Based On A True Story

This book draws from several real events to craft a story about a boy who is murdered after he gains attention for being arrested. Jawad makes a jetpack to use in his Halloween costume. A teacher calls the police to […]

I started out 2022 with a great book. I chose this book from a list of Australian books on Goodreads that I was looking at to choose stories for my South of the Equator challenge. I was immediately drawn to […]

This isn’t the type of book I’d generally pick up but I’m glad I did. Layla, her mother, and her younger brother live in extremely dangerous conditions. Her mother is not mentally well and has addiction issues. A series of […]

This book was so cute! Hani and Ishu are Bengali teenagers who attend an all-girl Catholic school in Dublin, Ireland. I’ve read a lot of books with South Asian characters set in the U.S. or England but never before in […]

I picked up this audiobook because it was included with my Audible membership. The setting made me laugh. Windy City Magic is a shop on Navy Pier in Chicago. I was there for a conference a few years ago. I […]

I became aware of this series because the sequel was on a list of sci-fi and fantasy books by Black authors coming out in the next few months. I wanted to get into this world before the next book came […]

This book stressed me out enough that I had to do something that I never, never do. I went and read the last chapter. Then I backed up two more chapters and read from there. I just had to get […]

This book was so well done. You see so many books that have magical systems that are strictly gender-based. This book takes that idea and turns it on its head. In this world the men work with ghosts. They monitor […]

The premise was good. A girl from the streets finds work in a bakery. She’s good at it. What she doesn’t know is that she is infusing magic in her food. Her skill is noticed by the head of the […]

It is a well-known fact that if you want to make me rave about your book forever and forever the number one thing you can do is be clever.  Be imaginative.  Think of something that is a smart variation on […]

  This isn’t so much a review of this book as it is a rant about other reviews that I’ve read.   I like to check out the reviews on Goodreads after I’ve read a book.  I just like seeing what […]

I have loved this author’s previous two books.  I was so excited to get to listen to this one as well.  However, I didn’t really enjoy this book.  I think this is an issue of having wrong expectations of what […]

Slay is a great book if you are capable of massive suspension of disbelief. I love the description of the game.  The virtual reality world that this game exists in sounds absolutely amazing.  I’d love to see video games like […]

I heard of this story last week in a news article about her rapist seeking a new trial.  In the article it mentioned her by name which is not usual for a sexual assault case and especially one where the […]

This is the follow up to Elizabeth Acevedo’s extraordinary debut, The Poet X.  I was thrilled to see that this book was coming out and extra excited to see that the story was about food. Emoni is a senior in […]

I was really looking forward to reading this book.  I preordered it as soon as I heard about it.  I was interested in a book about Muslim internment from a Muslim author. The book starts out well.  She captures the […]

I’ve been mildly worried about this book.  Second books are always hard but how do you follow up a phenomenon like The Hate U Give?  I didn’t want to hear a lot of snide talk about, “It’s good but it […]

When  the bodies of the dead come back and attack people, the fighting in the Civil War stops. What doesn’t stop is the racism that was inherent in the United States. Now, 20 years after the shamblers first appeared, black […]

This book is so good!   Conflict between immigrant Asian parents and their American-born kids is a staple in a lot of books.  What I appreciated about this book is that it took a deeper look at the people involved to […]

I wanted to love this book so much more than I did.  I’ve been hearing about it for so long and have heard such glowing praise of it that when I finished it and felt a bit blah towards it, […]