Sarah O'Connor

Book Review: Return to Sender by Vera Brosgal

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July 10, 2025

“When something amazing happens, it’s natural to want to tell somebody, if only to confirm that you’re not losing your mind…And this mystery was definitely stressful…First he needed to conduct some experiments,” (Brosgol 60).

When Oliver’s Great-Aunt Barb whom he never met dies and leaves her apartment to his mom, it feels like a fresh start. After a year of couch-surfing in various relatives homes, Oliver is about to start attending the elite Whittle Academy where students come to school in helicopters and have the latest gadgets. But Oliver is attending because his mom has just gotten a job as a custodian there. Oliver wishes his life could be as easy as his classmates at Whittle, and one day after slipping a wish into a mysterious mail slot in his new apartment it comes true. Oliver wishes for more and more things and life appears great for him, but a wish can only be granted at the detriment to others. But is this enough to stop Oliver from asking for more wishes? Continue reading

Book Review: A Song for Wildcats by Caitlin Galway

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July 8, 2025

I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review.

Caitlin Galway’s A Song for Wildcats follows characters from postwar Australia, late 1960s France, the Troubles in Ireland, 1930s New York, and 1980s Nevada who are processing grief, trauma, love, and their place in the world after facing adversity. She’s a talent of a writer, seamlessly moving through time and setting and transporting readers into these characters lives with ease. There is a connected theme of queer relationships, trauma, and a slow understanding of the protagonists to come to terms with what is happening around them. It’s a beautiful and strong collection of stories, one I looked forward to returning to. I can’t wait to read more of Galway’s work!

Read my full thoughts on each story in the collection below: Continue reading

Book Review: All This Can Be True by Jen Michalski

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July 4, 2025

I received this book from The Next Best Book Club in exchange for an honest review.

“The thing about grief was that you never got used to it. It was survivable, physically, but it still hurt the same each time, like surgery without anesthesia or diving into cold water,” (Michalski 29).

Long unhappy with her life and marriage, Lacie Johnson is about to ask her husband Derek for a divorce when he suffers a stroke and falls into a coma. Her plans at starting over now halted, Lacie wonders what her life will be now that she doesn’t know what Derek’s fate will be as her two grown children return home amongst the chaos. But in that chaos Lacie meets Quinn, a kind, former riot-grrrl on her way to British Columbia to live with a group of grief survivors after the death of her young daughter. Lacie and Quinn have an instant connection, but Quinn has a secret connection to Derek, but she doesn’t know how to tell Lacie without destroying everything. Continue reading

Book Review: She’s A Lamb! by Meredith Hambrock

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July 1, 2025

“You have to stomp it all down. You have to bury it. You have to bury all the messy parts and let your bright parts shine,” (Hambrock 83).

Jessamyn St. Germain is a star, or she knows that soon she’s going to be one soon. One day she won’t just be an actor who occasionally books laundry commercials, she’ll be able to quit her job as an usher and be performing in musicals on Broadway. She knows she’s close when the theatre she works at holds auditions for it’s Christmas show, The Sound of Music, because the role of Maria is hers. Except that Jessamyn doesn’t get cast in the show, instead she’s assigned the job of childminder and must look after the kids playing the Von Trapps. But Jessamyn knows that watching the child actors is a test, that she needs to prove to the director how good she is at Maria and swoop into the role when the lead proves she can’t handle it. And it will happen, it has to. Stardom is so close to Jessamyn and she’ll do anything to finally stand in the spotlight. Continue reading

Book Review: Fuse by Hollay Ghadery

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June 29, 2025

I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review.

“Labels are the armour that keeps us safe; they also keep us too heavy to move. They may have their uses for some, but it’s good to strip them off now and then so you can see what you’re dealing with. There’s an atomic lightness that comes with seeing people and things for what they really are at their root,” (Ghadery 107).

Ghadery’s memoir explores her struggles with disordered eating, mental health, while understanding her identity as a biracial woman. Continue reading

Book Review: Babel by R.F. Kuang

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June 26, 2025

“Violence shows them how much we’re willing to give up…Violence is the only language they understand, because their system of extraction is inherently violent. Violence shocks the system. And the system cannot survive the shock,” (Kuang 397).

Orphaned after a cholera outbreak in Canton, Robin Swift is brought to London by Professor Lovell, a professor at Oxford University. After tutoring Robin in translation for many years, Lovell enrolls Robin into the Royal Institute of Translation, nicknamed Babel, where talented students learn the art of silver-working, a type of magic where words lost in translation are enchanted and power most of Britain, from keeping buildings stable to keeping a kettle hot. But as his studies progress and a chance meeting with a curious stranger from a secret society, and Robin begins questioning Oxford and Babel as an unjust war between Britain and China creeps closer and closer. Continue reading

Book Review: The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

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June 5, 2025

“There is so much darkness in Ember, Lina. It’s not just outside, it’s inside us too. Everyone has some darkness inside. It’s like a hungry creature. It wants and wants and wants with a terrible power. And the more you give it, the bigger and hungrier it gets,” (DuPrau 168).

Hundreds of years ago, the city of Ember was created by the Builders to ensure that humanity lived on in a world of crisis. Food and medical supplies were stocked, crops were planted, and lightbulbs kept the city bright and shining. But now Ember is suffering. The crops are blighted, the shelves in the storeroom emptying, and rolling blackouts across the city panic many Emberites into wondering if one day they will be plunged into darkness forever. When twelve-year-olds Lina and Doon find ancient parchment that could be a clue to saving Ember they try to get the adults around them to listen and help, but will they be able to figure out what the Builders had in store for them? And do the people of Ember really want to listen? Continue reading

Book Review: Skin by Catherine Bush

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June 3, 2025

I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review.

“When humans sing together, even if we start in disharmony, our voices find their way unconsciously into agreement,” (“Breathe,” Bush 117).

It’s taken me a while to organize my thoughts around Skin. I found it very hard to be engaged or interested in many of the stories I was reading, and it was only when finishing the collection and mulling it over that I was able to dissect my feelings over what I had read. Overall, I think the characters in the stories are interesting and layered the stories themselves are slow and sometimes feel like a chore to get through. Even though the plots themselves are intriguing with the implications of worlds suffering through climate change and pandemics, I could only recognize this a few days after the story ended. While reading I just couldn’t get interested enough to care about what was happening.

But I also wasn’t a fan of Bush’s novel Blaze Island, so it’s more likely that her writing style just isn’t for me. I think there are many readers who will enjoy her style, but I definitely struggled to finish this collection.

Usually I give a rating on each of the stories in a short story collection, but since I felt the same through most of these stories I’m just going to share my thoughts on each of them. Continue reading

Book Review: The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica

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June 1, 2025

“Without faith, there is no refuge,” (Bazterrica 41).

A woman living with a mysterious convent secretly documents her life with the Sacred Sisterhood after escaping a now inhabitable world destroyed by climate change. An unworthy, our narrator hopes to become one of the Enlightened and has accepted the Sisterhood as her home, but when a stranger appears within the convents walls, some of our narrator’s past memories come back to her as the Sisterhood begins to shed itself in a new light. Continue reading

Book Review: I.R.L. by Jenny Goebel

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May 27, 2025

“Welcome, Lucy! We’re so glad you decided to join us. We’re going to have so much fun,” (Goebel 104).

After being bullied at her school in San Francisco, sixth grader Lucy is eager to start over in rural Alaska. She’s had to meet her new classmates virtually due to the extreme weather, but now that things are starting to thaw she’s both excited and nervous to meet the twelve other students in her class and, hopefully, make some friends. They’re very welcoming, and the other kids all sound excited to meet Lucy on her first day. But when she arrives to her first day of in-person classes Lucy finds a burnt husk where the school used to stand, and a small cemetery with each of her classmates names engraved on a tombstone. Is this another bullying prank, or is there something haunted about her new school? Continue reading