We all know I love a good reading challenge, so I thought that with my first week of vacation time I would challenge myself to only read two genres. Since they’re my favorites, I obviously went with the mystery and thriller genres; especially since I have multiple unread mystery and thrillers on my physical tbr.
Over the course of the week I ended up finished 5 books and started a 6th! Now let’s get into the reviews!
Typically, while I’m sitting watching baseball I’ve got my laptop with me and either scrolling on various websites, working on content, or reading. So, on Friday while watching the Giants, I started reading Riley Sager’s latest, With a Vengeance. Fast forward to 12:30 am Saturday morning and I had finished With a Vengeance.
I know Riley Sager can be pretty polarizing — people either love him or hate him, truthfully, I think I’m pretty neutral on him. I haven’t read all of his books, but the ones I have read I’ve really enjoyed and With a Vengeance is no different. I loved the concept of this book; I love a revenge story, and a revenge story that is a locked-room mystery on a train that clearly takes some inspiration from And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express? I mean, really, it’s like Sager wrote this book for me.
I thought the pacing of this book was great; I read it in essentially one sitting, mostly just taking a few short breaks to eat or do a few household chores. For me, a story like this is only successful if it’s quickly paced, so I was glad that he didn’t really drag things out and kept the story interesting. I could’ve done without repeating one of the twists because I think it worked well the first time and the second time, while it did still work within the story, didn’t have the same impact simply because he’d already done it once. That didn’t impact my enjoyment of the story as a whole, but I did roll my eyes a little bit.
Overall, I enjoyed this one a lot and thought it was a fun thriller with a pretty satisfying ending. A solid 4 stars.
The premise of Such a Bad Influence definitely caught my eye right away. The culture around influencers is already very interesting and there’s a lot to discuss there, but adding on the idea of child influencers and family vlogging to that makes the story idea extra compelling. I have a lot of thoughts on family vlogging and child influencers — really none of them are positive and all you have to do is research the Ruby Frankie case to see why I feel very negatively about these things, but that’s not what we’re here to discuss…
I have mixed feelings on this one really; I think that there is some good commentary on family vlogging and child influencing that needs to be discussed and I think it does critique it pretty well. So much of this book made me so uncomfortable, and that is the point, it also helps that our narrator is clearly uncomfortable with the child influencer world that her sister grew up in and how their mother has “managed” her sister’s career. However, the pacing was an issue for me; it took a long time for this one to get going for me (I started reading this in July), and that made my intrigue pretty low. Once I got into it I read a good chunk of it in one sitting, but because of the slow pacing, when I wasn’t reading it I wasn’t thinking about it/didn’t want to read it and that’s why it took me almost a month to get through this, which really should not happen with a book that’s 327 pages.
I understand what the author was trying to do, and I do appreciate the critique on family vlogging and child influencing, but something about it missed the mark for me and it was just fine. This was a 3 star read, but definitely on the lower end of 3 stars and I’m not sure that I’d be inclined to pick up future books by this author.
We all know that I’m a big Mia P. Manansala fan over here, so I was super excited to read her YA debut, Death in the Cards. This book was so much fun! It’s been a while since I read a truly fun and well written YA mystery, and this really reminded me why I love the genre.
This book was giving me a lot of Veronica Mars and Nancy Drew (2019) vibes, like I just think that if you’re a fan of either (which you should be) then you’d really like Death in the Cards and Danika. She has that same snark and determination that both Veronica and Nancy have; plus her mom is a private investigator and she works with her mom. Something that I think Mia P. Manansala really excels at is characterization, and that once again shines true in this book. I loved these characters and was so invested in their stories and loved spending time with them.
I really didn’t want to put this one down, it was so easy to fly through and I was dying to know where this story was going to go. The pacing was great, and one of the things that really drew me to this book was the inclusion of tarot and I found it all so fascinating and loved the way that it was woven into the story. Right now this one is not listed as a series, but oh boy oh boy am I hoping that Manansala turns this into a series because I would love to read more about Danika!
This was a great 4-4.5 star read for me, and if you’re looking for a great YA mystery, you should definitely pick it up!
Back in April I read How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin and loved it; I thought it was such a fun concept with a great execution and was really excited that it was a series. This is such a fun series, so I was really excited to continue it with How to Seal Your Own Fate. I really love a mystery series that’s set in a small town where everyone knows everyone. It sets itself up well for lots of secrets and gossip and just an overall fun mystery. I really loved getting to know the characters in the first book, both in the past and present, and I was excited for that to continue in How to Seal Your Own Fate. I liked that this picked up right where How to Solve Your Own Murder left off and that we got to learn more about some of the plot lines that were introduced in the first book.
I’m really glad that there’s another book in the series coming out next year and am looking forward to seeing what other shenanigans Annie can get herself into. I’m also looking forward to learning more about Frances’ life, because I’m completely fascinated by her!
I read Firekeeper’s Daughter last year and was so incredibly moved by the story and Angeline Boulley’s writing; the raw and emotional storytelling really resonated with me, so I was really happy to return to her words, Sugar Island and the Firekeeper-Birch family with Warrior Girl Unearthed.
While this stands alone from Firekeeper’s Daughter and Firekeeper’s Daughter doesn’t need to be read before Warrior Girl Unearthed for you to be able to follow the story, having read Firekeeper’s Daughter beforehand made me even more invested in the story and the characters. We meet Perry and her sister Pauline in Firekeeper’s Daughter when they’re children, and getting to follow them 10 years later as teenagers felt like visiting old friends.
Boulley’s love for her culture shines through on every page. I love learning about the Objiwe tribe’s culture, customs and the way that they honor their ancestors. While this series shows the beauty of the Obijwe tribe and Native American culture, it doesn’t shy away from the horrors of what they’ve been through and have continued to go through. There’s a huge emphasis on the exploitation of their culture and artifacts, the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, and the fight to reclaim their ancestors’ remains. These important topics are all handled with care, but unflinchingly honest, making the reader really pay attention to the ways that Native American tribes have been and continued to be abused. It’s heartbreaking to read, but necessary as well because nothing changes if we don’t actively fight to do so and continue to bring awareness to these topics.
I will read anything that Angeline Boulley writes, and I hope she has another book in the works!
I had also gotten 11 chapters into How To Kill a Guy in Ten Ways by Eve Kellman on the last day of this reading challenge. Here’s a quick rundown of what I read throughout the week!
Saturday, August 9th:
- With a Vengeance — 45 chapters
Sunday, August 10th:
- With a Vengeance — 9 chapters (finished)
- Such a Bad Influence — 26 chapters (finished)
Monday, August 11th:
- Death in the Cards — 9 chapters
Tuesday, August 12th:
- Death in the Cards — 20 chapters (finished)
- How to Seal Your Own Fate — prologue + 11 chapters
Wednesday, August 13th:
- How to Seal Your Own Fate —14 chapters
Thursday, August 14th:
- How to Seal Your Own Fate — 19 chapters (finished)
- Warrior Girl Unearthed — 3 chapters
Friday, August 15th:
- Warrior Girl Unearthed — 35 + epilogue (finished)
- How to Kill a Guy in Ten Ways — 11 chapters
I love these week-long reading challenges where I either read books of one genre or books that have a certain color on the cover. It’s a fun way to get some books knocked off of my owned tbr, and is a fun way to challenge myself but in a more relaxed way. I definitely want to do another challenge like this sometime soon because it really is fun!
What have you been reading lately? Do you ever make up little challenges for yourself while reading?
Until next time 💜
