do know that she showed no sense of urgency at the looming deadline to find her mother. She is casually going to parties and going for coffee in Prague. Not to mention the complete lack of urgency that her uncles displayed for the nine years before Violet finds out about the deadline. What were they doing all that time? We don’t really know because the author doesn’t tell us.

I was incredibly frustrating with the way the last year is handled. Violet has a year to find her mother. During this time she is learning about the scholars, learning about magic, learning about Penelope. This was a perfect opportunity for the author to explain this world to us. We could discover all of the amazing things that Violet is discovering! But instead we get a montage that is over in less than a few paragraphs. “Violet learned all of these amazing things, went all of these amazing places and then suddenly it was six weeks until the deadline.” It felt like a wasted opportunity. It was the perfect chance to build this world and instead we got nothing.

By the time we reached the end of the book, I mainly just wanted it to be over. It had gone on for too long. What I thought was the ending was still two and a half hours away from the ending of the audiobook. I couldn’t fathom what exactly we were going to do for that long. It got tiresome. At the end I was left disappointed because this could have been a five star book, but it wasn’t.

Review: Parabellum by Greg Hickey

by Stefani

Parabellum by Greg Hickey

Published: October 20, 2020 by Greg Hickey

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / AbeBooks

Synopsis:

A shooting at a Chicago beach leaves several dead and dozens injured. In the year before the attack, four individuals emerge as possible suspects.

An apathetic computer programmer.
An ex-college athlete with a history of head injuries.
An Army veteran turned Chicago cop.
A despondent high school student.

One of them is the shooter. Discover who and why.

Rating:

Review: ***Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Greg Hickey! My apologies that it took me so long.***

When I started reading this book, I looked up the title to see what it meant. Parabellum. I found a few interesting things. One definition of the word is a semiautomatic pistol, which in the context of the subject of the book seemed apt. But even more apt but that I found the term “Para bellum”. It’s a Latin phrase that means “prepare for war”, it is often included in a longer quote of “If you want peace, prepare for war.” This is also surprisingly topical for this book.

At the beginning of the book, I thought I had a pretty good idea who the shooter was. I initially suspected the programmer. He seemed the most likely suspect. Apathetic in general but with a hint of sociopathy. He seemed to view other humans as an experiment, something interesting to watch but ultimately non-consequential. Along the way, as we learn more about each of these characters, it honestly could have been any of them. The high school student who is hypercritical of himself, never feels good enough, and is largely ostracized by his peers. The former athlete who’s repeated head traumas have caused her to be experiencing a lack of control over her anger and fueling resentment at the world. And the veteran turned cop who is struggling with PTSD and having a difficult time finding meaning in his life now that the war is over. By the middle of the book, even though I thought the programmer was still the most likely, all of them were viable.

I really enjoyed learning about these characters, interspersed with passages that seemed to be from the killer’s manifesto. I found great sympathy for all of them. All of them had justifiable anger at the world and their community. My only complaint about this book was that the ending chapters were a bit confusing. I had to go back a few times a read over one of the pages because I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. And, when the killer is revealed, I didn’t think it was the best choice. It seemed to me that this person was the person that the author intended to be the shooter before writing the book. But as the story went on and the characters evolved, I didn’t feel like they were the best choice any longer. So, the ending fell a bit flat as a result. Overall, I enjoy the way the author writes and I love his ideas.