Happy April, besties! I hope that the month is off to a good start for you. As I mentioned in my March Monthly Wrap Up, I ended up reading 20 books last month, and if we’re being totally honest, I just didn’t feel like writing a lot of full length reviews. That being said, there are some books that I definitely had thoughts on (both positive and…slightly negative) so I figured, why not share some mini reviews!
So get comfy and let’s chat about a few of my March reads!
The Appeal by Janice Hallett
The Appeal combines two of my favorite things — theatre and a murder mystery, so obviously I had to pick up a copy. What also drew me to the book was that it’s told all through emails with some text messages and newspaper reports scattered throughout the book. I love mixed media books, especially in mystery novels and I think that it worked so well.
The Appeal has a large cast of characters, all of them distinct and clear. I particularly loved that we got to read correspondence from a specific set of characters while we only heard about others secondhand — I felt like that added an additional air of mystery to the already unbalanced character dynamics. I thought that the characterization was really well done, especially since we were only learning about these characters through their email correspondence. It would’ve been easy for the characters to get muddled or blend together, but they didn’t and that takes quite a bit of skill.
The backdrop of a play, especially a very intense one like All My Sons, was perfect for the dramatics that was happening off stage. Honestly, there was so much going on here, so many different plot lines that at first I was a bit confused but I think it all came together pretty wonderfully. Overall, I thought this was a fantastic and innovative mystery — a truly great debut — and I can’t wait to read more of Hallett’s work!
Links for The Appeal: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop
Last Violent Call by Chloe Gong
We all know that I love Chloe Gong — I really do think she’s one of the best authors in recent years. The way that she crafts her stories is truly masterful. We know from These Violent Delights, Our Violent End, and Foul Lady Fortune that Chloe is wonderful at writing really high-intensity scenes, but what I absolutely loved about Last Violent Call is that she showed a bit of a softer side. That’s not to say that we don’t see some of that softness in her other books, or that there aren’t some high-intensity moments in Last Violent Call because there are, but I think that Last Violent Call shows off a lot of Chloe’s other strengths.
With both Roma and Juliette, and Marshall and Benedikt being in more stable places in their lives, we’re able to see more relaxed versions of them which I absolutely loved. There was so much domesticity throughout A Foul Thing and This Foul Murder I almost couldn’t handle it. There were times when I was literally giddy because RomaJuliette and BenMarsh were just SO cute and I could feel how much they loved each other. Chloe is great at writing witty and comedic scenes, which I think really shone in these novellas. I loved seeing the playfulness in the respective relationships — especially with Roma and Juliette (Roma complaining about creaking knees? He and I are the same).
These novellas really were the perfect little wrap-up to the These Violent Delights series and I love how they tied into the situations in Foul Lady Fortune. Chole Gong really can do no wrong and I will read anything/everything that she writes.
Links for Last Violent Call: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop
The Witch and the Vampire by Francesca Flores
Since my favorite princess is Rapunzel I’m obviously going to check out any sort of Rapunzel retelling, and when I heard about a sapphic Rapunzel retelling I was all over that. Although vampire stories are not my thing, I figured, let’s give it a shot and I kind of wish I didn’t.
In my opinion, for something to be classified as a retelling, it needs to actually retell the original story in a new way. The Witch and the Vampire is marketed as a “queer Rapunzel retelling” and honestly, I think that’s completely wrong. This was not a Rapunzel retelling, this was inspired by Rapunzel, and there is a big difference. The only similarities that I could find in this story to the story of Rapunzel is that Ava (the Rapunzel character) had long hair, was locked in a tower (attic in this case), and there is a rampion flower. Otherwise, I don’t think this story resembled Rapunzel at all. Now, that’s not why I didn’t enjoy this book, I just think it was marketed incorrectly, therefore giving me unmet expectations.
My real problems all came from the fact that I just could not tell what this book was trying to do. I will admit that I don’t read much vampire based fiction, but I have seen a lot of vampire movies, and I feel that the tropes are pretty similar. The Witch and the Vampire had all of the tropes one would expect from a vampire novel, but it didn’t feel like there was a new spin or new twist, it all felt really predictable. Now, predictable doesn’t always mean bad, but in this case I felt that it was boring, especially since it’s not a genre I read much of but I was able to predict almost everything that happened. Now, I did think that the inclusion of witches and magic was interesting, especially the idea that because Ava was a certain age when she was turned into a vampire she still had her root magic powers — besides that though everything felt a bit stale.
I didn’t feel a connection to the characters or story at all, and much of it felt repetitive. There were a lot of phrases that were repeated in the same chapter and it just felt like the author was trying to hit us over the head with this information. I’m sure that this book will appeal to a lot of people, unfortunately, I am not one of them.
Links for The Witch and the Vampire: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop
The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz
I love the idea of a mystery set in a secluded mansion in the mountains with a bunch of female writers competing for a large book/publishing deal. It lends itself to a locked-room mystery which is probably my favorite mystery trope. I think that The Writing Retreat had a lot of potential but just did not do it for me.
The characters felt so childish. I think they were supposed to be in their 30s (it was probably mentioned but I’ve already forgotten, and I have started writing this as I’m finishing the book), and they all came off as annoying and whiny teenagers. The main character had no personality and really, none of these characters had any redeeming qualities, nor were any of them interesting. If they had personalities I’d at least be interested in what was going on.
The pacing of this book is incredibly odd. This story completely drags at the start and you think that it’ll start to pick up once the women start the writing retreat at the mansion — but it does not! It just drags and drags, and drags. This book is probably 10-15 chapters too long, and even if it were 10-15 chapters shorter, much of the middle section could’ve been condensed. It was incredibly repetitive and it didn’t feel as though there was a purpose for the repetitive moments. There were also many inconsistencies with the storytelling that I don’t think were intentional and really took me out of the story, though I don’t think that’s not saying much considering it took me 3 days to finish this 12 hour audiobook, and since I listen on 2x speed that should only take me a day. I think that says it all.
Ultimately, this book was trying to do something but I can’t tell you what, but I can definitely tell you that it wasn’t for me.
Links for The Writing Retreat: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop
Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young
I decided to pick up Spells for Forgetting on a whim one day because Syd from Syd BookWorrom read it, loved it and had nothing but good things to say about it, and I’m so glad I did because I loved this book! I’ve recently realized that when it comes to fantasy and magic in books I am much more of a magical realism/low-fantasy girlie and the magical realism in this book really appealed to me! I also love small town stories, especially because that usually plays into a lot of interesting dynamics and town secrets which this book had in droves. Honestly, I just found this book to be really compelling! It was a great audiobook as well, I loved the full cast of characters and that we got to read from multiple character’s POV. I’ll definitely think about checking out more of Adrienne Young’s work, even her more high fantasy stuff because I do really enjoy her writing style.
Links for Spells for Forgetting: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop
Have you read any of these books? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Until next time!
