Morren Aconite

I have no idea what the hell was going on with my reading – and life – this month. Best I can sum it up is: chaotic yet curious.

Mrs. March, Virginia Feito

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved Virginia’s Victorian Psycho, so I picked up her debut novel in search of good reads. A very dedicated housewife to a famous author husband discovers the unf***able (not my words, but the book’s) sex worker in his new novel is based on her. Chaos ensues. It was unhinged in all the best ways, which was about what I expected. Loved it.

Can’t wait for whatever she writes next.

The Final Girl Support Group, Grady Hendrix

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I have a strange relationship with Grady Hendrix. Her writing flows well, her ideas stand out from the general noise, but each of her books lands differently for me. Despite the awesome concept, I lost interest in this one because of the MC. I found her insufferable in all the worst ways, and while I realize a lot of it was intentional on the author’s part, I just couldn’t stand her.

Still, the story was fun and quick to get through.

Hot Wax, M. L. Rio

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ohhhh, this is one of the ‘disappointments’ I mentioned in the title. I was so excited for this book, since I adored Rio’s If We Were Villains and Graveyard Shift, and I think this was exactly my problem. This novel takes a bit more gritty/grounded direction. I don’t know how to explain it, but the vibe is just different, which was what threw me off.

However, it was a well-written self-discovery journey of a grown woman who still hasn’t dealt with the ghosts of her past and is just learning how to listen to herself.

Favorita, Michelle Steinbeck

⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was a rare random bookstore find: I saw an amazing cover and something about a feminist revenge journey in the annotation, and bought it.

A woman finds out her estranged mother, who ran a brothel, is dead, possibly murdered, and she goes on a journey to Italy to find out what really happened to her. It is a well-written and well-translated hallucinatory trip of a book.

Rockoholic, C. J. Skuse

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’m a huge fan of C. J. for her Sweetpea series, and this little book was the last of hers that I hadn’t read. It was a fun and crazy roller coaster of a plot about a fangirl who accidentally kidnaps the leader of the rock band she’s obsessed with, just to find out that her fantasies have little to do with the grim reality.

Perfect, P. J. Gudka

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks to P. J. for reaching out and giving me an opportunity to read her work. This is a domestic thriller with a missing girl and a mother whose son is the main suspect. It was fast-paced and entertaining, even if sometimes a little on the nose.

Still, I admire the author as I understand how taxing and scary it can be to self-publish a non-erotica book. I wish her all the best with her future novels.

Sister Svangerd And The Not Quite Dead, K. J. Parker

⭐️⭐️

‘Blessed are those who have seen and yet have not believed. It takes a special kind of idiot, and you know what, I rather like special people.’

Cue the biggest disappointment of this month. It’s marketed as sort of a fun fantasy about a sex worker-turned-priestess who has to take care of a politically inconvenient princess in the interests of her church. What could go wrong? Nothing, right?

Wrong.

Svangerd is the most fascinating element in all of this, yet she is only there, on the sidelines, as someone for the narrator to salivate over. We glimpse the character in her awesomeness occasionally, and through her accompanying priest’s a.k.a. the narrator’s eyes. All this sprinkled through his kilometre-long rants about the nature of religious debates, inner theological squabbles, and the nuances of the imaginary schism.

This book is literally like coming for a wine night with your rowdy girlfriend, and ending up listening to her obnoxious new boyfriend do the ‘well, actually‘ speeches all night instead.

Want To Know A Secret?, Freida McFadden

⭐️⭐️

I genuinely forgot what this was about already… so 🤷‍♀️

My Husband’s Wife, Alice Feeney

⭐️⭐️

‘I’m trapped by a moral compass that often seems to send me in the wrong direction, and this feels like a dead end.’

Okay, I love Alice Feeney, and her previous thrillers were gripping. However, this one had a great premise, but by the end, it had amassed so many far-fetched plot twists that I ended up baffled. The whole thing is too convoluted to be remotely believable, and I’m one of those readers who’s ready to suspend her disbelief real far.

Half His Age, Jennette McCurdy

⭐️⭐️

‘Maybe wanting things is what makes me a lot. If I could just want less, I’d be the right amount of person. The amount I’m supposed to be. The not-a-lot amount. The easy-to-love amount.’

When I sat down to write this review, I remembered a saying from my culture that goes something like ‘When it comes to the dead, either say something nice or don’t say anything at all.’ I don’t have anything nice to say about this one, but I will say – from the way this author’s memoir was hyped up, praised, and acclaimed, I thought she’d be great. Then I saw the premise of her debut novel, and was genuinely excited, since it’s exactly what I usually enjoy.

And yet. For me, this was a stale mash-up of Moshfegh, Nutting, and Russell, but worse. Substance – 0, dramatically gross/pretentiously edgy descriptions for no reason – a million.

It’s Not Her, Mary Kubica

⭐️⭐️

To be fair to this book, I did start it when I wanted a quick thriller and ran out of other options. It was fine. Nothing extraordinary, a bit wandering with the plot, and overall forgettable.