Fiction Reviews
Pal's Fiction section. If screenplays end up being something I read more of, they may get moved to their own section.
To Do List:
- Transfer review write ups from personal review journal,
- Remember why I rated past titles without reviews what I rated them,
- Etc
DO NOTE, SOME OF THESE REVIEWS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS.
[[MAJOR WIP IN PROGRESS. LAST UPDATED 8/16/2024.]]
2024
In a Holidaze
In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren, 4/5 stars.
A Christmas romance novel in which the main character, Mae, gets caught in a time loop around Christmas.
I picked this one up in 2023 before Christmas at a retail store and read it steadily with the intent to finish it before Christmas of that year—but never did. I finished the last part of it in one day in August 2024, probably over a year after getting it.
I'm trying to remember most of the first 2/3rds or so that I read, but from what I remember, the time loop aspect of it was entertaining and pushed the narrative forward. I wish it could've been even more prominent in the latter half (I'm a very fantasy/scifi pal in that regard) but in the end, the story wasn't about that. It was about an important but in the end everyday-stakes journey that our MC, Mae, needed to go through to grow further into her own life.
I did feel bait-and-switched a bit about who exactly the love interest ended up being—I was waiting for some other shoe to drop, only to realize by the halfway point that no, this was the true love interest of the story. I'm not sure what to feel about that. In the end, it was a soft, pleasant, and nicely distracting read. It was a story that just happened to contain a time loop rather than a time loop story, if that makes any sense.
2023
Emergent Properties
TBA.
88 Names
TBA.
Salvation Day
TBA.
Idol, Burning
TBA.
Bunny (Reread)
TBA.
Life Ceremony
TBA.
Kundo Wakes Up
TBA.
Doors of Sleep (Reread)
TBA.
All's Well
TBA.
Comics Will Break Your Heart
TBA.
Eight Million Gods
TBA.
Twenties Girl
TBA.
2022
Pygmalion
TBA.
The Kaiju Preservation Society
TBA.
Sankofa
TBA.
A Brother's Price
TBA.
The Haunting of Tram Car 015
TBA.
Depression or Bust
TBA.
A Dead Djinn in Cairo
TBA.
The Radleys
TBA.
2021
The Memory Police
TBA.
Bunny
TBA.
Detransition, Baby: A Novel
TBA.
The Light Years
TBA.
The Regrets: A Novel
TBA.
Redshirts
TBA.
Children of Ruin
TBA.
How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Universe
TBA.
Famous Men Who Never Lived
TBA.
Children of Time
TBA.
Doors of Sleep
TBA.
Fuzzy Nation
TBA.
Klara and the Sun
TBA.
Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters
TBA.
Amid the Crowd of Stars
TBA.
The Forever Sea
TBA.
The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday
TBA.
Oona Out of Order
TBA.
Convenience Store Woman
TBA.
Artemis: A Novel
TBA.
This is How You Lose the Time War
TBA.
Interior Chinatown
TBA.
Annihilation
TBA.
The Martian
TBA.
Before 2021
TBA.