babewithabookandabeer's reviews
340 reviews

You Know What You Did by K.T. Nguyen

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Thank you Dutton Books for my Netgalley copy of YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID by K. T. Nguyen out 4/16/24!

When I saw this was for fans of Celeste Ng or Lisa Jewell, I knew I had to request this debut! It follows Annie Shaw, an artist with her dream career, devoted husband and whip-smart teenage daughter. When her mother, a Vietnam War refugee, dies suddenly, her life starts to unravel as her obsessive-compulsive disorder comes roaring back.

One of her prominent clients goes missing and the investigation zeroes in on Annie. She begins to question her own mind, hyperfixate on her traumas she endured as a child, and as she pushes everyone away around her, wakes up in a hotel room next to a naked, lifeless body.

This book had twist after twist, and while the narrator was frustrating at times, I couldn’t put it down. This is an amazing thriller, that details the hardships of OCD paired with the wounds of the refugee experience. What legacies do we leave for our children? Is the bond between mother and daughter unbreakable or does it have its limits? Can we ever escape the trauma we endured? 

The ending is wild and my skin crawled on more than one occasion. I will definitely keep my eyes peeled for K. T. Nguyen’s follow-up novel!

Bye, Baby by Carola Lovering

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

Thank you St. Martin’s Press for my Netgalley copy of BYE, BABY by Carola Lovering, out 3/5/24!

I haven’t read TELL ME LIES by this author, but I did watch the show so I requested this one right away. It is marketed as a thriller, but think it’s more of a deep exploration of female friendship and how it changes as people’s priorities shift and motherhood (and lack thereof) comes into the picture. There are thrilling moments (and a major trigger warning for sexual assault) but I think this book is a slow burn that does it well.

It definitely starts off with a hook, where we have narrator Billie West hearing terrified screams above her from her longtime best friend Cassie Barnwell when she realizes her infant daughter goes missing. The bang? Billie is the one who took her. 

We slowly start to uncover what led to this and it’s a wild ride from start to finish. I really enjoyed Carola’s musings on motherhood and a woman’s choice to not have children. Cassie is married to a wealthy dodo-brain man and building a following as a lifestyle influencer. Billie is single and childless by choice and finding herself boxed out by Cassie and her new mommy friends.

The flashbacks were great and I was on the edge of my seat figuring out where the friendship flourished and where it faltered. While Cassie is eager to leave the past behind her, Billie knows a big secret about the worst thing Cassie has ever done, so can the friendship REALLY end? 

I loved the ending, I loved all the side characters and I definitely recommend reading this one once it comes out because I’d love to hear other women’s reflections. Can two betrayals cancel each other out? Read to find out!

Midnight on Beacon Street by Emily Ruth Verona

medium-paced

5.0

Thank you Harper Perennial for my Netgalley copy of MIDNIGHT ON BEACON STREET by Emily Ruth Verona, out 1/30/24!

I requested this book because it said it was a love letter to vintage horror movies and had major Halloween vibes (a babysitter protecting the two children she’s babysitting when strangers come knocking on her door). 

It takes place in 1993 on one night, in one house with one dead body. Single mom Eleanor goes out for a date night, leaving her six-year old Ben and twelve-year old Mira in the hands of her sitter, Amy. Amy has an extreme anxiety disorder who uses horror movies to calm the panic that threatens to constantly overwhelm her. 

You know Ben ends up in the kitchen standing in a pool of blood, but don’t know who it is until the very end. There’s definitely some twists and a lot of tension built up with different characters potentially being the one who is killed. It’s figuring out the why that takes its sweet time to deliver.

This book was fun and and a fast read, but it didn’t do anything that wowed me. It reads more like a YA novel than an adult read, which took me out of it a bit. I finished it in around a day and a half because the constant horror movie references were my jam. The way the POV’s were displayed, I figured Ben would be a more titular character but that wasn’t the case.

The ending was underwhelming. I wouldn’t call this lavish literature, but if you’re looking for a little dose of nostalgia and you love horror flicks, it could be a fun read during spooky season followed by a movie marathon of your 80’s slasher favorites.

Sugar, Baby by Celine Saintclare

medium-paced

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

5.0

Thank you Bloomsbury Publishing for my Netgalley copy of SUGAR, BABY by Celine Saintclare, out 1/9/24!

For fans of Luster and Queenie, this novel is an unflinching portrayal of high-paid sex work in the age of the Internet. It follows Agnes, a mixed 21-year old whose life seeminly leads to nowhere. Living and working with her religious mother, she spends all her money in clubs on the weekends with her friends she feels disconnected from, looking for distractions from every day life.

The difference Agnes soon learns is the sugar babies around her come from money. She soon falls deeper and deeper in the hands of men who realize she doesn’t have the same safety net the other women do. Agnes starts to search for fulfillment and stems further and further from the faith that kept her grounded as she sought out her purpose.

This is a gorgeous coming-of-age story, very hard to read at times, with smart commentary on race, beauty and class in London. I think we needed more of Agnes’ back story leading up to her decision to engulf herself in sex work to truly understand her grapplings - sometimes I felt the novel fell to stereotypes and questions of morality. I don’t think there was anything new in this novel regarding sex work (I think of my time reading Revolting Prositutes), until we get to the part where Agnes goes to Miami with a billionaire and his wife (this part I found to be the most intriguing, with the most thematic moments). 

I expected more social media connections in the novel showing the modernization of sex work - more instagram DM’s, OnlyFans, Twitter porn, RedBook, Snapcash, shadowbanning… it seemed social media was mostly used as a diary to promote her lavish lifestyle than showcase how it pampers to the industry.

I guess I wanted more! I’m wondering how much was autofiction and what was researched. The writing is stellar and I very much enjoyed the book - I was just left wanting a little bit more.

There's Going to Be Trouble by Jen Silverman

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Thank you Random House for my Netgalley copy of THERE’S GOING TO BE TROUBLE by Jen Silverman, out 4/9/24!

This may be in my top reads of the year! I loved this book - it’s everything I love in a novel. It has both French and American history, multiple love affairs, radical activism for the working class, time jumps, dualing POV’s that make sense around the halfway mark and family above all.

The overarching theme: The course of your life can change with one split-second decision.

Minnow has always tried to lead the life her single father modeled—private, quiet, hardworking, apolitical. So she is rocked when an instinctive decision to help a student makes her the extremely public face of a scandal in the small town where she teaches. As tensions rise, vandalism and death threats follow, and an overwhelmed Minnow flees to a teaching position in Paris. 

There, Minnow falls into an exhilarating and all-consuming relationship with Charles, a young Frenchman whose activism has placed him at odds with his powerful family. As Minnow is pulled into the daring protest Charles and his friends are planning, she unknowingly draws close to repeating a secret tragedy from her family's past. For her father wasn’t always the restrained, conservative man he appears today. There are things he has taken great pains to bury from his family and from the world. 

In 1968, Keen is avoiding the Vietnam draft by pursuing a PhD at Harvard. He lives his life in the basement chemistry lab, studiously avoiding the news. But when he unexpectedly falls in love with Olya, a fiery community organizer, he is consumed by her world and loses sight of his own. Learning that his deferment has ended and he’s been drafted, Keen agrees to participate in the latest action that Olya is organizing—one with more dangerous and far-reaching consequences than he could have imagined. 

The Vienam War and the activism of the late 60’s is a moment in time I am very intrigued by. Any book that tackles the heartbreak of this time in a way as good as this novel has my full attention. This book is smart, suspenseful, engaging and revolutionary. I loved every second of it and I didn’t want it to end.

It keeps you on the edge of your seat, wondering what is going to happen to each character. And the main protagonists are SO enticing. I love their thoughts, I love their way of thinking, I love the way they are challenged and their growth is astronomical. The book leaves you thinking deeply about every aspect of your life and existence and the way the world works. Jen Silverman - you are amazing! I will read anything you write. I am going to be thinking about this one for a long time.

The Silence in Her Eyes by Armando Lucas Correa

dark mysterious medium-paced

5.0

Thank you Atria Books for my Netgalley copy of THE SILENCE IN HER EYES by Armando Lucas Correa, out 1/30/24!

For fans of Paula Hawkins and Ruth Ware, this is a psychological thriller about a woman with a rare neurological condition who is convinced her neighbor is going to be murdered.

Leah has been living with akinetopsia, or motion blindness, since she was a child. For the last twenty years, she hasn’t been able to see movement. As she walks around her upper Manhattan neighborhood with her white stick tapping in front, most people assume she’s blind. But the truth is Leah sees a good deal, and with her acute senses of smell and hearing, very little escapes her notice.

She has a quiet, orderly life, with little human contact beyond her longtime housekeeper, her doctor, and her elderly neighbor. That all changes when Alice moves into the apartment next door and Leah can immediately smell the anxiety wafting off her. Worse, Leah can’t help but hear Alice and a late-night visitor engage in a violent fight. Worried, she befriends her neighbor and discovers that Alice is in the middle of a messy divorce from an abusive husband.

Then one night, Leah wakes up to someone in her apartment. She blacks out and in the morning is left wondering if she dreamt the episode. And yet the scent of the intruder follows her everywhere. And when she hears Alice through the wall pleading for her help, Leah makes a decision that will test her courage, her strength, and ultimately her sanity.

The writing is very up-front, direct and succinct. I like that every now and then, and this one surprised me with its twists. Definitely for fans of unreliable narrators, this book will keep you on your toes. I was pretty annoyed of the word “bergamot” by the end (iykyk) and I think her condition was explained very reptatively, but for the most part, I was engaged and intrigued to see where it went.

It goes off the rails at the end - it’s perfect for a good popcorn thriller you can read in one sitting when you have the time. 

While We Were Burning by Sara Koffi

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Thank you Putnam Books for my Netgalley copy = of WHILE WE WERE BURNING by Sara Koffi, out 4/16/24!

The publisher says this novel is Parasite meets Such a Fun Age and that’s a pretty good descriptor! This debut examines the intersections of race, class and female friendship with an exploration of devasting consequences of everyday actions.

I really, really enjoyed this book. It’s a slow burn thriller, letting you slowly uncover how our characters are connected and it really came together for me.

After her best friend's mysterious death, Elizabeth Smith’s picture-perfect life in the Memphis suburbs has spiraled out of control—so much so that she hires a personal assistant to keep her on track. Composed and elegant, Brianna is exactly who she needs and slides so neatly into Elizabeth’s life, almost like she belonged there from the start. Soon, the assistant Elizabeth hired to distract her from her obsession with her friend's death is the same person working with her to uncover the truth behind it.

Because Brianna has questions, too. There’s more to the synopsis, but I think this book is best when you go in unknowingly. The final showdown is electrifying and the lines get very blurred - it’s a wild ride. 

I loved the ending, but I also have major questions that I’ll keep to myself to avoid any spoilers. Just know, the characters are incredibly complex and flawed and you’ll find yourself switching sides until the very end. Let me just say I do NOT understand the conclusion of the romance and I don’t think it does as much as the author thinks it does? Doesn’t seem like a win to me? But idk, maybe I’m the outlier! 

I think both characters could have had more depth to them when it came to our understanding of them as readers - we get snapshots of their past that drive their characters, but not quite enough to make that full connection. I think they could have been fleshed out more. I wanted more back story on Charles, Camilla, parental upbringing, and the traumas that made each character the way they are (because both main protagonists are very unique). 

The vision is immaculate though and I give Koffi major snaps. 

The Only One Left by Riley Sager

5.0

After Dark by Minka Kent

fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.0

Thank you Thomas & Mercer for my Netgalley copy of AFTER DARK by Minka Kent, out 11/14/23! I found out after reading this is an imprint of Amazon, UGH. Very displeased with this information because the book was decent.

After Dark follows two women, Afton & Sydney. Afton is a pariah in her town, accused of murdering Sydney’s father twenty years ago, who was the secret lover of Afton’s mother. 

Afton is now living with her grandmother, working as a night shift hotel clerk and relying on pills to get a wink of sleep. Afton learns she won the lottery and is now a multi-millionaire, so she sets a secret plan in motion. Even with Afton’s accusation, her and Sydney are friends with the push of Sydney’s mother on a path of forgiveness. Afton plans to help Sydney leave her toxic husband who she suspects of cheating.

Soon, her intentions spin out of control and a LOT of twists happen. This book is HIGHLY unrealistic. It’s completely laughable. It borderlines on psychotic quite honestly. What kind of friend goes to the lengths Afton does to help Sydney? If you read, you’ll understand what I mean. Talk about a lack of boundaries and inappropriate relations. And the ending… I do not buy that Afton would just let THAT slide. This book is good if you’re looking for a fast read that you can finish in 24 hours. But it’s not good if you’re looking for a probable plot line. It is bonkers. Leave it to Amazon to publish something so stupid. 

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward

dark emotional medium-paced

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

5.0

Thank you Tor Nightfire for my Netgalley copy of LOOKING GLASS SOUND by Catriona Ward, out now!

WOW. This book legitimately scared me. I had to put it down about halfway through and take a break because it was spooky and I live alone and it was scary to read at night lmaoooo.

This is the latest twisty psychological horror novel from Ward, and it is VERY unique in its format. In a lonely cottage overlooking the coast of Maine, Wilder Harlow begins the last book he will ever write. It is the story of him and his childhood besties discovering the bodies of murdered women by a killer that stalked the small New England town. 

While dealing with the horrors of that discovery over a decade, Wilder meets Sky, who steals his unfinished memoir and turns it into a lurid bestselling novel, Looking Glass Sound. 

As Wilder continues to try and write and reclaim his story, the lines between memory and fiction start to blur. He starts to lose his grip on reality, see ghosts and fall apart. This book is MIND-BENDING. It’s like ten stories in one. I loved it - the ending was spectacular once you realize what she is doing.

Also, let me emphasize that this is HORROR. The ghosts are scary, the talk about serial killers and what they do is scary, and there are multiple instances of “degloving flesh.” Just a fun warning! Your brain will need to work in overdrive to comprehend this book, but it’s worth it! Go in with as little as possible and let it warp your mind!!! It’s definitely a nesting doll of a novel, so be prepared to take it slow.

Ward is officially an autobuy author for me because this was mesmerizing.