boocwurm's reviews
141 reviews

Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas

adventurous tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.5

Family Meal by Bryan Washington

emotional reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The Binding Season by Claudia Cain

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

“Anybody who believes dying is easy has clearly never done it. Or maybe it’s coming back that’s hard.”

Thank you to the author for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

With no more options available to her, Cassandra Reilly performs the rite to become the Witch of Fallow Creek. There’s just one problem—she might not have done it correctly. Her magic is unreliable at best, creating sketchy situations for her and her family. What’s worse, there’s a new danger lurking in the woods, drawing on power they shouldn’t have and threatening everything that Cass holds dear.

The third installment in the Fallow Creek series, The Binding Season takes readers on another wild and haunting ride full of magic, evil creatures and some truly grotesque scenes. It’s full of plant and body horror (and as the author puts it, “sometimes both!”) that had me squirming in my seat and flinching at imagined pain. True to books 1 and 2, The Binding Season is also chock-full of death—Cass and the reader are both haunted by the pain and suffering from the previous novels, and I was particularly scared for the fates of a few characters (we love an author who’s not afraid to ax their favs for funsies, no matter HOW MUCH it hurts).

Beyond the creepy and the crawly, The Binding Season gives us a lot of character growth. Cass is forced to reckon with her decisions and make new ones to protect the ones she loves, but she learns that pushing everyone away isn’t the solution she wants it to be. I loved the closer family dynamic between her, Theo, Helen, Merich and Pen, but more than that, I appreciated how the decisions these characters make actually have consequences in the overarching plot.

Cain does a great job at unraveling mysteries and planting the seeds for plot twists gradually, so nothing feels too out of left field while still being surprising. One of the big revelations in this book had me sitting with my mouth open for a good few seconds. I think this is my favorite of the three so far, and I cannot wait to see what happens next.

If you like horror and fantasy, magical families, a little bit of romance and setting descriptions that make you think “ewwww,” check out the Fallow Creek series!

Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang

mysterious reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa

emotional informative reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

“They were all there to greet me, enfolding me in the embrace of our collective dislocation from this place where all our stories go and return. Here is where we began. Where our songs were born, our ancestors buried.”

I waited far too long to read this book. This story is complex, heartbreaking and powerful. It challenged the way I perceived the conflicts of the Middle East and how I think about freedom, grief, joy and resilience. It’s a story of all those things intertwined, experienced simultaneously, and the lengths that generations of Palestinians have had to go to find even a shred of connection to and joy in their homeland.

Nahr, our protagonist, encapsulates such power and strength from cover to cover. She’s the daughter of Palestinian refugees and a refugee herself, traveling from Kuwait to Jordan to the West Bank and back again, ultimately landing in an Israeli prison from which she tells her story. She endures poverty, prostitution, loss, heartbreak and more, all while simply trying to carve out a space in the world where she can survive. I have so much more I could say about the power the women in this novel hold, in particular—the ways Nahr’s family both tear her down and show up for her in unexpected ways, and how they each encapsulate a different demonstration of grief—but it’s best to let those unfold throughout the story.

Many of the events in the novel are pulled from history, but they’re not delivered in a difficult-to-understand way. I took a lot of time while reading to learn more about the historical context that frames this more personal narrative. There’s so much we haven’t been taught about occupied Palestine, how much has been sanitized in the media, and this book served as a jumping-off point for me to learn more. I’ve heard someone say “This book will radicalize you,” and I completely believe that’s true. 10/10 recommend.

A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

“Nothing’s ever the same. Be it a second later or a hundred years. It’s always churning and roiling. And people change as much as oceans.”

A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home after attending a funeral. He doesn’t know what compels him there, but he ends up at the farm at the end of the lane, which is still the home of the Hempstocks—a mysterious family of women with whom he shared a mysterious adventure when he was young. At the farm’s pond, our narrator’s memories come flooding back, and we revisit his younger self’s memories, filled with mystical beings, dangerous enemies and an impossible ocean that holds all the knowledge of the universe.

Gaiman’s novel is a short, interesting, weird little tale. It’s filled with adventure in a small universe and tons of childlike wonder. We see the world through a seven-year-old’s eyes and experience his ruminations on childhood versus adulthood (of note: “Adults should not weep, I knew. They did not have mothers who would comfort them.”). 

Our narrator encounters some truly strange and disturbing characters, from a parasite-like worm he extracts from his foot, to vulture-like birds that begin to devour the world. Throughout, though, he remains level-headed, with the optimism and courage only a child can muster under the circumstances. It speaks to the resiliency of children, and the ways we lose that wonder (and once-formative memories) as we age.

I don’t want to go into much more detail for fear of spoilers, but I also think it’s best to go into this story with as little info as possible. It was fun to let the story unfold around me. It was unexpectedly funny, intriguing and sad, and it left me thinking a lot after the final page. I’ll definitely return to this one again. 

The Adult by Bronwyn Fischer

reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

“I felt the betrayal of being seen unknowingly. My mind, smiling a gap-toothed knowledge. Can you look at someone, half in darkness, leave them there, and still love them?” 

 

Another thoughtful book club pick from Petals and Pages. Unfortunately, it’s not one I totally loved. 

 

The Adult follows Natalie, an 18-year-old student who moves from a small town to the big city for college. We’re in Natalie’s head the entire book, absorbing her stream of consciousness as she tries to make friends, find her place in the new, bigger world she inhabits, and feels the depth of her inadequacies. Until one day, Natalie is approached by Nora—an older woman who sweeps Natalie up into a secretive love affair wrought by power imbalances and secrets. 

 

This book has a lot of lyrical, poignant lines that speak to the anxieties and experiences of growing up and trying to understand what it really means to “be an adult.” But it’s also exhausting being in Natalie’s head. She’s constantly doubting herself, echoing other people’s actions, and nearly missing the point at every turn. It’s one of those situations where the author accomplished what they set out to do, but it wasn’t something I particularly enjoyed. The beginning also came off a bit more pretentious than the rest of it. I’m not sure if the voice became more focused, or if I just got used to it. 

 

There are some big-picture discussions brought up: Who really is an adult/what that means, abusive power dynamics in relationships, the importance of community in growing up and learning from mistakes. It’s a mix of a coming out and coming-of-age story overshadowed by the insidious nature of all-encompassing, imbalanced relationships. These things made for really great book club discussions; I enjoyed bouncing ideas off other people more than pondering them alone. 

 

Unfortunately, the ending left me a little disappointed. Natalie enjoys a little personal growth, but I was hoping for a little more resolution on all the loose ties we’re left with. What happens with Clara, with Annie, with any of her other peers? Does the Rachel-Jones dynamic just end abruptly? What was the point of it all? 

 

If you’re looking for a thoughtful queer coming-of-age story, you might enjoy this book. Just be prepared to have your inner child’s anxieties echoed back at you for 300 pages. 

 

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

“Nightwalking men always have a hunger on them. … They never stop taking and they don’t know about enough.” 

 

Patricia Campbell’s family moves to Charleston and enjoys her quiet life, for the most part. She’s a stay-at-home mom to two increasingly challenging kids, her husband’s hardly ever home, and she’s part of a book club with four other women who are obsessed with true crime novels. But everything begins to change when James Harris moves to town—and he’s not what he seems. 

 

This was our book club pick for October and, boy, was it divisive. Everyone had a LOT of thoughts (and different, interesting ones) on whether we liked the book, whether Hendrix accomplished what he set out to do, and what, exactly, this book says. 

 

As a whole, I thought this one was just okay. Hendrix definitely knows how to do horror—the rat and cockroach scenes still make me shudder. But I felt like there were a lot of lulls between these shocking scenes, and the commentary on societal horrors didn’t quite live up to the rest. 

 

I understand the things Hendrix is criticizing in this book. He makes important points about gender inequality, abusive relationships, sex and desire, racism and privilege. But I’m not entirely sure that he followed those threads through to the end, to the point where his observations meant something. I saw where he was going with it all, but I wanted a little more from these ideas, perhaps a little more “consequence” from the main characters’ actions. 

 

The female friendships/book club dynamic was one of my favorite elements of the book. There were some real “girl power” moments that I’m a little surprised came from a male author, and I wish we had gotten a bit more of those (the ending felt a little too convenient to count, for me). 

 

Also, Carter was the real villain of this story. Carter for jail and dismemberment. 

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

“You can justify anything if you do it poetically enough.” 

On the day Oliver Marks is released from jail, the detective who put him there is waiting for answers—and Oliver is finally ready to tell the truth. The story unfolds over the course of a classic Shakespearean 5-act structure, following seven theatre students at a classical conservatory as they navigate the mounting pressure of recreating Shakespeare’s tragedies with post-grad life looming. When one of them dies mysteriously, they must come together to chart a path forward—or bring others down with them. It’s a tale of friendship, betrayal, drama and murder. 

 

I can’t believe I waited to read this book for so long. My nerdy little theatre kid heart positively sang from cover to cover, since it’s chock-full of drama (literally and figuratively). Oliver and his friends use Shakespeare quotes as a sort of second language—a coded way of communication that’s absolutely pretentious but fitting, given the circumstances. They live, breath and sleep theatre, and the drama on stage quickly takes over their personal lives. I loved every second of it. 

 

I thought the cast was really well fleshed out. Oliver, James, Richard, Alexander, Filippa, Meredith and Wren had distinct voices, anxieties and motivations, and each one represents a sort of larger caricature in theatre. They each struggle with breaking out of the roles they’ve been typecast in, but many end up performing exactly to script by the end. 

 

There’s a lot to love about the book structurally, too. Each act opens with a prologue that’s set in the present day, and then we dive back into Oliver’s past for the rest of the scenes. Some of the dialogue is structured akin to a script, making it clear who’s talking while so much happens. The plot was relatively predictable, but it doesn’t take away from the story. Anxiety over the plot shifts toward the anxiety of the characters and their relationships to one another. There are also some truly captivating scenes—particularly the Halloween performance and Christmas Masque. Jaw-dropping. 

 

The book is a little less “dark academia” than I expected, but I loved it all the same. It will definitely be one I return to in the future. We just … won’t talk about the ending.