narfna – Page 37 – Cannonball Read 17

“And they all liv’d together in a little crooked house.”

Crooked House by Agatha Christie

March 15, 2023 by narfna Leave a Comment

Ooh, I got really into this one. It’s been a month since I’ve finished so I’ve had some time to think (though I do of course wish I’d written the review right away, but alas) and I think the reason that I loved this one so much is that it’s one of the few non-detective mystery novels to get the mystery part right and have it be believable. A lot of the time, as a mystery fan when encountering books with non-detective main characters, there […]

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I had such a good time with it.

Bitch: On the Female of the Species by Lucy Cooke

March 10, 2023 by narfna 2 Comments

I haven’t written it yet, but I’m fairly certain this review will mostly be made up of quotes. That’s the reason I have been letting it hold up my review queue, because I haven’t had enough spoons to sit down and go through all my tabs [see below for picture] for my favorite bits, and then organize the bits into some sort of order, and then finally think up smart things to say about them. And if not smart, then at least entertaining. I picked […]

A really good fantasy debut, with one glaring flaw.

The Justice of Kings (Empire of the Wolf, #1) by Richard Swan

February 15, 2023 by narfna Leave a Comment

This was promising! I’ve had my eye on it since it was published, and an audio sale at Libro.fm finally gave me the incentive to pick it up. I was originally reading The Pariah by Anthony Ryan at this spot in my February TBR, but listening to that book was a better sleep aid than it was a story*, and after only a couple of hours of attempting to listen, I swapped it out for this one, and that was a great decision. I particularly […]

“It’s true on a technicality. I’m being held unlawfully. I didn’t commit the crime for which I’ve been convicted. But if you look at it another way, I deserve to be here. I did a lot of other shitty things, for which I wasn’t punished.”

The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang

February 10, 2023 by narfna Leave a Comment

I wish I would have known this was a retelling of The Brothers Karamazov before I purchased this book and got all excited about it. I probably never would have picked it up. There is a reason that I have never read any of Dostoyevsky’s stuff (or Tolstoy for that matter). The Family Chao follows the titular family, owners of a Chinese restaurant in a small town in America. The parents of the family are immigrants from China, and there are three sons. When the […]

I liked this weird little gremlin book.

The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay

February 9, 2023 by narfna Leave a Comment

To be clear, the book isn’t about gremlins, I’m just calling it a gremlin book because it’s weird and small and has claws but is also kind of harmless and laughable in the right light. Also also, gremlin is a fun word to use. This book is impossible to *really* talk about without spoilers, so I’m going to have a pretty big spoiler section and a smaller non-spoiler section in this review. I will try to keep the spoiler section relatively spoiler-free in the sense […]

“This is the year where if you are not careful, you could stand to lose it all. There will be one pregnancy, one funeral, and one marriage. A complete turn around the sun by the next Lunar year. But you must fix your relationship with everyone. And I mean everyone in your family. Starting with your daughters.”

The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh

February 9, 2023 by narfna Leave a Comment

This was a fun one. The author has said in interviews that she wanted to portray the complexities of Vietnamese American/diaspora relationships between women, and she wanted the women to be messy and make mistakes and have a really hard time not making the same mistakes again and again. So she wrote about a family of cursed Vietnamese women! From the blurb: “Everyone in Orange County’s Little Saigon knew that the Duong sisters were cursed. It started with their ancestor, Oanh, who dared to leave […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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