Review: "Fast Boys and Pretty Girls" by Lo Patrick

Fast Boys and Pretty Girls by Lo Patrick
Published July 2025 via Sourcebooks Landmark
★★★

Then, Danielle was fresh out of Georgia, a teenage model in New York. Not a star, but successful enough to have money in her pocket and an apartment of her own. Never mind that her family doesn't think she's made for a life outside of Georgia; never mind that she's fallen for a boy back home who never wants to leave the South; never mind that modeling has put a hold on the things she always thought she'd do, like go to college.

A girl should never be told she's pretty—so pretty it's going to pay the bills. (loc. 2678*)

Now, Danielle is back in Georgia, living in the decaying old house that her parents passed down to her. Her marriage works because her ideal is to stay home with her four daughters and her husband's ideal is to be gone for work for days at a time.

She keeps Then separate from Now—until the girls find skeletal remains in the woods behind the house, and Then comes crashing in. Because Danielle knows whose bones they must be.

Something about Southern fiction calls to me sometimes—that smell of hot humid air, I think, and in this case the combination of rural poverty and deeply entrenched pride. Danielle's mother in particular is an intriguing character; she reminds me of certain women I know (from various backgrounds) for whom life as not been easy and who were (for various reasons) dissuaded from pursuing their dreams.

The balance between Then and Now doesn't always align for me. Most of the story takes place in Danielle's modeling days, when she is young and bratty and determined to feel superior to her family and friends in Georgia. I actually love how low-key unlikeable Danielle is at that point—she's full of it, but she's written to be full of it, and she doesn't have the sophistication or finesse to, well, brag in a way that achieves the desired effect. It's way more interesting than Danielle being sweet and naive and perpetually hard-working.

I would have liked to see more of the Now, though, more of what's going on with the bones and how Danielle is processing it. We really don't see much of her world as an adult: not the ways the town has changed, not her husband and daughters, not the few other people she interacts with, not even her house. We also see very little from the police (or really anyone else) regarding the body—this isn't a mystery, and possibly the author wanted to steer clear of any whiff of mystery or police procedural, but I guess I expected more questions in the Now. The earlier timeline ends up feeling far more fleshed out than the later timeline, to the extent that I might have preferred the story to just...stay in the Then.

In the end this satisfied my occasional thirst for a certain stripe of Southern literature but didn't quite have the depth of plot and character development I was hoping for. Not a standout, but an interesting read.

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

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

Review: "You Wanna Be on Top?" by Sarah Hartshorne

You Wanna Be on Top? by Sarah Hartshorne
Published July 2025 via Crown
★★★★

I don't usually do one-liners (or one-ish-liners), but this calls for one: If you watched ANTM back in the day and still think about it sometimes, read this book. Skip the reviews and go straight for the book. Just do it.

Oh gosh. This book. This show. America's Next Top Model is possibly the first show of which I watched entire seasons—it was the mid-2000s, I was in boarding school, and there was a television in the hall lounge. (Television wasn't a thing at home, hence not really having watched most other shows.) ANTM was still new (cycle 2 when I entered boarding school), and my dorm was obsessed. The contestants seemed so glamorous, and at that point Tyra Banks still seemed mostly sane. We were young and we were dumb—like, really nerdy and book-smart, but also really dumb—and for a while when cycle 3 or 4 was airing we tried to talk the tallest, thinnest girl on hall into sending in an audition tape. (She was also possibly the shyest girl on hall, so fortunately she sensibly ignored us.)

Hartshorne's season (cycle 9) aired when I was in college, and I know I was still watching—I know I watched the entirety of her season—though I can't remember if it was a watch-on-the-dorm-TV thing or a watch-on-my-laptop thing. It's been years since I've been able to stomach even a snippet of Tyra Banks talking, and all of the seasons blend together, and when I looked up Hartshorne and the various other contestants she mentions I went "oh yeah, I remember her", and then I had to look them all up again repeatedly because really, I watched a lot of ANTM and it was a long time ago.

I didn't know that this was the ANTM book I've been waiting for since high school, but this is just about everything I could have hoped for in an ANTM memoir. I had to force myself not to read the entire thing in a day; instead I read the entire thing in a day and a half. Hartshorne is writing from enough distance to have eyes wide open, and better than that, she's funny (which maybe you should expect from a comedian! But again, I have followed exactly none of the contestant's careers, so what do I know).

"What's everybody's schtick?" asked one girl.
"I was just wondering that!" I said. "I think I'd be the ditzy one."
"That's so silly!" said a girl with piercing blue eyes. "I'd be the beautiful one," she added, flipping her long blond hair over her shoulder.
Maybe, I thought, I will be the second-most ditzy one. (loc. 298*)

And later:

After a while, one of the girls whispered, "I think they're taking us to meet with a therapist."
[...]
"My parents will be so mad if they find out I talked to a therapist."
"So will my boyfriend!"
My eyes bugged out of my head. I wanted to tell them those were actually both great reasons to see a therapist. (loc. 623)

But it's also really, really thoughtful. If any of the girls mentioned above made it to the actual show—the first quote is from the open call Hartshorne went to; the second is from the pre-show chaos in Puerto Rico, when they were down to 50-odd girls but the eventual cast had yet to be finalized—we never find out, and they can't be identified from that info alone; later, although Hartshorne is biting about some of the people involved in the production of the show (certain personalities Do Not Come Off Well, to say the least), she says this about conversations with the other contestants: We talked about everything: ambitions, creative desires, sex. And since I would never share any of their stories, I can only tell you my own contributions (loc. 1745). Though the other contestants show up repeatedly, as well they should, Hartshorne writes of them with nothing but respect—if this is a tell-all, they are not the people who need to be told on.

Reality TV is manufactured reality, of course; by now most of us know this. But as the book goes on, it becomes clearer and clearer just how much the show prioritized the show (and their own paychecks—the contestants, of course, were not being paid beyond a not-guaranteed food stipend) over reality or over the contestants' well-being. I'll leave most of the stories to Hartshorne's telling (did I not tell you to skip the reviews and go read the book already?), but I do want to talk about the completely bonkers scenario of being a plus-sized model on this show.

Of course, I was also looking at everyone's physical size and comparing it with mine. I wondered if they could all instantly tell that I was the plus-size contestant. (loc. 1215)

I'm not here to discuss Hartshorne's body or size (or the bodies or sizes of any of the other contestants), but it is absolutely batshit that—on ANTM, but also in the modelling industry more generally—the size window for "straight size" models is so narrow that it might not be immediately clear who is classed as "plus size". I mean, the entire sizing thing is batshit, but it feels like an extra kind of fucked up to bring on someone barely larger than the "straight size" contestants and make a big deal about how she's bigger. (There's also the part where pretty much everything ANTM did for the plus-sized contestants had nothing to do with industry reality? Like, cutting off all of Hartshorne's hair and thus making her unbookable at agencies that hired plus-sized models; handing out a one-size-fits-all prize contract with an agency that did not work with plus-sized models...)

But more than that, it was immediately clear to Hartshorne that the show had a specific storyline for her, and that story was Sad Fat Girl:

And now, as I looked around at all these achingly thin girls, it was starting to hit me that every challenge, every panel, every conversation going forward, was going to be about my weight. That was going to be My Thing, no matter what else I did. (loc. 583)

"Do you think it [a near-collision] was because you're plus-size, because you took up more of the runway?" (loc. 1885)

I didn't want to do a naked photo shoot. It wasn't the actual being naked I was dreading. I'd run around the house naked. I was dreading the interview that would inevitably follow. (loc. 2334)

They kept pressuring me to say that I hated my outfit, that I hated my body, that I was uncomfortable. And I just wouldn't. [...] while I didn't like my body, I wasn't going to say it. I was holding on to my dignity by a thread, but goddamn it, I wasn't going to let go. When the episode aired, they showed me saying things they took completely out of context—"That makes me super uncomfortable" and "I don't like it"—and made it seem like I was talking about my outfit. (loc. 2998)

Hartshorne was aware enough of what the show wanted from her that she developed a strategy (an excellent strategy, I must say) of trotting out whale facts instead of sound bites, but the whole thing is just...telling. Not surprising, but telling.

I don't know whether we've seen so few ANTM memoirs because of the dire warnings the producers gave the contestants about NDAs and so on (the gist of which: we own your life story now, and we can say whatever we want but you can't say anything at all or we will bankrupt you and your children and your children's children), but I am over here praying that this releases the floodgates—and that, in the meantime, Hartshorne makes some serious bank on it. Why are you still reading this review? Go read the book instead.

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

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

Review: "The Ripple Effect" by Maggie North

The Ripple Effect by Maggie North
Published June 2024 via St. Martin's Griffin
★★★★

Stellar needs a financial lifeline, and fast. Lyle, better known as McHuge, needs the optics having a doctor on board his boat—well, boats—will bring. Never mind that Stellar more or less ghosted Lyle last year, or that their chemistry is unresolved, or that "trip doctor" quickly becomes "trip fake fiancée". They'll make it work. And nobody will be the wiser...right?

I usually rail against TikTok tropes in romance novels, but I guess they're wearing me down. The Ripple Effect features #grumpyandsunshine, #onebed, #secondchance, #fakedating, #bigmansmallwoman (I don't know what hashtag that one should be, actually, but I understand that it's a thing) and probably a bunch of other tropes that I don't remember, and yet I didn't...mind? Not sure what has happened to me, but let's run with it.

Into the woods—as a genre (or subgenre? subsubgenre?), not the musical—is right up my reading alley, so when I saw that this was an into-the-woods type of book, I was sold. Points for some intersectionality; maybe minus some points for this not being a very outdoorsy kind of trip, all things considered (think tents big enough to stand up in with real furniture and chef-cooked meals, not sleeping bags and oatmeal cooked in the bag it came in); plus points for some red herrings that did their job; minus points for the whole 'he is so big and she is so little' thing (rubs me the wrong way for reasons that do not originate with this book); and I don't feel like doing math but we're still in the black by the end of the book. I'm not entirely sold on the conflict—it occasionally felt as though there was one too many thing going on—and I'm struggling to imagine that Stellar couldn't find another job that better used her skills, even under the circumstances—even if local practices and so on had their doors closed to her, the COVID era has opened up a world of remote work, including for doctors. That said, I enjoyed the dynamics between the members of the inaugural group, and of course between Lyle and Stellar. I wouldn't be sorry if Sloane featured in a future book, either.

This was a super quick read, ideal for a day when I wanted something that was heavy only on the tropes. A mood read, but I'd return to the author for other mood reads. Into the woods it's time to go...

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

Review: "If I Told You, I'd Have to Kiss You" by Mae Marvel

If I Told You, I'd Have to Kiss You by Mae Marvel
Published June 2025 via St. Martin's Griffin
★★★★

Take Mr. and Mrs. Smith and queer it up, and what do you get? You get If I Told You, I'd Have to Kiss You.

It was love at first sight for Yardley and KC, and three years later they're living together and still madly in love—and they've just broken up, because they're each carrying secrets that are pulling the relationship down. What they don't know: Those secrets are the same. They've both been working for the CIA for years...and things are about to get interesting.

She was five feet of coiled muscle with the kind of mind shining behind her eyes that made people not want to be the first one to talk, just in case they weren't as smart as they thought. (loc. 811*)

I have to be honest: I don't think the CIA works even a little bit the way it's depicted here, and for the sake of fiction, that's exactly the way I like it. This is spy stuff with sparkles (or perhaps a unicorn onesie?) on, with lots of red lipstick and tight dresses and blasting away at bad guys without so much as ruffling one's hair. It reminds me a bit of The Blonde Identity, and, well...I was here for it then, and I'm here for it now. Presumably CIA operatives have quite a lot more oversight and quite a lot less space to make decisions about what to do and when and why (although, what do I know), but it's a lot more fun when...well, when they get to run kind of rampant, and spy culture is basically a bunch of overgrown teenagers putting on a different wig for each party and pretending not to recognize each other.

The only downside here really has nothing to do with the book itself: there was a moment when I saw this that I thought it was a new Mabel Maney book, and when I tell you that my heart skipped a beat... Well. It's been too long. But at least if Mabel Maney doesn't have any new books coming out soon, there are other authors willing to take up the task of writing playful, improbable, queer spy novels.

Just one question remains: Can this be a series?

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

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

Review: "Come as You Are" by Dahlia Adler

Come as You Are by Dahlia Adler
Published May 2025 via Wednesday Books
★★★★

You know the story: Girl tries to escape complications at home and have a nice normal boring existence at boarding school. Girl might succeed...except girl is placed in boys' dorm by accident. Shenanigans ensue, and girl decides that if she cannot have a non-reputation, she might as well have a Reputation of her own making.

First things first, then second things second, then third things and a caveat third.

First things first: Adler writes both f/f and f/m romance (and possibly other things, but I haven't read her entire backlist), and while there's plenty of queer coding in this book, that dark-haired character on the cover is (alas) not a butch lesbian. If that disappoints you, there's a solution! Read this anyway, and tell the publisher how much you want to see a queer sequel...because there's definitely sufficient setup for that.* And that's all I'll say on that particular subject.

Second things second: I've loved all of Adler's books that I've read, and this was no exception. I giggled out loud (and then had to explain myself to my partner) more than once, and that doesn't happen often. I enjoy how ready Evie is to come out swinging—she has a great poker face, which makes sense given some of her plot points. And her repartee with Salem and Sabrina in particular is just aces. I wasn't sure what kind of pairing to expect going in (I did not get past "boarding school" in the description before I chucked the book on my to-read list; that was almost a year before I read the book, and I didn't reread the description in the meantime—I knew it would be good read regardless, and I like to be surprised), so I spent a big chunk of the book expecting Evie to end up with a different pairing, and it turns out that reading YA romance is way more fun when it's not immediately glaringly obvious who the love interest is. (I mean...it is. If you've bothered to read the description. But if you're going in blind, it's fun.) I also love that one of the people Evie meets early on, whom she expects to be a tool to end all tools, ends up to be a pretty okay guy, if a total dudebro. Be prepared to hear a loooot about teenagers getting it on, but it's a fun read.

Third things third: This is where the caveat comes in. If you've ever been to boarding school, Come as You Are requires, ah...a fair amount of suspension of disbelief. (Is not, has never been, probably never will be my forte.) It's like this: I went to boarding school. Granted, mine was free,** public** nerd school in the South,*** not a fancy, expensive prep school in New England; also, I am an expert on neither my boarding school nor boarding schools in general. However...I do know that my school sometimes ended up with more students than they'd bargained for. And I know some of the ways they dealt with that: They turned singles into doubles. They turned doubles into triples. They turned triples into quads. They turned storage closets into singles. (Literally, there were windowless rooms in one of the boys' dorms known as closet singles and elevator singles, and to the best of my knowledge the former were originally closets and the latter were originally part of an elevator shaft. Was this legal? Who knows. But it was a thing.) One year, they chucked some beds and desks into the lounge of a girls' dorm and called it a bedroom until enough girls in real dorm rooms dropped out (a few people every year got homesick or couldn't hack it academically...and in the boys' dorms, one or two boys typically did something really, really dumb and got expelled early on) and the girls in the lounge could move elsewhere.

What they definitely never did: moved a girl into a boys' dorm. What they definitely, definitely never did: moved a girl into a boys' dorm without extensive conversations with the girl's parents, and lots of waivers signed (probably by everybody's parents), and about a thousand extra rules for the girl. (There probably would have been a lot fewer rules for the boys, let's be real. This was the South.) With no effort at any point in time to move her to a girls' dorm. And in the 0.0000001% chance that that would somehow happen, there is a further 0% chance that the girl would decide to respond by never locking her door, because what? Boys in boys' dorms are awful. The stories Evie comes out with (like boys playing a game involving shouting "penis" at increasing volumes) are nothing compared to the stories I heard from the boys' dorms at my school. (Just...trust me on this one. Those are not stories that I'm repeating on the Internet.) Oh, and girls in girls' dorms can be a different kind of awful, but that's a whole 'nother thing. As is the part where there are at least a dozen characters in this book who would have been expelled from my high school, post-haste, for any number of reasons, and I swear to the giant spaghetti monster in the sky that my school was not especially strict—they were just worried about things like student safety, and also their reputation and being sued.

Now...I have to assume that Adler knows all this, and she chose to run with it anyway, because you cannot be smart enough to write books this good and also fool enough to think that, you know, Evie's experience would be what Evie's experience is. So I'm taking that as what it is, but also, well. Writing a dissertation on the ways that boarding schools would be more likely to react. Because I'm not very good at suspension of disbelief.

So go forth and read anyway, and know that if you someday send a kid off to boarding school, none of the things in this book will happen, but much worse things probably will.**** And then please hassle Wednesday Books (politely) for that sequel.

* Hey Wednesday Books—and Dahlia Adler—I'd love a queer sequel!

** Yes, really (x2).

*** It was...an experience.

**** Kidding. Or am I?

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

Review: "My Best Friend's Honeymoon" by Meryl Wilsner

My Best Friend's Honeymoon by Meryl Wilsner
Published April 2025 via St. Martin's Griffin
★★★

Elsie is good with going along with it: she goes along with what her family wants her to do at their family-owned small business, she doesn't make waves, and she's stayed comfortably in a good-enough relationship because it's...well, because it's good enough. And it's not until her long-time fiancé decides to spring a wedding on her that she realizes that it's time to form some of her own opinions. And what better way to do that than take her best friend Ginny along with her on the all-inclusive honeymoon that Elsie's now ex-fiancé insists that she take anyway? Meanwhile, Ginny is determined that Elsie will spend the not-a-honeymoon asking for what she really wants...and if that happens to be Ginny, well. Ginny's been in love with Elsie for years.

There's plenty to like here: it's a fun setup, first of all, with bisexual and enby rep (plus an MC who is not a size two and is comfortable with that), and I love that the ex-fiancé isn't evil—he's a little clueless, yes, but he genuinely cares for Elsie and isn't about to intentionally make her life difficult. I'm a broken record on the subject, but this is so rare for ex-partners in romance novels, and I'm always happy to see not-evil exes who just aren't the One. (Bonus: the ex gets some character growth throughout the book.) Both MCs have solid family support (even if that support is also sometimes a bit clueless), which isn't a given and is always nice to see. And although I'm generally not interested in resort vacations (give me a tent in the woods and some bug spray), the honeymoon location sounds pretty fab. I did have a bit of trouble telling Elsie and Ginny's voices apart, I think partly because they have...well, their names aren't actually similar, but they're each two syllables with an "ee" sound at the end, and I guess that tripped me up.

The thing that tripped me up in a bigger way: I really would have liked a discussion of consent and just of interest before things heat up. Because...Elsie knows that Ginny was interested when they were teenagers, but she doesn't actually know if Ginny is interested now. The reader knows that Ginny is still in love with and happy to jump into bed with Elsie, but Elsie more or less takes it for granted that "whatever you want" includes a whole lot of banging. It's chapter 14 (39%) when things heat up, and then it's not until two chapters later (51%) that Elsie thinks to ask "Not just because I want to ... Do you want me to?" (loc. 1601*) Twelve percent of a book might not sound like much, but it feels like quite a lot when that twelve percent is, you know, mostly banging.

Between the sometimes shaky communication and the similar sense I got from their voices, I'm left thinking that Ginny has just as much trouble articulating what they want as Elsie has. I would have loved to see that be more of a realization throughout the book. Later in the book, Elsie throws some pretty hefty accusations at Ginny, ones that I'm honestly surprised their relationship can recover from so quickly; they take a look at some of the patterns in that relationship and what is and isn't working, but...I suppose I would have liked that look to be even deeper. To be fair, they're young—young and passionate and I think still trying to figure out what healthy relationships (platonic and/or romantic and/or sexual) look like.

I don't think this was quite the right book for me, but I'll still happily read more of Wilsner's books, and I do think it'll go over like gangbusters for readers looking for a lot of heat and perhaps a queer escape to the Caribbean.

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

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

Review: "If We Were a Movie" by Zakiya N. Jamal

If We Were a Movie by Zakiya N. Jamal
Published April 2025 via HarperTeen
★★★

Movies aren't really Rochelle's thing, but anything that will bulk up her Wharton application—such as work experience—is absolutely her thing. When a position opens up at the local Black-owned cinema, she'll take it...even if it means working with her once-upon-a-friend, now her low-key nemesis.

Overall, this feels like a really solid debut. These are by and large likeable characters, both the main cast and the secondary characters (I enjoyed the twins' roles in particular), and it's nice to see Rochelle gradually loosen her death grip on All Academics, All the Time. There's also this nice moment: Mentally, I reprimand myself for assuming their pronouns and make the switch in my brain (loc. 604*). It's such a small thing, but it feels wonderfully realistic; I've read way too many books where the author tries to signal inclusivity by having the main character get all pronouns correct immediately, and it's much more realistic to see someone stumble and course-correct.

There's a small mystery baked into the plot, and I would have liked to see a bit more from it. I don't want to go into too much detail in a review, but the stakes felt lower than they should have been—I think I was expecting something to happen to the memorabilia, and there was sort of a dearth of suspects, limiting any whodunnit sense. I also would have liked to see some more specifics about the movies (and history) relevant to the cinema; I'm not any kind of film buff (at the time of writing it has been—if I remember correctly—almost a year and a half since I sat through a full movie; cannot ask my partner for a more exact date or he will suggest that we watch a movie) and know very little about any realms of film, including Black cinema, so it might have been nice to learn a bit more.

But: The romance is cute, the setting is interesting, and props to parents (fictional and real) who fundamentally just want their kids to be happy. A win in my book!

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

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

Review: "The Balance" by Aimee Boorman

The Balance by Aimee Boorman (with Steve Cooper)
Published April 2025 via Abrams
★★★

You might not know Boorman's name, but you know her highest-profile client: Boorman coached Simone Biles from childhood to Olympic success. Many a gymnast has written a memoir (which I'm a sucker for), but I've seen fewer books by coaches, and I was curious to see how her take might be different.

I approached The Balance with a certain degree of caution; elite gymnastics in the US has taken an extremely well-deserved beating to its reputation in recent years (just to be crystal clear: I'm speaking of coaches and administrators, not of athletes), and I'm not here to read the story of someone who perpetuated or was complicit in abuses. Before picking this up, I checked two things: one, that Simone Biles wrote the foreword (suggesting that she is still on good terms with Boorman—which in this context makes a difference), and two, that I could not, on a quick search, dig up any controversy about Boorman. I'm not particularly plugged into gymnastics, but not being able to find anything concerning felt like a good sign.

As a book, it's okay. It felt longer than it was—Kindle says it was under 300 pages, but I remember it as closer to 400, and my ARC includes a note that the final, published version will be revised and expanded to include (to paraphrase) thoughts on Biles' most recent successes. I suspect that some of that sense has to do with the disconnect of reading someone's story when it is so heavily dependent on someone else's story (Boorman cannot speak for Biles or her experience and by and large does not try to), and some of it has to do with so much of the book being about the broader picture rather than specific moments and scenes. There's also a definite element of damage control here. Regardless of her own actions, Boorman was deeply entrenched in US gymnastics (and, more to the point, USA Gymnastics), and it's clear that she's eager to distance herself from people who have emerged as villains of the USA Gymnastics story:

This was the first time I had stood up to Martha [Karolyi], and it wouldn't be the last. (loc. 1248*)

This went against Martha's instructions, but I felt it was important for Simone's physical and mental well-being. In fact, I often told Simone to ignore Martha when we were at camp or traveling because I knew what Simone needed and I felt I cared about her health much more than Martha did. (loc. 1861)

It felt to me like [Steve] Penny was ready to exploit them any way he could, and I wasn't having it. (loc. 2976)

And on it goes. I absolutely understand why Boorman felt a need for some damage control, though I find it a bit sad that she can't just focus on telling the story—I think at this point I'm more interested in hearing new insights than in reading, yet again, about the Karolyis being gymnastics tyrants. (Also, I think some of Boorman's frustrations with the gym Biles' parents started might need some workshopping?) All that said, there are some really interesting things to be found in here. I'm interested in the way Boorman talks about the way in which her own gymnastics training informed her work as a coach:

I never forgot how to do gymnastics when I'd take a couple months off to go visit [family], which gave me perspective when I was a coach that if a kid needed time off for important things in their personal life, it would be all right. (loc. 247)

Lakeshore was a time of struggle and growth. I don't have a ton of memories of how each practice would unfold, but I distinctly remember how I felt. During one practice I remember being left on a beam rotation for the entire practice because I was afraid to do my back walkover. I was left standing on the beam with my arms up; I wasn't allowed to get off the beam, nor was I allowed to put my arms down. All I kept thinking was My arms are numb and I'm going to reach back and my head is going to crash on the beam. Today, when I'm coaching beam, I tell my students not to lift their arms until they are ready to go for the skill. (loc. 326)

I made a vow to myself right then and there never to forget how sad, small, and insignificant his coaching had made me feel; that included an unspoken promise to my future students that I would do my best not to repeat the errors in coaching Coach Jeremy had imposed on me. He was the meanest coach I ever had and he influenced me the most in how I would not do my job in the future. (loc. 495)

Honestly, I think we don't see enough of that—so often I hear about coaches or teachers (e.g., in ballet) doing something because it is the way they were taught, whether it was beneficial or harmful or traumatic, and it's nice to have, instead, an "I am going to consciously do better."

There's also, kind of apropos of nothing (as far as the review goes, I mean; it's relevant in the book), this story about inquiries:

During the Olympic qualification round, I submitted three inquiries. This is not that uncommon, but it can get costly. Every time you submit an inquiry—which basically means you believe a judge has underscored the difficulty of a routine—it costs money. Yes, actual money. At the Olympics, an initial inquiry set the federation back by $500 and each subsequent challenge increased the fee by an additional $500 ($500, $1,000, and so on). Prior to 2016, the money had to be paid in cash and had to be delivered in an envelope. (The envelope was a new addition to this ritual after Japan challenged a routine during the 2012 Olympics and started waving a couple of hundred dollars in the air on live TV. it wasn't a good look.) Obviously, a coach handing cash in a discreet envelope to an official doesn't look much better, so today when an inquiry is submitted, the federation is billed for the fee instead of having to post it up front. (loc. 2726)

Now there's some insider info that fascinates me! I'm not a gymnastics superfan or maybe I'd know about this sort of thing already—it makes a certain amount of sense (I imagine the fees were instituted to keep coaches/countries from submitting inquiries on every other routine), but at the same time, it must highlight financial disparities between programs. I'm curious to know whether there are similar fees/rules in other sports; I know she's talking about an Olympics-specific rule, but imagine if football coaches had to pay a fee every time they objected to a call!)

Overall, Boorman has the benefit of a unique perspective here, and though the writing doesn't set my world on fire, I imagine this will be compelling for a lot of gymnastics fans.

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

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

Review: "If I Dig You" by Colby Wilkens

If I Dig You by Colby Wilkens
Published March 2025 via St. Martin's Griffin
★★★

Fourteen years ago, Isi's mother disappeared. Isi's never had closure, and since her best friend Louise left on a dig, she hasn't had closure there either—not with their friendship and not with her unresolved feelings. Lou is back, but things have never been the same.

It looks as though they'll both keep struggling along—until a surprise visit catapults them into the woods and into an unasked-for adventure that tests the strength of their friendship...and forces them both to ask if the risk of upsetting the status quo might be worth the reward.

I picked this up partly for the archeology theme (both characters are archeologists, and they end up searching for lost Cherokee treasure) and partly for the queer romance and partly because, you know, into the woods. I love me a good into-the-woods story. The Cherokee material is super interesting—I hadn't heard of this lost treasure before, and I've been curious about archeology fiction since reading Excavations. Wilkens is part Choctaw-Cherokee,* Isi is part Cherokee, and though I'm not usually one for supernatural material (keeping it vague to avoid spoilers) I actually really enjoyed the way that heritage plays into the story.

Now. I'm bad at suspending disbelief. This is a theme in my reviews. Normally the supernatural element here might have given me trouble, but again, in this case I didn't mind. However...I struggled with quite a lot of things in the rest of the book. There's the way characters jump to conclusions: Isi's mother is "declared deceased" (loc. 28**) six weeks after going missing, and I'm not an expert but that is a wildly fast timeline to decide that someone is dead (missing, presumed dead...maybe? Maybe. But not definitively deceased, not with the limited information they had). There's an assumption that a daughter searching for her missing mother must be doing so because the daughter knows Major Secrets rather than because...she misses her mother. There's an assumption that if someone rings your doorbell when you aren't expecting them, you should burn it all down. (You think I am exaggerating. I am not.) I'm also a little puzzled by the timeline—why have fourteen years passed, and not, say, four? Seems sort of odd that the baddies would hang out and do nothing for so long, or that Isi wouldn't have noticed oddities in her mother's home sooner; seems very, very, very odd that Isi's mother somehow still has a desk at the university where she taught (she wouldn't after four years of disappearance either, mind, but still).

Even getting past all that, I don't understand how Isi and Lou don't end up dead. I just don't. They head into the woods woefully unprepared—plastic ballet flats and rations totalling half a protein bar per person per day. (Again: you think I am exaggerating. I am not. The author has clearly never tried hiking on insufficient food, because I can tell you that it doesn't work in real life the way it works out for Isi and Louise.) They're fleeing from danger, but they never make it far before heading back into danger's camp, or stopping to have a heart-to-heart, or turning on a flashlight or building a fire that would immediately alert anyone around them to their location. We're told that it can get down to thirty at night (that's below freezing!), but they never hesitate to wade into whatever water they come across, often fully clothed—thus sending their chances of hypothermia sky-high. At one point there's a fall, and Louise spends a few moments wondering whether Isi is dead or critically injured before getting distracted by...glowworms. Because priorities. Neither of them is particularly troubled by one woman ending up barefoot, or making out when neither of them has seen a toothbrush in days (romance novel logic)...okay, the latter isn't really a survival thing, but it stretched the bounds of my imagination. (How do their libidos continue to rage unchecked when they should be tired and hungry and cold and in pain and scared?) At one point Louise insists that the only way they will survive is if Isi immediately destroys one of her few pieces of clothing and uses the last of their matches to make a torch, now, there's no time to waste, because it's...crucial that that happen before Louise joins Isi in a space that might not have an exit? I don't know. I read that section three times to try to figure out the thought process, and I still don't understand. There's a situation that puts everyone but Isi in extreme danger, for reasons, and when reinforcements arrive...Isi and Louise do exactly nothing to warn said reinforcements about that danger. (Oh boy.)

This feels like a great draft that still needs a couple of big rounds of edits. I was thrilled that it was an into-the-woods book (I'm always thrilled when it's an into-the-woods book), but I would have found it so much more believable if Isi and Louise had taken the time to go home, dig out their outdoors gear, pack their bags full of rations, and then go into the woods to race against time to beat the baddies at their own game. (And—at one point a snake is described as "wet and slimy" (loc. 2339), which is not how snakes work—they're quite smooth and dry. I don't think either the author or the editor is an outdoorsy person? Which is fine, obviously, but Isi's wet and slimy rattlesnake highlights the importance of books that take place in the woods getting a read by an outdoorsy person during the editing process.)

It's still a cute romance, and if you like your relationships high on angst and aren't really an into-the-woods person yourself, you'll probably struggle with this less than I did. I might pick up another of the author's books in the future—I just won't take Isi or Louise's lead in planning for my next backpacking trip.

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

*This was according to the bio that came with my ARC, but it sounds like it has since come out that this is not the case after all. I wrote this review in blissful ignorance and am leaving the review intact, but I'm...disappointed, let's say, and doubt I'll be picking up future books.

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

Review: "Saltwater" by Katy Hays

Saltwater by Katy Hays
Published March 2025 via Ballantine Books
★★★★

Three decades ago, Sarah Wingate fell to her death in Capri. Since then, the family has moved on—continued to build their empire and image and cultivate status. They do not let a little thing like death stop them. This year, Sarah's daughter Helen is back in Capri with her father and uncle. But this year, things will be change.

It's clear early on that this will not be a pretty story. The family has brought their employee Lorna along—officially as a vacation for her too, but it is clear as day to Lorna that in this family, she will never not be working, never be able to relax—and Lorna clocks the things that the wealthy don't: the secrets simmering under the surface, how little the family cares about people who are not in their circle, in their family. My family always liked that he had a secret of his own, a weakness. It gave him something to lose. (loc. 1236*)

Those secrets will come to a saltwater boil this summer. Lorna is sure of it.

But no one knows girls[...] like me. We are an afterimage, a shadow, a disposable body. Girls like us, we are all the same. We are substitutes. (loc. 4905)

I don't want to say too much here, because layer upon layer is exposed as the book goes on, and that's part of the fun. It's a good summer read, and a meaty one. Don't pick this up when you're in the mood for a lighthearted beach romance; save it for a rainy afternoon when you want to dive in and not come up for air for a while.

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

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

Review: "Behind the Red Velvet Curtain" by Joy Womack, as told by Elizabeth Shockman

Behind the Red Velvet Curtain by Joy Womack, as told by Elizabeth Shockman
Published March 2025 via Rowman & Littlefield
★★★

I had no idea what I was getting into. What fifteen-year-old ever knows anything about what their decisions mean, what future disasters they're signing themselves up for? I was too busy thinking about how this felt like the beginning of a fairy tale. (loc. 350*)

In 2009, when Womack was fifteen, she took a leap: she moved across an ocean to Russia to train at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, the affiliate (and feeder) school of the Bolshoi Ballet and a world away from what Womack knew in the States, not least—but also not only—because she had left her family behind and didn't speak Russian. Already, though, she had a dream: to not just graduate from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy but to be accepted by the Bolshoi Ballet itself. And she was, eventually...but of course it wasn't exactly that simple.

Womack got a fair amount of press as a dance student and later Bolshoi dancer because, although she was not the only American to study ballet in Russia, the numbers are low, and for an undetermined reason Womack was placed not in the program for foreigners but in the standard Russian track. (Her teacher's verdict: she could stay, but only if she learned Russian.) And the book is unique just for the scenario: I've read my fair share of ballet memoirs (and then some), but they've almost all been by people studying and then working in the West; a large part of this book is shadowed by the culture shock of moving across the world, alone, at a young age, and a further part is shadowed by the culture shock of moving back.

I don't know much (and by much I mean anything) about Womack as a dancer, but it's impossible not to feel her sheer ambition here, the determination to make it to the top, whatever that means—and perhaps (though I might be extrapolating too much here) to make the move and the training and all the attendant challenges worth it.

There are some surprising intersections of some of my more specific reading interests here, including that Womack grew up in what sounds like a hyperconservative church; at one point she references umbrellas of authority, which is something I mostly hear about in the context of the IBLP (think the Duggar family). I wished she had gone into some more detail, especially when she says things like this:

I learned a way of thinking at [the church] that felt like fitting fastened wheels into an iron rail. [...] Critical thinking skills were not necessary to keep moving on this sort of track. Neither was compassion or questioning. Questioning, in fact, was something that could get you in trouble. It was wrong and an affront. Good kids, faithful kids, patriotic kids, kids who were going somewhere didn't ask questions.

This was a rail that helped me fit in at all sorts of ballet companies, as it turned out. It helped me fit in in Russia. (loc. 250)

That's fascinating to me, and it makes a ton of sense, but gosh I would have liked it explored further—I was hoping to come to a point in the book where she started realizing how the one experience fed into the other, but instead she remains largely uncritical of that aspect of ballet in Russia. (Not about everything: She and her husband were out of the country when Russia invaded Ukraine, and she writes that they intentionally have not been back since.) In general I think I could have used some more connections between...experience and emotion, I guess, and perhaps some more interrogation of her own reactions to various events (e.g., much of what happened in Boston).

Not a standout as far as writing goes, but I'm glad Womack worked with a ghostwriter (or cowriter) on this—I genuinely appreciate it when memoir writers know that it will be helpful to work with a trained writer. This will probably be most interesting to ballet enthusiasts, but there's plenty of complication for more general memoir readers.

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

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

Review: "13 Ways to Say Goodbye" by Kate Fussner

13 Ways to Say Goodbye by Kate Fussner
Published March 2025 via HarperCollins
★★★★

When Nina's older sister Lily died, Nina's world fell apart. Her parents have retreated into grief, and without Lily, Nina has no road map—just the to-do lists Lily left behind. But although the last list has taken her to Paris for the summer, she knows that from here on out she'll be flying without a map. What she doesn't expect, though, is that this last list has a few surprises in store for her...

Like Fussner's first book, this is written in verse: She would hate / that I decided / my best path forward / was to follow hers / but I didn't know / what else to do. (loc. 547*) My favorite chapters/poems are the ones in which the form gets less conventional, because they force me to work a bit more for it, but as a whole they're cleanly put together. I'm not a huge fan of romance in middle grade (largely because I was not ready to be thinking about romance when I was that age, and I'm a fan of kids getting to be kids for longer), but I love the way the mini-romance is treated here: Nina and Sylvie are so tentative, so cautious—and what's more, they know that summer can't last forever. (Again: have read too many books where this is solved by "Surprise! I got a scholarship to study in Paris! Now we can be together forever!" and I just think it's valuable to let these shorter relationships, where the characters are figuring out what they want and what a healthy relationship looks like, play out.)

There's a mild supernatural element to the book. That's not generally my thing, but I think in this case it could have been explored just a wee bit more—Nina accepts it so easily (which actually makes a certain amount of sense, because it gives her a new way to process her grief, which is something she's desperate for), but it also slides back out of the story with barely a whisper, and she accepts that easily too. Perhaps an instance where some explanations were trialed and nothing quite fit.

Grief, first romance, and Paris—ingredients for an excellent sophomore book, as it turns out.

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

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

Review: "The Tell" by Amy Griffin

The Tell by Amy Griffin
Published March 2025 via The Dial Press
★★★★

For years, Griffin ran: she ran through rain and snow and dodgy parts of town, through injury and illness and uncertainty. What she didn't stop to ask herself was what she was running from. But you can't outrun your past forever, and eventually, Griffin knew it was time to face her past—and to figure out just what memories were hovering just out of reach.

How did I know that this was what I needed to do? Even now, I don't really understand it. I just knew that I had built up walls, and I did not know how to tear them down. I knew that I was tired of running. And I knew that I could not hide in the vastness of the life I had built any longer—a life so big that I'd disappeared in it. (loc. 994*)

Griffin's story ends up being an intersection of trauma, recovery, and the parts in between: psychedelic-assisted therapy, belated understanding of her own actions and reactions throughout earlier years of her life, the limitations of the justice system, and the damage done by a Texan purity culture that—implicitly and explicitly—encouraged girls to stay silent when what they experienced wasn't painless, wasn't pretty.

This is clearly the product of years of work—first to put the pieces together for herself, then to share those pieces with the people around her and figure out what came next, and finally to turn this into a cohesive story. It's tightly told, and the psychedelic portion of the story is unusual; I appreciated the conversations with various experts worked into the memoir (probably included to forestall skepticism, but as someone who is more ignorant than skeptical, I found it useful too), but mostly I was just in it for the journey.

Sometimes, when I told people, they praised me for doing "the work," because, they said, it made me a better example to my children, a better wife to my husband, or a better friend to those closest to me. Women are always doing things so we can be better for other people. My relationships had changed for the better, but I didn't do it for anyone else. I did it for me. (loc. 3079)

Worth mentioning that the content warnings for sexual assault at the beginning of the book are warranted; I think the book is well worth reading, but know yourself and your limits.

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

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

Review: "Say a Little Prayer" by Jenna Voris

Say a Little Prayer by Jenna Voris
Published March 2025 via Viking Books for Young Readers
★★★★

Church used to be a comfortable place for Riley—until she realized that her queerness would never be accepted, and until the pastor threw her sister Hannah out for getting an abortion. She doesn't regret leaving and not going back...except that she's been quietly in love with the pastor's daughter for years. And except that the pastor isn't happy that she left without his say-so. And except that after an altercation at school, she's been banished to church camp in Kentucky for a week...and now things are just a little bit awkward.

This is so far up my alley it's basically in my backyard. I love that although Riley feels rejected by the church, she isn't rejected by the people she loves most; her family has zero problem with sexuality, and neither does Julia, her best-friend-slash-crush. Better, the deeper into the book we get, the more complicated she finds her relationship with the teenagers who have been making her life, and her sister's life, difficult since they found out about Hannah's abortion. Riley is very much a teenager (her rantings in her notebook are ever so slightly cringe, which fortunately I think is the point), but on the whole things feel balanced.

Readers who have read Voris's Every Time You Hear That Song will be pleased to find a few easter eggs (though this is not a sequel and can be read 100% independently of Every Time). I read Say a Little Prayer partly on the strength of Every Time, and I'm pleased to report that Prayer lives up to the standard set by its predecessor.

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

Review: "Over the Hill at Fourteen" by Jamie Callan

Over the Hill at Fourteen by Jamie Callan
Published 1982
★★★

Sylvia is fourteen, a model—and, at the grand old age of fourteen, heading over the hill. Her friends and parents might not think her modelling career is all that, but Sylvia is proud of it and convinced that it makes her special...and if she's about to age out of modelling because fourteen is too old to be sexy(!!!), she wants to get her acting career going instead.

This is ridiculous and outdated but also kind of wildly entertaining. Like, you can't criticize Sylvia for lack of self-awareness:

Camille, my best and only true friend, says that I'm really getting conceited over this whole modeling thing and that as soon as I grow a little pair of breasts, I'll be out of a job. Camille just doesn't realize how wrong she is, because you see, I'm not getting conceited. I am conceited. (2)

There's quite a lot of this (Sylvia being kind of awful but also okay with it), which ends up making for quite a fun read here. I love that the people around her are really pretty meh about Sylvia's modelling—they'd really kind of rather that she get her head out of her bum a bit and be a normal teenager. Meanwhile, Sylvia is terrified of becoming a teenager because she'll lose out on jobs that go to younger, 'sexier' models (parts of this do not age well); she's not ready for hormones and dating, and she's certainly not ready for the way everyone in the fashion world, to say nothing of her good friend who is a boy, seems ready to sexualize her.

There's a batty side plot involving Sylvia's father (spoiler, but also this was written in the 80s and not exactly become a classic: he's fired for spending too much time on his own products, then immediately develops a better type of lipstick...which goes into production and so on pretty much instantly, with no little hiccups like safety testing or FDA approval—the latter isn't always necessary for makeup, but because in this case it's a matter of colorant, it might be); that side plot is low-key useless, but I suppose it adds a side of drama and also gives Sylvia a chance to show that she doesn't care that much about the money she's making (the vast majority of it is in a trust until she's older, and the only time we really see her wanting to access it is when her family is in financial difficulties).

I don't know that I can in good conscience recommend this, but it did end up being quite a bit funnier—and willing to take risks with Sylvia's character—than I would have expected.

Review: "On Thin Ice" by Jessica Kim

On Thin Ice by Jessica Kim
Published February 2025 via Kokila
★★★

All Phoebe and and her twin Dexter want is to be on the ice—Dex with a hockey stick in hand and Phoebe perfecting her pairs skills. When Dex doesn’t make the cut for his team, though, and Phoebe’s partner is injured, it looks like their dreams will have to be put on ice—unless Dex steps in to learn pairs skating, help Phoebe compete, and keeps his blades sharp while he’s at it.

This is pretty classically middle grade, and it hits a sweet spot. The twins are set up as polar opposites: Dex is the outgoing, haphazard one, as interested in goofing off as he is in actually practicing, while Phoebe is something of an anxious perfectionist. They’re both grieving a major loss, but they haven’t found a way to share that grief with each other, each instead assuming that the other is no longer grieving. It adds a nice layer of depth to the story. It’s also really nice to see their mother grow too—she’s a supportive parent from beginning to end, but by the end of the book she has a better sense of what turmoil the kids haven’t let her see.

The skill level that Dex and Phoebe show is nicely age-appropriate—they’re good at their respective sports, but neither of them is going to the Olympics anytime soon. And that’s really nice—it makes the book feel applicable to a wider audience. I do wish there hadn’t been a budding romance (YA infecting MG…it’s a common thing), but it’s at least a fairly minor part of the book. This will go over well in middle school libraries, I think.

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

Review: "Maya & Natasha" by Elyse Durham

Maya & Natasha by Elyse Durham
Published February 2025 via Mariner Books
★★★★

For twin sisters Maya and Natasha, there is only one future: born the daughters of a ballerina during the Siege of Leningrad and raised in the theatre, they have never known anything but dance. Natasha is the fiery one and Maya the quiet one, and they dream of dancing together in the Kirov—until they learn that the Kirov, which tours internationally, will take only one of them to lessen the risk of defection. And so the fabric of their lives begins to unravel.

Being seventeen is an exercise in cruelty. Those unfortunate enough to be so know a little of the world, a little less of love, and less still of themselves, but not enough of any of these to avoid heartache. (loc. 891*)

I love ballet books, despite having no ballet background myself; I loved this one more for its so specific time and place as context. Were Maya and Natasha being raised in the ballet world in, say, contemporary New York, their trajectories would be wildly different than they are here; even if they found themselves competing for the same roles or the same company spot, their options beyond that company spot would be quite different than they are deep behind the Iron Curtain.

But the senior dancers busied themselves the same as always: they went to class; they leapt and spun and were commended; they stumbled and were scolded; they sat in history class and pinched their legs to try to stay awake; they stole naps in the library between classes; they snuck away to the storage closets and made love to each other, or pressed an ear to the door and listened to lovemaking and wished they were the ones inside; they ate too much; they ate too little; they sewed ribbons onto new pairs of pointe shoes and seared the ends with matches; they lifted rusty dumbbells in the gymnasium; they fell into bed and slept so hard it made them, somehow, more tired. (loc. 898)

The plot spans decades, starting as Maya and Natasha are born and then skipping ahead to their last year at the Vaganova (a, or perhaps the, premier school of ballet in Russia) and on through what follows. They are such distinct personalities, and I suspect that readers will each find themselves sympathizing more with one character over the other—and that which character you sympathize more with will tell you something, if something small, about yourself.

What is evident is how difficult it is to envision an outcome of their final exams and audition for the Kirov that will not devastate one—or both—of the sisters. It's a system set up...well, not for failure, but it's a system that ignores the humanity and personal desires of artists; there's a certain ruthlessness required in order for one to succeed, and for Natasha and Maya the questions becomes not just what but whom they are willing to sacrifice for the sake of their own futures.

How quickly the rest of it happened was a great surprise to Maya, and something she would marvel at for years afterward—how everything in your life can change in the span of time it takes to wash your hair. (loc. 3598)

All in all, an excellent debut.

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

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

Review: "The Lost and the Found" by Kevin Fagan

The Lost and the Found by Kevin Fagan
Published February 2025 via Atria
★★★★

Rita and Tyson had something in common: They both had families who loved them. And they had something else in common: They were both living homeless in San Francisco. Different backgrounds had led them both to struggle with drug use, which in turn had led to the streets, and so it goes.

Fagan's The Lost and the Found tells their stories in some depth, based on months of in-depth, on-the-streets reportage—one of Fagan's particular interests as a reporter—and then years of follow-up with both Rita and Tyson. This ends up being both a general overview of homelessness in the US (and the policies that hurt, and those that help) and a compassionate, in-depth portrait of two of the people affected.

Being homeless in a big city, even with a lot of pals around, actually takes a lot of work. Not having a home to go to means every night is a coin toss, hoping someone won't cave in your teeth with a boot just to steal whatever you have in your pockets. You can find your regular haunts, and if you're lucky, you wind up at some place like Homeless Island—but even then it means putting up the tent or tarp or cardboard, arranging the shopping carts like a wall, or finding blankets to replace the ones ripped off while you were off copping dope. (loc. 793*)

This is reportage built on a long-haul project and slowly built trust. Fagan could have spent most of his time doing independent research and only interviewed people affected by homelessness for the sake of quotes, but this is a much stronger book for the time and effort he put into building relationships. In places I think the book leans a little heavily on foreshadowing and sentimentality, though perhaps that's an inherent risk of doing work where you get to know and care about your subjects.

In addition to telling these specific stories—and touching on some of the stories of other people living on San Francisco's streets—Fagan delves into some of the hows and whys of the extensive homeless population in San Francisco, and what interventions have and have not been effective to get people off the streets and into more stable housing. It's not a primer on homelessness, but it's useful context for those hoping to learn a bit more in the context of personal stories. Overall, a very thoughtful read.

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

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

Review: "The Dollhouse Academy" by Margarita Montimore

The Dollhouse Academy by Margarita Montimore
Published February 2025 via Flatiron Books
★★★

For Ramona and her best friend Grace, an invitation to join the Dollhouse Academy is a dream come true. The Academy has created some of the biggest stars in the entertainment industry—entry isn't a guarantee of success, but success at the Academy is a guarantee of succeeding outside the Academy.

Meanwhile, Ivy is one of the Dollhouse's biggest success stories. She's been acting with them for almost two decades, since she was a teenager—she knows more of the Dollhouse's secrets than most. And she knows what Romana doesn't want to see—that it might be hard to get into the Dollhouse, but once you're in, it's even harder to get out.

They make it so easy to stay, surround you with a beautiful town, beautiful people, beautiful words. And once you taste success, you get hungrier for it, and you give away more of yourself to them without even realizing it. (loc. 2688*)

This is a twisty little story with perhaps something of a Black Mirror sense. It's clear early on that something is not quite right, but Ramona doesn't want to listen; initially, at least, she's too desperate for the promise of success. It's clear also that she's struggling at the Dollhouse, and it will take more than the skills she comes in with to deliver on that promise. I love the premise—this is sort of a boarding school story, but the setting is more ambivalent than that, as many of the characters are fully fledged adults. In a way more of a college story, I suppose, as they can (eventually) choose to move elsewhere if they like, though...if they're successful, they generally don't. The Dollhouse sees to that.

There were fewer surprises than I expected, though. The climax in particular feels more whimper than bang, but the "here is how the denizens of the Dollhouse are being controlled" was visible a mile away. Though I kept waiting for some kind of reveal about surveillance tactics, anytime Ramona ran off to have a secret conversation about the Dollhouse being sketchy (or, once, to share all of someone else's secrets with people who had given her no real reason to think they were trustworthy), any sense of danger turned out to be all in my head. I suppose I wanted something both more subtle and less subtle, if that makes any sense!

Ultimately a mixed bag for me. I'm curious to try something else by Montimore—her work seems quite high-concept.

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

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

Review: "Release" by Tori Barkosky

Release by Tori Barkosky
Published November 2024
★★

Short memoir about life with (and, partly, recovery from) an eating disorder. This is about on par with what I'd expect from a self-pubbed book by a beginning writer. Chapters are grouped more thematically than chronologically, and they're quite short; at times it felt a bit as though the book was an outline with a series of topics that were each expanded upon in brief to make up the chapters. That's fine, of course, and I hope it was all cathartic for the author to write, but this isn't one that is likely to stick with me.