grimalkintoes's reviews
140 reviews

30 Things I Love About Myself by Radhika Sanghani

funny reflective medium-paced

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

2.0

30 Things I Love about Myself didn't deliver in the way I was expecting. Rather, Nina's journey of #selflove was exaggerated to the point of being trite and wholly unconvincing. 

Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Special thanks to Netgalley and SGJ for a free, electronic ARC of this novel.

Expected publication date: February 7, 2023

Jade Daniels returns in Don't Fear the Reaper, this time sloughing off her old self, carrying the name Jennifer instead. But generational memory runs deep in Proofrock, and running from what you know could have deadly consequences. 

Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

funny lighthearted

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

4.0

Love on the Brain's Levi and Bee are just The Love Hypothesis' Adam and Olive reskinned as a neuroscientist and an engineer but I'm not particularly mad at it. What can I say? I'm a sucker for 'enemies'-to-lovers in academic settings and women in STEM are hot. *shrugs* 

Woom by Duncan Ralston

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Duncan Ralston's Woom is exceedingly horrific, giving it high praise in the extreme horror/splatterpunk genre. I can't say that I "enjoyed" myself, but the brutality of the narrative drove me to the end, each visceral reaction stronger than the last. This will certainly not be the end of my literary exploration into the extreme.

Horror has so much to offer, so much thoughtkindling to be spilled.

"Back to my original point," he said, "I don't believe in ghosts. But I do think places, like this motel room, I think they hold on to bad things, the way people hold on to memories. Grief. Pain. Disease. Addiction. I think when you enter a place that's absorbed enough bad things, it pukes them out at you. It drenches you in them. So a relatively innocuous room, like this one, will appear evil. Because bad things happened here." 

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

challenging emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Sarah Gailey's dystopian novella, Upright Women Wanted is basically just “be gay, do crimes, take no shit” but in book format. It's queer. It's Western. It's badass Librarian representation. What more could you want?

I'm also going to carry this quote everywhere I go now as a librarian who uses she/they pronouns: “I’m they on the road and she in town. You can take time getting used to they on the road, but if you forget about she when we’re in town, you’ll have to learn how to think around a bullet.” 

The Tea Dragon Society by K. O'Neill

lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

Told through the seasons, Kay O'Neill's Tea Dragon Society is a warm story of how memories, customs, and people can be remembered through the art of crafting and the love of sharing. Aesthetically pleasing illustrations and adorable character design. Tea dragons are too stinkin' cute and I need one right now.

Verity by Colleen Hoover

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

The Colleen Hoover Industrial Complex has won, I couldn't put Verity down. Suspenseful, excruciating, and scripted from that one fucked up Lifetime movie you watched when you were 17 years old. You'll hate everyone in this book and trust them even less.

All The Blood We Share by Camilla Bruce

dark medium-paced

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

4.0

Camilla Bruce's All the Blood We Share breathes horrific life into the story of the "Bloody Benders," a family of serial killers who commit a number of murders in Cherryvale, Labette County, Kansas in 1871. Told from multiple POVs, this historic novelization delivers the creepiest of western frontier vibes. Readers, suddenly privy to the internal workings of this prairie family and their gruesome bone orchard, will want nothing more than to dig, dig, dig.

"...we buried him behind the house, on a patch of soil meant to become an orchard. Ma had wanted apple saplings for it, but now it had become a grave instead."

The Santa Suit by Mary Kay Andrews

funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted 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

Mary Kay Andrews spins the sweetest little Christmas yarn in The Santa Suit. Warm and fuzzy with a pinch of peppermint-y romance. 

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted slow-paced

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

5.0

Travis Baldree's Legends & Lattes is a charming coffee shop tale featuring Viv, an orc barbarian finished with the adventuring life and looking to change flavors one cuppa joe at a time.