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Book Review: I’m Glad My Mom Died

Rating: 4 stars

A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life.

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.

As someone who grew up watching iCarly and enjoyed the character Jennette McCurdy played as, I had no idea how much she was going through at that stage of her life. I imagined being a child star probably wasn’t easy, but the amount of pressure McCurdy faced from her mother at this stage of her development didn’t help. Her mother caused so many problems in her life that I don’t blame her for quitting acting and not wanting to be in the spotlight. Knowing her name from having watched iCarly as a child is one of the main reasons I decided to pick up her book and I’m so glad I did.    

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy talks in detail about her experiences in auditioning for roles, her relationship with her mother and food. She doesn’t leave any details out regarding how much pressure her mother put on her to audition no matter how much she didn’t enjoy it and brought up the comments her mother made about her body and how her mother helped restrict her food intake, so she’d remain skinny.

While I can’t relate to everything she’s been through and have no insight into what it’s like being a child star, I unfortunately can empathize with her in that I know what it’s like dealing with an abusive parental figure. Not going to go into too many details, but when I was going through middle school and high school, my mom was in an emotionally, mentally, and verbally abusive marriage. So I unfortunately know what its like having a parental figure you look up to treating you the way McCurdy’s mother treated her and how that can affect your life even when you’re no longer dealing with that person. Because of that, I found I was able to relate to parts of her story when it came to her relationship with her mother, especially whenever her mother was mean to her because she wouldn’t do what her mother wanted her to do. I found that relatable because my mom’s ex-husband and I especially didn’t have a great relationship once they got married and he said all sorts of things about me too. So reading that McCurdy went through the same thing through her mother was rough, but also allowed me to find something in her story I could relate to, even if the parental figures in our lives said and did different things.  

I’m Glad My Mom Died is a tough but real read that I enjoyed because I enjoyed how real McCurdy is when detailing her childhood and all of her struggles in her life. Yes, a lot of what she’s talking about is rough to read, but it’s how she grew up. And you can plainly see how her mother’s influence played into the person she became as a young adult through the struggles she endures in her relationships as well as how she is when it comes to food. All of the struggles she has as a young adult are due to her mother’s influence in her life. I enjoyed getting to read her struggles because of how relatable they are and how blunt and real she is when sharing her perspective. I also appreciate that in her story, she still has work on herself to do. Not because I’m glad she’s still struggling but because I’m glad she’s honest about that she’s still working on herself. It’s nice to read that she’s aware of her issues and is working on them. It’s plain that there’s still more of her story that hasn’t been written yet, and that its due to the work she’s continuing to do on herself. Yes, it makes it seem like her book is half finished, but I feel like for her since she’s still living her life, there are some things that probably weren’t needed or that we as the reader don’t necessarily need to know. So I’m fine with not necessarily having a conclusion since its apparent to me that she still has things she’s working on.  

Overall, I’m glad I decided to read her story. Its relatable because she talks about tough topics that don’t get talked about nearly enough, and she doesn’t hesitate to talk about the good, bad, and ugly when it comes to how things were in her life. I also felt like I learned from her story since I don’t have the body image issues she has when it comes to food, and I have no idea what it was like being a child star when iCarly came out. So I felt like by hearing her perspective, I learned about what its like to struggle with an eating disorder as well as how difficult it is being a child star. Overall glad to have read I’m Glad My Mom Died and recommend it to anyone who watched McCurdy on iCarly or can relate to any aspect of her story in anyway.    

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Book Review: Always Isn’t Forever

Rating: 3.5 stars

Best friends and soul mates since they were kids, Hart Augusto and Ruby Armenta were poised to take on senior year together when Hart tragically drowns in a boating accident. Absolutely shattered, Ruby struggles to move on from the person she knows was her forever love.

Hart can’t let go of Ruby either…. Due to some divine intervention, he’s offered a second chance. Only it won’t be as simple as bringing him back to life–instead, Hart’s soul is transferred to the body of a local bad boy.

When Hart returns to town as Jameson, he realizes that winning Ruby back will be more challenging than he’d imagined. For one, he’s forbidden from telling Ruby the truth. And with each day he spends as Jameson, memories of his life as Hart begin to fade away.

Though Ruby still mourns Hart, she can’t deny that something is drawing her to Jameson. As much as she doesn’t understand the sudden pull, it can’t be ignored. And why does he remind her so much of Hart? Desperate to see if the connection she feels is real, Ruby begins to open her heart to Jameson–but will their love be enough to bridge the distance between them?

Always Isn’t Forever was an enjoyable read for me from start to finish. I enjoyed that it covered the grief of losing your best friend, but in a way someone who’s never experienced grief can understand. As someone who’s lost my best friend, I felt like I could relate to Ruby’s pain and how she was feeling months after her loss so was able to relate better to her story, as losing someone you thought would always be there with you is a pain I can’t even begin to describe. I enjoyed the paranormal aspect of it in that Hart was given a second chance at life, even though he was in someone else’s body. I feel like it was because I found that aspect of the story interesting and I was curious to see how it all worked. At the same time too though, I find the idea of what happens after death interesting so getting to see a little bit of that (even though its not really all that much when I really think about it) through Hart’s relationship with Lourdes was enjoyable to me as I like the dynamic between the two of them ever since Lourdes was introduced.    

I also enjoyed the characters who played a role in this story, from Hart and the love of his life Ruby to his best friend George to Ruby’s younger sister Gabi. I found it interesting that Ruby and Gabi both had unique intuitions, Ruby through just knowing/feeling when something is going to happen to Gabi’s ability to read tarot cards and never have an incorrect reading. I also loved their relationship with each other because it was nice to see how close they are.

I also enjoyed the story told in Always Isn’t Forever as well. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination (which I’ll get into later) but seeing what happened with Hart now in Jameson’s body and Ruby and how death impacted their lives and relationship was intriguing and made me want to continue reading to see what would happen next. I was interested in seeing how he was going to manage to reveal to Ruby who he was without having to say anything and what would happen with their relationship in the end.

There are two things about this book I didn’t enjoy. The first is I didn’t feel like I had good insight into Hart and Ruby’s relationship prior to Hart’s “death.” Like, I understand the two of them were best friends and grew up with each other in their lives. But I felt like I as a reader didn’t get any insight into how they went from being really close friends to realizing they cared about each other as more than friends. I felt like that aspect of their dynamic was completely missing from the story for me and was something I would’ve liked to have seen with their relationship. And I feel like this is something that could’ve easily been done, like whenever Hart was slowly losing his memories for example. I feel like this insight would’ve been nice to have for me to better understand their love for each other because while I can see how much they care about each other, I wanted to see what made them realize there was more to their friendship and the moments leading up to them becoming a couple.

The second aspect of this book I didn’t enjoy was how easily the happily ever after was given to these two characters. Yes, a majority of the book Ruby didn’t realize Hart was actually in Jameson’s body because he was unable to tell her. But I felt like once she discovered the truth, that was it, they were able to get their happy ending without really having to work too much for it. I felt like there was just too little effort put in the ending of this book because he didn’t have to put too much effort into remembering the truth about himself like Ruby had to once the roles were reversed. A majority of the book you spend wondering if Ruby is going to realize Jameson is actually the love of her life before its too late, but then once Hart has lost all his memories, it takes one thing for him to remember himself again and that’s it. And the explanation given for it all felt like a rush to close their story and give them a happy ending with no consequences. Like everything Lourdes says to Hart about him being unable to have his same life again doesn’t truly matter because he and Ruby accomplish it with the only difference being that he’s in another person’s body. And there’s no real explanation given either regarding what makes their relationship different to allow this impossible feat to even happen.

Despite these two aspects to the story I didn’t like, I did enjoy my time reading Always Isn’t Forever. As someone who’s also lost their best friend, I felt like I could relate to what Ruby was going through and was interested to see how everything would come together.

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Book Review: Bad Luck Charm (Witch City #1)

Rating: 4 stars

Gwendolyn Goode lives a charmed life.

As owner of an occult shop in downtown Salem, Massachusetts she’s accustomed to all things odd and otherworldly. But when a bloody animal sacrifice is left as a warning outside her place of business, the police seem to think Gwen might be the target of some truly evil-doers. Suddenly, her sunny existence is riddled with danger in the form of crazed pagans, rogue employees, and nefarious henchmen. And there’s only one man who can protect her until the storm passes…

Graham Graves has no time for witchy nonsense.

Not in his love life, and definitely not in his line of work. Despite the ever-present oddities of his hometown, the private investigator and acclaimed police consultant prides himself on staying objective in every case that comes across his desk. That all changes when Gwendolyn — a woman who gets under his skin like no other — finds herself in the crosshairs of dangerous criminals. Graham is determined to make her safe, even if her presence tests his steely resolve. But as their mutual dislike sizzles into unexpected attraction… he becomes even more determined to make her something else: his.

Bad Luck Charm is a total standalone romance of 450+ pages, featuring cameos from a fortune-telling parrot, a modern day pirate, and a coven of well-meaning octogenarians. With characters that leap off the page and plenty of spooky twists and turns to keep you guessing, fans of Johnson’s previous Boston Love Story series in particular will adore this blend of heat, humor, and suspense.

From beginning to end, Bad Luck Charm was a good first read for 2024 for me. It kept me wondering what was going to happen next as Gwen and Graham’s relationship continued to build up and Gwen found herself at the center of otherworldly trouble. I both enjoyed seeing the dynamic of her relationship with Graham and finding out what was going to happen next with the magical evil doers. I also felt like it was an easy-going cozy read, which made me continue to delve into it to see what would happen next.

What I enjoyed about Gwen’s relationship with Graham was learning more about how she first met him during her childhood and how her feelings for him developed into what they became in this book. I also loved seeing her develop as their story went on. When I first started reading this book, I was initially annoyed with how Gwen handled relationships. How she kept anyone who tried to get close to her (minus her closest friend in Bad Luck Charm, Florence) at arm’s length or would run away when it came to relationships with men becoming serious. It wasn’t until her character reveals more of her background regarding her upbringing with a mother who didn’t care too much about her that why her character was this way made sense. Yes, there were times when I found it extremely annoying as I felt like she let any argument she and Graham had ruin any good moments they had together. But once she finally let him into her life, I saw some progression from her, which I was glad for.   

What I also enjoyed about Bad Luck Charm was the magical elements to it that were there. From Gwen owning an occult store to all the spooky mysteries that start surrounding her life once the sacrificed animal is found outside her store, I found myself hooked and wanting to find out what would happen next. I also found it interesting what Gwen found out about her aunt with regards to these happenings and was disappointed that she didn’t do anymore digging into the information she learned. I enjoyed it because Gwen was the type of protagonist who looked into things when her life started taking off instead of leaving everything alone or for Graham to handle. While I didn’t particularly care for all the decisions she made, I understood what she was looking to do.

What I also liked about Bad Luck Charm was that it wasn’t just a book about magic. There was also some romance too, which I actually enjoyed a lot more than I was expecting. I don’t know if its because I liked seeing Gwen continue to develop or enjoyed seeing the chemistry between her and Graham, but I felt like it was what I needed. And it made me continue to read to find out what would happen next.        

I also enjoyed the other characters in the story aside from Gwen and Graham as well. I enjoyed seeing Gwen and Florence’s friendship as you could see how much Gwen really trusted her best friend. I also enjoyed Agatha, Sally, Desmond and Cade as well as characters because I enjoyed learning more about them and seeing their individual relationship with Gwen. With everything that happened, it was interesting having a variety of characters in this book that weren’t the main protagonists but that had a role in her life during the events in this book.   

What I didn’t enjoy about Bad Luck Charm was how predictable it could be at times. In particular, I found a lot of the overall plot in the story surrounding the happenings of Gwen’s life to be predictable. I wasn’t too surprised when it was revealed who was responsible for the animal sacrifices as I felt like it was hinted at during the story when Gwen was brought into questioning by Detective Cade Hightower for the second time. And I actually found myself sad about it because the person responsible for all of the bad things that were happening in Gwen’s life was someone in this book that I enjoyed as a character. So much that I was hoping someone else would end up being responsible even though I knew the chances of that were pretty slim.  

Overall though, this book was quite an enjoyable read for me and was sad when it ended. Good news though is that the author of Bad Luck Charm has another book that will be coming out this month that also takes place in the same world as this one called At Last Sight that follows the story of Detective Cade Hightower and a character that was introduced in the epilogue. So I’m hoping with this new book that even though it will no longer be following Gwen and Graham’s story, we’ll get to see how they’re doing through the characters this book will be focusing on as I enjoyed this book so much that I can’t wait to read this new story too.      

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Book Review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games #0)

Rating: 3 stars

It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capital, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.

The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined — every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute… and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.

To be honest, I haven’t really read too many villain stories in my life. Not because I’ve never been interested in how villains from stories I like became who they are, just haven’t really read any. So with this book, I wasn’t sure what to expect when reading it. As someone who enjoyed reading this series, I didn’t really have too many expectations with this one because I knew the world Katniss and Snow are a part of isn’t a good one. And I knew the problems with the world of Panem started way before Snow was President.

What I found to be enjoyable about The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is the Hunger Games that Snow participated in as a mentor and the tribute from District 12 he was paired with Lucy Gray. I thought it was interesting to see how things were in the Capitol during Snow’s youth. I also enjoyed seeing how the Hunger Games were in the beginning verses whenever the trilogy following Katniss started. From the Gamemakers still trying to figure out the Games and how to make them more interesting to students in the Capitol being paired with tributes with an incentive if the tribute they were paired with were to win the Games. I also enjoyed in the beginning seeing the relationship between Snow and Lucy Gray as Snow did what he could to help her survive in the Hunger Games. I enjoyed seeing their dynamic because it was something I wasn’t expecting when reading this book. Lucy Gray just wasn’t the type of girl I was expecting Snow to be interested in so it was interesting to see how their relationship played out.

I felt like as a whole, the first half of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was enjoyable and hard for me to put down as I wanted to find out what would happen next. There was just the right amount of story and getting insight into what was going on in Snow’s world for me to feel like I had a good idea of where the story was heading. I also felt like I was getting a good idea of how Snow became the villain we’ve come to know through some of the choices he made in ensuring Lucy’s victory. The best example that comes to mind for me involves Lucy’s handkerchief as it was a very cunning way to make sure she didn’t get hurt by the snakes during the Games. I also felt like as a reader his thoughts when it came to his peers also helped too because he was already in the mindset of getting ahead of his peers and saying certain things in order to get a specific response from those he was talking to. I basically felt like in the beginning of this book, as a reader I could already see how he became who I came to know from the trilogy.

As The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes continued after the Games were over though, I felt my interest in what was going on slowly waning. I feel like in a lot of ways it was because what happened after the Games just wasn’t all that interesting to me. Yes, the way things went caught me off guard originally and I was interested to see how things were going for Snow in his life as a Peacekeeper. But I felt like after a certain point of that story, I was just interested in seeing his life leading up to the events in the trilogy instead of getting his story after his stunt as a mentor in the Games. His life as a Peacekeeper was just really dull and I felt like it did nothing for his story other than confirm further how much he cares about the Capitol over anyone and anything. This is demonstrated through the way his relationships with Sejanus Plinth and Lucy Gray end.

As a whole, I found the way Snow’s character develops in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes interesting since you can slowly see how he becomes the villain he’s known to be in the trilogy. However, I found his villain story extremely dull once the tenth Hunger Games are over and he’s working as a Peacekeeper in District 12, which made it extremely hard for me to continue reading his story to see what happened next. So while I enjoyed reading this book, there were some elements to it that made it hard for me to enjoy it fully as a villain origin story. I think I would’ve enjoyed it more if once the Games were over, the story focused on his life closer to when the events in the trilogy took place over his life as a Peacekeeper once the Games he participated in as a mentor were over.    

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Book Review: Androne

Rating: 1 star

In one terrifying event called the Ninety-Nine, all major military installations on earth were eviscerated. But by whom? Foreign powers, AIs, ETs? Every conceivable adversary was ruled out. Reeling from massive casualties and amid hundreds of conspiracy theories, humanity creates Andrones: bipedal android drones piloted remotely by soldiers who will never again need to be on the field of battle. Newly minted Androne pilot Sergeant Paxton Arés has now been deployed into a fight against an enemy no one understands or has ever seen.

Passing mostly uneventful days patrolling an unidentified desert, Paxton spends time communicating with his pregnant girlfriend back home and reflecting on his impending fatherhood. But as he is drawn deeper into military camaraderie and begins quickly rising up the ranks on the strength of his father’s military legacy, Paxton starts to question the swirling rumors about the nature of the conflict. What he’s encountered in the shifting dunes—something inexplicable, indomitable—fills him with the fear that whatever is out there is destined to win.

Whether it’s curiosity, ambition, or a newfound paternal instinct, Paxton has a driving need to understand the dangerous truths of this strange, invisible war. And the choices he must make have the power to change everything.

So to be honest here, Androne is a read I wasn’t able to finish. I’d gotten about one-hundred pages away from completing it when I decided I could no longer trek through this book. Since I hadn’t finished it, I was unsure whether I should review it or not. But I figured why not talk about this book so I can explain why I couldn’t complete it?

So to start off, what caught my attention about this book and made me want to read it to begin with was the description of the plot. You have a story that takes place after a huge event called the Ninety-Nine that affected everyone around the world. You also have the military who has soldiers trained to pilot andrones whose mission is to go out and find out who caused this major event to take place. Basically, the premise of this book sounded interesting enough to me to want to give it a read. I loved the idea of military personnel no longer having to go out in the field but using andrones in battle. It was a science fiction scenario that sounded promising to me and that I felt like would hold a lot of amazing possibilities.

And it started off intriguing enough for me to continue reading to see what would happen next. But as I continued reading Androne, I found myself starting to lose interest in what I was reading. It didn’t help that the main character of the story Paxton is one of the most boring characters I’ve encountered in science fiction but also didn’t particularly care for any of the other characters in this book either. I feel like as a reader, this made this book even harder for me to read because I didn’t care for anyone in the story, so I felt like I was just continuing to read this book for the plot.

But there were issues with the plot in this book too. In particular, when as a reader you do find out the truth behind the cause of the Ninety-Nine, it doesn’t make any sense. At all. If anything, it’s the leading cause of the issues this book had for me that resulted in me deciding not to finish it. Because Paxton gets told by one of his superiors who the enemy is here. He doesn’t pilot his androne and discover the truth on his own or do anything at all that warrants him finding out the truth on his own. Nope, someone he works with knows who they’re fighting and decides to tell him even though she doesn’t have the authority to do so. There’s also no real explanation given either as to how they discovered who the enemy is or anything. And somehow Paxton is involved in it too besides being told the truth and that doesn’t get explained here either. This all annoyed me and made this book difficult for me to continue with because I felt like there needed to be an explanation for what was going on instead of the story progressing the way it did.

I had such a difficult time reading this book that every time I was looking to read, I was contemplating back and forth between whether I wanted to continue reading this or not. Until I decided I gave as much time trying to read this book that I could give and want to read something else instead that won’t make me feel the way this book did anytime I wanted to pick it back up. Overall, Androne sounded like an interesting book to me, but I just got to a point where I couldn’t continue with it anymore as I’ve gotten to the point with it where I just don’t care anymore what happens.

Don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you have any books recently that you haven’t finished that you’d like to talk about as I’m curious to see what books others have read that they couldn’t complete.

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Book Review: The Lightning Circle

Rating: 4 stars

An intimate coming-of age novel for teens, told in verse with delicate line art, chronicling the beauty, magic and transformative power of summer camp, for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo and Judy Blume.

After having her heart broken, seventeen-year-old Nora Nichols decides to escape her hometown and take a summer job as an arts and crafts counsellor at an all-girls’ camp in the mountains of West Virginia. There, she meets girls and women from all walks of life with their own heartaches and triumphs.

Immersed in this new camp experience, trying to form bonds with her fellow counselors while learning to be a trusted adviser for her campers, Nora distracts herself from her feelings, even during the intimate conversations around the nightly campfires. But when a letter from home comes bearing unexpected news, Nora finds inner strength in her devastation with the healing power of female friendship. Presented as Nora’s camp journal, including Nora’s sketches of camp life, scraps of letters, and spare poems, The Lightning Circle is an intimate coming-of-age portrait.

I received a digital copy of this book through the publisher on NetGalley for an honest review.

From beginning to end, I enjoyed reading The Lightning Circle. It was a simple coming of age story about a young girl’s first experience at a summer camp while recovering from a broken heart. Told in verses, the story chronicles what its like as a young teenager during the summer while away at camp.

What I enjoyed about this read was the lyrical style and illustrations. The verses were simple and easy enough as a reader for you to understand what was going on. And the illustrations were simple and went really well with the verses. It felt exactly like I would expect a journal of a young girl to feel like and gave me a good idea of Nora’s thoughts while she was at this camp.

What I also enjoyed about The Lightning Circle was the topics discussed. A lot of this story was told in a way for girls way younger than me to understand, but in a way that you knew what was being talked about without the author having to go into too much detail. The best example that comes to mind for me is whenever one of the young girls Nora is responsible for experiences her period for the first time. When it happened, I knew exactly what was going on without more needing to be said and felt like anyone else reading this book would also know as well.

I also enjoyed seeing these female friendships forming and getting to experience camp life through Nora’s eyes. The way these young girls come together in this story is wonderfully done and I enjoyed getting to read about it. I especially enjoyed the lightning circle moments because that’s when as a reader you see their friendships with each other strengthen and they realize how much they care about each other. I also enjoyed getting to experience camp life through Nora because I myself never went to summer camp, so it was nice to see what it was like for Nora since it was her first time there. It was nice to see it all from her perspective as well because you as the reader can see how her time there changed her.  

If I had to choose anything about this book I didn’t enjoy it would have to be that it felt too short to me. I felt like the story itself was wonderfully done and enjoyed the verse style and the illustrations. However, I wish there had been more in it as I felt like as a reader I didn’t learn all that much about Nora, the other counsellors she met and the girls she was watching over during her time there. Yes, I found out some details about all these characters, but I still wanted more than what I read. I don’t know if its because this book felt like too quick of a read to me or because I didn’t get to see any of how this summer camp experience changed Nora’s life when she returned home. I just know it felt too short to me at times and wish there was more in the story.

But overall, I enjoyed reading The Lightning Circle. It’s a wonderful coming of age story that I recommend to anyone with young children getting close to becoming teenagers who want to read stories about people close to their age. Or to anyone who enjoys reading young adult stories that talk about experiences you’ve had before. The Lightning Circle is coming out on March 26, 2024, for those who would be interested in giving this book a read.    

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Book Review: What Never Happened

Rating: 3 stars

Colette “Coco” Weber has relocated to her Catalina Island home, where, twenty years before, she was the sole survivor of a deadly home invasion. All Coco wants is to see her aunt Gwen, get as far away from her ex as possible, and get back to her craft—writing obituaries. Thankfully, her college best friend, Maddy, owns the local paper and has a job sure to keep Coco busy, considering the number of elderly folks who are dying on the island.

But as Coco learns more about these deaths, she quickly realizes that the circumstances surrounding them are remarkably similar…and not natural. Then Coco receives a sinister threat in the mail: her own obituary.

As Coco begins to draw connections between a serial killer’s crimes and her own family tragedy, she fears that the secrets on Catalina Island might be too deep to survive. Because whoever is watching her is hell-bent on finally putting her past to rest.

What makes What Never Happened an enjoyable read to me is the amount of mystery and suspense within its pages. Coco returns to a place she hasn’t been to since she was a teenager and lost everything. But the peaceful island where her aunt lives is still far from peaceful when the elderly start dying and Coco gets threatening messages, including her own obituary. I enjoyed these aspects of the story because they made me sympathize with her. But also made me invested in the story too as I wanted to know who was responsible for what happened to her family all those years ago and who was responsible for causing the deaths of these elderly people Coco was writing obituaries for. Seeing Coco be the person to investigate since nobody else was taking all these deaths seriously felt fitting due to her past and being a journalist so I was really interested to see how it would all unfold.

Another aspect of this book I enjoyed was the themes covered. Rachel Hall doesn’t hesitate when it comes to depicting all of the racism Coco experiences throughout her life. Especially when she returns to Catalina Island through the threatening messages she receives and how she gets treated when she tries to get help after receiving these threatening messages. Let’s also not forget how they tried to erase her family’s existence from ever being on this island to begin with by never really talking about their murders when they took place, which I found to be messed up. I also felt like I saw racism depicted too with regards to her friendship with her best friend Maddy who helped get her a job at the local paper on Catalina Island. Just with the way Maddy treated Coco throughout this book was terrible, from being the one to get the job working for the Times even though Coco was the better writer because her father knew someone there to taking all the credit for the story Coco wanted to write about the deaths of the elderly on the island and having Coco barely mentioned in the article. I felt like their whole friendship was Maddy being around Coco so that she could say she had a black friend, even though all she did was treat Coco terribly and take advantage of her. I know as a white person myself, I’ll never ever begin to understand all the struggles people of color go through, which is why I appreciate when reading books like this one because they allow me to get a glimpse of what it’s like to be a person of color. And I feel like the way racism is covered through what Coco experiences in What Never Happened is wonderfully done from the threats she receives once there to her terrible friendship with Maddy.

Another theme covered that I saw and appreciated was trauma and anxiety. I felt like I saw a lot of this especially with Coco’s character once she gets back onto the island. As the reader, I felt like I saw this through the observations she’d make whenever she would notice a door wasn’t locked or whenever Hall showed her having panic attacks and she’d have to take deep breaths to get through them. I feel like I haven’t seen these topics covered in a book before like this and I appreciated the way it was done here.  

I also enjoyed getting to read the obituaries Coco writes about the elderly characters in the story who died. I felt like they were all wonderful tributes to the people being described and helped show me as a reader what makes her character such a wonderful writer. It was also nice because I was able to read about characters I didn’t get to really meet in this story and find out what they were truly like. The obituaries just felt like a nice addition to have in this book to help remind me of these characters and how they lived their lives. 

However, there’s a lot with this book I didn’t enjoy as well. For starters, once the reader finds out who’s responsible for all these deaths, I feel like there’s still a lot of unanswered questions that the epilogue does nothing to truly answer. I also felt like the reveal itself regarding who killed her family and who was responsible for the deaths of members of the elderly wasn’t all that surprising. Yes, I had a different idea as to who I thought was involved and am glad I was incorrect but wasn’t surprised by who was involved or the reason as well. Considering the threatening obituaries about herself Coco was receiving, it didn’t surprise me too much that these characters were involved. There’s so much buildup until the climax only for the reveal to be characters I never liked to begin with, and I felt pretty disappointed by how it was handled. Especially because the motivation for it all was pretty predictable too. Way too predictable for me and I absolutely hated it.

What I also disliked about What Never Happened was the characters themselves. Yes, I felt sympathetic to Coco and everything she went through, but I felt like her character at times embodied the trauma she went through when she was a teenager. It felt like that was the only aspect of her character I truly saw throughout the book even when events were unfolding in the story, and I wasn’t fond of it because I felt like there could’ve been more to her than we could see. Even her aunt Gwen I wasn’t really all too fond of either along with her best friend Maddy who I felt like was in the story just to be the villain. I felt like a lot of the characters in this book were one dimensional with very little to their personalities. I also didn’t like how the one character I actually did end up liking, Noah, Hall gave him an ulterior motive when it came to his relationship with Coco. I wasn’t fond of that because I found the dynamic of their relationship refreshing and felt like that ruined what could’ve potentially been a good relationship for Coco to have when she didn’t have that many.

I overall enjoyed reading What Never Happened because it did a wonderful job of keeping me in suspense, felt like it had some themes that needed to be covered and enjoyed reading the obituaries of the characters we didn’t get to meet. However, I was disappointed by the reveal of what happened and why as it wasn’t all that surprising, and I found all of the characters very one dimensional. So while I enjoyed the story in this book, I was disappointed by its conclusion.  

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Book Review: A Curse of Shadows and Ice

Rating: 3.5 stars

From USA Today Bestselling Author Catharina Maura comes a Beauty and the Beast retelling featuring a cursed emperor, a princess who possesses forbidden magic, and a marriage that could save them all.

Princess Arabella of Althea is left no choice when Felix Osiris, the Shadow Emperor, threatens to overthrow her country unless she agrees to marry him.

When she learns his empire is cursed and she’s destined to set them free, they come to an agreement: help him minimize the curse’s effect on his people, and he’ll let her go.

As Felix teaches Arabella how to control her forbidden and volatile magic, her feelings for him turn from hatred to passion… and she realizes that she must break the curse, or she’ll lose him forever.

Anyone who knows me very well knows Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorite fairytales. So anytime I hear about a retelling of that tale, it piques my interest and I find myself wanting to read it to see what it’s like. A Curse of Shadows and Ice was an enjoyable and simple retelling of this classic where instead of Felix being cursed by an enchantress, his own mother curses him and his people.

What I enjoyed about this retelling is the storyline in this book. I feel like it follows the overall story of the fairytale but is also different enough to be a story of its own. What makes it unique from the fairytale is both of the main character’s ability to use magic. I especially enjoyed the way magic is incorporated in this book as the main elements and how we learn alongside Arabella whenever she comes into her abilities and realizes her powers aren’t something she should fear. I also enjoyed seeing her character go through a lot of development through her powers and her realizing that what she was raised to think made her cursed actually was more a gift when given the chance to actually master her powers.  

I also enjoyed with A Curse of Shadows and Ice how similar it is to Beauty and the Beast as well. But at the same time, there are still some differences within the similarities too. The similarities I read that I enjoyed seeing had to do with the curse itself. In particular, Felix’s home was enchanted to get those who inhabited it anything they needed even when they didn’t have that particular need at the time. Also how the curse impacted the inhabitants of those who lived in his kingdom and Felix himself. While I definitely felt for them, it was nice to see how much Felix cared about those who are a part of his kingdom and see him doing what he can to minimize the curse’s effects on them. What I enjoyed about seeing how the curse impacted Felix was how he wasn’t physically turned into a beast accept whenever he was away from his kingdom for too long. It was also interesting to see how using magic to protect themselves from the curses’ effects worked.

Another aspect to this retelling I enjoyed was the chapters being from the perspectives of both Felix and Arabella and seeing their relationship with each other develop. What I enjoyed about having these two points of view was getting the chance to understand both of these characters and seeing their perspectives on what was going on. I especially enjoyed the chapters from Felix’s point of view because I could see how much this curse weighed heavily on him and how badly he wanted to break it. What I also loved about these two perspectives is seeing how much both these characters started to slowly develop feelings for each other. I especially enjoyed that they both mutually agreed to give each other a chance instead of it being where they right away developed feelings for each other. Then once they decided to work with each other, I felt like things fell into place with them both realizing how much they really cared about the other person. I feel like a big part of it was Arabella realizing that everything she heard about Felix prior to their marriage wasn’t true and that there was more to him than she expected. And just seeing how their relationship throughout the book developed was wonderful.

If I had any criticisms for A Curse of Shadows and Ice it would be the pacing of the book and the ending. While I did enjoy reading this retelling, there were definitely times where the pacing of the book felt off. It started off intriguing me but there were also a lot of slow moments with the plot when there wasn’t a whole lot happening with the characters. Then it picked up again close to the end of the book when things with the curse started going wrong and Arabella had no choice but to leave. While I enjoyed what I was reading and didn’t mind it too much, it definitely made me at times feel like there needed to be more with the story that wasn’t there. I feel like this also goes hand in hand with the ending because it kind’ve felt predictable to me. I felt like I had a pretty good idea how the curse was going to be broken, but it felt almost too neat to me how it happened. And like there were some loose ends that weren’t tied up as well. I don’t know if its because I wanted more in the story with the ending than I received, such as finding out once the curse was broken how Arabella’s people in Althea reacted when told the truth about Felix the Shadow Emperor.

Despite these criticisms, however, I enjoyed reading A Curse of Shadows and Ice. It was an enjoyable retelling of Beauty and the Beast to me. I highly recommend it to anyone else who also enjoys retellings of that fairytale along with anyone who enjoys stories with elements of fantasy and romance.   

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Book Review: In the Likely Event

Rating: 3 stars

When Izzy Astor gets on a plane to go home, she isn’t expecting much. It’s the usual holiday travel experience: busy, crowded, stressful.

Then she spots her seatmate, who is anything but ordinary. Nate Phelan sports dark hair, blue eyes, and a deliciously rugged charm that Izzy can’t resist. Their connection is undeniable. Izzy never believed in destiny before, but she does now.

Just ninety seconds after takeoff, their plane goes down in the Missouri River.

Their lives change. They change. Nate goes on to a career in the military while Izzy finds her way into politics. Despite a few chance encounters over the years, the timing never feels right.

Then comes a high-stakes reunion in Afghanistan, where Nate is tasked with protecting Izzy’s life.

He’ll do anything to keep her safe. And everything to win her heart.

With this being my first Rebecca Yarros read as I have yet to read Fourth Wing, which is on my TBR list, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was… okay. I admit I thought I really liked it at first. But as I think more and more about the storyline and romance, I realize it was actually just an okay read for me overall.

So what I enjoyed about In the Likely Event was the idea of meeting someone, forming a connection, then running into said person throughout points in life. Which is basically what happened to Izzy and Nate throughout this book’s storyline. There’s just something about that idea that appealed to me and seeing it happen with these two characters was interesting considering their different backgrounds. Like these two characters were destined/fated to meet each other because of the connection that becomes apparent to me when they meet on their flight. That concept is what intrigued me into giving this book a read and what made me continue reading to see what would happen next.

What I also liked about this book was seeing the chapter’s switch between these two characters and from present to past. Seeing Nate and Izzy’s interactions with each other in the past verses present was interesting. As a reader, seeing them in the present was especially interesting because you don’t yet have the full story of what happened to cause the two of them to be acting the way they did ten years after first meeting each other. I feel like you get some clues whenever they both interact with each other, but you don’t know the complete story until you read the last chapter from the past. However, if I had to choose which chapters I liked better, it would have to be the chapters focused on the past as I learned more about these characters and found out how everything unfolded between the two of them over the years.

What I also enjoyed with this book was some of the topics discussed. Mostly with regards to Nate who’s in the military but also has a rough home life/past due to his abusive father. I feel like as a reader, there isn’t a lot we know but it becomes apparent that he develops PTSD from his time serving. I enjoyed how this was showcased throughout because I saw how his years of serving was impacting his everyday life and it made me feel for him as I read this book.

However, I have several criticisms for In the Likely Event too. My biggest one being the characters themselves throughout this book. There were a lot of times when reading this book where I didn’t see any character development with Izzy and Nate along with these characters annoying me. I feel like for this book, both of these things are one in the same just because of the way these characters interacted with each other throughout this book but also because I didn’t really see much change with either of these characters in the story either. I saw their connection when they first met but felt like at times their relationship fizzled out. I don’t know if it’s because they weren’t willing to give their connection a chance because Nate was always deploying, and he wanted Izzy to have the chance to live her life without waiting on him. And that annoyed me a lot because you could see how much Izzy and Nate cared about each other. But they were never truly together because of Nate always being away when I feel like they should’ve given themselves a chance to be together. This annoyed me in the book because it made me feel like they actually didn’t want to be together even though it becomes apparent that being with anyone else didn’t work out for either of them.

Another criticism of this book that I have is the storylines for the past and present. While I did enjoy them because it was interesting to see Izzy and Nate in the past and present, I felt like there were details in the story that were missing to me. It felt like the overall storyline of their relationship was rushed, including how they both met, which was one of my favorite moments in the story. I especially disliked the present storyline because of how unrealistic it felt to me. Not only because of Izzy going to the exact same country Nate happened to be deployed in because of her sister, but also because of what all happened while she was there. I felt like she didn’t do much in the way of helping and felt like there was no real reason for her to even be there. If anything, I felt like she was just there for Nate to continuously save her from dangerous situations so the two of them could actually be together. And it annoyed me because I felt like she shouldn’t have been there to begin with anyway.

What I also disliked with this book was I felt like with the story there was more telling about what happened verses showing the reader. Like I knew there was a connection between Nate and Izzy from their interaction with each other on the plane. But I felt like from there, I was told there was a connection instead of the characters showing how they felt about each other in the story. The best example that comes to mind for me is what happens that ends up ruining what could’ve been a good relationship. We get told what one of the characters did very early on before we actually get the chapter in the past that shows it unfold. Another instance of this to me is how when both of them try to date other people, it never works out. But I feel like we get told this more instead of seeing either of these characters interacting with someone else and it not working out.

Overall, I did like reading In the Likely Event because the story’s concept interested me and enjoyed the way the themes in this book were covered. But because of the reasons I’ve listed, I felt like there was a lot about the book that could’ve been better that would’ve made it a more enjoyable read for me. This won’t stop me, however, from reading other books by this author as I might possibly enjoy them more than this one.

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