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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Before 2021

TBA.

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