The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley — Review
A civil servant cohabits with a Victorian Arctic explorer extracted from the Franklin Expedition, and what begins as a bureaucratic assignment becomes something …
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Book reviews from The Diary of a Bookworm — YA fiction, fantasy, literary fiction, and crime.
James by Percival Everett — Review
Percival Everett's Pulitzer-winning retelling of Huckleberry Finn restores full humanity to Jim, the man Twain saw only from the outside.
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The Women by Kristin Hannah — Review
Frankie McGrath enlists as an Army nurse in Vietnam and discovers that coming home can be as brutal as the war itself.
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The Atlas Complex by Olivia Blake — Review
The Atlas trilogy's shattering conclusion forces each of the six to reckon with what they've become and what they're willing to destroy.
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The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo — Review
A criada with forbidden magic navigates the glittering cruelty of the Spanish court in Bardugo's stunning historical fantasy.
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The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese — Review
A vast, luminous novel spanning 75 years of South Indian life, a family's inexplicable condition, and the medicine and love that attempts to understand it.
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Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros — Review
Violet and Xaden return to Basgiath for a second year that dismantles everything they thought was true, in a sequel that honours the first book's promise.
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A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid — Review
Gothic, dreamy, and laced with dread — Ava Reid's standalone fantasy about a girl, a legend, and a house that refuses to be understood.
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Starter Villain by John Scalzi — Review
A deeply funny science fiction comedy about inheriting a supervillain empire, complete with volcano lairs, unionised henchpeople, and cats with opinions about …
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Powerless by Lauren Roberts — Review
A high-stakes fantasy about the only Ordinary in a kingdom of Elites, where surviving the Purging Trials requires every ounce of wit she has — and the Crown …
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Yellowface by R.F. Kuang — Review
Incisive, uncomfortable, and wickedly funny — R.F. Kuang's literary satire turns the publishing industry's racism into the sharpest possible instrument.
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The Sun and the Star by Rick Riordan & Mark Oshiro — Review
Nico di Angelo finally gets his own story — a descent into Tartarus with his boyfriend that is tender, terrifying, and long overdue.
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Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros — Review
A ferociously compulsive dragon-rider fantasy romance that put Rebecca Yarros on every bestseller list and refused to let readers put it down.
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Happy Place by Emily Henry — Review
A tender, aching romance about two people performing togetherness for an audience of best friends, and what happens when the performance becomes harder than the …
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The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten — Review
A decadent, dangerous dark fantasy where channelling death is a gift and a secret, and the court built on faith is anything but holy.
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Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano — Review
A Pulitzer Prize-winning multigenerational saga about a Chicago family, the wounds that travel through generations, and the slow work of choosing differently.
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Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross — Review
A swoony, heartfelt historical fantasy about rival journalists, letters written to strangers across a warfront, and what we say when we think no one we know is …
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The Stolen Heir by Holly Black — Review
Holly Black returns to the Folk of the Air world with a new heroine, a morally complex prince, and all the cold beauty and treachery of Faerie at its most …
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A Fire Endless by Rebecca Ross — Review
Rebecca Ross's Elements of Cadence duology ends with wind and fire, sacrifice and song, in a conclusion that earns its emotional weight.
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The Atlas Paradox by Olivia Blake — Review
The Alexandrian Society's darkest secrets surface in a sequel that is colder, stranger, and more ambitious than its predecessor.
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Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence by R.F. Kuang — Review
Devastating, brilliant, and necessary — R.F. Kuang's dark academic novel uses the magic of translation to dissect the violence at the heart of empire.
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A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers — Review
The gentle, generous second Monk and Robot novella, in which a robot meets human civilization and asks the question everyone has forgotten to ask.
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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin — Review
A profound, sprawling novel about creativity, friendship, and loss, told through the thirty-year collaboration of two game designers who love each other in …
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A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin — Review
Lush and dangerous, this ancient China-inspired fantasy uses tea as both magic and metaphor in a competition where every cup could be your last.
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