minimicropup's reviews
479 reviews

Where Are You, Echo Blue? by Hayley Krischer

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Loved this!

Energy: Confident. Fretful. Confessional.

Scene: 🇺🇸 Set in Los Angeles, particularly Venice Beach area.

Perspectives (2): An up-and-coming journalist who wants to work on a story about her childhood idol who has quietly disappeared from the public eye. A child star growing up navigating the pressures of fame, friendship, and family.

Timelines: 1981-1990s and the year 2000

🐕 Howls: I didn’t love parts of the ending for feeling a little too fairy tale for me, but it wasn’t poorly done.

🐩 Tail Wags: Clues steadily revealed throughout character perspectives and timeline switches. The intrigue around where Echo Blue is + character study of the Idol and the Fan. Nostalgic exploration (and grounded commentary) of 1990s/2000s teeny-bopper idol industry with consequences. Characters’ minds and lives slowly unraveling. Goldie giving Fleabag vibes. How fictional pop cultural was merged with actual pop culture making it feel real and giving context.

🤓 Reader Role: Deep in the characters’ minds riding the emotional roller coaster.

🗺️ World-Building: Immersive, sensory, and nostalgic.

🔥 Fuel: Character evolution and investment. Where is Echo Blue? Is Goldie on to something big or is she unhinged obsessed and blind to truth?

📖 Cred: Realistic with sprinklings of idealism

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Fluorescent lights. Phish t-shirts. Magazine pages. Collages. Softball. Dancing. Champagne. Klonopin. Disney. Patchouli. Thai food. Hate mail. Paparazzi. Sunglasses. New Year’s Eve.

Breezy, intimate writing style
Coming-of-age psychological and moral growth
The surrealism of child stardom
Short chapters feeling fast-paced once invested in the story
Enlightening life lessons learned the hard way
Realistic social commentary of what feeds pre-teen sitcom industry, child star obsession, and its effects on fans and idols
Quest for adult identity character study
Alienation and loneliness of teen/new adulthood
Anti-hero main characters
Journalistic morally ambiguous sleuthing
Betrayal and redemption & unlikely friendships
Nostalgic late 1990s/Y2K settings & pop culture
Complex father-daughter bonds
Missing celeb mystery

Content Heads-Up: Narcissistic parent & abuse. Misogyny. Mentally ill parent. Depression. Anxiety. Insomnia. Agoraphobia. Paranoia. Loneliness. Drug abuse (anti-anxiety meds). Tobacco/cigarettes. Parental neglect. Parental rejection. Sexual content (consenting, self). Cannabis (edibles). Trauma bonds. Loss of parent (as young adult). Loss of spouse. Car accident (fatal; off page). Adult/minor relationship. Cutting (very brief mention). Addiction, recovery.

Rep: Jewish ancestry. Polish ancestry. American. South American, Argentinian, Swedish, Black American peripheral characters. Dark and pale skin tones.

📚 Format: Library Digital

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Bad Tourists: A Novel by Caro Carver

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I like the premise. I just wish it was executed differently, because I almost gave up in the middle and felt a little tricked by the end (and not in that fun, shocking thriller way).

Energy: Accusatory. Messy. Suffusive.

Scene: 🇲🇻 Mainly set at the fictional Sapphire Island Beach Resort, Republic of the Maldives.

Perspective (6): A recently divorced parent of three boys. Their spouse who runs a software company. Their 12-year-old child who has suddenly become withdrawn and angry. A Pilates instructor excited for a holiday. A ghostwriter reluctantly on holiday. A newlywed on their honeymoon.

Timelines: Starts off with a snippet of a 2001 event. The rest of book takes place in 2023 and in the six months leading up to the trip.

🐺 Growls: Overly simplistic delivery of plot and character reveals. Narrative tricks (aka lies to!) the reader.
🐕 Howls: Shift from a slow-paced contemporary fiction friendship study for most of the book to a sudden fast paced gore-filled popcorn thriller at the end. Character dialogue sounded too similar. When suspense was created by characters refusing to communicate.
🐩 Tail Wags: The idea. The big bad.

🤓 Reader Role: Observer from the sidelines. Starting with our narrator telling us about characters and their thoughts. As the story progresses, we are more distant an observer and know less about what the characters are thinking.

🗺️ World-Building: A little under described. Not very immersive or atmospheric but detailed enough to imagine.

🔥 Fuel: Withholding, escalating stakes, and layered secrets. Why is this unlikely trio vacationing together? Why is Charlie so angry with his mother? How will the newlywed handle the changes in her relationship? Who can they believe? Is there a killer on the island? Was justice served in the tragedy that bound them together?

📖 Cred: Suspended disbelief, over-the-top

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Cerulean waters. Palm trees. Bats overhead. White tunics. Tropical heat. Champagne. Beach huts. Candles in glass jars. Shimmering stars. Light jazz. Straw roof. Artificial intelligence. Blood.

Straightforward writing style with short chapters
Slow burn friendship study
High stakes fight-for-their-life popcorn thriller endings
Hidden motives
Older female Besties (40s, 50s)
Psychological duels vacation suspense
Double crossing
Mix of insufferable, villainous, and altruistic characters
Relationship and friendship drama
Solved or unsolved serial killer case
Who to Trust, how-well-can-you-know-someone?
Gruesome murders
Discussions around morality, vengeance, and anger
Sprinkling of techno thriller

Content Heads-Up: Mass murder. Blood. Divorce. Abusive relationship (jealous, controlling, violent, gaslighting, pressure to reproduce). Panic attack, PTSD. Misogyny. Alcohol (partying, social). Cancer (brief mention). 9/11 (brief mention). Pedophilia, grooming, adult/minor relationship (off page/brief mention). Child abuse (emotional). Animal cruelty (rodents, birds). Psychopathy/personality disorder. Body horror, gore, vomit, blood.

Rep: British, Filipino-British. Catalan. Cisgender. Heterosexual. Lesbian. Olive, pale, and tanned skin tones.

📚 Format: Everand Audio (<30%). Library Hardback (>30%).

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The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

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adventurous dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This is a historical literary fiction family saga. Light on the mystery and very few thrills, but I still liked it. Just too long and a little too commentary-driven for my tastes.

Energy: Assertive. Critical. Incisive.

Scene: 🇺🇸 Camp Emerson in upstate New York near the Adirondacks in the 1950s and 1970s.

Perspectives (7): A camp counsellor. A new camper reluctantly attending camp in the wake of their parents’ divorce. The landowner’s spouse grieving the past. The landowner’s preteen eager to attend camp for their first time. A worker for the landowner’s family. A newly minted detective investigating the disappearance of a camper.

Timelines (2): 1950s showing how the landowner’s family came to establish the camp and how the parents met. 1960s showing how a family tragedy occurred. 1970s before and after another camper goes missing.

🐺 Growls: Too long. Overly drawn out with lots of filler. Felt like two whole novels mashed together. Increasingly convoluted storylines with rapid time jumping instead of a more linear two- or three-part storyline.

🐕 Howls: Same themes/commentary repeatedly mentioned just from slightly different angles. 1950s storyline was all sadness and how terrible it was to be a woman. Lack of historical vibes (didn’t get much of a feel for it being 1950s, ‘70s etc beyond how women were treated).

🐩 Tail Wags: Interesting plot for the 1975 timeline. Barbara and Tracy. Chapters that took place at camp. Dynamics between camp counsellors/campers.

🤔 Random Thoughts:

Take notes! So many characters and takes a good chunk of the way into the book to get to know them all.

Audio narration was good, but this may be a text read. Easy to multi-task but hard to know which time period we’re in since some characters are part of all of them.

🤓 Reader Role: Third person narrator telling us the story and introducing us to characters and their circumstances. We know more than any one character except for where Barbara is and what happened to Bear.

🗺️ World-Building: Camp map!!! I love it. Descriptive for the surroundings and environment, but historical atmosphere lacking.

🔥 Fuel: What happened to the landowner’s child? Where is Brenda? Is she safe? Who was she meeting at night? What did she want to attend camp so badly? Why was a counsellor betrayed and will they be able to prove their innocence?

📖 Cred: Realistic with a touch of suspended disbelief

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Lake breezes. Wooden cabins. Screen doors. Campers laughing. Soft crying. Campfires. Day old alcohol. Cigars. Sunlight on calm waters. Distant guitar chords. Old fire engine. Tires on gravel.

Summer camp vibes
Accessible literary fiction
Missing camper mystery
Ghosts and escaped convicts
Misfits friendship
Survival camp bonding
Historical and retro fiction about girlhood, coming of age, growing up, history of a family
Feminist perspective and commentary
Books to read at a cottage/camping/cabin/cool summer nights
Girlhood and coming-of-age summer crushes and friendships
Police investigator sleuthing, interviews
Piecing together events missing person mystery
Multiple POVs and time-jumps
Tragedy after tragedy

Content Heads-Up: Parental distancing, ghosting (as preteen). Cigarettes, chewing tobacco. Loss of a child. Grief, pills. Generational trauma. Patriarchy (family, relationships, systemic/workplace). Forced gender roles and expectations. Alcohol (social, self-medicating). Alcoholic parent. Controlling, verbally abusive spouse. False accusation, police interrogation. Missing child (preteen). Drugs, drug use (off page; cannabis, cocaine). Injury/wound, blood. Animal death (squirrel, hunting). Mental illness. Homophobia (character comments, opinions).

Rep: Dutch- and Polish-American. American. Diverse body types. Freckled and pale skin tones. Cisgender. Heterosexual.

📚 Format: Library Audio

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This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances by Eric LaRocca

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Got this for my partner as a gift. I wanted to read the first story, like a taste test….read the entire thing in one night.

Energy: Morose. Apprehensive. Determined.

Story 1: Are we confined to live in the shadows of our parents?

Story 2: Generation wounds run shallow or deep?

Story 3: The purchase of a high-end culinary knife leads to a high-end addiction

Story 4: Games in the park go too far

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Literary horror
Disturbing claustrophobic domestic settings
Complicated grief
Surreal grotesque body horror
Can’t look away unravelings
Open-to-reader interpretation randomness and symbolism

Content Heads-Up: Self-harm. Parental rejection. Attempted suicide. Medical (spinal injury, paralysis). Loss of parent (as an adult). Animal death (birds, snakes). Child abuse. Confinement. Torture. Starvation. Vomit. Corpse. Cancer (death). Body horror. Wounds, cuts. Blood. Sexual content (self). Fire, fire injury. Loss of baby. Ageing (weakness, mobility issues).

Rep: Lesbian. Gay. Cisgender. Ambiguous skin tones.

📚 Format: Paperback

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Breaking the Dark: A Jessica Jones Marvel Crime Novel by Lisa Jewell

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adventurous dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Different, but I really enjoyed it! It’s heartwarming and intriguing.

Energy: Disgruntled. Industrious. Quick-witted.

Scene: 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 Hell’s Kitchen and Harlem districts of NYC. Essex and Portsmouth, UK.

Perspectives (3): A loner PI with a traumatic past investigating a case of 16 year old twins returning from summer with their dad, but changed. A seeker of life-saving measures. An influencer infiltrating a unique family. We get multiple timelines including current, 38 years ago, 12 years ago, and 8 years ago.

🐕 Howls: The beginning, especially Jessica Jones’ character arc and life probs (until 30%ish)

🐩 Tail Wags: Writing style. How the story is told. Supernatural realism. Intriguing sci-fi-ish vibes. The mysteries and investigation. Nuanced lore/backgrounds. Steady pacing instead of hits of high-stakes action/fight scenes. Nuanced good vs evil.

🤔 Random Thoughts:

I'm not super familiar with the Marvel stories and characters, so I can’t speak to how accurate or appealing this will be to Marvel fans in general. I suspect any reference to the Marvel universe was nuanced and I may have missed some of it. Rarely was a superhero mentioned directly and when they were I was struck a bit until I remembered what I was reading, because the super-heroism isn't the focus of this.

^That’s Perfect 😉 for me, so if you’re hesitating to read this because you aren’t into superheroes, I’d say give it a go. Especially if you like hints of magical/supernatural realism.

I'm not a big action movie and comic book consumer, so this is a great way to share the Marvel universe and its stories with others like me.

Recommend on audio, I think I would have been frustrated at the start if I was reading this as text. The narration is excellent and sounded natural. It kept me in the story when I was losing interest.

🤓 Reader Role: Narrator telling us the story and character thoughts as we’re watching things unfold. We don’t always know their motivation but can infer.

🗺️ World-Building: Atmospheric with key details given to allow imaginations to run wild without disruption.

🔥 Fuel: What is up with the twins? Why are they so zen? Will Jessica manage to find what caused their personality change? How will an influencer get her product to her followers? Will she succeed in her utopian mission?

📖 Cred: Supernatural realism

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Distant thunder. Burned coffee. Flawless skin. Hissing cats. Pub fare. Cozy beds. Hidden rooms. Beauty cream. Tingling.

Creepy twin dynamics
Reluctant but heartwarming mentorship
Don’t go into the basement energy
Atmospheric ‘inferring’ type reads
Friends-with-benefits-but-wish-it-was-more romance
Ticking biological clock for motherhood
Private Investigator sleuthing, spying, infiltrating
Corny but clever sidekick
Morally complex, imperfect main character
Magical realism (supernatural abilities) meets biotech sci-fi
Swipes of vampiric/cannibal vibes
Too good to be true beauty products
Culty influencer utopian quests
Symbolism around good vs evil, beauty, influencing younger generations, motherhood hesitancy, and overcoming trauma/guilt, and brainwashing.

Content Heads-Up: Early pregnancy. Racism (mention, reminder). Trauma, flashbacks. Hallucinations. Brainwashing. Body shaming (overall beauty standards/perfection). Kidnapping, confinement, drugging.

Rep: Ambiguous, Black, and White Americans. White and ambiguous British. Cisgender. Gay peripheral characters. Heterosexual.

📚 Format: Audible

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Ladykiller by Katherine Wood

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 35%.

Repetitive, spinning wheels, too predictable, and I’m strugglingggg to stay interested.

The Gia Manuscript portions are insufferable because they’re so repetitive with her going on and on about her attention-seeking behaviour, in a way where she seems blind to how cringe it is. Usually that’s my thing, I love a cringey unlikeable character trope, but hers was too one-dimensional. It’s mainly using sex games trying to incite jealousy and repetitive rich woman with daddy issues but in denial.

Her friend Abby is similarly lacking depth. The difference is her perspective is trying too hard to tell us how uptight, responsible, and conflicted (but reading more like ‘superior’) she is compared to Gia.

I would say this is a good read for those who like contemporary fiction with psychological sexual/romantic suspense, but imo even that was too one-dimensional. Like trying to be ‘shocking’, by regularly throwing in mention of threesomes, exhibitionism, rough sex. But it’s mostly just Telling us it happened so I don’t even know if spicy readers will find it spicy?

Maybe later there’s a method to all this madness, like we are reading Gia’s memoir so is she purposefully a one-dimensional writer and exaggerating? Maybe but I just can’t stick it out to find out, my brain is melting lol.

Sooo…not sure who I would recommend it to, but it’s def not for me!

Content Warnings

The Haters by Robyn Harding

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Devoured it.

Energy: Suspicious. Ambitious. Hasty.

Scene: 🇨🇦 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Perspective: A high school counsellor realizing her dream of becoming a published author. But at the height of their success, a scathing one star review accuses them of stealing the story and results in plummeting reviews from other readers. We also get to read snippets of the novel.

🐕 Howls: I didn’t like the Burnt Orchard book and topics (but it’s vital to the story, just not something I'd ever choose to read).

🐩 Tail Wags: The ending. The imperfect characters. Invoking cringe and sympathy. The train-wrecks before the reveals.

🤔 Random Thoughts:

So much of this story relies on Cameron making dumb decisions. But it works with her personality. She is goodie-good oblivious, and interacts with the world as if people should know she has good intentions and that will solve everything. As she gets more stressed, she burrows deeper into that mindset. It was entertaining but could be off-putting if you hate rolling your eyes at dumb character decisions!

Nearing the end I happily settled into ‘suspended disbelief’ mode. Then I started thinking how possible this all is. And then I saw some news about something similar happening and now I just think this is a story that will feel eerily realistic soon.

🤓 Reader Role: Cameron talking to us about everything going on, what she’s doing, thinking, feeling. Reading snippets of her novel.

🗺️ World-Building: Easy to imagine, not overly detailed. Little details here and there to establish foundation.

🔥 Fuel: Intriguing twists and turns. Escalating stakes for Cameron’s career and safety. Who gave the one-star review? Is Cameron as innocent as she claims when it comes to the inspiration for her story? As the stalker escalates, will Cameron be able to keep herself, her career, and her daughter safe?

📖 Cred: Wild, but plausible.

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Vacuuming. Voicemails. Book reviews. Text messages. Zoom calls. TikTok. Street parking.

Review bombing
Unknown sabotage-stalker
Books within a book
Behind the scenes look at reviewer impacts and publishing industry
Internet trolls getting fed
Mean girls
Mother-daughter drama
Facepalming at the main character’s questionable decisions
Amateur sleuthing and stalking the stalker
Who to trust suspicions
Snowballing consequences
Hints of unhinged characters

Content Heads-Up: Teen sexual assault, rape (in fictional story but graphic). Stalking. Threatening messages. Cyberbullying (review bombing, compromising video). Sabotage (career). Drug use, dealing (cocaine). Homelessness (teens, mental illness). Sexualized child images. Police incompetence (dismissal, disbelief). Doxxing. Personality disorder/psychopathy. Arson. Fire/fire injury/fatality (graphic, on page)

Rep: White and Black Americans. Cisgender. Heterosexual. Lesbian peripheral character. Pale and dark skin tones.

📚 Format: Library Audio

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The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley

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dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Easy listening for busy days, but don’t recommend audio if you can’t see the chapter titles. It was a choice between being lost in this book vs irl every time I wanted my gps.

Energy: Caustic. Demanding. Irreverent.

Scene: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 A countryside resort in rural Dorset, England.

Perspectives (5): A local farmboy working at the resort bar. The resort owner who inherited the land. Their spouse who is developing the resort on the land. An old friend returning to the resort as a guest. A detective inspector investigating a body found near a cliff. Told over multiple timelines around the current solstice/Feast day and in 2010.

🐺 Growls: Too much time jumping. Time jumping in confusing order (at least for audio).

🐕 Howls: Little too drawn out on the melodramatic style. Withholding minor details to create suspense.

🐩 Tail Wags: The unlikeable and likeable characters. Finding out how everything connects. The ending. The reveals and surprises. Often predictable but kept my interest.

🤔 Random Thoughts:

Me for most of this: Ooo was this is before the solstice? After? During? This must be the 2010 timeline. ~checks screen~ …it’s the evening of the feast…is that the same as the solstice? When am I?!?!

The storytelling had that ‘dun-dun-dun’ feeling when we got a reveal no matter how big or small. I kinda liked it. Very soap opera style. Except by the end, it felt like soap opera fatigue - I just wanted the drama without the drama.

🤓 Reader Role: Different characters talking to us, telling us story, thoughts, motivations, hopes and dreams.

🗺️ World-Building: Just enough detail for you to imagine it. The author doesn’t kill imaginings later with extra details or late info.

🔥 Fuel: Keeping secrets and crucial information just out of reach. Interlocking mysteries and revelatory backstories.

📖 Cred: A little over-the-top, a little suspended disbelief.

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Ancient trees. Robes. Cows. Chickens. Infinity pool. Self tanner. Caravan Park community. Wine cellar.

Whiny entitled rich behaving badly
Teen vacation romance and new friends
Seaside summers
Folklore/fae vibes involving birds and trees
Hidden camera uh ohs
Pagan style festivities
Stay out of the woods energy
Toxic female friendships
Slow burn soap opera style storylines and scandal
Many POVs and large character casts
Past, not too distant past, not too distant future timelines
Nature’s revenge?

Content Heads-Up: Sexual content (mention; sounds, rough, consenting, self). Classism. Neglectful childhood. Alcoholism (self-medicating, drunk). Sexual assault (on page; unwanted kissing, fondling). Body shaming, misogyny (body shape, breast size, attractiveness). Animal death, cruelty (murder; cow, birds). Toxic friendship. Infidelity. Poisoning.

Rep: White and Trinidadian-British. Cisgender. Heterosexual.

📚 Format: Libro.fm

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Love Letters to a Serial Killer by Tasha Coryell

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dark funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Once I got into this I was flyying through these pages.

Energy: Needy. Unwise. Oblivious.

Scene: 🇺🇸 Set in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Atlanta, Georgia.

Perspective: Our MC, fresh from being ghosted by a casual fling they hoped would evolve into something more, distracts themselves deep diving into a national true crime case.

🐕 Howls: Ending felt a little too shock-value and kind of abrupt.

🐩 Tail Wags: Absolute mess of a main character. Unhinged characters. Cringe and wtf moments. Pacing and plot. Portrayal of true crime culture (the good and the bad).

🤔 Random Thoughts:

Hannah (MC) is so easy to dislike, but somehow, I wasn’t always rooting against her. I loved how she felt believable and was self-aware enough to recognize some unhealthy behaviours while being so oblivious to her other ones. If you're not a fan of unlikeable characters you might hate this.

This gave me some insight into why someone would have serial killer romance fascinations beyond ‘they’re just messed up people’. It’s so fun watching Hannah unravel that I felt a little guilty!

I loved the love letter aspect and that we got to read them. And that they read like REAL letters.

🤓 Reader Role: Almost like Hannah is talking to us directly, giving us the tea and sharing her story with us. Reading the letters William sends her.

🗺️ World-Building: Not the focus, but easily imagined if you want to without author killing it later with late-delivered details.

🔥 Fuel: Starting at the ending intrigue. How did Hannah end up in this situation? Why? What will happen to her?

📖 Cred: Realistic, even hyper-realistic for the majority with suspended disbelief conclusion.

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Punk music. True crime forums. Courthouse security. Donuts. Fast food. Corner booths. Hotel rooms. Bar stools. Cologne. Yoga pants.

Arrested development Millennial problems
Unlikeable, Her-own-worst-enemy, self-sabotaging-but-self-aware main character
Questionable decision making with consequences
Slowly unraveling train-wreck of a life
Mentally screaming at the main character
Serial killer charm or misunderstood main man?
Exploring what drives true crime fascination
Beginning at the end storylines
Character driven narratives
Cringe, second hand embarrassment
Light explorative psychological commentary of women who ‘fall in love’ with the wrong men
Sitting in on a murder trial
Snippets of love letters to and from an accused murderer
Misguided amateur sleuthing, spying, eavesdropping
Unhinged dark romance

Content Heads-Up: Unrequited love, romantic rejection. Serial murder. Violence against women. Loneliness. True crime toxicity. Unemployment, firing. Financial insecurity. Stalking. Anxiety. Drugging. Suicidal/victimized ideation. Potential false accusation. Confinement. Sexual content (on page, descriptive; consenting, serial killer fantasies). Infidelity, serial cheating. Drug use, overdose (brief recall, off page).

Rep: White and ambiguously described Americans. Cisgender. Heterosexual. Diverse body sizes.

📚 Format: Library Digital

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Content Warnings

River's Edge by Kyōko Okazaki

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challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Okay, so technically I didn’t like this because so many awful things happened. But I think it was well done.

Energy: Visceral. Compulsive. Devastating.

Scene: 🇯🇵 Set in Tokyo, Japan.

Perspective: Observing the day-to-day struggles of a cast of high school students.

🐩 Tail Wags: The startling, sad, but believable storylines. Illustration style.

🤔 Random Thoughts:

Throws every bad thing that could happen to someone as a teen at the reader, but it didn’t feel gratuitous. It seemed plausible.

Check content heads-up as a lot of it is graphic especially when you can watch it play out on the page.

This was originally from the ‘90s and it feels that way. Some of it didn’t age well, but the topics and outcomes aren’t irrelevant for today. Footnotes provide context when popular media is referenced from that time.

----

🤓 Reader Role: Watching the scene unfold getting to understand the group dynamics and backstories.

🗺️ World-Building: Immersive, sensory, gritty.

🔥 Fuel: Character de-evolution, parallel plots, and atmospheric tension. Who will survive, who will succumb, and will there be justice?

📖 Cred: Hyper-realistic to plausible.

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Stagnant water. Canadian goldenrod. Factory smoke. Steam whistle. School bell. Tears. Faint ocean breeze. Sewage. Ozone.

1980s/’90s high school drama
Coming of age tragedies
Harsh life struggles
Dark foreboding atmosphere
Teen psychological horrors

Content Heads-Up: Homophobia, homophobic slurs. Outing (by friends). Bullying (physical assault, humiliation, name-calling, threats). Toxic relationship. Adult/minor relationship. Fatphobia. Sexual content (consenting; graphic, on page; rough off page). Corpse (discovery, disposal). Eating disorder (bingeing, purging; on page). Violence (attack, strangling). Murder. Cheating on romantic partner. Pregnancy. Abortion (discussion of). Obsession, unrequited love. Animal cruelty (cat torture, death; on page). Fire (fatality). Suicide. Blood. Miscarriage. Rape (on page). Vomit. Body fluids (semen). Drug use.

Rep: Japanese. Gay. Lesbian. Heterosexual. Cisgender.

📚 Format: Advance Reader’s Copy from Kodansha Comics, Vertical Comics, and NetGalley.

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minimicropup's reviews 479 reviews

minimicropup's reviews
479 reviews