Category: Book Review
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By Maria Reva 5/5 Endling was my favorite read of 2025 so far. I discovered Maria Reva a few years ago when she had just published her debut novel, Good Citizens Need Not Fear, and I’ve been eagerly waiting for more since. Good Citizens was an interconnected short story collection that follows the residents of…
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by Chloe Michelle Howarth 5/5 I purchased a copy of Sunburn at a bookstore called Novellette in Nashville halfway through my 10-day drive to New York City, and I could not have chosen a more riveting read to accompany me. Sunburn is a devastatingly beautiful (but not necessarily unhappy!) story of first love and repression.…
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by Casey McQuiston 4/5 I’m a few weeks late posting my review for this one! I read One Last Stop at the beginning of summer, about a month before I left Austin for New York. This book is a romance, time travel novel, and love letter to the NYC public transportation system all in one,…
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by Lydia Millet 3/5? I think? I read Oh Pure and Radiant Heart back in February and managed to put off writing the review for several months. I’m glad I did—this was one of the most perplexing things I’ve ever read, and I feel like six months was the minimum amount of time I needed…
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by Saara El-Arifi I just finished reading a Young Adult trilogy called Ending Fire. It was pretty far outside of my comfort zone and will probably be the only YA I read for some time now, but I thought the worldbuilding was incredible, and I hope to read more of the author’s work in the…
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by Emma Copley Eisenberg 2/5 I wanted to like Housemates so badly. It was recommended by several people, and it sounds like exactly the type of thing I would usually love. A queer roadtrip? Yes, please! Unfortunately, this book missed the mark for me. To start, the narration style was nonsensical, chaotic, and inconsistent. It’s…
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by Travis Baldree 4/5 This was one of the coziest fantasies I’ve read in a long time. If I’d managed to time my reading to be more in tune with the seasons, I would have saved this for the middle of winter. It’s as warm and comforting as one of the cups of coffee served…
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by Alexandra Tanner 2/5 This book was interesting and well-written—it just wasn’t really my thing. It follows two sisters in New York City as they navigate situationships, new jobs, and the complexities of mental health. This would be great for fans of novels like Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Worry is more character-driven…
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by Adam Ehrlich Sachs 5/5 Here is the whimsy I have been looking for! Gretel and the Great War has one of the most unique structures I’ve ever come across. The stories are organized from A to Z, with each story centering on a character whose title corresponds with the story’s letter (A is about…
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by Dean Spade 4/5 I haven’t read books in the self-help genre in a long time, and to be honest, I’m not sure I would have picked this one up in the first place if I’d realized that’s how it was classified. Love in a F*cked Up World addresses the flaws within the self-help genre…
Emily Vance Brown 