Trigger Warnings: descriptions of extreme violence, torture, insinuations of rape, sex trafficking, and pedophilia, animal cruelty It’s a cold, snowy night when Darby is making the trip she never imagined herself taking — she’s driving home to tell her mother she loves her. Darby and her mother have never gotten along, but now, her mother’s been diagnosed with cancer, and Darby has to make amends for all the horrible things she said to her mother on Thanksgiving. So, that’s why Darby is driving through the worst blizzard she’s seen in her life. That’s why Darby is forced to pull over and wait out the storm at a highway rest stop with…
Malibu Rising | A Book Review
Taylor Jenkins Reid’s latest published work on shelves now, and you’d be a fool not to pick it up. If you’ve been here for a while, you know how much I loved The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & the Six, and Malibu Rising is another Reid hit to add to the shelves. The Riva family is kind of famous. Not only are a few of them pro-surfers and models, but they throw the wildest beach party every summer that anyone who is anyone always makes sure to attend. This year though, things are different. This year, by 8 a.m., everything is up in flames. Reid tells the timeless story of…
Book Review: Big Magic
Courage. Enchantment. Permission. Persistence. Trust. Divinity. The six components of creativity according to Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic. Big Magic is one of those books you read, and it changes or affirms your perspective on everything. Gilbert has a unique approach to creativity and inspiration that I think most people can benefit from reading. Rather than viewing creativity as this painful, elusive entity, Gilbert thinks of it as a gift that flits in and out of your life only if you let it. I’ve always struggled with calling myself a creative person, and the way Gilbert approaches the topic makes it possible for anyone to live creatively as long as they give…
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle: A Book Review
Warning: There may be spoilers in this review. Evelyn Hardcastle is going to die. She is going to die again and again until Aiden Bishop can figure out who her killer is. Only when he figures out who is behind her untimely death will he be freed from the loop of reliving the day of The Masquerade Ball hosted at Blackheath. Aiden wakes up every day in a different person’s body. Each person is supposed to bring him more clues to piece together who is behind Evelyn’s death. But, Aiden is sidetracked when the only person he can remember before his time at Blackheath is Anna. Who is Anna, and…
Tell Me Lies: A Review
WARNING: There may be spoilers in this review. We all have that one person we know doesn’t treat us right, but we can’t help being in love with them. For Lucy, that person is Stephen. Stephen is mediocre at best, but Lucy can’t help going back to him time and time again. Tell Me Lies starts out in present-day New York with Lucy working a so-so job heading off to her best friend’s wedding. Lucy is a jumble of nerves because she knows her ex-boyfriend, Stephen, is going to be there. The rest of the book is mainly told in flashbacks to the pair’s college days reliving their tumultuous relationship. This book…
Educated: A Review
Educated is the story of what happens when you have nothing to rely on but yourself, a book, and some very willing loved ones to get you out of a tough situation. Tara Westover was raised in a strict Mormon household in the mountains of Idaho. In addition to being conservative, traditional parents, Tara’s parents were also survivalists. Tara, along with her six other siblings, was homeschooled for the majority of her life, worked either in the junkyard with their father or in the kitchen putting together homeopathic remedies with her mother, and was always prepared for the second-coming. At 17, Tara was convinced by her older brother, Tyler, to leave…
Ghosted: A Review
Sarah doesn’t think she will ever find love again, but then Eddie comes around. Sarah is from California, but she is back in London after her recent divorce for her yearly trip home when she meets the man she knows she could actually spend the rest of her life with. She doesn’t know Eddie for long, just one week, but she knows it’s different than anything she’s ever felt before. Until he ghosts her. Ghosted is about feeling a love that is so real you can’t explain it — it’s a love you can feel in your bones — a love you’re willing to look absolutely crazy to find, but you…
Verity: A Review
Warning: Spoilers ahead! Turn back now if you have any intention of reading this book and don’t want to be spoiled! Verity is about a best-selling author, Verity Crawford, who has become unable to care for herself after a tragic car accident. Her husband, Jeremy, hires a ghostwriter, Lowen, to finish Verity’s world-renowned book series, and while Lowen is sorting through Verity’s notes in the two’s home, Lowen and Jeremy begin to develop something more than a friendship. Aside from Verity’s accident, the couple also lost their twin daughters, one after the other, earlier in the same year, but luckily, Jeremy still has Crew, his 5-year-old son. While Lowen in staying…
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Review
A gripping tale of finding oneself among the pomp-and-circumstance of Hollywood fame in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a masterpiece of this generation. Evelyn Hugo, a Hollywood starlet of the Golden Age, wants Monique, a struggling writer, to tell her story. A story no one has ever heard before, and a story a lot of people would spend a lot of money to read. The book is perfectly written as a frame story going between the present day and Evelyn’s complicated past. It both tells Evelyn’s story as well as Monique’s and the vast impact Evelyn’s words have on Monique’s understanding of herself. On the…
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Book Review
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was marketed as a book about a boy with unusual skills and intelligence that embarks on a quest to find out who killed his neighbors dog, and it turns out to be so much more than that. Christopher, Mark Haddon’s main character, is exceptionally gifted at math and science, but when it comes to communicating with the people around him, he struggles more than the average teenager. You see, Christopher has some sort of mental development issues. It is never stated directly in the book that there is anything wrong with Christopher, and that’s exactly the point. The book isn’t about Christopher’s “disability”…
