Review: "Needle Lake" by Justine Champine

Needle Lake by Justine Champine
Published December 2025 via The Dial Press
★★★★

Oregon in the 90s: Ida's life is comfortable enough, even if she's never quite felt that she fits in this world. Growing up with neurodiversity—in a time when neurodiversity in girls was overlooked and wildly underdiagnosed—she takes refuge in her routines and her maps, in her illicit hikes up to swim alone in a lake. But when Idea's cousin Elna is sent up from San Francisco to stay with Ida and her mother, everything changes.

I've seen a lot of "mystery" tags for this, but it's no mystery; there are family secrets, yes, but mostly this is a story about growing up and coming of age and stretching one's wings and figuring out what family means. Ida is a compelling, if quiet, character, frustrated less by the ways in which she perceives the world than by the fact that so many people around her want her to change in ways that she doesn't really understand.

It's clear from early on that Elna is from a different world than Ida, emotionally and socially. She doesn't necessarily understand Ida any better than anyone else, but her reactions are at least different than Ida is used to, and Ida finds herself drawn to Elna, like a moth to a flame.

The book goes in a direction that I didn't see coming, but it's done quietly right up until the climax—plenty of things before that could create conflict, tbut they more often just add to characterization, or Ida's understanding of another character (related, but not quite the same thing), or Ida's understanding of how things fit together. This also feels like something that could only have been written has historical fiction (I cringe to write this; so odd to think of the approximate time I grew up as being grounds for historical fiction now), because even if better understanding of neurodiversity hasn't translated into an easier time for everyone, there is better understanding. Today, Ida would at least have a chance at school support and friends who were conversant in neurodiversity; she'd have the Internet at her fingertips and a better sense that she is not alone.

I went into this knowing very little about what to expect, and it turned out to be a quiet and gripping story. Don't pick it up expecting a thriller; do pick it up for the quiet intensity and a perspective not heard often enough.

Thanks to the author and publisher for inviting me to read a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "The Heir Apparent" by Rebecca Armitage

The Heir Apparent by Rebecca Armitage
Published December 2025 via Cardinal
★★★★

Once, Lexi had it all—and she gave it up. If she burned some bridges along the way, well, she thought she'd have a chance to repair them later down the line. But when tragedy strikes, that chance is lost...and Lexi is suddenly next in line to the British throne.

I am very predictable in my love of "suddenly royal" books. In The Heir Apparent, Lexi is in a somewhat unusual position for these books—she doesn't have to adapt to royal protocol and life in the public eye and so on, because those are exactly what she grew up with. What she does have to adapt to is finding herself back in that life when she thought she'd managed to escape it. And: now she has to pick a trajectory for the rest of her life, knowing that no matter what she chooses, the impact of her choice will be felt around the world.

I looked at their weary faces, these three people who made momentous decisions behind closed doors. I had spent the last eleven years believing the crown should be quietly tossed into a city dumpster like a murder weapon. It had turned siblings against each other, triggered wars, broken up marriages, enslaved millions, destroyed civilizations. What did it say about me that I would now consider bearing its weight? (loc. 2125*)

Though the world of The Heir Apparent has some significant departures from the real world, the inspiration is obvious even before the author's note at the end. In some ways I prefer books that don't pull on that history, but it does make for more complete world-building (and of course those departures help!). I love how complicated things get for Lexi: even as she knows how to navigate this world, every step she takes is something of a negotiation with herself. How does she both grieve and present a public face? (The shades of grief, especially early on, are heartbreaking.) How does she maintain the barest veneer of privacy for herself and also do what the public—and the crown—ask of her? And how does she navigate what certain people who do not want her to succeed know about her past without losing everything?

Recommended to anyone who shares my "want to read fiction about it but want nothing to do with it in real life" interest in royalty.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Review: "Canticle" by Janet Rich Edwards

Canticle by Janet Rich Edwards
Published December 2025 via Spiegel & Grau
★★★★

It's late 13th-century Bruges, and Aleys is on fire for God. She dreams of a contemplative life; she dreams of being wedded to God; she dreams of being a martyr. She's resigned to a quiet, faithful life at home, but when her father goes back on his promise to let her remain single, things change...and she's catapulted into a role where she is suddenly much more visible to the people of Bruges and much more visible, it seems, to God.

But people are fickle. Fame is fickle. And favor is fickle...and Aleys might find that getting exactly what she wanted is more than she bargained for.

She wonders which is worse—to be idolized or despised. (loc. 3773*)

I picked this up out of curiosity about beguines and beguinages, which I'd heard of but never read in detail about. Beguinages were ~medieval European institutions not too dissimilar to convents, housing groups of women (beguines) who had committed to a communal religious life without taking formal vows. I read it as a way for women to live independently in a time and place that did not afford many options for single (widowed, separated, poor, etc.) women.

As it turns out, Aleys's stay in the beguinage is temporary—beguines are not, to her, particularly respectable, and in any case a life with them is not what she has dreamed of. I was fascinated by the material about anchorites (another role I'd heard about but not read about), and just all of the details about the influence of religion in that time and place. Buying discounted pardons and "stocking up for a life of depravity" (loc. 386), the power of a confessor over a confessee, the church's gatekeeping of the Bible, the use of belief to consolidate power. (Some of these things are not so different today.) I wouldn't have minded a little more about the paths of Aleys's siblings, but the book makes strategic shifts between points of view to keep things fresh and let the reader see a bit more than a cell. A good one for fans of historical fiction and for those curious about beguines, anchorages, mystics, and saints.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Review: "How to Survive in Ration Book Britain" by Toni Mount

How to Survive in Ration Book Britain by Toni Mount
Published November 2025 via Pen and Sword History
★★★★

A survey is conducted in 1942 by women asking others from all backgrounds about how they cope with their periods or on 'certain days', as an advert coyly phrases it in the Home Companion magazine, dated 6 January 1940. Some women make their own towels from soft, absorbent rags – apparently the shirts of German prisoners-of-war officers make excellent towels and come complete with little swastika designs: the perfect way to insult the enemy. Others buy them from drapers' shops or chemists but there's a lot of embarrassment about having to ask a male assistant for them – in the days before selfservice – even though sanitary products are sold in discreet, plain packaging without anything to denote what they are. The results of the survey remain secret, for government eyes only, until 1972. (loc. 705*)

Picture this: It's the 2020s, and you've agreed to test out your friend's time machine. Your friend is a would-be inventor, emphasis on would-be, and you never expected it to work...but here you are, suddenly in 1940s Britain. The country is at war, daily life looks markedly different than your 2020s norm, and you're afraid of what might happen if you let on that you're not from this time and place. But good news! Your friend, who of course never doubted the time machine's success, has stashed a copy of How to Survive in Ration Book Britain in your rucksack.

Mount's premise (which I've taken some liberties with above, hah) is so clever that I was just kind of delighted most of the way through the book. As promised, this is a guide to daily life in wartime Britain, from clothing styles (and laws!) to types of bomb shelter and how to access them to, of course, using your ration book...as a local or as a newcomer. (Oddly, despite having read many dozens of books set in WWII Britain, I'd never given all that much thought to how ration books worked.) I didn't know that even new furniture was rationed! I spent some time struggling to imagine just how all of this rationing would go over today, and obviously it's not impossible but it does feel very of a different time.

Two ideal readers for this one: First, anyone who's just chronically, perpetually, fatally curious and loves a good premise. (That's me!) And second, those doing their own writing set in World War II Britain or who are otherwise doing research involving the time and place. This would be a great resource for historical fiction writers and for high school students alike—so much research, already in one place! If you don't fall into one of those two groups, this might have limited value for you, but I'm now eager to read Mount's similar book about medieval England.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Review: "Take a Hike" by Katie Ruggle

Take a Hike by Katie Ruggle
Published November 2025 via Sourcebooks Casablanca
★★★

We're into book 3 of this series, and I think it might actually be the end of it because all of the sisters seem to have found "their men", so there's nobody left to marry off. A spinoff is possible, but in the meantime...some observations.

– Neither the cover nor the title has the slightest thing to do with the book. Neither, for that matter, does the tagline on the cover ("Why date a mountain man? Because it's effing in-tents"). I doubt the author had anything to do with the cover, or the tagline, but I'm sorely disappointed with the publisher.

– Spoiler warning for this point: This book has some of the worst insta-love I've read in years. The book takes place over roughly four days. Charlie and Kieran are engaged within that time. They're married a month later. End spoilers

– Kieran does get two minutes of character development in which he tells Charlie that she can't possibly love him—not because they've known each other for less than a week, mind, but because nobody has ever loved him before. This is solved by Charlie telling him that he's lovable and hot, and then it's never mentioned again.

– Here is the sum total of Kieran's personality: big. muscular. firefighter. taciturn. protective. big.

– At one point Kieran tells Charlie that he's required to get regular STI tests for work...as a firefighter. This...sounds like horseshit to me, unless he also dresses as a firefighter for some kind of undisclosed side gig. (HIV testing after an accidental needle-stick, sure, but routinely?)

– I'm starting to think that none of Ruggle's heroes are actually fluent in English. And that would be fine, if I thought they were fluent in another language...but they communicate mostly in grunts, grumbles, and scowls, and I'm no longer certain. (Charlie, just like her sisters, finds this entirely adorable; it does not concern her that she learns almost nothing about Kieran that cannot be communicated in a grunt.) The men also pout a lot (except it's not described as pouting, it's described as looking "a bit grumpy") whenever the women mention any other man being hot (which they do a lot; nobody in this series is deep).

– The thread that holds this series together is about Charlie and her sisters' mother, who has stolen a necklace and skipped out on bail, but that is very very very much an afterthought in this book, and in the series more generally.

– In this small town, the coffee order for the fire station includes eight full drink carriers, each of which I assume holds four drinks. Am I to understand that they have thirty-two firefighters on duty at one time? In their wee little town?

– So many reminders of how big and muscle-y the various romantic leads from this series (and related series) are. So many. Meanwhile, the baddies are all either 1) kind of weeny or 2) possibly fat. So I'm left with the impression that you can only be a hero if you're swole in an everyone-thinks-he-takes-steroids-but-actually-he's-just-that-hot kind of way, and if you aren't a muscle man, you're lazy and a possible villain.

So there we are. I gave the book three stars because it's playful, but I think my initial enthusiasm for this series has long since run out. Maybe I'd have enjoyed it more on a different day, but I think I needed a bit more realism somewhere—if not in the bounty hunting and constant running from explosions and bullets and so on, then in the relationship. And this kind of insta-love just doesn't give me that.

Counts:
growl: 20
grumble, grumbling, grumbly: 29
grump, grumpy, grumped: 6
grunt: 30
rumble: 5
scowl: 50
surly: 8

Review: "Crossing Paths" by Katie Ruggle

Crossing Paths by Katie Ruggle
Published May 2025 via Sourcebooks Casablanca
★★★

Mm. I enjoyed Fish Out of Water (same author but not in the same series) and The Scenic Route (same author, same series) quite a bit: playful, energetic, a bit over the top. Crossing Paths takes place pretty much immediately after the events of The Scenic Route, and Norah—the heroine du jour (or du livre, as it were)—and her sisters are still trying to track down their mother while also avoiding getting killed by the various baddies who populate their small town.

I struggled a bit with this one, though. Partly it is just a trope thing that is not specific to this book—I am so terribly tired of the "she is so smol and he is so huge and protective, swoonity swoon swoon swoon" sense of a bunch of recent romance that I've read. Big/athletic, terse, and protective is the sum total of Dash's personality in this book, and while it's nice that that makes Norah happy, it does not add up to an interesting hero. Ditto the constant reminders of how Norah's sisters who have already starred in their own books are madly in love with "their guys" and prone to foisting PDA on everyone around them.

The sisters' constant clashes with the local police are entertaining, but I would have liked a bit more conclusion there. Technically this can be read as a standalone, but it's clearly meant to be read as part of the series (or as part of two connected series). I'm left thinking that 1) possibly I should pick up some of the earlier books, which are not technically in this series (why, I'm not sure—new publisher?) but are mentioned nonetheless, because I'd like to know more about this whole being-wrapped-in-explosives thing, and 2) the way the plot elements line up here, or don't, isn't always satisfying, partly because there are so many moving parts across the series. (Did Norah need three different stalkers in this book? Probably not, considering that she routinely manages to forget that some of them are threats.)

Norah is sweet, and in a lot of ways relatable, but I also kind of...wanted to shake her? Spoiler alert for this paragraph. She's smart enough to reject a cocktail from someone she doesn't trust, but not smart enough to reject an opened bottle of water from the same person. Smart enough to cover the camera on her computer, but not smart enough to check her home for cameras after multiple break-ins and one of her stalkers seemingly knowing her every move. (End spoilers!)

So...has its moments, but not the one for me. This'll probably work better for readers who aren't quite so over the whole "but look how LITTLE she is!" thing (again, it's not a problem specific to this book) and who don't mind if their heroes stop at strong and silent. I know that sounds snarky, but I'm not joking! The writing's fine, and it's definitely a series you can tear through—would be better than reading the books with big gaps between, in fact—and I'm pretty sure I'm more bothered by some recent romance trends than the majority of readers. Do with that what you will.

Review: "A Queen's Match" by Katharine McGee

A Queen's Match by Katharine McGee
Published November 2025 via Random House Books for Young Readers
★★★★

A Queen's Game introduced us to a bevvy of princes and princesses looking for matches, and in A Queen's Match McGee brings things to a close. Now, I'm going to keep this short:

1) My father read a lot of murder mysteries, and he always read the end first ("to see if it was worth reading"), which drove me up the wall. What's the point, when you know the end of a murder mystery? Well...reader, I erred: I got so curious at around the 25% mark that I went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. Because...these are real people McGee is writing about, and though she gets creative with the details, the basic shape is intact. Don't be me; maybe reread A Queen's Game before jumping in here (I didn't; that was a smaller error), but don't spoil the story for yourself.

2) My gosh. The drama! It's such a soap opera—and yet in some ways some of it is less dramatic than real life. I went down many more Wikipedia articles after finishing the book, and...well, you can see why McGee chose to dramatize the story for a YA audience. You can also see why McGee ends the story where she does; some of these real-life people had happier endings than others. I'm sorry that this seems to be only a duology, but...well, read the books, and then read the articles.

Review: "The Ferryman and His Wife" by Frode Grytten

The Ferryman and His Wife by Frode Grytten, translated from the Norwegian by Alison McCullough
Published November 2025 via Algonquin Books
★★★

The day starts like any other, but Nils Vik knows from the moment he wakes up that this one will be different—this is the day that he dies. And so he goes about his daily routine, slow and steady as ever, setting off on his ferry to pick up, one after another, the passengers who died before him.

The Ferryman and His Wife is a lovely, quiet story—over the course of the book (and the day) we see Nils' life unfold throughout the years, the critical moments and the mundane. His has been an interesting life, but a quiet one; Nils has never been one for the hustle and bustle of the city or for big dramas. He listens, he watches, he reads, and at the end of the day he's happiest out of the fjord with his boat and at home with his wife.

This is one for literary fiction readers and lovers of slow-moving books. I didn't fully connect with the book, though I'm not entirely sure why; it may just be that so much of what I read is by or about women, and I might have preferred a book from the perspective of Nils' wife Marta. But that's not a failing of the book, which is so thoughtfully written and translated. Might be one for me to return to at a different point in time, lest a different context be all it takes to read this a little differently. I did very much appreciate the mundanity of Nils' life and the details he remembers (because so often it's those small, inconsequential things that stick). Someday perhaps I'll find myself on a ferry in Norway, seeing some of it through my own eyes.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "The Last House on the Block" by Sharon Cornelissen

The Last House on the Block by Sharon Cornelissen
Published November 2025 via University of Chicago Press
★★★★

For a time, Detroit was a bustling metropolis—but changes in industry and the rise of the rust belt took Detroit tumbling into decline and then into freefall. Cornelissen, a sociologist and expert on housing, took her research to Detroit, first renting and then buying a house (planning, always, to eventually move away again) and turning her time into this ethnographic look at what life in Detroit is like now: newcomers and long-term residents; the battle between those who would see the neighborhood gentrified and those who delight in the urban blight and opportunities for urban farming; the daily struggle of people who cannot afford to live in Detroit and yet cannot afford to leave.

I've read a handful of memoirs by people who bought houses in Detroit at the height of the depopulation crisis. Usually I am less interested in city story and more interested in house restoration story (vicarious thrills and all that), but this is clearly a city story, or rather a neighborhood story. When Cornelissen bought her own Detroit house, it was a matter of practicality (one, because it was cheaper than renting; two, because doing so allowed her to embed herself into the environment more thoroughly and in some ways neutrally); her real interest was the neighborhood. Like any good ethnographer, she carefully considers the implications of her involvement in the community, and in Detroit that means things like: Yes, the house is cheap, but so often buying it means that somebody else will be displaced, or has just been displaced. Or: Yes, the house is cheap, but no matter how many hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of dollars you put into it (to make necessary repairs or cosmetic improvements, say, or to put on a new roof, or to update a kitchen that hasn't been touched in decades), the house value might not increase. (Okay, the latter was less a concern for an ethnographer not looking to make money on her eventual house sale, but it's fascinating to consider.)

Along the way Cornelissen considers the different roles of the people in her chosen neighborhood of Brightmoor—the longtimers who experienced Detroit's decline first-hand and, often, just want a return to urbanity and the resources that come with that; the newcomers, some having purchased their homes and some squatting, determined that now that the population density has gone down it should not go up again; the precariously housed, living in houses that are or should be condemned or houses that they live in only informally and can be sold out from under them; the people who own one or more houses in Detroit but have nothing—including the houses—of financial value.

I would prefer to get more into Cornelissen's research here, but I had to read the book on my phone, which made taking notes difficult, so...you'll have to read the book yourself for more details. I will say that some of the small ins and outs were things I never would have considered—people walking in the streets rather than the sidewalks because the uncut grass of vacant lots grew so tall that it impeded sight lines; what neighborhood safety means when the locals know full well that if the police respond to their calls at all, it will be too late; what the value of a house means when it cannot be mortgaged or (often) insured. It's a really interesting, nuanced look at a community, and sometimes more to the point at several uneasily coexisting subcommunities.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Leave It on the Track" by Margot Fisher

Leave It on the Track by Margot Fisher
Published November 2025 via Dutton Books for Young Readers
★★★★

Moose has grown up skating: the rink is her dads' happy place, and it's hers too. Utah isn't always easy—not everyone is accepting of her dads, and Moose isn't ready to be out herself—but it's home. But when a devastating fire upends her life, she's sent to Portland to live with Eden, the sister she barely knows...and finds a new way to get on the track.

By the time I picked this up, I'd sort of forgotten the details of the setup, and all I remembered was that there was roller derby involved. (I am predictable! If it has roller derby in it, I'll read it!) And man, while I really do recommend forgetting almost everything about a to-read book except that you want to read it—it makes for a more raw reading experience, with more surprises—my heart was immediately torn into little tiny pieces and...well, left on the track. I am not a crier and can count on one hand the number of times I've cried over a book, but Leave It on the Track tested that.

There's a fair amount going on here—grief, survivorship, new home, coming out, new sport, romance. I probably could have done without the last of those, but then, I am a broken record on this subject; I desperately want more books, and especially more YA books, that are about fierce, platonic female friendship. It all works well together, though. Moose's grief is so present; even as the world starts looking a little brighter, she's navigating a whole new landscape and reality. Some parts of it are objectively better than her old life (e.g., casual and visible acceptance of queerness at school), but none of it can make up for the depth of her losses. (If you've faced parental loss, maybe approach this one with caution, in a know-what-you're-up-for kind of way.) And while Moose's eventual derby name fits—my gosh am I disproportionately glad we got to hear "Moose on the Loose" so many times.

Eventually I'd like to see two things in roller derby books: First, I'm looking forward to eventually getting some derby fiction in which the rules don't all have to be explained to the protagonist as a way to explain them to the reader. I get it, of course; most readers will probably have at most a passing understanding of roller derby...just, someday I want this to be to the point where we have more books where the protagonist already knows and loves roller derby, and less time can be spent on learning how it all works. It was interesting to note, though, that there's at least one character in here whose parent did derby at one point in time. I like that it's gotten popular enough (again) to have multiple generations in on it. Second, I don't see enough books featuring blockers. Jammers get a lot of the visibility (they're the only ones who can score points), but there are four times as many blockers as there are jammers on the track, so...proportionally, there should probably be more books featuring blockers. (That said: Judging by Fisher's website, she is or was a jammer herself, so this book gets a pass; these are both more general observations.)

Overall, a very solid addition to the roller derby corpus.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Secret Nights and Northern Lights" by Megan Oliver

Secret Nights and Northern Lights by Megan Oliver
Published November 2025 via Berkley
★★★

Mona's a writer at her dream employer—but despite dreaming of being a travel writer, she's been stuck on the domestic beat for years. When she's called in to pinch-hit for a feature on Iceland, all that could change...but there's a catch: The assigned photographer is her childhood sweetheart, who abruptly disappeared from her life. She has to work with him—and if she wants that promotion, she has to convince him to take a full-time position at her magazine.

This was one of a handful of books that I read for the "northern lights" part of the title. I do love a good theme, and the idea of a bunch of northern-lights-themed romance novels coming out around the same time was too good to resist. This theme has taken me to Alaska, Iceland, Finland, and now back to Iceland...and no promises (will have to see what my library comes up with), but I may be adding Norway to the mix before this mini book adventure is over.

Now. Plot-wise/Iceland-wise, it was nice that this romp through Iceland differed from that in Meet Me Under the Northern Lights; there, the protagonist has a city base and does some day trips, while here, Mona and Ben are traversing Iceland's Ring Road and stopping to check out various attractions (with an emphasis on waterfalls). It's not Mona's chosen itinerary (see: pinch hitter), and so there's a fair amount of flailing and panicking because she's not an outdoorsy person but needs, for the sake of the article, to do some hiking and so on.

Mona I found a little frustrating. She seems to have very little drive—as far as I can tell, the fact that she's never been given an assignment that would take her abroad means that she's...never been abroad. Her dream trip is to Italy, and even with limited vacation time, that's something she should be able to make happen on her own. Instead, she's grinding quietly away, hoping that her next article about a quilting bee or pickle festival or whatever will be the thing that convinces her boss that she can make it in the big leagues. (Her workplace, incidentally, is big-time toxic, with a boss who gives cigar-chomping sleaze vibes. The international/travel writers get all of the perks, while those on assignment locally get none of the perks. It takes Mona a long time to realize that this is unfair—it might be accurate to say that she has a bit of an inferiority complex—but even then it never really occurs to her to try something on her own terms.) I guess it's this: I know people who are afraid of going outside their comfort zone but do it anyway because they find it rewarding, and even if Mona didn't start in that place I wish she'd made more of an effort to get there.

Romance-wise, a lot hinges on Mona being unwilling to have an open conversation with Ben until late in the book. I didn't keep track, unfortunately, but the number of times Ben says "can we talk about what happened when we were teenagers" and Mona shuts him down...well, I wouldn't mind having a dime for each of those occurrences. I wouldn't be rich, but I could buy a cup of coffee! It's a positive for Ben (yes please to heroes who try to communicate) but not something that endears me to Mona. It's there for the sake of conflict, of course, but books in which the only real conflict between characters is that they refuse to have an honest conversation will always feel a little thin to me.

At some point I'll have to put all these books in a lineup together and ask myself where I'd most like to go based on these books...and while I don't necessarily want to be besties with Mona, I could get behind a Ring Road trip with a lot of hiking thrown in.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Lucky Girl" by Allie Tagle-Dokus

Lucky Girl by Allie Tagle-Dokus
Published November 2025 via Tin House Books
★★★★

This dance was my technical peak. I was eleven. I was perfect. All downhill from here. (loc. 545*)

For a moment, Lucy has it all. When she's cast on a new dance reality show, she sees her chance—and when one of the judges takes a shine to her, she's catapulted into a whole different world. If it's not a normal world or a healthy one, well. Was that ever the point?

There is reality TV, and then there is the reality behind the reality TV, and that's why people watch, poised for the moment the visage slips. Reality tastes better after diet reality. (loc. 830)

I've never watched the type of show that Lucy lands on, but I think anyone who's at least a little plugged into western culture is familiar with the concept—talent being a prerequisite but much less the point than all-day drama. Lucy knows this going in, kind of. But she's a child, and there are limits to how much she is able to advocate for herself—for her career, for her mental health, for being set up for current and future success.

Reality TV is Lucy's "in", but it's not the point of the book, and Lucy understands it as...well, something of a pivotal blip, I guess. More lasting is the fallout. You can see it coming early on (which is intentional; there's a lot of foreshadowing and a sense of Lucy looking back), and one thing that is clear from the beginning is how much Lucy's relationships will suffer from the shape of her career—sometimes because she is an ambitious child who doesn't have the social and emotional skills to develop and hang on to healthy relationships, sometimes because (again) the adults around her are not setting her up for success.

This ends up being messy and sad, with a trajectory that isn't satisfying for Lucy (or for the people around her) but that makes for a great book trajectory.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for inviting me to read a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Metronome" by Matthew H. Birkhold

Metronome by Matthew H. Birkhold
Published November 2025 via Bloomsbury Academic
★★★★

Tick-tock, goes the clock...or the metronome, as the case may be.

Here's one for the musicians (not me), but also one for the nerds who like really specific books about really specific things (very much me). Just after I read the part of Metronome that talks about the ways in which metronomes are used in movies and books and so on to create drama or make a point, I switched over to my place halfway through River Selby's Hotshot...and turned the page to find Selby describing her Pulaski (a firefighting tool) keeping time just like a...you guessed it. If this is a sign, I don't know what kind it is, but it was a delightful reading coincidence.

Where Selby describes the Pulaski's metronome-like rhythm as something soothing, Birkhold paints a more complicated picture. I can honestly say that I have never given more than ten seconds of thought at a time to the metronome (again: not a musician), but as it turns out, the metronome is not without its controversy.

Across eras, to control the variations and potential temporal chaos that comes with subjective sensibilities, composers and performers sought to measure tempi and to define note lengths. They used a variety of methods, including mean pulse rate, the pace of hand strokes, walking speeds, and the fastest articulate counting possible. In sixteenth-century Germany, musicians thought the duration of a half note was the pace of a normal weed-cutter's whack. (loc. 202*)

It is safe to say that a metronome is...mostly...more consistent than that. But it turns out that not everyone wants that level of precision, especially in music.

This is one of the better Object Lessons I've read of late, just because it made me think so much about, well, something that I generally don't think about. I'd recommend it in particular to musicians, of course, but also just for readers who want to learn about something random and specific.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "So Over Sharing" by Elissa Brent Weissman

So Over Sharing by Elissa Brent Weissman
Published May 2025 via Dial Books
★★★

Hadley is twelve, but she's been online for most of her life—her mother is an influencer, and Hadley's along for the ride...whether she likes it or not. And Willow's mother is only now gaining traction in the mommyblogging/momstagramming sphere, but Willow can already see where it's going, and she is, well, over it. When by chance the girls meet, they find in each other someone who understands what's it's like to be discontent with their lives being mined for content.

Although this is for a middle grade audience, it feels like it's hitting the mark that Hate Follow missed. Neither girl's mother is entirely unaware: Hadley's mother doesn't name her children, and she pays them for content they appear in...but she doesn't give them a choice about appearing in that content. And Willow's mother has told her that it's temporary, and things will die down...although, with changes on the horizon, that seems less and less likely. Their mother's brands are different, which I also appreciate—Hadley's mother's can be summed up as "kids ruined my life" and Willow's as "sunshine and rainbows".

I expected to relate more to Hadley than to Willow here and was surprised to find that Willow is pretty solidly relatable herself (though—I still don't know how she has a secret Instagram account if she's not allowed to have a smartphone). It ends up being Hadley who repeatedly acts without thinking about the consequences, and I think in some ways I would have preferred if they'd each had separate secret Instagram accounts (with only each other as followers) and then Hadley had...done things with a little more accident and a little less intent. I guess it's just...she makes a number of mistakes in the book, and although that is normal for a tween (or for an adult!), they are big mistakes, to the point where if I had a friendship with her I'd be pulling back big time, in a "forgive her but protect yourself too" kind of way. (Maybe Willow is just a bigger person than I am.)

All in all, though, this was really satisfying. I hope it finds its way into a lot of middle school libraries, because I suspect there are plenty of tweens who could use a reminder that Internet fame is not all it's cracked up to be.

Review: "Beyond the Barbell" by Natasha Kostalas

Beyond the Barbell by Natasha Kostalas
Published September 2025
★★★

Kostalas thought she'd found her calling as a teacher, but when the workload burned her out she sought refuge in something else: weightlifting, followed by bodybuilding. And for a while, bodybuilding was not just a refuge but a calling, an identity—until it too burned her out, albeit in a different way.

I picked this up because doing some (very low-key) weightlifting myself has made me curious about memoirs on the subject, and there aren't that many memoirs on the subject, especially not by women. Kostalas's story is more about bodybuilding than it is about weightlifting, which is an important distinction—to oversimplify it, let's say that weightlifting is about getting stronger and hitting new personal records, while bodybuilding is about the aesthetics of a ripped body. Weightlifting competitions come down to objective numbers; bodybuilding competitions come down to subjective opinions.

So this is about the latter, and all the grim stuff that comes with it: bulking up to gain muscle, cutting to lose body fat, diving headfirst into behaviors that under other circumstances would be diagnostic support for an eating disorder. And it's that that took Kostalas back out of it: strict, months-long diets to prepare for bodybuilding competitions just aren't sustainable, especially if you want to retain your physical and mental health.

I found the material here interesting, though in places I think Kostalas was still too emotionally close to a given situation to be able to write objectively about people or events. The writing a bit of a struggle. I'm rating on a curve because I believe this is self-published (which typically means that the resources that go into publishing are significantly reduced compared to, e.g., what an established publisher can do), but an extensive round of line editing would have been helpful; among other things, there's way too much passive voice (I would still be the receiver of negative comments (loc. 1012)) and extensive use of the modal "would" (A few times I would meet up with Anton (loc. 2349)) where a simpler past tense would suffice. (I also would have liked to see less recounting of Instagram posts—I understand the purpose that they serve, and maybe it's just me, but if I want to see what someone wrote on social media, I'll check social media.)

Late in the book, Kostalas talks about a shift to powerlifting (which I am sort of using interchangeably with "weightlifting", even though they appear to be two different things, but I am confused, so let's just go with "switched to aiming for personal bests rather than aesthetics"), and I can only hope that that's been a healthier and more rewarding place to be.

Thanks to the author for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

Review: "Flight #116 Is Down!" by Caroline B. Cooney

Flight #116 Is Down! by Caroline B. Cooney
Published 1997
★★★★

The first time I read this, I was about twelve, and I had packed the book for my first-ever flight (or at least, my first flight while old enough to remember it). If you think that is a dummy dumb move, you are right! Plane crash books are not good plane reading. This did not occur to twelve-year-old me, though—not when packing the book, not when reading the book (completely unbothered), and not for a good decade or so after. I'm not the best ever traveler, but flying? No problem. The moment I'm in that seat, the only things I need to do for the next hour or six hours or ten hours are 1) read and 2) sleep.

Not so for the poor folks on flight #116, which crashes in the woods. First on site is Heidi, who lives on the property where the plane crashes and is woefully unprepared for this sort of crisis; second is Patrick, who is a trained responder but has certainly never been at a mass casualty event before.

This one stands the test of time better than a lot of the old Cooney books that I've reread of late. I know this one well—I reread it repeatedly when I was younger, so although there are some details I'd forgotten or gotten mixed up (e.g., it turns out that the waitress at the diner gives Patrick a soda, not a hot chocolate, because she can tell that he can't stand the coffee he insists on ordering), I still know what happens to every major character. And yet: even having read this probably ten times when I was younger, and knowing all of the outcomes, there are still characters for whom I hold out hope for something different. That's a matter of nostalgia, of course, but it also says something of the book, that I still feel so strongly for some of the characters.

Would still recommend this one to kids...though not as a flight read.

Review: "Children Like Us" by Brittany Penner

Children Like Us by Brittany Penner
Published November 2025 via Regalo Press
★★★★

Such a lucky child, so many remind me. To be unwanted and then adopted, how lucky. To be raised by someone who doesn't have to love you but chooses to love you—how special. Any time someone says this to me, the image of my birth mother flashes in my mind. Faceless and alone, in an empty room.

"Adopted children are always Native," a lady at church with no children will one day say to me, "and we never knew any well-behaved ones. But if we knew they could be like you, we would've adopted." (loc. 964*)

Penner was raised by Mennonites in small-town Canada, raised by parents who loved her but didn't always know how to respond to her, and who didn't necessarily want her to dig into her roots. Adopting a child was one thing; talking opening about that adoption with the child was another. And so Penner's book is decades-long attempt to reconcile the multiple parts of her identity and various people she knew as family—family by birth, family by circumstance, family by choice.

Some of the most interesting—and difficult—material comes early on, as Penner wrestles with her broader family structure. Her parents were not the only ones in the family who had adopted, and in their heavily White, Mennonite community, only the adopted children were First Nations. (This was at the tail end of a time when First Native children were forcibly taken from their parents as a matter of policy, and also part of an ongoing treatment of First Nations people as less competent parents...leading to, at the time, a surplus of First Nations children in the system, fostered or adopted by White families. There's since been a shift to more of an effort to keep children within their communities/roots, but that hasn't erased institutional racism.) Penner was adopted, but her siblings were foster children, and if it's possible to explain to a young child that your siblings won't be there permanently, well, that wasn't communicated well to Penner. I imagine many if not most adopted children grow up with a lot of questions, but thinking as a young child that you will be taken away from the only family you know (not an experience unique to adopted children, I know) seems particularly rough.

This one came up in a search for me when I was visiting family in Canada (my mother's library has a huge collection of books by indigenous writers, and any given book has a reasonable chance of sending me down a rabbit hole), so I was pretty happy to get my hands on it. It lived up to expectations...now perhaps time to have a look for another of the books that turned up on that search.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.