Month: July 2025

The Wild Robot on the Island / Peter Brown

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The Wild Robot on the Island
By: Peter Brown
Genre: Children’s
Number of Pages: 48 
Published: June 24, 2025
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Dates Read: July 30, 2025
Format: Library Book / Hardcover

When Roz washes up on an island, she accepts that this is where she is supposed to be and learns from the animals around her. Before long, the island begins to feel like home – especially when Roz becomes a mother to an orphaned gosling she calls Brightbill.

This is a simplified version of The Wild Robot that Peter Brown wrote because he “wanted to depict Roz’s life on the island with large, detailed, colorful illustrations.”, as per his note in the back of the book.

I’m here to tell you that if you adored Roz in The Wild Robot you will fall in love with her again in this version as well because of the illustrations. The original book has black and white illustrations scattered throughout the chapters, but this is a big, bold, and beautiful children’s picture book version!

Cat + Crazy (Volume 1) / Wataru Nadatani, Zack Davisson (Translated)

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Cat + Crazy (Volume 1)
By: Wataru Nadatani, Zack Davisson (Translated)
Genre: Manga
Number of Pages: 168
Published: July 29, 2025 (1st Published March 18, 2016)
Publisher: Dark Horse Manga
Dates Read: July 29, 2025 - July 30, 2025
Format: Library Book / eBook

High schooler Kensuke Fuji adores cats, but has only ever watched the street cats from afar since his family members are all allergic. But then he meets —-, the ultimate cat whisperer guru. He proves himself worthy of being his student to be taught under the Cat Fist Way.

This is a rather cute, but silly look at the love people have for cats.

It did take me a moment to get into this because I thought it was going to be a bit “too silly”, but I turned out to love it and am excited for my new obsession from this mangaka. Speaking of the mangaka, I still adore how they are able to draw the cats in both realism and cartoonish at the same time.

Overall, another cute manga that all cat lovers are bound to adore and ultimately relate to as well.

Mask of the Deer Woman / Laurie L. Dove

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Mask of the Deer Woman
By: Laurie L. Dove, Isabella Star Lablanc (Narrator)
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Number of Pages: 336
Published: January 21, 2025
Publisher: Berkley
Dates Read: July 15, 2025 - July 26, 2025
Format: Library Book / Audiobook

After her daughter’s murder, ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr has nowhere to go but where she started. Starr’s father didn’t talk much about the reservation he grew up on, but they needed a new marshal and Starr needed a new place to call home.

Many girls and women have either died or disappeared from the rez over the years. Now, Chenoa Cloud is missing and while Starr investigates, memories of her daughter’s murder come to surface. When she begins to see glimpses of a figure from her dad’s stories – a woman with the antlers of a deer, Starr believes she’s being followed by her. She doesn’t know though, if the Deer Woman is there to help and guide her or seek vengeance for the lost daughters of the rez.

I had a little bit of a hard time with this one, mostly because I had a hard time liking Starr because how she handles certain things slows down the novel in what could have been a fast pace thriller. I mean, yes, it did get faster in the later bit of the novel, but throughout a lot of it, I wanted her to deal with a lot of her personal demons (therapy would help so much).

I did just realize writing this review that it now says Carrie Starr #1 so I am curious to see Starr being flushed out a lot more in the upcoming novel(s).

This novel does an excellent, yet sad, job at tackling the lack of assistance Native and Indigenous Persons get when it comes to their lost and missing women and daughters. And also the corruption that happens on the Rez with outside entities as well.

Overall, I think anyone who likes a good mystery/thriller will enjoy this, especially for a debut Indigenous author.

*Thank you Berkley and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection / John Green

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Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
By: John Green
Genre: Nonfiction, History
Number of Pages: 198
Published: March 18, 2025
Publisher: Crash Course Books
Dates Read: July 12, 2025 - July 14, 2025
Format: Library Book / Audiobook

John Green talks about tuberculosis’ history and how it’s connected to many things.

This book goes beyond statistics by putting a name to a patient, Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone, and humanizing the experience of living with TB. 

Green isn’t wrong that everything is tuberculosis – is some of it stretched a little bit to make the connection? Sometimes, but for how long this disease has been around, it’s bound to be connected to everything in some way, shape, or another.

I do applaud Green for calling out big pharmaceutical companies (cough cough Johnson&Johnson) for having such high prices for medicine for no other reason than greed – because if you heal a patient, that’s one less person using your medicine. 

“What’s different now from 1804 or 1904 is that tuberculosis is curable, and has been since the mid-1950s. We know how to live in a world without tuberculosis. But we choose not to live in that world.”

But also the fact that TB becomes drug resistant because it’s constantly evolving into different strains is INSANE.

Overall, I knew I would enjoy this book – I like anything John Green writes to be honest. This is definitely a crash course in tuberculosis, but it’s an amazing starting point for people.

Reasons to Look at the Night Sky / Danielle Daniel

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Reasons to Look at the Night Sky
By: Danielle Daniel
Genre: Middle Grade, Novel in Verse
Number of Pages: 328
Published: October 29, 2024
Publisher: Tundra Books
Dates Read: July 12, 2025 - July 13, 2025
Format: Hardcover

Luna is eleven-years-old and knows everything about the night sky and space. She dreams of being an astronaut one day. The first step to her dream is acing the space unit in her science class so she can add it to her NASA summer space camp application.

But when Luna’s teacher suddenly has to take a leave of absence, substitute teacher, Ms. Manitowabi comes in and shakes up the entire science class unit by bringing art into science. But on top of science class changing, Luna is also dealing with changes not only at home, but within her relationship with her best friend. What on Earth is happening?

This is an adorable novel in verse middle grade read. Luna is easily identifiable as an eleven-year-old (beside the fact that she’s very proud of being as old as she is) and this story is definitely written with that audience in mind.

I enjoyed this read of Luna’s journey, especially her excitement and fascination with the sky stories from the First Nations people. Like Luna, I also agree those are important and need to be included in the history and knowledge of sky and space.

Overall, this novel in verse is an enjoyable read that is aimed towards middle grade readers, especially those who enjoy space – but also those who don’t because I feel like Luna does an excellent job at getting others excited for space too.

*Thanks Tundra Books and LibraryThing for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Hope Ablaze / Sarah Mughal Rana

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Hope Ablaze
By: Sarah Mughal Rana, Farah Kidwai (Narrator)
Genre: YA, Magical Realism
Number of Pages: 384
Published: February 27, 2024
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Dates Read: July 10, 2025 - July 11, 2025
Format: Library Book / Audiobook

Trigger Warnings: Islamophobia, racism 

Nida is known as Mamou Abdul-Hafeedh’s niece – the poet who was wrongfully incarcerated during the war on terror. Nida’s poetry letters are her heart and sharing them with the world is not an option.

When Nida is illegally frisked at a Democratic Senatorial candidate’s political rally – a rally she wasn’t even trying to go to, she was heading to the mosque to pray – she writes a heated poem about the politician, never expecting the letter to go viral weeks later. Nida is shocked to find out the poem has won first place in a national contest, a contest she didn’t even enter. After her quiet life is upheaved Nida loses her ability to write poetry. She also struggles with the balance of the expectations of her mother, her uncle, and her Muslim community with who she truly wants to be.

As a white woman, this gave me an opportunity to see not only what hijabi wearing women go through on a daily basis, but also what they had to go through especially after 9/11. This book was also a passionate and emotional journey – Nida had anger she was carrying as well as the feeling of hopelessness, her story was both moving and eye-opening.

I was a little shocked about the magical realism of the novel, but it wasn’t anything offputting to me or anything, just wasn’t expecting it.

Overall, this is an important read that gives the perspective of what it was like to be a hijab-wearing Muslim teen in post 9/11.

*Thank you Wednesday Books and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

The Grumpy Ghost Upstairs / Mamiko Shiotani

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The Grumpy Ghost Upstairs
By: Mamiko Shiotani
Genre: Children’s
Number of Pages: 36 
Published: August 5, 2025
Publisher: Floria Books
Dates Read: July 10, 2025
Format: ARC / eBook

A little ghost lives in the attic of a big house. He’s alone, but that’s just how he likes it. One day, a curious young girl begins hanging out in the attic, disturbing the ghost’s peace and quiet. Since she won’t leave the ghost alone, he decides to do what ghosts do best: haunt.

What a great book to talk about the importance of change and embracing new friendships 

With artwork reminiscent of Brian Selznick, readers of all ages are bound to giggle at this grumpy ghost’s antics.

Feral (Volume 2): Cat Lady / Tony Fleecs (Writer), Trish Forstner (Illustrator), Tone Rodriguez (Illustrator), Brad Simpson (Colorist)

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Feral (Volume 2): Cat Lady
By: Tony Fleecs (Writer), Trish Forstner (Illustrator), Tone Rodriguez (Illustrator), Brad Simpson (Colorist)
Genre: Graphic Novel, Horror
Number of Pages: 136
Published: March 12, 2025
Publisher: Image Comics
Dates Read: July 9, 2025
Format: eBook

Volume Two opens where Volume One left off: Patch is infected, Lord is missing, and Elsie is with cats she barely knows. After having to run from the safety of their abandoned barn due to rabid rats, Elsie, Gigi, and Gigi’s kittens find themselves captured by a crazy cat lady whose house is definitely high on the creepy scale.

I again loved the story of this collection and cursed the cliff hanger (one of the many reasons I wait until volume collections come out because reading as individual issues come out would be the death of me).

The art of this is still superb – childlike, but filled with horror; makes some of the scary parts even more terrifying.

Overall, this series is something I’m going to count the days down to for every volume release. This is perfect for those who love horror and aren’t afraid of some gore.

Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3) / Suzanne Collins

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Mockingjay
By: Suzanne Collins
Genre: YA, Dystopia
Number of Pages: 390
Published: August 24, 2010
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Dates Read: June 24, 2025 - July 8, 2025
Format: Hardcover

Katniss has been rescued after electrifying the arena during the Quarter Quell, but Peeta was captured by the Capitol. District 12 no longer exists, but District 13 does, and has always existed. Now, District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol, but they need Katniss to be their rebels’ Mockingjay. To do this, she must put aside her feelings, no matter the personal cost.

And I have finished the reading of the original Hunger Game trilogy (don’t ask me why it took me over two weeks to read this, I had weird personal stuff!)

I forgot how much softer Katniss is in this final installment of her story; she’s gone through not one, but two Hunger Games back to back, her home has been wiped off the map, and people keep using her as a pawn in their war games. The girl is seventeen-years-old and hasn’t been able to stop and breathe in two years. Unlike many characters in dystopian books I’ve read, Katniss actually is severely affected by the events she either has been a part of or has witnessed. She’s traumatized! 

I did love the fact she talks about Haymitch taking care of geese, but failed to mention she was the one who gave them to him to take care of. Oh – and at the end, she talks about her children playing on the graveyard of her district in the meadow – I know a lot of people have been connecting that to just the Covey but it’s actually her whole district that is buried there!

Overall, a bitter sweet ending to the original trilogy for sure. Still glad I reread the series.

Stoked for This: July 2025

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This month has a few witches and a lot of mysteries/thriller vibes. For someone who loves true crime, you would think I would read more mystery/thrillers in my day to day reading… maybe this is my call to do so; when most of my books are hitting that genre. Some published authors have some new titles, including Holly Jackson with her first novel for adults, and a couple of debut releases.

July 1, 2025

This is said to be “Clap When You Land” meets “Monday’s Not Coming”. Told between two timelines, 2024 and 2006 as one teen searches for her biological mother and the other copes with giving up her baby.

This Book Might Be About Zinnia

By: Brittney Morris

After a student is killed in the fire that consumed the high school, five teens hold a piece of the truth as to what happened to Eden.

After We Burned

By: Marieke Nijkamp

July 15, 2025

A historical fiction with a witch on a journey to find a book of unspeakable powers before it can land in the hands of Nazis.

A Resistance of Witches

By: Morgan Ryan

A cozy fantasy romance about a witch who was turned into a wooden statue after breaking the law, but yet one day wakes in the dead of winter on a nearly-deserted island. She meets the gardener who maintains the greenhouses, but finds out the greenhouses magic keeping them alive is failing and she must help. (also there’s a cat with wings on the cover and I’m a sucker for cats on covers)

The Enchanted Greenhouse

By: Sarah Beth Durst

July 22, 2025

Three Jewish sisters navigate dating, ambition, and young womanhood in their Brooklyn community as they seek to find their place within not only their neighborhood, but with themselves.

Sisters of Fortune

By: Ester Chehebar

In seven days Jet Mason will be dead from a brain aneurysm brought on by a violent attack. As her condition deteriorates, she only has her best friend Billy for help but she is determined to solve her own murder.

Not Quite Dead Yet

By: Holly Jackson

July 29, 2025

First off – this was marketing for fans of “Under the Whispering Door” by TJ Klune and we all know I love him… but this one is about a lighthouse for the dead of Chicago to go to, reckon with their lives, and then step on the boat to go beyond. One day, the lighthouse starts flickering and a living person has found her way onto the boat after she followed a song. Nera, the daughter of the ferryman, tries to help Charlie find the person she lost.

The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World

By: J.R. Dawson

A collection of witty, imaginative stories that blend humor and reflections on everyday life’s absurdities.

An Oral History of Atlantis: Stories

By: Ed Park