Piranesi by Susanna Clarke Published by: Bloomsbury on September 15th, 2020 Genre: Fantasy Rating: ★★★★☆ Description: Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. There is one other person in the ho ..read more

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig Published by: Viking on September 29th, 2020 Genres: Contemporary Fiction, Fantasy Rating: ★★★★☆ Description: Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these ..read more

If I’m being perfectly honest, the past few months haven’t been very book-filled. What with virtual college, slogging through a never-ending workload, a deluge of final exams and projects, and – ahem – the global pandemic, I’ve lately been taking refuge in some delightful TV binges. Since I don’t have much in the way of books to review, I thought I would instead take a closer look at some of my latest Netflix (and Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc) indulgences. The Queen’s Gambit I think this is one of the best dramas I’ve ever watched. I watched the show over two breathless evenings and was completely ..read more

These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly Published by: Delacorte Press on October 27, 2015 Genres: Historical fiction, YA Rating: ★★★★☆Synopsis: Jo Montfort is beautiful and rich, and soon—like all the girls in her class—she’ll graduate from finishing school and be married off to a wealthy bachelor. Which is the last thing she wants. Jo dreams of becoming a writer—a newspaper reporter. Wild aspirations aside, Jo’s life seems perfect until tragedy strikes: her father is found dead. The story is that Charles Montfort shot himself while cleaning his revolver, but t ..read more

Today, I’m excited to welcome author Sasha Vosk, with a guest post to accompany the cover reveal for his upcoming book: 400 Years of New York History: A Pictorial Guide, Guest Post: My love affair with New York started a long time ago. As a young man living in the Soviet Union, I dreamed of traveling the world and settling in America. I was especially attracted to New York City, because to me it represented the ultimate environment of an abundance of world culture with no limits on creative self-expression (that was important to me as a performer and a fine artist), as well as the op ..read more

Welcome to a new Friday Favorites post! This week I’ll be discussing a genre that has never before been mentioned on this blog: Nonfiction! Learning to enjoy nonfiction has honestly been a journey for me. When I was younger I tended to mentally categorize nonfiction (with the exception of memoirs) with schoolwork and textbooks. Which is to say, I wasn’t crazy about it. Since coming to college though I’ve really come to love nonfiction, especially narrative truth-is-stranger-than-fiction type books. I learn plenty about the world from fiction books, but nonfiction uniquely gives very direct ins ..read more

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger Published by: Atria Books on September 3, 2019 Genre: Historical Fiction, Coming-of-age Rating: ★★★★★ Synopsis: 1932, Minnesota—the Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O’Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for ..read more

Welcome to my first Friday Favorites post! I wanted something to write about besides book reviews, so I’ve decided to do a weekly prompt (I got the idea from this blog post). Since summer is just around the corner, this week I’ll be listing some of my favorite “summer reads”. I don’t necessarily mean books that have to be read in the summer (see below for my thoughts on this). These are all books that either remind me of summertime, give off summer vibes, or that I strongly feel deserve to be read on the beach! Summer of ’69 I guess this is a somewhat obvious choice because, well, it tak ..read more

I’m taking a break from book-blogging to write about my other obsession: Baking! I’ve always loved baking, but in the past few months in particular, what with being stuck at home and the increased stress of daily life, I’ve been on a baking spree. Something about the world ending just gave me the urge to bake as many things in as short a time as possible. Baking equals stress-relief, a way to procrastinate on virtual classes, and delicious treats all in one! For me, quarantine has been a tale of many, many stress-baked goods — so many that I had to split them into two blog posts to avoid ..read more

Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah Published by: Lake Union Publishing on March 1st, 2019 Genre: Contemporary Fiction Rating: ★★★★ Synopsis: After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin barefoot and covered in bruises. The girl calls hers ..read more