#readreviews

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Mystery & classics, short stories // 900 pages

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Premise: John Watson, an army doctor, returns wounded and destitute from war and starts sharing an apartment with Sherlock Holmes, a bizarre and fascinating consulting detective. There are 4 novellas and 56 short stories

Stand-out elements: delightful main characters, fun mysteries, a sweeping decades-long overarching story of friendship and love and loss

Downsides: period-typical racism and sexism; the stories tend to get lower-quality the farther you go

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5 stars

Recommended to people who love zany characters, or people who want to get into classics but find the antiquated writing intimidating.

Shirley Jackson

Horror // 150 pages

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Premise: Mary Katherine lives on a big property in a small town with her older sister and her uncle. The rest of their family were poisoned to death six years ago. The town hates them. One day, someone shows up at their door to disrupt their lives.

Stand-out elements: Masterful character building and narrative voice. Emotionally vivid; very tense throughout

Downsides: ??

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5 stars

Jennette McCurdy

Memoir // 300 pages

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Premise: Jennette tells the story of her life to date, navigating her mother’s wild moods and overbearing expectations, until her mother’s death from cancer—and then the years after. The top half deals largely with her (almost exclusively negative) experiences as a child actor, and the latter half details her struggle against an eating disorder, but she covers much more than that.

Stand-out elements: highly readable (the writing itself fades into the background to make room for the intense content); engrossing like reality tv or disaster footage

Downsides: none really; i recommend looking up trigger warnings if you have concerns

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4.25 stars

Andy Weir

Sci fi // 475 pages

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Premise: A man wakes up from a coma with no idea of who he is or what is going on. He slowly realizes he is on a spaceship, he is the only survivor, and he has a mission to save the Earth. But he has no idea what the mission is, much less how to complete it.

Stand-out elements: the characters are trying to solve a very interesting problem; i love and am fascinated by the secondary characters; all of the science was explained very well

Downsides: the protagonist’s first name is Ryland (i’m sorry, that’s so petty, but why??)

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3.75 stars

Emily Henry

Romance // 375 pages

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Premise: Harriet and Wyn (together for eight years, broken up for a few months) are both invited to their friend group’s last-ever Maine vacation at their friend’s soon-to-be-sold vacation house. For many reasons, this last trip has to be perfect—and they never told their friends they broke up.

Stand-out elements: poetically written, lots of yearning, good female friendships that matter just as much to the protagonist as her romantic relationship

Downsides: The characters have a millennial sense of humor that is slightly distracting

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4.5 stars

John Scalzi

Sci fi & comedy // 250 pages

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Premise: After Jamie loses her job right as Covid ramps up, she gets hired by a mysterious international organization that studies an alternate-dimension Earth crawling with Kaiju.

Stand-out elements: Good sense of humor, likable characters and friendships (or extremely unlikable, depending on the author’s wishes), down-to-earth sci fi plot that doesn’t take itself too seriously

Downsides: The overarching story/the villain’s plan and goals made me angry because they’re so realistic. I was enraged the whole back-half. (A possible pro for some, maybe)

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4 stars

Cassandra Khaw

Horror // 100 pages

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Premise: In a post-dark-little-mermaid-retelling world, a mermaid and a plague doctor head into the woods and encounter a disturbing group of children

Stand-out elements: incredible horror imagery (both frightening and gory), emotionally poignant moments; i love the two characters’ relationship, it’s very tender

Downsides: dense writing

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5 stars