Sarah O'Connor

Book Review: House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

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March 14, 2022

“We were sisters. We felt each other’s pain. We caused each other’s pain. We knew the smell of each other’s morning breath. We made each other cry. We made each other laugh. We got angry, pinched, kicked, screamed at each other. We kissed, on the forehead, nose on nose, butterfly eyelashes swept against cheeks…We possessed each other like shiny things. We loved each other with potent, fervent fury. Animal fury. Monstrous fury,” (Sutherland 275).

Ten years ago Grey, Vivi, and Iris Hollow disappeared from an Edinburgh street and were found a month later. They have no memories of where they went, only that their blue eyes turned black, their dark hair turned white, a crescent moon scar on each of their throats. They are disturbingly beautiful with insatiable appetites, and strange things happen to them and those around them. Now seventeen, Iris’ oldest sister Grey has gone missing again and she’ll need the help of her middle sister Vivi to follow Grey’s strange clues to find her, maybe even solving the mystery of what happened to the three sisters all those years before. Continue reading

Book Review: What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo

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March 9, 2022

“I sat with that for a long time. I thought of every person I had met, wondering how many of them had wolves inside them and just had never pulled them out. Or perhaps more horrible: how many of them, in a moment of fear, reached inside themselves for something to save them, and came up empty,” (Szabo 262).

As a young girl Eleanor Zarrin was sent away from her home to attend St. Brigid’s Boarding School. Eleanor doesn’t know why, but after an incident at her boarding school she can think of nowhere else to go but home. But after so many years away she hardly remembers her family at all, her monstrous relatives who prowl the woods as wolves at night, her mother always soaking her polyped half in the tub, the strange Arthur who comes and goes as he pleases, or her grandmother Persephone who sent her away in the first place. Eleanor isn’t seeing things clearly but she’ll have to learn to so she can keep her family safe. Continue reading

Book Review: The Alchemy Thief by R.A. Denny

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March 5, 2022

I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

“‘Here I am, God,’ she prayed. But what am I here for?” (Denny 20).

In 2019 Peri Fuller is just about to start school at Harvard University when she finds a hairpin with a strange symbol engraved on it on the beaches of Martha’s Vineyard. In Morocco, Ayoub, a young boy, steals a 17th-century book engraved with the same symbol as he’s employed to do by an Islamic terrorist organization. When a storm hits, both Peri and Ayoub find themselves flung back in time with puritans and pirates respectively as they adjust to their new timelines, and wonder about the future they’ve left behind. Continue reading

Book Review: Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

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March 3, 2022

“It sounds wild, I know, but racism is a spectrum and they all participate in it in some way. They don’t all have white hoods or call us mean things… But racism isn’t just about that – it’s not about being nice or mean. Or good versus bad. It’s bigger than that,” (Àbíké-Íyímídé 166).

At the prestigious Niveus Private Academy both Devon Richards and Chiamaka Adebayo, the only black students at the school, are chosen as senior class prefects. This isn’t a surprise for Chiamaka who has been working for this since starting at Niveus, with her goal of being accepted at Yale to one day be a doctor but does surprise Devon who tries to get good grades and keep his head down until her gets into Julliard. The promising start to their final year is cut short when anonymous messages from someone called Aces revealing personal secrets about them both to the entire school. With the secrets getting more and more personal and with no sign of stopping, Devon and Chiamaka are determined to stop Aces at all costs. Continue reading

Book Review: White Smoke by Tiffany D. Jackson

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February 28, 2022

“Change is good. Change is necessary. Change is needed,” (Jackson 3).

After her mom accepts a new job in Cedarville, Marigold and her blended family move from sunny California to midwestern Cedarville. Mari misses her home but after everything that happened and the mistakes she’s made, she knows she needs a change. Aside from the beautifully renovated house her family will be living in, Maple Street is a mess of dilapidated houses and secrets. Not to mention that their new home has an awful smell coming through the vents, the lights turn off, figures seem to be watching Mari as she lies paralyzed in her bed, shadows creep by doorways, or that her younger, bratty stepsister Piper has a new imaginary friend. But the house can’t actually be haunted, and as Mari’s therapist reminds her, change is good, and necessary. So why does something feel off in Cedarville? Continue reading

Book Review: The Devil’s Whispers by Lucas Hault

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February 16, 2022

I received this book from TCK Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

“It is a long wait, hence I’m writing in this journal for you, my dearest Raelyn. I apologize for not listening to you, but I was left with no other choice,” (Hault 2).

Told in epistolary style, The Devil’s Whispers follows British lawyer Gerard Woodhouse is asked to assist the dying Lord Mathers in a Welsh castle, much to the worry of his fiancée Dr. Raelyn Atherton. Finding himself locked in his room with his journal as his only companion Gerard documents his time in the strange and haunting castle, while similarly in London Raelyn, her friend Jayda, Father Malcolm, and a cast of other characters document a strange viciousness that stalks London and could be related to the Mathers castle. Continue reading

Book Review: Kink – Anthology (Ed. R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell)

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February 14, 2022

Kink was a surprisingly meh read. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, I guess just for a little more. The stories, while diverse, didn’t differentiate all that much from one another. I don’t know, I guess when you’re publishing an erotic literary anthology called Kink I expected more of a range in the stories. There were more forgettable stories, but the ones that were well-written really shone and are easy to spot. Not a bad anthology, just not what I expected.

You can read my thoughts on each of the stories below: Continue reading

Book Review: The Beguiling by Zsuzsi Gartner

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February 12, 2022

“Grieving the dead, I’ve learned, is also about grieving your lost self, the self that only existed in relation to that person. When they die, those versions of you die as well,” (Gartner 264).

After the death of her beloved cousin Zoltan, strangers begin confessing things to Lucy. She doesn’t ask them to, doesn’t pry, but people come to her anyways eager to unload the weight of their sins onto Lucy, which Lucy eagerly takes in. But the confessions start to have patterns, some seem connected and familiar to her life, but how can that be? Continue reading

Book Review: Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour

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January 30, 2022

“I wanted a kind of logic. A reason. An assurance that things worked the way they were supposed to. Creatures lived and they died and sometimes they returned in a different form. Sometimes they haunted the living, and sometimes they let us be,” (LaCour 145).

Mila has graduated from high school and aged out of the foster care system so when she’s offered a chance to teach and work on an isolated farm that takes care of foster children Mila jumps at the chance. She’s excited at the chance of finding a real home for herself, but what she isn’t expecting is that the farm is haunted. Ghosts freely walk around the grounds, harmless but present as Mila’s own memories resurface and begin to haunt her. Continue reading

Book Review: All’s Well by Mona Awad

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January 27, 2022

“‘But not too much pain, am I right? Not too much, never too much. If it was too much, you wouldn’t know what to do with me, would you? Too much would make you uncomfortable. Bored. My crying would leave a bad taste. That would just be bad theater, wouldn’t it? A bad show. You want a good show. They all do,'” (Awad 294).

After a fall off stage ends her acting career Miranda Fitch becomes a theatre professor, a job she finds little joy in and finds difficult to do since she suffers from chronic pain as a result of her accident. But Miranda is excited for the show she’s decided for this year’s Shakespeare performance, All’s Well That Ends Well, in which many years before Miranda played the titular role and hopes her class will find as much love for this problem play as she does. But her class is disappointed with the selection and mutiny to perform Macbeth instead. Devastated by the disrespect of her students Miranda goes to the pub she often frequents after rehearsals and finds three men in suits who know her name and apparently, everything about her and offer help in a golden drink. She takes it and soon Miranda finds her life changed in unimaginable ways, but like all theatre a good show is expected and can Miranda deliver it? Continue reading