minimicropup's reviews
479 reviews

Probably not for everyone, but I love shots of randomness and piecing together a story from snippets, so I loved this (mostly).

Energy: Erratic. Disorienting. Ambiguous.
Scene: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Various Southern towns along the coast of England.
Perspective: We get snippets of inner thoughts from various characters. One was adopted as a child. They grew up in a supportive family, but always wondered about the circumstances, which has led to them hearing a disparaging inner voice they’ve termed the ‘goblin’. Another is living with their older spouse and stepchild, desperate for a child of their own. Two other characters are parents whose kids are grown up now. 

🐕 Howls: Part of the ending was lost on me (a little too fantastical?

flying demon babies

)
🐩 Tail Wags: Snapshot chapters. Not always knowing who we’re reading from or why. Unpredictable strangeness (it could be a ‘slice of life’ moment or a ‘wtf did I just read’ moment). Randomness. How the characters and plot end up interconnected.

🤔 Random Thoughts:
This could be a fun buddy read predicting what’s going on, especially if you like discussing symbolism or deeper meaning in stories.   
I wouldn’t recommend taking long breaks in between reading, it can be really easy to lose the nuances of the plot, especially earlier in the book.

The thoughts of Myrrh and her worries about why she was put up for adoption are all consuming and brutal sometimes. Check content warnings – this could be too much for some especially in the beginning, or a cathartic read, especially at the conclusion.

🤓 Reader Role: Peeking into the characters’ innermost thoughts, picking up on their energies, without knowing where we are exactly.
🗺️ World-Building: Whispy and intimate. Built through emotion and inner thoughts.
🔥 Fuel: Philosophical insights, moral quandaries, and catharsis. What is Myrrh’s goblin? Can she stop it from taking over her thoughts? Why does Cayenne want a child so badly? Who are the other mothers we hear from?
📖 Cred: Bizarro with a heaping side of hyper-realism

Mood Reading Match-Up:
Petrol. Door slams. Snores. Sighs. Babies crying. Goblins muttering. Garlic breath. Tears. Gardens. 

Content Heads-Up: Parental rejection/abandonment. Vomit. Foster care. Adoption (in supportive family). Anxiety, insecurity, self-doubt. Childless in want of a child. Struggling to get pregnant. Body horror. Grotesque visions/delusions. Negative, cursing intrusive thoughts. Pregnancy. Loss of a child (baby).

Foetal abduction

Rep: Egyptian ancestry, White, and ambiguous British. Heterosexual. Cisgender.

📚 Format: Kindle

My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶 

I loved the ominous energy and spooks in this.

 

Energy: Commanding. Cryptic. Meticulous. 

Scene: 🇺🇸 Takes place near Providence, Rhode Island and parts of Hollywood California.

Perspective: We follow our main character at different life stages – as a young adult in the 1990s playing a role in their friends’ indie horror flick, to a jaded adult (50s) being approached by directors to reboot the film. There are snippets of the MC’s audiobook and the original screenplay their friend wrote. 

 

🐕 Howls: First half dragged in the behind-the-scenes movie making scenes (picks up later though). Confusing time jumps + being thrown into the story at first.  

🐩 Tail Wags: The freaky eerie energy and plot. Immersive and atmospheric. Writing style. The unconventional screenplay. The ending. 

 

🤔 Random Thoughts: 

There’s a book within a book element in this that might make the audiobook extra immersive? (I had a digital copy so not sure)

The screenplay was a little juvenile sounding at first and had mistakes in it, but that made it feel more real. Like it was written by a newly minted student writing their first screenplay and they’re very specific about how everything should be. 

 

🤓 Reader Role: Reading the screenplay, watching them make the movie. Having the thin kid talk directly to us via his audiobook.

🗺️ World-Building: Easy to imagine and immersive. Cinematic.

🔥 Fuel: The atmospheric tension and interlocking mysteries. We start off reading bits of screenplay and watching the characters make the movie…but why was the movie never released? Why are only snippets available on YouTube? What happened to the original actors? What is the movie about?  

📖 Cred: Paranormal (supernatural realism)

 

Sun through dusty windows. Chalk. Linoleum. Abandoned school. Plaster. Chainsaw. Mannequin. Quiet on the set. Under the bed. Dark hallways. 

 

Content Heads-Up: Torture (graphic; burns, beating, wounding). Body horror (graphic; blood). Murder. Cancer (graphic, on page; ~one chapter). Suicide, suicidal ideation (graphic, on page). Cigarette smoking. 

 

Rep: White Americans. Cisgender. Overthin.  

 

📚 Format: Library Audio

 

I enjoyed this!

 

Energy: Focused. Restless. Wary. 

Scene: 🇺🇸 Set at an Airbnb and hotels in Jersey City, NJ

Perspective: Our MC is tagging along with their partner who is travelling for work in NYC at a finance firm. 

 

🐕 Howls: Sometimes spinning wheels plotwise. 
🐩 Tail Wags: The pacing. The story and writing style. Bree. Immersive audiobook. 

🤔 Random Thoughts:

I predicted some of the twists but I was invested in Bree and what would happen to her so it never ruined the story for me. 

I love the choice to keep unreliable narrator tropes out of this. It made it much more suspenseful. 

The ending is open and abrupt (I liked it). There wasn’t much more to say, and the epilogue was almost acknowledging what would occur next, and giving us a taste.

 

🤓 Reader Role: Hanging out with our MC. She’s narrating what she’s doing and experiencing, telling us straight up what her motivations are and why. 

🗺️ World-Building: Cinematic and sensory. Can see the reactions and body language of characters. Not overly detailed but easy to imagine. Real locations given so you can follow along on Google Earth and explore! 

🔥 Fuel: Character evolution and escalating stakes. Who killed the woman in the Airbnb? Where is Bree’s partner? Did he do it or is he a victim too? Will the police believe Bree? 

📖 Cred: Realistic

 

Train tracks. PATH announcements. Traffic. YouTube channels. Instagram stories. Phone haptics. Elevator dings. Manhattan skyline. Hotel lobby. 

 

Content Heads-Up: Racism (prejudice, systemic, bias, assumption). Police (incompetence, bias). Murder. Blood. Missing person. Loss of romantic partner. False accusation. Loss of parent (as child). Masking stage of COVID-19 (brief mentions; no lockdowns). Betrayal. Domestic abuse/controlling spouse (recall; off page). 

 

Rep: Black and White Americans. Cisgender. Heterosexual. 

 

📚 Format: Audible

 

This was unlike anything I’ve ever read. I’m not sure that is a good thing. 

 

Energy: Devastating. Dogmatic. Intolerant. 

Scene: 🇺🇸 Liberty, a gated suburban community just outside Los Angeles, consisting of 100% Black Americans. 

Perspective: We follow an activist and public defender who focuses on helping young Black Americans caught in a prejudiced system. They are married with a six-year old and expecting their second child. At the urging of their spouse, they agree to move to a gated Black-only community. 

 

🐺 Growls: Chaotic handling of important topics. Ending made me 😭 for all the wrong reasons. Moralizing but in a self-racist way?  

🐕 Howls: One-sided viewpoint with only the unhinged/ignorant characters providing nuanced commentary or alternative viewpoints. One-dimensional main character. 

🐩 Tail Wags: Brave commentary sometimes. The exploration of how utopias are synonymous with lack of diversity and all the resulting pitfalls. Exploration of toxic suburbia.   

 

Jasmyn is overbearing – as a friend, neighbour, spouse, mother… I initially thought the point was to show imperfection of our main character. I love imperfect characters, but Jasmyn’s one-size-fits-all (i.e., My-Thoughts-Are-Facts) style dominates the story. Her criticisms aren’t always wrong, but her personality overshadows their importance; she lost credibility because she used unfair, superficial judgement of others to drive home a point, and that made it feel more like the author was using her to suggest anyone not in alignment with her is inherently wrong or racist.

 

This has hard-hitting critiques of toxic suburbia: how lack of diversity leads to paranoid insular lifestyles. The overprotection of biological family and ‘people like me’ against perceived non-threats was excellent, but it was cross threaded with important topics around racism that made them also feel like perceived non-threats or paranoid overprotection. 

 

The story oversimplifies complex issues and misses out on the opportunity to explore various forms of activism and the diverse experiences and traumas of racism. I wish we had a deeper look from other perspectives, even if they were also morally grey. 

 

The ending was problematic at worst, incomplete at best. I can’t figure out any symbolism or meaning other than that safety and success are unattainable unless one conforms to a White American culture of wealth-driven goals and Us vs Them mentality on a cellular level. It felt like between Jasmyn’s POV and the outcome, this entire book was saying Black people shouldn’t exist. The ending left me devastating and not in meaningful way. I felt like I was tricked into reading propaganda. Did I miss something? Was that the point?  

 

🤓 Reader Role: Deep in Jasmyn’s mind hearing all her thoughts, opinions, and judgements. Almost like we’re having an internal discussion after hearing what characters say or think. 

🗺️ World-Building: I effortlessly imagined the homes and community set by vibe/energy. 

🔥 Fuel: Is this community a utopia or a disaster waiting to happen? What’s with the Wellness Centre that some residents have become so enamored with? Are all the residents Black enough to be there? Why are they suddenly losing interest in protecting others outside their new community? 

📖 Cred: Sci-fi ‘utopian’ realism with over-the-top elements. 

 

Playgrounds. Gold stars. Quiet cars. Incense. Massage. Rays of sunshine. Robes. Screaming. Police bodycam. Tinny news on phone speakers. 

-Controversial commentary about racism, utopias, effects of diversity (or lack thereof), suburbia, isolation, us vs them, and being Black in America. 

-Contemporary fiction about balancing parenthood and a career + moments of psychological and social horror

 

Content Heads-Up: Racism (graphic, on page; police brutality, gun violence, prejudice, dismissal, hatred). Racial slurs, racial profiling. Pregnancy (on page). Betrayal. 

 

Rep: Heterosexual. Lesbian. Cisgender. Black American. Dark and pale brown skin tones. 

 

📚 Format: Library Audio

 

DNF.
There’s just not enough story here. The writing is kind of simplistic, but I can look past that if there’s intrigue. The problem was every chapter was boring, really centered on one event or thought/concept (from grief to cleaning rooms), then ended with some version of “if only the reader knew the truth” or “if only the reader and I knew [insert super vague foreshadowing sentence here].

I skipped ahead and it was the same formula, and worse, I was able to keep up with the story, that’s how little had happened since.

Either it should have been a novella, is unfinished, or it’s just not for me.

Format: Advance Reader’s Copy from Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley

I was so hooked on this – the story, the vibes, the character drama.

 

Energy: Plucky. Ominous. Jaded.

Scene: 🇺🇸 Berkeley, California (the town).

Perspective: We follow our main character 10 years after a high school post-graduation prank gone wrong, with flashbacks to their time in high school. 

 

🐩 Tail Wags: Jolene. The annoying can’t-read-the-room characters. Second-hand cringe & unhinged. The unraveling quirkiness and touch of bizarro. Steady pacing. 

 

🤔 Random Thoughts:

The plot is layered, and character driven. If you’re introverted, this has extra discomforting moments ~shudder~. As little things occurred, I’d agree with Jolene sometimes and other times look for an alternative explanation. That push-pull kept me reading.  

 

The action scenes were wacky and weird but that worked! Near the end I was starting to suspect the Big Bad, but it was still a twist. The ending had a touch of symbolism or meaning in there too. 

 

There is a wacky kind of weird fiction vibe to the story. Sometimes it’s no plot just vibes. Then something eerie happens and it’s ominous bizarro. Then watching Jolene navigate it is quirky mess of a dark comedy. It felt balanced and made the story more enjoyable for me. 

 

🤓 Reader Role: Tagging along with Jolene hearing her thoughts, watching her navigate situations and people, low-key freaking out when she does something unwise. Almost like she turns to us sometimes to give us her thoughts. 

🗺️ World-Building: Atmospheric with energy built through sensory details and observations. Easy to imagine. 

🔥 Fuel: Will Jolene be able to finally get her adult life started? Is someone really out to get her or is it her guilt projecting? What were the high school dynamics that led Jolene to think up the prank?  

📖 Cred: Suspended disbelief in a fun way. 

 

Loud pipes. Burnt rubber. Improv class. Upspeak. Cookies. Yipping dog. Footsteps upstairs. Patchouli. Clanking bracelets. Wind chimes. Text notifications. 

 
-----

Content Heads-Up: Car accident. Medical (burns, amputation, eye damage). Mental illness (guilt, auditory hallucinations, depressive symptoms). Prank gone wrong. Cancer (very brief mention). Loss of parent (as toddler; very brief mention). Narcotics self-medicating/recovery. Vomit. Stalking/obsession. Suicidal ideation (very brief). Pill use. Alcohol use. Psychedelics. Murder. 

 

Rep: Bisexual. Ambiguous and Italian Americans. Cisgender.

 

📚 Format: Advance Reader’s Copy from Mirror House Press and BookSirens

 

Although survival thrillers are rarely for me, I found this one sooo tense and stressful. I hated how it made me feel, but I was captivated!

 

Energy: Hostile. Distressing. Ruthless. 

Scene: 🇮🇩  Set on a small, deserted island outfitted for a new reality tv show off the coast of Jakarta, Indonesia. 

Perspective: We follow a virologist post-doc (30s) asked by their actor-wannabe partner to audition for a new reality show meant to test the strength of a couple’s bond. We also get snippets from the diary of a 22-year old contestant on the show. Leading up to the disaster, emergency radio calls foreshadow what’s to come. 

 

🐕 Howls: The reality tv intrigue  too quickly overshadowed by survival horrors (but that may be a plus for others). The overall book felt a little too long for me.  

🐩 Tail Wags: The characters and how they’re written. The hint of extreme horror energy in certain scenes. Slow and steady pacing. Overall writing style and attention to detail. Atmosphere. 

 

🤔 Random Thoughts:

There are a lot of unlikeable characters. They’ll make you angry; it was tense, pettiness, bickering, chest-puffing stuff especially when things were already high-stakes.  

 

If you want fast-paced action-adventure the ethical cerebral moments may feel like interruptions, but they saved me from being exhausted by all the terrible visceral moments. 

 

The characters and atmosphere formed around me as I was listening. Imogen Church is my fav audio narrator when paired with Ruth Ware’s storytelling style. Expressive but not melodramatic.

 

Prepare for extreme survival horror elements. The injuries and consequences of actions play out much like they would in nature. We get an immersive description of the  smells, sounds, and sights and all the emotional aftermaths. 

 

I got a sense for how many days were passing on the island because it felt like I’d been reading for that long!

 

🤓 Reader Role: Tagging along with Lila who is telling us the story from her perspective. Sometimes we are in her mind and other times watching from afar. Also a bit of a time jumper as we get glimpses into the future. 

🗺️ World-Building: Immersive, layered, and atmospheric. 

🔥 Fuel: What is the real story behind this reality show? What will the other couples be like? Will Nico and Lila’s relationship survive the show? Will the anyone survive?
📖 Cred: Not impossible + hyper-realistic moments

 

Crystal blue. Warm waves. Soft sand. Tropical summer breeze. Palm forests. Wood oil and fresh paint. Blood. Flies. Salt water. Stale pastry. Decomposition. Body odour. Terror. 

 
------

Content Heads-Up: Relationship breakdown. Verbal abuse. Body gore (graphic; blood, injury, wounds, fatalities). Corpse (discovery of, handling). Loss of romantic partner. Tropical storm (waves, destruction, high winds). Violence (physical). Murder. Psychopathy. Adult/minor relationship. Suicide (mention). Abusive partner (controlling, violent). Medical (diabetic shock). 

 

Rep: French. British. Olive, tan, pale skin tones. Gay. Heterosexual. Cisgender. Diabetes. Diverse body sizes. 

 

📚 Format: Library Audio

 

3.5 rounded up.

I liked the mystery and setting a lot, that’s what kept me hanging on. The writing style and inner monologues got in the way.

Energy: Menacing. Undecided. Disapproving.
Scene: 🇺🇸 Fictional Oxford University in Ohio.
Perspective: We follow our main character in present day returning to the house where most of their roommates were murdered Yr 4 Uni, along with flashbacks to her time in the house before the massacre.

🐺 Growls: Unfun dumb MC (and inconsistent). Flowery writing style that interrupting itself with over-the-top simile.
🐕 Howls: Repetitive explanation of minor things. Repetitive withholding of major things.
🐩 Tail Wags: The setting, especially Midnight House. The slowly evolving eeriness. Action scenes.

🤔 Random Thoughts:
Too explainy. We get the rationale for our MC writing/interviewing/visiting someone so many ways and all say the same thing. Then withholding about the mass murder we already know happened, but no details, but the writing acts like we don’t know there was a mass murder for way too long in the book. Either take it out of the synopsis or move the story along if you plan on using withholding as a suspense device.

Lazy cliffhangers. We get a clue to ‘see’ a pic, then a statement on how they didn’t know it was the last time they’d be seen together. Cut to commercial? There’s a reason we all pay for streaming over cable…it’s a book, it’s so unnecessary to be that dramatic and it makes me not want to read the next chapter if it’s always a fake-out.

The writing style is too simplistic and flat. Cuticles and coltish legs everywhere 😅

Too interruptive and clunky of a writing style. The character dialogue starts, is interrupted by inner monologue, background, memories etc, then suddenly a quoted answer and I forget the original context and it loses momentum/realism/flow.

The inner monologue was also annoying. Our main character is terrified, hiding in a room…then happily walks out to the FRONT porch where everyone can see her and interact and there’s not rationale or transition to why she’s no longer afraid or hiding?

Thankfully the action scenes worked. Not filled with endless villain monologue or escape-trap loops. Some of it I didn’t predict and even when I did it was interesting to watch.

🤓 Reader Role: Overhearing on the periphery. Lots of being left out of the loop. The MC talks to us then drifts off and starts talking to herself and we’re just standing around waiting for her reaction or for her to answer someone’s question.
🗺️ World-Building: Built a foundation for imagining, but later on had highly detailed layout in mind that could somewhat shatter your imaginings. Prime candidate for having a layout/floorplan at the beginning of the book.
🔥 Fuel: What happened in the Midnight House? Who survived and who didn’t? Who was responsible? Are they save living there now?
📖 Cred: Plausible-ish

Mood Reading Match-Up:
October chill. Senescing leaves. Carved pumpkins. Ballet shoes. Classical music. Footsteps overhead. Boozy cocktails. Rain on umbrella.
-New adult murdered roommates mystery
-Romantic suspense with sprinkling of forbidden romance and enemies to lovers

----
Content Heads-Up: Murder. Stalking/peeping. Sexual harassment (unwelcome advances, power dynamics, groping/grabbing). Vomit. Alcohol. Overdose. Potental false accusation. Blood. Gore. Loss of sibling/adult child. Loss of friend. Home invasion.

Rep: White Americans. Cisgender. Heterosexual.

📚 Format: Advance Reader’s Copy from Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley

My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶

That synopsis is fully ‘I’ll probably like this, but it’s already predictable’. I loved this. There was room for extra spooks.  

 

Energy: Appreciative. Caustic. Grim. 

Scene: 🇺🇸 Community of Allen’s Grove, Wisconsin. 

Perspective: We follow three siblings: the factory worker who never really left the town; the one who left young and never looked back but developed a superiority complex about it; the one who chased drugs and is trying once again to get clean. We also get chapters of a parent filming their family in the 1990s before and after an incident previously unknown to the family. 

 

🐩 Tail Wags: Uncontrived twisty turns. The sibling dynamics. The mystery and how it’s revealed. All the VHS stuff.   

 

🤔 Random Thoughts:

This is a real place, so check pics out online if that’s your thing. It’s modelled off where author grew up; skip to acknowledgements to learn more. It’s my thing, so wish I knew this before reading the book! I love exploring places an author lived in or visited or researched.  If you want to imagine it yourself, you can, it never gave me any indication with scene setting that it was a real place (i.e., no hyper specific overly details). 

 

Present tense first person multi-perspective can go wrong so easily. Not here - it works and adds to the suspense and intrigue. 

 

This isn’t a murder mystery per se. Instead, we are figuring out if it even was murder, and if so why, and who did it, but it’s mainly about the journey and seeing the characters interact and figure things out together in both the past and present. 

 

Easy listening! Just the right length. The dramatic building sometimes leans a little melodramatic but it fits the story. There are clear differences between characters.

 

----

🤓 Reader Role: Almost like characters talking to us, filling us in, telling us how they feel and what they sense and observe.

🗺️ World-Building: Cinematic, immersive.

🔥 Fuel: Twists and turns, character evolution, layered secrets and lies, and relatable dilemmas. If I say anything more I’ll spoil it. 

📖 Cred: Surreal plausibility. 

 

Footsteps. TV static. VHS home movies. Car in driveway. Backroads. Keys in the door. Hugs.  

-How far would you go for family?

-Dark family secrets in a small, small town

-Low key amateur sleuthing while navigating sibling rivalry

-Really minor but kinda cute romantic subplots

 

Content Heads-Up: Opioid addiction, recovery. Loss of parent (as adult). Parental/family abandonment. Alcohol. Cancer, hospice (brief, on page). Loss of child (teen). Murder. Blood. Vomit. Gun violence. 

 

Rep: White Americans. Cisgender. Heterosexual. 

 

📚 Format: Audible

 

I liked this, but also felt frustrated with it sometimes. 

 

Energy: Tense. Destructive. Hopeless. 

Scene: 🇺🇸 Sierton Wisconsin.

Perspective: We mainly follow two characters. One is a senior high school student transferring schools after a terrible car accident. The other is a high school student transferring to a new school three-years ago as a self-taught cheerleader trying out for the team.  

 

🐕 Howls: Everything is terrible, sad, cruel, or tragic (it felt a little exhausting). 

🐩 Tail Wags: How the twist snuck up on me. Capturing teen angst and anxieties without being disrespectful or minimalizing. 

 

🤔 Random Thoughts:

I didn’t like choice of present tense for this. It made it read both too cold and too melodramatic for me. I think because it felt more like someone describing a screenplay in a tell-not-show style. Like directing characters where to appear and how to ‘feel’. 

 

Sometimes characters had their own voice, but other times it read super grammatically correct in a way no one, especially high schoolers, would speak with their friends.

 

There is a quote in this one that felt important: “…everything that adults, with experience and hindsight, recognize as trivial can seem insurmountable to a teen. Like the end of the world.” I wish more people remembered that instead of holding it over younger people. 

 

Check content warnings. It’s a tough read and for a bit can make you so angry that this stuff happens to people. Hang in there if you are just angry on a conceptual level though. Maybe nope out if you’re struggling with it for real.  

 

At first, I thought this was going to be a bit boring…then suspense started up…then it got out of hand. It didn’t feel cheesy or contrived, I haven’t had a Twist sneak up on me like that in a long time!

 

----

🤓 Reader Role: Deep in a character’s mind, sleuthing alongside them. Then ghost from afar getting snippets of a seemingly unrelated story. 

🗺️ World-Building: Enough detail provided to let your imagination run with it and not get squashed later. 

🔥 Fuel: How will our main character navigate their new school? Is she okay? How do her circumstances and new friends connect to a past perspective? What happened to that student in the past?

📖 Cred: Plausible with a touch of over-the-top

 

 

Content Heads-Up: Murder. Lesbophobia (brief). Bullying (pressuring, rejection, ghosting, body shaming, online). Narcisssism. Car accident, injury. Suicide attempt, suicidal ideation, suicide (descriptive, on page). Permanent brain injury. Fatphobia. Eating disorder (purging, binge eating, restricting). Drunk driving. Alcohol, intoxication, partying. Delusions, hallucination. Psychosis. Schizophrenia. Sex with a minor (brief, on page). Arson.

 

Rep: White, Latina, Biracial (Caucasian-Asian, Black-Chinese) Americans. Autism. Childfree by choice. 

 

📚 Format: Library Digital