4 stars - and an extra .5 stars for the great title and cover.
Ruth is dating Abigail and they live inARC for review. To be published October 7, 2025.
4 stars - and an extra .5 stars for the great title and cover.
Ruth is dating Abigail and they live in the little, bigoted town of Kill Devil, Kentucky, home to not much but an evangelical megachurch for a congregation of a group called the New Creationists. These spawn of the angels run their own craft/hobby store which sounds just like everyone’s least favorite (rhymes with Snobby Bobby and before you unknowingly patronize this bastion of hate again I beg you to do a little research on how much they hate women, the LGBT+ community and pretty much everyone who isn’t a cis white male. And I don’t shop there so I can’t confirm this but I have heard that, like the craft/hobby store portrayed in this book, they refuse to have products with bar codes because they feel they might be the sign of the Antichrist spoken of in the Bible. Anyone know if this is true? Because that’s just funny right there.) Lauren Myracle, I hope you are seeing this! (I mean that in only the best way, BTW.)
Here the store is called New Creations and Ruth used to work there until they found out she and Abigail were engaged in lady love and she was fired for conduct unbecoming. Now she steals from there to get back at them.
So, she heads there one day to pick up (abscond with) some emergency yarn and she gets caught. But the staff doesn’t want to call the local cops on Ruth. It’s much, much worse and now she’s trapped in the store and the New Creationists are after her.
OK, given the subject matter I expected this to be less horrifying that it was, but this was absolutely brutal for me, and I spent parts of the book literally, physically contorting my body trying to get away from it (but part of that may depend on how you feel about a certain something that I won’t exactly give away, but call me Winston Smith.). Ruth is a kick ass heroine and I’m not likely to forget this any time soon. Highly recommended for horror fans…Jenny Kiefer, thank you for this (kind of. I also may never get over it.)...more
ARC for review. To be published September 2, 2025.
1.4 stars
When April Fischer was five years old there was a huge disaster at the Copperton mine in NARC for review. To be published September 2, 2025.
1.4 stars
When April Fischer was five years old there was a huge disaster at the Copperton mine in New Mexico where her father worked as foreman, an explosion then a gun battle. Her mother told her her father was killed that day, along with eighteen others but April isn’t so sure. Somehow (and this is not clear to me, either it’s not said or I somehow missed it) there has always been this story that April, “the Bicycle Girl� found a portal that day at the time of the explosion and was told to fly?!?! And April may have some memory of being told to fly?!? This became an Internet rumor, then a horror movie, so April has always been a pariah in town, and only has one friend, Grace. But at one point had other friends. All of this is a muddled mess and makes no sense.
And now (or for a long time, I don’t know) there’s a cult built up around this belief in the portal and the cult also believes that on April’s 17th birthday she will obtain some unknown power (from whom and why is not clear at all. This is a terrible cult.). In advance of her 17th, April’s Aunt Silvia gives her some documents that she tells April will help her find her father. Will they? Is he still alive? And what will happen on April’s birthday?
So, as you might have gleaned, this is a mess. And it would have been worse, except about 3/4 of the way through there’s a section that sort of explains a bit of the above…otherwise I don’t think I would even know as much as I do. And then, who is parenting April and her younger sister? Her mother is sick a lot with fibromyalgia, but, lady, listen, YOUR SIXTEEN YEAR OLD DAUGHTER IS THE BAIT FOR AN ACTUAL CULT. Imma need you to get outta the bed and, I don’t know, maybe do something? Like, for starters, MOVE AWAY?!?! April would be better off being raised by the actual Bigfoot than you.
I know this is YA, but young adults deserve an actual story that makes sense and explains things, not just something where a bunch of ideas are thrown out there with no real attempt to link them into a story. The author has the tense, moody feel down, but, ugh. Im sorry to report it’s not recommended for anyone. There are the makings of a decent story somewhere in here, it just needed to be written. ...more
Jane, 17 and her father Saul live off the grid in an isolated cabin in rural Montana in the earlyARC for review. To be published June 3, 2025.
4 stars
Jane, 17 and her father Saul live off the grid in an isolated cabin in rural Montana in the early 1990s. Jane doesn’t remember any other life, they’ve lived there since shortly after her mother died in a car accident when she was a small child.
Jane only knows one person her age and sees her only during her rare visits into town with her father; she is homeschooled and her dad and their plot of land is her whole world. Her dad is a genius, went to Harvard, writes loads of letters to the editor to various publications (they never print them) and makes his own zine with his political opinions, especially his dislike of advancing technology, to a tiny group of subscribers.
Jane doesn’t think to question much, until she starts pushing back a little, wanting more freedom until there’s a huge, tragic event that changes her life with her father forever. How will Jane handle a world where everything she knows is upended?
I read and enjoyed another book by this author, but, I swear, through about the first forty percent of this one I could swear I had read it before. I even checked to make sure it hadn’t been previously published under a different title. It hasn’t been. I’m left wondering if there’s another book out there that has a first section that is super similar or I’m nuts.
Anyway, the book is pretty good, even though it almost reads as if it were YA (it’s not, because it’s at least partially based on something I won’t spoil.) Readers will see some of the plot points coming, but it’s still enjoyable and well done. ...more
ARC for review. To be published September 2, 2025.
3 stars
In 1969, 23 year old starlet Lori Lovely (what a terrible stage name. I winced when she and ARC for review. To be published September 2, 2025.
3 stars
In 1969, 23 year old starlet Lori Lovely (what a terrible stage name. I winced when she and whomever came up with it.) gave Hollywood a big shock when she swore off its glitz and glamour to take her vows as a Benedictine nun. Why would an up and coming actress who had already had one role for the ages do such a thing? Was she on the run? Unlucky in love?
In 1990, Lu Tibbott is being forced to complete her college senior thesis in modern American history and decides to write about her Aunt Lori, now the Mother Abbess at a cloistered convert in rural Connecticut. Lori has always refused interviews but she can’t say no to her niece and she’s finally ready to reveal all.
Obviously this book is heavily based on the life of Delores Hart, to whom it is dedicated and in reading the afterward the reader learns that the author had a lengthy, multi-year correspondence with Hart and became very close to her, so my guess is that if you want the story in a fictionalized form, this is the book to read (however, I THINK Hart either wrote or collaborated on a non-fiction book, so, you know, if you want truth�). In addition, parts of this book also draw from the real life experiences of actress Olivia Hussey, who starred in “Romeo and Juliet.�
Also, if this book interests you, let me toot the horn of�.myself and suggest that you not read any other synopsis of this book, maybe including the one here on GR and possibly on the back of the book, because the one that accompanied the ARC gave away a major spoiler that I would just as soon not have known, and there was absolutely no reason to disclose it. So, you are to read nothing about this book in advance other than my non-spoilering review! Just like your mama told you, keep yourself pure!
The book itself was fine. Someone in the middle of it called it something like “wholesome� and that’s a pretty good description. This description pre-dates me, but it is what I image the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland movies were like. Good ol� family entertainment, then no one ever has sex! Yay! No, really, I liked it fine. ...more
Lisowski is trans and has gone through debilitating physical, mental and family issues, (serARC for review. To be published October 7, 2025.
2.5 stars
Lisowski is trans and has gone through debilitating physical, mental and family issues, (seriously, she has been through the wringer) including a stay in a psych ward. Throughout she says she has looked to horror films to keep her grounded and to help her maintain her sense of self.
In each chapter/essay the author discusses or at least mentions specific movies that connect her to various points in her life, but this is all very personal to her, versus any sort of overall examination of these movies and what she believes they mean in any sort of larger context. At the beginning of the book she notes, “for those of us who live in power’s periphery - trans disabled, non-white, poor - love happens under violence’s shadow,� so perhaps she is directing the observations in the book at these audiences and I don’t fall into any of those categories.
This is SUCH a great title, and the synopsis sounded great, but I found reading the book a bit of a slog. Often the movies are mentioned only briefly, or in passing, which left me wondering why the author used the trope at all, and didn’t just go with straight up memoir; I wanted more of a connection with the movies and it really wasn’t to be found here. I did like this: “The thing about growing up in the rural South is that’s it’s so easy to fantasize about living anywhere else.� I just moved to the CITY South, but, preach, sister! ...more
ARC for review. To be published September 2, 2025.
3 stars
The unnamed narrator is a woman in her thirties, returned to NYC after some years of self-exARC for review. To be published September 2, 2025.
3 stars
The unnamed narrator is a woman in her thirties, returned to NYC after some years of self-exile abroad. It’s not clear why she returned, but it is not because of the funeral which, in small part, makes up the subject of the novel which, along with the dinner party after comprises its whole - the entity takes place over a number of hours. During the dinner party the recalls the funeral of her former friend Rebecca, who committed suicide. Now she is grudgingly(?) attending a dinner party given by former friends Eugene and Nicole, with whom she once lived, in their beautiful, moneyed apartment in the Bowery. The dinner is not in honor of Rebecca however, but, rather, is a “cultural evening� given for an actress from California. Alexander, who is also there, who is always at their home, was once the center of her world along with Eugene, Nicole and Rebecca.
That group, along with others, believes they make up the young cultural elite of the city. They go to the important things, they make the things important by being there. The narrator was completely enmeshed in their world, left New York to escape them, but she never really has.
First off, be aware there are no paragraphs in this book, so if that is the sort of affectation that drives you crazy, well, you’ve been warned. Nearly everyone here is an awful person. Yes, pitiful in their way, but not so much that anything is excused. The men are worse than the women, which is a rather pitiful stab at feminism, I guess?
What if the narrator? She left, but her mind never left, and the author uses the actress to attack the group, not the narrator. They are “the ones who believe that their work is more important, more virtuous, different in its very nature to the work people actually enjoy.� I think there are probably groups of big city denizens who will love this book, but I just found it decent, somewhat tedious and repetitive at times. ...more
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