Week 1 Reviews: Landry Park, Jubilee Manor

From Goodreads:
Sixteen-year-old Madeline Landry is practically Gentry royalty. Her ancestor developed the nuclear energy that has replaced electricity, and her parents exemplify the glamour of the upper class. As for Madeline, she would much rather read a book than attend yet another debutante ball. But when she learns about the devastating impact the Gentry lifestyle—her lifestyle—is having on those less fortunate, her whole world is turned upside down.  As Madeline begins to question everything she has been told, she finds herself increasingly drawn to handsome, beguiling David Dana, who seems to be hiding secrets of his own. Soon, rumors of war and rebellion start to spread, and Madeline finds herself at the center of it all. Ultimately, she must make a choice between duty—her family and the estate she loves dearly—and desire.

Fans of Ally Condie, Kiera Cass, Veronica Roth, and even Jane Austen will be enthralled by this breathtaking read. 

From Goodreads:
The thrilling conclusion to Landry Park is full of love, betrayal, and murder--perfect for fans of Divergent, The Selection, and Pride and Prejudice.

In Landry Park, Madeline turned her back on her elite family, friends, and estate to help the Rootless. Now, in Jubilee Manor, she struggles to bring the Gentry and the Rootless together. But when Gentry heirs—Madeline's old friends—are murdered, even she begins to think a Rootless is behind it, putting her at odds with the boy she loves and the very people she is trying to lead. If she can't figure out who is killing her friends and bring them to justice, a violent war will erupt and even more will die—and Madeline's name, her estate, and all the bonds she's forged won't make any difference.

My Review:


Author: Bethany Hagen
Series: Landry Park #1, 2
Read: December 28th, 28th, 2025
Source: Ebook.bike
Reason Why: Sounded really great, and they're 2025 Dystopia Books and Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2025 Books! And Landry Park is a DAC Book and a RR Book, and Jubilee Manor is a End of Series 2025 Book and Sophomore Challenge Book!
Publisher: Dial
Published: February 4th 2014, August 11th 2015

Landry Park:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Jubilee Manor:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 48 Review: A Grim Reaper's Guide to Cheating Death

From Goodreads:

When a determined killer targets her brother, a grim reaper risks everything to save him in this delightful cozy mystery.

Nora Bird works for S.C.Y.T.H.E., which might seem odd for someone as terrified of death as she is. But ever since her parents died in an accident when she was six, she's been obsessed with avoiding risk, and what better place to learn how to cheat death than the company that employs the nation's grim reapers?

The work enables Nora to learn all about the myriad ways you can kick the bucket, which is comforting...until one day, a file crosses her desk with a name she recognizes. Her twin brother's.

The twins haven't spoken in six months, but Charlie is all Nora has left. Completely against her cautious nature, Nora steals the file and flees, racing to her brother's house. She begs him to trust her that his death is imminent, and they hit the road (with his parrot, Jessica, who has plenty to say) in an attempt to evade both death and S.C.Y.T.H.E., whose sole mission of collecting souls has been disrupted by Charlie's continued existence.

Alas, every time Nora saves him, a new cause of death appears in his file. Someone is determined to take Charlie out, and Nora will have to use everything she's ever learned about death to discover the culprit.

My Review:


Author: Maxie Dara
Series: S.C.Y.T.H.E Mystery #2
Read: November 28th, 2025 
Source: NetGalley 
Reason Why: Love her writing and the first book, and it's a Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2025 Book, Sophomore Challenge Book and a WoW Book!
Publisher: Berkley 
Expected Publication: December 2nd 2025 

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 47 Review: When We Talk to the Dead

From Goodreads:

The island was abandoned years ago–but something dark was left behind, and it's waiting for those bold enough to return.

Perfect for fans of Iain Reid, this slow-burning horror novel will sweep you out, and like a churning ocean, before you realize, it will pull you under its turbulent spell.

A remote deserted island off the coast of Maine holds dark memories and disturbing secrets for the family who once lived on its rocky shores. Though nineteen-year-old Sally de Gama remembers nothing about the accident that took place on Captain's Island and destroyed her family when she was a little girl, she suffers from intense anxiety, pervasive bouts of dissociation, and gruesome nightmares. All Sally knows is that her mother hasn't spoken since the accident that took the life of Sally's twin sister. Following the tragedy, her family fled and never looked back.

When her mother suddenly dies, Sally and three college friends travel to the island—for her friends it's an adventure to a strange, abandoned place. For Sally, it's a desperate bid to recover some of her memories and understand what really happened to her family. But when memories begin to return, Sally is overcome by grief and rage that threaten to plunge her into madness—a madness that is fed by a malevolent presence stalking them on the island.

My Review:


Author: Ian Chorão
Read: November 20th, 2025  
Source: NetGalley
Reason Why: Sounded really good, and it's a SAC 2025 Book and a Sophomore Challenge Book!
Publisher: Dreamscape Media
Published: October 14th 2025

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 47 Review: The Others

From Goodreads:

In this haunting sequel to her deliciously scary debut, Cheryl Isaacs (Mohawk) explores the sharp edges of lingering trauma and the bonds of love that heal us--for fans of She is a Haunting and Sawkill Girls!

Only weeks ago, Avery pulled her best friend, Key, from the deadly black water. The cycle from her family's Kanyen'kehá:ka (Mohawk) stories is finally broken, the black water is now a harmless lake, and her problems are far from All Avery wants is a normal summer with Key, her now-boyfriend.

The trauma, however, casts a long shadow over the town. Some victims never returned. Terrifying memories threaten to resurface, but Avery pushes them down. Who she's really worried about is Key. The two are supposed to be closer than ever—so why does he feel so distant?

Wracked by anxiety, Avery begins to see a chilling reflection in every mirror, one that moves on its own—and she's not the only one. With her family's safety in the balance, Avery must Run away to the safety of normal life with Key, or return to lake's edge and face her reflection, before her home is subsumed by darkness once and for all….

My Review:


Author: Cheryl Isaacs
Series: The Unfinished #2
Read: November 16th, 2025 
Source: Edelweiss 
Reason Why: Love her writing and this series, and it's a Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2025 Book and a Sophomore Challenge Book!
Publisher: Heartdrum
Published: September 16th 2025

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 46 Review: The Spirit Bears Its Teeth

From Goodreads:

Mors vincit omnia. Death conquers all.

London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. According to Mother, he'll be married by the end of the year. It doesn't matter that he's needed a decade of tutors to hide his autism; that he practices surgery on slaughtered pigs; that he is a boy, not the girl the world insists on seeing.

After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton's Sanitorium and Finishing School. The facility is cold, the instructors merciless, and the students either bloom into eligible wives or disappear. So when the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton's innards and expose its rotten guts to the world—as long as the school doesn't break him first.

My Review:


Author: Andrew Joseph White
Read: November 8th, 2025 
Source: Ebook.bike 
Reason Why: Sounded really good, and it's a Historical Fiction 2025 Book, SAC 2025 Book and a Sophomore Challenge Book! 
Publisher: Peachtree Teen
Published: September 5th 2023

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 40 Review: Matchmaking for Psychopaths

From Goodreads:

Love is a dangerous game when your clients are killers…from the bestselling author behind Love Letters to a Serial Killer.

When Lexie's fiancé runs off with her so-called best friend on her birthday, her carefully crafted fairy-tale life shatters. Having survived horrors in her past, she was determined to finally get her happily-ever-after—and she's not giving up yet.

To distract herself, Lexie throws herself into her unusual matchmaking psychopaths (a specialty her clients are blissfully unaware of). But the loneliness is crushing. So when a gorgeous, overprotective new client named Aidan insists they're soulmates, and another intriguing client, Rebecca, seems perfect to fill the best-friend-shaped hole in her life, Lexie can't help but find the attention comforting—despite her own professional boundaries.

Then a human heart appears on Lexie's doorstep. As more threatening packages arrive and her fiancé mysteriously disappears, she must confront a terrifying did she inadvertently match herself with a killer? Between Aidan's claims that her fiancé will never return, Rebecca's growing presence in her life, and her own dark past resurfacing, Lexie's matchmaker instincts are being tested like never before.

Because someone is determined to ensure her story ends with a funeral.

My Review:


Author: Tasha Coryell
Read: September 28th, 2025  
Source: NetGalley  
Reason Why: Love her writing and it sounded really good, and it's a SAC 2025 Book, Sophomore Challenge Book and a WoW Book!
Publisher: Berkley 
Published: July 15th 2025

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 40 Review: Unending

From Goodreads:

In this high-octane conclusion to the Unseelie duology, two sisters discover that the things that make them different can lend them more power than they ever imagined.

Isolde Graygrove has always put her changeling twin sister first. But ever since Seelie returned from the faerie realms with a newfound confidence in her magic and secrets she's keeping even from her twin, Isolde can't help but who is she, if not her sister's protector?

Seelie knows there are some problems even magic can't solve. Like the distance between her and Isolde, the terror of her growing and unfamiliar emotions for Raze, or the fact that the world's last firedrake has imprinted on her like a baby duckling. Still, she can't help but try.

When Seelie accidentally splinters the three realms, tangling the human and faerie worlds together into something new, the vicious faerie Gossamer is determined to take full advantage of the chaos unleashed. Seelie and Isolde will need to spill their secrets, decide who they can trust, and navigate the sinister glamour of the faerie courts to save humankind and fae alike.

My Review:


Author: Ivelisse Housman
Series: The Unseelie Duology #2
Read: September 27th, 2025  
Source: Edelweiss  
Reason Why: Loved the first book, and it's a End of Series 2025 Book, Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2025 Book, Sophomore Challenge Book and a WoW Book!
Publisher: Quill Tree Press
Expected Publication: September 23rd 2025 

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 39 Review: This is My Brain in Love

From Goodreads:

Jocelyn Wu has just three wishes for her junior year: To make it through without dying of boredom, to direct a short film with her BFF Priya Venkatram, and to get at least two months into the year without being compared to or confused with Peggy Chang, the only other Chinese girl in her grade.

Will Domenici has two goals: to find a paying summer internship, and to prove he has what it takes to become an editor on his school paper.

Then Jocelyn's father tells her their family restaurant may be going under, and all wishes are off. Because her dad has the marketing skills of a dumpling, it's up to Jocelyn and her unlikely new employee, Will, to bring A-Plus Chinese Garden into the 21st century (or, at least, to Facebook).What starts off as a rocky partnership soon grows into something more. But family prejudices and the uncertain future of A-Plus threaten to keep Will and Jocelyn apart. It will take everything they have and more, to save the family restaurant and their budding romance.

My Review:


Author: I.W. Gregorio

Read: September 25th, 2025 
Source: Own
Reason Why: Love her writing, and it's a SAC 2025 Book, Sophomore Challenge Book and a WoW Book!
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: April 14th 2020

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 38 Reviews: Caraval, Legendary

From Goodreads:
How far would you go to save your sister?

Scarlett has never left the tiny island where she and her beloved sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. Now Scarlett's father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval, the far-away, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show, are over.

But this year, Scarlett's long-dreamt of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval's mastermind organizer. It turns out that this season's Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner.

Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. But she nevertheless becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic with the other players in the game. And whether Caraval is real or not, she must find Tella before the five nights of the game are over, a dangerous domino effect of consequences is set off, and her sister disappears forever. 

From Goodreads: 

A heart to protect. A debt to repay. A game to win.

After being swept up in the magical world of Caraval, Donatella Dragna has finally escaped her father and saved her sister, Scarlett, from a disastrous arranged marriage. The girls should be celebrating, but Tella isn't yet free. She made a desperate bargain with a mysterious criminal, and what Tella owes him no one has ever been able to deliver: Caraval Master Legend's true name.

The only chance of uncovering Legend's identity is to win Caraval, so Tella throws herself into the legendary competition once more—and into the path of the murderous heir to the throne, a doomed love story, and a web of secrets…including her sister's. Caraval has always demanded bravery, cunning, and sacrifice, but now the game is asking for more. If Tella can't fulfill her bargain and deliver Legend's name, she'll lose everything she cares about—maybe even her life. But if she wins, Legend and Caraval will be destroyed forever...

Welcome, welcome to Caraval . . . the games have only just begun.

My first review of Caraval
My Review:


Author: Stephanie Garber
Series: Caraval #1, 2
First Read: October 5th, 2020

Read: September 14th, 14th, 2025
Source: Ebook.bike
Reason Why: Rereading, and they're Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2025 Book! And Legendary is a Sophomore Challenge Book!
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Published: January 31st 2017, May 29th 2018

Caraval: 

5/5 Hearts

4/5 Books

4/5 Stars

Legendary: 

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

Week 33 Reviews: The Unbroken, The Faithless

From Goodreads:

In a political fantasy unlike any other, debut author C. L. Clark spins an epic tale of rebellion, espionage, and military might on the far outreaches of a crumbling desert empire.

Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought.

Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet's edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne.

Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren't for sale.

From Goodreads:

In the second installment of C.L. Clark's Magic of the Lost trilogy, soldier Touraine and princess Luca must return to Balladaire to reclaim Luca's throne and to face the consequences of dismantling an empire.

The rebels have won, and the empire is withdrawing from Qazal. But undoing the tangled web that binds the two nations will not be easy, and Touraine and Luca will face their greatest challenge yet.

Luca needs to oust her uncle from the Balladairan throne once and for all and take her rightful place as Queen. But he won't let go of power so easily. When he calls for a "Trial of Competence" and Luca's allies start disappearing from her side, she will need to find a way to prove her might. And she knows someone who can help...

Touraine has found a home in the newly free country of Qazal. But she soon realizes that leading a country and leading a revolution are two very different tasks. And, even more importantly, if Luca's uncle doesn't ratify the treaty, the Qazali could end up right back where they started.

Together, the two women will have to come overcome their enemies, their history, and their heartbreak in order to find a way to secure Luca's power and Touraine's freedom.

My Review:


Author: C.L. Clark
Series: Magic of the Lost #1, 2
Read: August 13th, 14th, 2025
Source: Ebook.bike
Reason Why: Sounded really great, and they're Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2025 Books, and The Unbroken is a a DAC Book and a RR Book, and The Faithless is a Sophomore Challenge Book! 
Publisher: Orbit
Published: March 23rd 2021, March 7th 2023

The Unbroken:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars

The Faithless:

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars