Books

Stoked for This: September 2026 (and a small life update)

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment

So, as I’m sure you have noticed and/or have seen here on my website – I am behind on my reviews and posting. I’ve been through a couple of life changes recently and I feel like I may just now be getting on slightly more stable ground to be standing on. There was a separation, a move, school starting (I’m going back for my Masters in Library Science), and my oldest cat has been diagnosed with Kidney Disease – there’s been a lot of changes! I’m slowly put surely getting my reviews written and posted so hopefully you will see those shortly.

Thank you all those who have stuck around with me. I greatly appreciate it and hopefully I can get this website back up and running properly here soon.

Now, one of the things that has fallen so horribly into wayside is my Stoked for This, so without further ado…

September 1, 2026

When a late night at the office leads to witnessing an exorcism Brie’s life takes a very drastic turn.

I Hope This Email Finds You in Hell

By: Mackenzie Reed

Three kids join together to game the Make-A-Wish foundation to get three epic adventures.

Wish You Well

By: Jamie Sumner

The follow-up to Titan of the Stars is here and I’m so excited to see where Dominic and Ren’s story go from here.

Demon in the Sand

By: E.K. Johnston

To read my review of the book before this you, you can find it here.

In this companion graphic memoir, Pedro Martín talks about family hijinks, immigration patrols, and musical daydreams in his year of youth.

Mexikid Dreams: A Graphic Memoir

By: Pedro Martín

September 8, 2026

A middle grade novel about a 12-year-old girl with OCD who finally gets the help she needs to push back.

Hijacked by Goats

By: Ann Braden

A historical fiction novel inspired by the life of Grace O’Malley, an infamous Irish sea captain and folk heroine who risked everything to protect her people against the powerful Elizabethan regime?! Yes please!!

The Pirate Queen

By: Ariel Lawhon

A middle grade novel in verse about two sisters caught in a blizzard alone.

Sisters Alone

By: Shifa Saltagi Safadi

Sooo, I probably won’t read this one anytime soon because written from a cat in heaven’s perspective to their owner about always being there even after death. but I will absolutely be purchasing my own copy.

I’m Still Here: A Cat’s Purpose Forever

By: Cathryn Michon

September 15, 2026

A new Emily St. John Mandel you say?!

Exit Party

By: Emily St. John Mandel

AND a new novel in verse from Elizabeth Acevedo?!

Anger Is Only a Shadow

By: Elizabeth Acevedo

AND a new novel in verse from Megan E. Freeman?! What a blessed week we shall have!!

The Secret to Belonging

By: Megan E. Freeman

September 22, 2026

This is a really fun sounding YA about the teen daughter of an infamous serial killer must prove she isn’t the one behind recent copycat murders.

Dead Girls

By: Beck Kubrick

This novel is an exploration of grief, mothers and daughters, and the beautiful complexity of women’s lives and identities.

Female Life on Planet Earth

By: Laleh Kahadivi

John Green’s first adult novel?! Say less!!

Hollywood, Ending

By: John Green

September 29. 2026

A new book by Lois Lowry where the power of books will save the day.

Building 903

By: Lois Lowry

Tales from my favorite cozy fantasy series Legends & Lattes?!

Tales from the Territory

By: Travis Baldree

Stoked For This: June 2026

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There’s quite a few books this month that range all over with genres, subjects, and timelines. There’s a few from previously read authors as well as some debut authors. I’m even including some manga this time around!!

June 2, 2026

A story about a father and son who are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not an easy one. 

Land

By: Maggie O’Farrell

In this debut novel, a giant jellyfish is terrorizing a tiny island off the coast of Maine and a marine biologist who prefers jellyfish over people rushes across the country to try and help.

The Jellyfish Problem

By: Tessa Yang

From the author of Rez Ball, comes a new YA novel about a young Ojibwe athlete learning to ride in his late father’s footsteps while practicing for a skateboarding championship with his crew.

Medicine Wheels

By: Byron Graves

After her mother’s sudden death, Jihad joins an exclusive high school. But, she’s the only Muslim student and everything about her makes her suspicious to her classmates. After finding her mother’s old sketchbook, Jihad’s own canvas become bigger than she would every imagine.

The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue

By: Zoulfa Katouh

Guinevere Sharpe has had two childhoods. One, she lives in the wooded shadow of her family’s isolated Vermont farmhouse, growing up near-feral, unwashed and underfed – the woods her and her siblings playground; in the other, she’s apart of her mother’s world-famous Ninth City books, where her magical adventures have made her a household name. Now an adult, Guinevere looks back on her childhood, before the fire that left her mother’s series unfinished, and tries to find out what really happened.

The Children

By: Melissa Albert

A Queer retelling of Sleep Beauty that tackles escapism, grief, and dreaming of a better world.

The Secret World of Briar Rose

By: Cindy Pham

In this homage to The Face on the Milk Carton a trans boy discovers he was kidnapped as a child and that his birth parents are out there still searching… for their daughter.

The Names We Burned

By: Mia Siegert

A historical graphic novel based on the true story of Operación Pedro Pan, a joint effort between the U.S. government and the Catholic Welfare Bureau to evacuate 14,000 children from Cuba to the U.S. between 1960 and 1962.

We Are Pan

By: Andre R. Frattino & Yasmin Flores Montanez

From the author of one of my favorite heart wrenching YA novels, Yolk comes a new adult fiction about a mother-daughter relationship set against the backdrop of Hollywood.

Pool House

By: Mary H.K. Choi

The sequel to one of my favorite Queer YA novels about a lady night and her lady!!!

One Knight Stand

By: Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

June 9, 2026

In this new ovel from Dave Eggers, two friends believe they can change the world as they challenge the rules and market forces within the art community.

Contrapposto

By: Dave Eggers

June 16, 2026

Told in multiple POVs, this YA novel is an Indigenous murder-mystery set in Costa Rica about a Bribri-American teenager searching for the truth behind her land-activist father’s mysterious death.

Together We See

By: Ari Tison

A young musical prodigy and his mother spend years searching for each other after getting separated at a Beijing Railway Station.

Little Wonder

By: Sophie Chen Keller

A historical fiction manga about girls from a boarding school in Japan who are recruited to help as assistant nurses during WWII.

cocoon

By: Machiko Kyo

A mother becomes obsessed with finding the cure to a mysterious ailment that is causing those effected to not be able to go outside during the day.

The Emilys: A Novel

By: Heather Abel

June 23, 2026

In this fun detective noir, all the characters are animals who are fighting for survival in the city underneath the humans.

Green City Wars

By: Adrian Tchaikovsky

From one of my favorite manga author, Gengoroh Tagame, comes a story two “straight” friends, living in the middle of COVID, and who might just be gay.

Fish and Water

By: Gengoroh Tagame, Anne Ishii (Translator)

Stoked For This: May 2026

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment

This month has already been a bit crazy – for one I just had to purchase four all new tires yesterday cause the wires in my tires were showing, which, incase you didn’t know, is really bad. I’ve had anxiety about my tires for a bit, but I’ve been on high alert the last few days for sure.

As you can see below, there’s 22 titles this month that I’m Stoked For. A few from some previous read authors as well as some debuts authors, traveling across a few decades (sometimes all in one book!), there’s a few in Hawai’i, as well as a few in some magical worlds.

Overall, a fantastic month for new releases.

May 5, 2026

A young woman finds herself teaching English literature in an all-girls boarding school in her small coastal hometown. While there, she tries desperately to figure out where in her past it went wrong.

Offseason

By: Avigayl Sharp

A native Hawaiian teen travels to a luxury island resort in search of her missing twin and uncovers the dark side of paradise in this YA horror.

That Which Feeds Us

By: Keala Kendall

Edgar deserves to be famous, maybe then his human, Quinn, will stop being “too busy” to play. But not all attention is the same. Will Edgar choose the bright lights or someone whose right under his whiskers?

Pay Attention to Me!

By: Kate McKean

Pictures By: Rob Justus

Five lives are all connected with a game created in the 1980’s.

Homebound

By: Portia Elan

Derrick knows his scholarship to an elite East Coast boarding school is a once in a lifetime opportunity, even if it hurts to leave his friends and family behind in Navajo, New Mexico. While on the phone with his great-grandmother, she begs Derrick to leave Sagefield and he realizes her fear comes from her time in federal Native boarding schools, he knows he’s finally found the term paper theme he believes carrying her voice into the future, but will the pressure be too much for him?

Shards of Silence

By: Brian Lee Young

Twelve-year-old orphan, Rain is destined for a future of hard labor—until she meets a wild griffin and bonds with him. An old law says that bond entitles Rain to an education at the elite Griffin Riders Academy. But, Rain’s Rise threatens to topple Griffin Land’s fragile hierarchy, and they make her prove herself in the most dangerous way.

Griffin Speaker

By: Jan M. Flynn

When Calla’s favorite teacher is accused of inappropriate conduct at his old school, she decides to take action to find the sources.

Listen to the Girls

By: Chrystal D. Giles

In a small Hawaiian village, Nohea is the latest son in a long line of male ancestors with a horrible secret: He’s half-human, half-shark. He knows he can’t stay with his family forever and enters a school competition to win money.

The Shark Prince

By: Malia Maunakea

May 12, 2026

So this author is one of two authors whose books I’ve thrown across the room in the middle of reading them – not this particular one mind you but I feel like that’s usually a good starter when I pitch any of her novels 🙂 This one the story of Eng and Chang Bunker (conjoined twins) and their wives, Sallie and Addie (sisters).

The Foursome

By: Christina Baker Kline

After Zuzu’s dad loses his job, he is given a dated, first-generation guardian robot that Zuzu names Snap. But Snap doesn’t come with a charging station and as much as he’s okay with his reset, Zuzu is not and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep Snap alive.

The Second Life of Snap

By: Erin Entrada Kelly

May 19, 2026

What if a teenage girl was Mature Nature?

Force of Nature

By: Melissa Clark

A book about the history of how the cultures around the world has used words to describe that that is around them.

Naming Nature: A Cabinet of Natural Curiosities for Word Lovers

By: T.A. Barron

 Twelve-year-old Sofia lives with her mother and brother, Rafa, in their car. Days are spent finding a safe space to park for the night, but her mother says she’ll soon have her own bedroom to decorate. This is an adult novel that explores coming of age during a time of displacement.

Hungered

By: Amanda Rizkalla

A middle grade novel in verse about a boy who is struggling with guilt after telling his family of his older brother’s extreme depression.

My Brother Oliver

By. R.L. Toalson

When her book of spells is stolen, Little Moon is sent to the strange world of The Fault. In this stranger and simmering land, she must find allies, discover her true name, and channel the stories of her matrilineal line to battle the fearsome Shenk.

The Book of Murmurs

By: Candice Purwin

May 26, 2026

In this middle grade novel in verse, a young girl named Kestrel learns to stand up for herself and finds out the true meaning of home.

Kestrel Takes Flights

By: Joy McCullough

This novel is about a family of New York City crows struggling to survive the outbreak of West Nile virus during the sizzling summer of 1999.

Shade of Wings

By: Pam McGaffin

A romantic Jane Austen read-a-like set in historical Korea, about a reader and a writer who secretly fight against government book banning and find themselves drawn together.

Behind Five Willows

By: June Hur

You can’t change the past, but Midnight Train can take you there and give you a chance to to re-live the moments. How will doing so change the way you see yourself?

The Midnight Train

By: Matt Haig

A middle grade novel with illustrations for those who loved Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and the graphic memoir Mexikid about a group of four friends and a magical bookstore that holds them together.

The Chismosas Only Book Club

By: Laekan Zea Kemp

A new historical fiction from one of my favorite YA authors – though this is her first adult novel! In this Prohibition-era novel, Marjorie must learn about perception, reputation, and the slow understanding of truth.

A Fortune of Sand

By: Ruta Sepetys

Just a sci-fi novel about a robot at the end of the world whose leg was stolen and when they set out to find the thief, are accompanied by a cyborg dog and a human mechanic.

Ode to the Half-Broken

By: Suzanne Palmer

Stoked for This: March 2026

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment

I think I’m ready for a vacation out of the Midwest, cause I’ve got quite a few books that are set out in the west coast: California, Washington specifically have two books each! Of course I have a book (or two) set around space or dystopian futures ◡̈ Oh! I can’t forget the story about a girl falling in love with a member of the famous boyband (yes I read 1,000 o

March 3, 2026

Three women united by killer husbands join together to find the new serial killer on the loose in 1960’s California.

The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives

By: Elizabeth Arnott

After her best friend goes missing after an earthquake, Celeste is the only one who thinks Nicky is alive and begins her mission to find him.

Lies We Tell About the Stars

By: Susie Nadler

As younger children, the three friends discovered a book of prophecies that seemed to be accurately predicting the future. Now, in seventh grade, the book’s final prophecy brings the three back together in unexpected ways. 

When Tomorrow Burns

By: Tae Keller

Finnegan is a rescue dog with a broken heart. Chase is an anxious cheetah cub, newly orphaned. They couldn’t be more opposite but they form an unlikely friendship.

The Unlikely Tale of Chase and Finnegan

By: Jasmine Warga

March 10, 2026

An adorable children’s book about respecting cat’s personal space.

Arthur’s Cat

By: Johan Leynaud

A coming-of-age YA featuring an Indigenous teen girl grappling with the effects of intergenerational trauma while navigating school, family and young love.

Here for a Good Time

By: Kim Spencer

March 17, 2026

After a slur is shouted at a school assembly, two boys grapple with accountability and the quest to define one’s identity against toxic masculinity.

One Word, Six Letters

By: Adib Khorram

Lucy Nowhere washed up on an island as an infant. At eighteen, she planned to leave and go to university but overnight, her life changed. Her benefactor was murdered and, to her great surprise, she was named his heir. Following the murder, Lucy tries to find the murderer and find out who she is and how she ended up on the island. 

Heiress of Nowhere

By: Stacy Lee

March 24, 2026

After emigrating from Iran a year-and-a-half ago, Yasmine has had to deal with one change after another. now, her mom has sewn Yasmin a beautiful blue dress for the Persian New Year that is too tight on purpose. With the pressure to fit in closing in on all sides, Yasmin starts taking desperate measures. But if being thin is supposed to make her happier, then why does losing weight feel like losing parts of herself, too?

The Blue Dress

By: Rebecca Morrison

A coming-of-age tale inspired by Odysseus set both on Earth and in space.

Celestial Lights

By: Cecile Pin

Famine and war now rage across the land after the last honeybee died. People are no longer allowed to read or create art. Like every other girl, Jess has been taken from her home to live in a government dormitory, where they are forced to pollinate crops by hand with brushes. But, Jess knows how to read and paint. She also knows there is something horribly wrong with this system built on the hard labor of young girls, a system that forces them to marry and have children as soon as they are able. With smuggled paints and brush in hand, can Jess inspire a revolution?

The Danger of Small Things

By: Caryl Lewis

A Deaf, demiromantic teen who falls in love with the lead singer of America’s most popular boy band during a whirlwind summer tour (the fan girl in me can’t resist falling in love with the boy band member…)

Someone to Daydream About

By: Sydney Langford

Blanca of Castile is the granddaughter of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, once the wife of both the king of France and the king of England. When Queen Eleanor comes to select the girl who will marry the prince of France, all expect her to pick Blanca’s much older, and much prettier, sister. But Queen Eleanor has always loved surprises and selects Blanca. Now, to meet her destiny, Blanca, along with her best friend Suna, must set out over the mountain for France.

The Queen’s Granddaughter

By: Diane Zahler

March 31, 2026

Set in the Prohibition era Missouri Ozarks, three sisters take over their father’s moonshine business.

The Moonshine Women

By: Michelle Collins Anderson

Away / Megan E. Freeman

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Away
By: Megan E. Freeman
Genre: Middle Grade, Novel in Verse
Number of Pages: 480
Published: February 11, 2025
Publisher: Aladdin
Dates Read: January 19, 2025 - January 20, 2025
Format: ARC / Paperback

Told in multiple POVS with a mixture of novel in verse, movie script, production diary, letters, and newspaper articles, this companion novel to Alone, Away follows a group of kids who were placed in the same evacuation camp after the imminent yet unnamed danger that forced them out of their home. When the group of kids has an aspiring filmmaker and a budding journalist, they begin to dig into the reasoning as to why their world was turned upside down.

As they begin to investigate, they start to discover there’s more of a cover-up operation going on than there is an actual immediate threat. Can the group get to the root of the conspiracy and tell the adults in a way they’ll be believed before it’s too late?

I absolutely adored Alone when I read it back in 2023, so I immediately tried to get my hands on Away as soon as I could. This novel is not a full novel in verse but jumps around between different styles depending on which character it’s focusing on at the moment – though Grandin and Ashantae’s are in verse, Teddy’s is written in movie script or production diary, and Harmony writes letters to her Aunt and essays in new reports.

I think this fast paced story would be fun for middle school readers, especially those who like to prove kids can be just as absorbent, if not more, than adults. The charge to question what is really going on begins with the kids and they’re the ones who shine the light on it in order for the adults to finally see what’s happening.

Are some of the scenarios in this unrealistic? Yes, but it didn’t stop me from thoroughly enjoying it as I’m sure many others will.

You don’t have to have read Alone in order to understand what is happening in this novel as it is a companion novel and not a sequel.

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

My Week Late, Stoked For This: January 2025

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I know I’m a week (and a day) late in this, and there will be loads of books already out – but that means there’s loads more books already out (Trying to be a bit more positive this year)! I tried to get this done yesterday, but stuff happened and I couldn’t get back to this.

I’m also going to try something new with my formatting of this series. Let me know what you think! Do you like the new way? Prefer the old way? Have no comments or concerns?

January 7, 2025

Amber arrives home one spring afternoon on her bike. As soon as her mother sees her, she screams. Why? Because Amber’s been dead seven years – hit by a car on the very bike she pulled up to the house in.

After Life

By: Gayle Forman

Bletchley Park. London. 1923. Dragons soar through the skies, but Vivian Featherswallow isn’t worried, she’s going to study the dragon language and make sure her little sister doesn’t have to grow up in Third Class. But by midnight, civil war has started. Viv is recruited for a codebreaker job to save her family – but the more she learns, the harder it is for her to distinguish what what war she’s actually fighting.

A Language of Dragons

By: S.F. Williamson

A dystopian, water covered world where a family tries to save the history of humans while creating a settlement on top of New York City’s National History Museum.

All the Water in the World

By: Eiren Caffall

A sapphic YA debut novel that follows two girls has they fall in love, fighting for survival in an abandoned bookstore.

The Last Bookstore on Earth

By: Lily Braun-Arnold

January 14, 2025

Written in prose and verse, this YA novel following sixteen-year-old Carmela as she’s finally able to help in her mother’s apothecary in the Campo Marzio neighborhood of Rome. But the workroom is no simple place, for every simple ingredient, there is else even less pleasant, and Carmela begins to find out the secrets she never bargained for.

Everything Is Poison

By: Joy McCullough

What would you do if you found a magical bookstore that transports you back through time to be face-to-face with your teenage self?

The In-Between Bookstore

By: Edward Underhill

A multi-level, page turning murder novel about pyramid schemes.

Death in the Downline

By: Maria Abrams

January 21, 2025

Ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr is now at the reservation where her father grew up: they need a new tribal marshal to help with the women who have disappeared from the rez. Now, local college student is missing and Starr begins drown in memories of her own daughter’s murder. As she works on the cases, Starr can’t shake the feeling of a fearsome spirit watching her, one of a woman with antlers of a deer.

Mask of the Deer Woman

By: Laurie L. Dove

The Deep Dark / Molly Knox Ostertag

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The Deep Dark
By: Molly Knox Ostertag
Genre: Graphic Novel
Number of Pages: 480
Published: June 4, 2024
Publisher: Graphix
Dates Read: December 30, 2024
Format: Library Book / Hardcover

Magdalena Herrera, or Mags, already feels like an adult even though she’s just shy of graduating high school: caring for her grandmother, working a part-time job, and taking care of her secret that lives in the basement, the one that drains her of energy. The secret could really hurt someone, even kill them, if it got out.

So, Mags keeps her head down, trying to get through the day. That is, until her childhood friend, Ness, comes back to town, bringing memories and her own secret. Mags won’t get reattached, she can’t, and she’s always been good at keeping her distance anyway.

But when darkness starts to close in on them both, Mags will have to bring her secret into the daylight.

The art of this graphic novel is fantastic and phenomenal. It goes from back and forth between black and white and full color, corresponding well with what’s happening in the story.  

The overall storyline is about accepting yourself, even the deepest, darkest bits, and allowing someone to love and care for you and all your secrets.

Overall, Molly Knox Ostertag blew it out of the park again with this story and anyone who loves bright, vivid illustrations mixed with black and white, and a storyline that will keep you turning pages, will fall in love with the characters and this story as well.

Cat Companions Maruru and Hachi, Volume 1 / Yuri Sonoda

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Cat Companions Maruru and Hachi (Volume 1)
By: Yuri Sonoda
Genre: Manga
Number of Pages: 176
Published: August 27, 2024
Publisher: Seven Seas
Dates Read: December 29, 2024
Format: Library Book / Paperback

One day, Maruru finds himself living on the streets as a stay. He encounters Hachi, a boss cat, who says he doesn’t need a spoiled house cat on his territory and chases him away. A few days later, Maruru helps Hachi out of a situation and the duo begin to tackle the struggles of Third Street together.

I can’t remember how I found this manga, possibly while looking at Cat + Gamer. But, I’m also always on the lookout for cat manga so, it could have been from a few places. Regardless – I absolutely loved this story and immediately fell in love with Maruru and Hachi. Their grump and sunshine friendship is amazing.

I appreciate how the author told the life of a street cat in the way that it is not sugar coated: their search for food, water, shelter, health, and territory is an everyday struggle.

So now, this is going to another manga series I’m going to start collecting.

I’m so far behind!!

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I’ve got 8 book reviews to post from the end of the year and then I’ve got my January Stoked for this as well. The holidays put me back, and I was reading everything I could get my hands on to move my Read Total up to 130 (which I made).

I wanted to share my “List Nobody Asked for But Got Anyway” aka My 2024 Books Read List that I share to my Instagram and Facebook every year on New Years Eve. It’s nothing fancy, but I always have fun making it – I even found out how to do it on Canva this year, and Canva and I have beef because they don’t make scaling covers easy!

“The List Nobody Asked For But Got Anyway” aka My 2024 Books Read List

This year, I journeyed through 35,307 pages across 130 books (10 more over my goal this year!).

I read ACTUAL nonfiction books, one of which solidified my favorite aquatic animal 🐙. I fell in love with a bakery dragon, a wild robot, magical children (again), and so many cats… I also found a love for audiobooks and their allowance of escapism while doing chores and errands 🥰

My average star rating is a 4, but I had 27 five star ratings, so I decided to share those with everyone. These are all titles that, if I don’t already own them, are books I’ll be keeping my eye out for.

Thank you everyone who followed along on my journey this year on my website, where I post all my reviews. I love talking books and I’m always happy to share them.

Now let’s see how much of a dent I can make in my TBR list this coming year!!

booksread #bookreview #bookreviewer #booklover #bookreader #myyearinbooks #myyearinreview #oldandnewbooksmell #books #fortheloveofbooks

When the World Tips Over / Jandy Nelson

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When the World Tips Over
By: Jandy Nelson
Genre: YA
Number of Pages: 528
Published: September 24, 2024
Publisher: Dial Books
Dates Read: September 16, 2024 - October 6, 2024
Format: ARC / Paperback

The Fall siblings live in Northern California wine country where years ago, their father mysteriously disappeared. Now Dizzy, twelve, bakes cakes, sees kissing, floating spirits, and wishes she was a part of a romance novel. Miles, seventeen, is a brainiac, athlete, and telepathic dog-whisperer, but he’s desperate to step out of being perfect. Wynton, nineteen, is an amazing violinist, but is set on a path of self-destruction he can’t seem to get off of. They all seem to be spiraling.

But then a rainbow-haired girl shows up. She may be an angel. Or a saint. But her showing up tips the Falls’ world over. Before anyone can figure out who she is, catastrophe strikes, leaving the family more broken than ever.

With a story filled with road trips, rivalries, family curses, love stories (with many layers), unsent letters, and generational trauma, this young adult novel peels back the layers of a family’s complicated past and present. 

This will definitely stick with me for years to come. And, I honestly don’t know how to put into words what I thought of this, because I’m in love with the entire Fall family (okay, there are a few I don’t like…) and their many, many layers of their lives. I just tried to explain this all to my coworker and the amount of time I said, “well but you find out this…” was endless.

It absolutely gave me East of Eden by Steinbeck vibes – the length alone, but also how good and overcome evil in the end is also a running theme in this novel too. Again, this is a long read, and it’s not one you can skim over either, because you want to take your time with it and immerse yourself in with these characters and this family. As much as I love to devour book after book, this one reminded me to slow down and to enjoy it.

Overall, this book is long and is a multi-sit read, but I can guarantee you will fall in love with at least one member of the Fall family after reading this!