★★★☆☆ A well-worn Gothic premise in the novel setting of 1950s Mexican countryside. This book hits all the best Gothic cliches, i.e. a young woman is sent to a creepy remote mansion with prickly secretive inhabitants and uncovers a terrible mystery…

★★★★★ Gorgeous could-not-put-it-down senior year YA queer rom-com. Like a beautiful, extra gay blend between Booksmart and Paper Towns. Casey McQuiston does it again!

★★★★☆ Octavia Butler deftly weaves between the supernatural - the supernatural megalomania of Doro or the supernatural empathy of Anyanwu - and real historical devastations of slavery and its legacy on American society into the late 20th century.

★★★☆☆ This was good but not as good as everyone says it is? Well-written insofar as it’s a riveting tale, but can’t compare to the memoirs I’ve read by more seasoned writers.

★★★☆☆ Unpleasant to read. Wong’s paints her recollections in lurid, sensational, and vindictive grotesqueness.

★★★★☆ Jia Tolentino is my absolute favourite cultural critic and essayist. She speaks to me and on topics I care about with such acerbic clarity and personality. My favourite essays from this collection…

★★★★☆ This book was painful, poetic, cinematic, chaotic, terrifying, elegiac...The intensity and totality of Morrison’s language is overwhelming, but it completely envelops you in the drama and horror of these characters’ stories.

★★★★★ TLDR: this is the best memoir I have ever read and you must read it, I cried in anger, in joy, in catharsis, I learned, I was moved, shocked, proud - Chanel Miller is a phenomenal writer and immensely talented, smart, sharp, emotionally mature person whose writings and experience on trauma and rape culture and justice you absolutely need to read.

★★★★★ This might be the best book I’ve read all year, and certainly the best and smoothest reading experience I’ve had in MONTHS. Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is an adventure fantasy/myth retelling set in Mexico in the 1920s Jazz Age.

★★☆☆☆ Not as good as the others - villain and action set pieces not as compelling or believable. The new hyper-advanced video game console at the centre of the story is VERY dated, and more obviously so than the super computers in Stormbreaker, surprisingly.

★★☆☆☆ TLDR: If you’re into romantic tropes, historical fiction, plot spanning an entire lifetime, and epistolary writing, you might be into this. Do not expect much by way of Iranian history, realism, suspense, dialogue, or character development.

★★☆☆☆ A mesmerising literary novel about a lost man in search of connection - a meditation on love, art and commitment, set against the backdrop of one of the greatest art events in modern history, Marina Abramovic's The Artist is Present.

★★★★★ The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of a multibillion-dollar startup, by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end in the face of pressure and threats from the CEO and her lawyers.