It’s been three months since we last saw our favourite family. Hazel, Alana and Klara have been kidnapped by Dengo, who has his reasons. He also had his reasons for kidnapping Prince Robot IV’s newborn son. Something about seeing a kidnapper wearing a baby sling with little ducky’s on it humanises him for me, even if he is a robot. You could say that Izabel may also have been kidnapped but, since the damn suns haven’t set, she’s not part of the equation right now. I missed her.
Meanwhile, Gwendolyn, Sophie, The Brand, Sweet Boy (The Brand’s dog) and Lying Cat (awesome, awesome Lying Cat) are searching for a very specific ingredient on Demimonde that they hope will cure The Will. But they may not be alone. Enter Halvor, who is the older brother of The Stalk. Incidentally The Stalk actually had a name – Enriette.
Then there are Prince Robot IV (with his TV head), Marko, Yuma and Ghüs, who have joined forces (possibly temporarily) in order to rescue TV head IV and Marko’s kidlets.
Poor Marko!
We meet the Revolution, a group of resistance fighters who use “asymmetrical tactics” to attempt to end the war between Landfall and Wreath.
They are Lexis (with the pink superhero eye mask), Sirge (the big brown guy with the red flames (?) coming out of his head), Quain (a snake guy from Mawker and the Captain of the Fourth Cell), Zizz (the guy at the back. He’s from Cleave. Remember we were there in Volume 1?), and Julep (the aqua lady in the lingerie).
There’s plenty of action in this Volume and because we’re in a war here, not all of our friends or foes are going to make it to the end of the story, or this Volume if we’re being honest.
Even though Hazel told us herself in the last Volume that she’s not always this adorable, she certainly is in this flashback. Aww!
While we’re talking cutie pies, check out how sweet Lying Cat looks when they’re sleeping. For a series with a brutal war at its core I find my heart melts much more frequently than I expected it to.
Then there’s Ghüs, who is potentially the sweetest of them all. Maybe.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Multiple storylines collide in this cosmos-spanning new volume. While Gwendolyn and Lying Cat risk everything to find a cure for The Will, Marko makes an uneasy alliance with Prince Robot IV to find their missing children, who are trapped on a strange world with terrifying new enemies.
So, there I was, happily binge reading my way through Saga and I suddenly remembered that the first Volume of Paper Girls needs to be returned to the library urgently. I had planned on reading both series anyway for my barely started (😱) 2019 Hugo Awards readathon and while the two series have different illustrators they share an author. Since I am now obsessed with Saga I assumed I’d be gaining a new obsession tonight. After all, when I originally looked at the blurbs for both series, it was Paper Girls that I was more excited about.
Long story only slightly shorter (sorry!), it turns out that I was wrong. Yes, I enjoyed this first Volume but I’m almost certain that I wouldn’t be picking up Volume 2 if not for the Hugos. I’m not emotionally attached to any of the characters I’ve met so far (unlike the immediate connections I’ve felt with practically every Saga character I’ve encountered). I know hardly anything about any of the four Paper Girls and while I’m generally okay with multiple unanswered questions this early in a story I’m not that curious about the answers at this point.
Because Volume 4 has been nominated for a Hugo Award this year I’m convinced there’s awesomeness to come if I give it a chance. There’s a lot of potential here – countless people have vanished, the sky’s now very pretty but definitely not typical, pterodactyls, people speaking unknown languages, time travel, and a group of 12 year olds who are left to figure out what the hell is going on.
It may be a week or two before I begin Volume 2 so the rest of my review will consist of notes I’ve made to remind myself of what I think I already know. Beware: spoilers ahead.
It all begins on All Saint’s, Tuesday, 1 November 1988 in Stony Stream, Ohio. Our four Paper Girls are (from left to right):
MacKenzie (Mac) – smokes, is a Girl Scout, and has a teenage brother. The local police are well acquainted with her family. Her father and stepmother, Alice, met at an A.A. meeting. She doesn’t attend private school.
KJ – carries a hockey stick, goes to Buttonwood Academy and is Jewish.
Erin – the new kid. Her younger sister Missy is her only friend and she attends St. Nicks.
Tiffany – saved up to buy the group’s walkie-talkies. Her mother is a doctor, she was adopted and she attends St. Pete’s.
They don’t know what’s happening and they don’t know who to trust, the teenagers,
the old-timers,
or neither. However they have figured out that they don’t want to be near an Editrix. This is an Editrix.
Teenagers, Heck and Naldo, are from Thirteen. “Oh, right, we kinda rolled back the odometer after Calamity ended all the – -”
The most sense I managed to get from someone I think was an old-timer was, “Children, your questions will be answered, but it’s very dangerous for you to be out during Ablution.”
I hope an eventual reread (after I figure out all of the pieces of the puzzle I’m currently missing) will result in both a higher rating and an updated review rambling about the brilliance that I missed during my first read.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Saga writer Brian K. Vaughan launches a brand new ongoing series with superstar Wonder Woman artist Cliff Chiang! In the early hours after Halloween of 1988, four 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time.
I’ve become emotionally entangled with so many of the characters in this series in such a short period of time, so much so that I’m genuinely proud of Alana and Marko for managing to keep themselves and their daughter alive for so long, despite incredibly treacherous circumstances.
By the way, Hazel is a toddler now!
Isn’t toddler Hazel adorable?!
Oh. So, isn’t Hazel adorable right this second?
After having heard of the ongoing war between Landfall and its moon, Wreath, narrowly escaped Cleave, rescued Sophie from Sextillion and visited Alana’s all time favourite author in Quietus, we now get to enjoy watching Hazel spend some time on a bouncy castle in Gardenia. But Gardenia is not the only place we visit in this Volume.
That dwarf planet in the distance there? That’s Robot Kingdom. We get to go to Robot Kingdom!!! And it’s good timing too, because Prince Robot IV is currently missing, but we can’t assume he’s dead, no matter what the tabloids report.
I know we’ve visited before when we’ve been following Prince Robot IV’s story but I can’t get enough of it. They’re robots with TV heads! I love seeing how the image they’re showing on their screen lines up with the situation they’re facing. My favourite in this Volume was a baby being born with the standby signal projected across their screen. That’s priceless!
We meet King Robot, whose design is simply perfect! I laughed as soon as I saw him. His head is a widescreen TV and his sceptre is a remote control. Let that sink in for a moment. That’s definitely worth a chuckle.
A lot of people who came into my family’s life looking like heroes ended up acting more like villains.
I’m not telling you who this refers to in this Volume but what I will say is that I’m not trusting anyone nice in this series ever again! Except Izabel. Please don’t prove me wrong, Izabel!
Thank goodness for that!
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Saga is the sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the universe. As they visit a strange new world and encounter even more adversaries, baby Hazel finally becomes a toddler, while her star-crossed parents Marko and Alana struggle to stay on their feet.
So, Hazel and her parents, Alana and Marko, along with her babysitter, Izabel, and Klara, Marko’s mother, have arrived at Quietus. They’ve travelled across the galaxy to see the author of Alana’s favourite book, D. Oswald Heist, despite Klara’s eloquently voiced objections. I’m with Alana! If you have the opportunity to have a conversation with your favourite author, do whatever it takes to get there! Move mountains! Sell a kidney! Travel across the galaxy!
They’re grieving the loss of Marko’s father, who died in Volume 2.
The Will, who endeared himself to me when he saved Slave Girl from being a slave girl, finally gives her a name, Sophie. I practically melted when I found out why he chose that name.
We’re introduced to Even, Alana’s stepmother, who she’s obviously very fond of
and, in case you were wondering, it appears tabloid reporters exist in every galaxy. There’s no escaping them!
Lying Cat stole my heart in this Volume for doing what a feline lie detector does, only this time their response made a huge dent in the shame that Sophie was carrying.
Alana, in perfect book nerd form, responded to seeing a library in a lighthouse
and hearing her favourite author talking about their next book. I also loved this author.
Gwendolyn finally winds up having a conversation with her ex and we spend most of our time in a lighthouse that includes said library. Favourite author consistently spoke my favourite lines in this Volume, the standout for me being
Oh, and look! Our little girl is starting to grow up! Aww! 🥰
I have no idea how I remained unaware of the existence of this series until a couple of months ago but it’s brilliant! I can’t wait to binge read the rest of it!
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
From the Hugo Award-winning duo of Brian K. Vaughan (The Private Eye, Y: The Last Man) and Fiona Staples (North 40, Red Sonja), Saga is the sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the universe.
Searching for their literary hero, new parents Marko and Alana travel to a cosmic lighthouse on the planet Quietus, while the couple’s multiple pursuers finally close in on their targets.
If I could run all the time, life would be fine. As long as I keep moving, I’m in control.
Kate Malone runs at night. She does the housework and makes sure her younger brother and Reverend father are looked after. She is on the honour roll and can’t wait to attend her dream school, MIT. She barely sleeps. Her life is perfectly planned. Until it isn’t.
Teri Litch is an outcast. She wears her attitude like armour. She and her brother stay with their neighbours, the Malone’s, after a fire damages their home.
Family secrets are revealed and carefully constructed masks the characters wear for the world disintegrate as their lives collide.
I loved that Catalyst takes place in the same town as Speak and that Melinda has a short scene in this book. It’s the year after Melinda’s story so I gained some insight into what’s happened in her life since I saw her last. I specifically chose this as my next Laurie Halse Anderson read because I knew I’d get to see Melinda again.
Much like Melinda’s story in Speak, Kate and Teri’s stories are not complete at the end of this book. There is no happily ever after nor is there an epilogue filling the reader in on what happened in these girls’ lives after their final conversation. Sometimes a lack of resolution can annoy me but it didn’t here; life keeps going and what we have here are a few chapters in these characters’ lives. Life is messy and we don’t get to have everything neatly packaged up and prettified with a ribbon just because we want it to.
Okay, I know this contradicts what I just said but I would love to read a book written from Teri’s perspective! I’d like to find out what happens in her next chapter (hopefully something overwhelmingly positive) and, scary as it may be, I want to spend some time in her head. I didn’t feel much of a connection with Kate but Teri intrigued me as soon as I met her.
I liked the idea of using scientific terms as the chapter headings but, because my scientific nerd status is currently ‘wannabe’, their relevance to the content of each chapter went over my head. I didn’t want to get bogged down researching each term to figure out the connections but I imagine I’ll do this during a reread.
I read a review prior to starting this book that absolutely ruined the main reveals for me. Thanks, reviewer that shall not be named who didn’t hide their spoilers! Because I knew these going in, I was easily able to pick up on clues of what was to come and the reveals lost some of their emotional impact. I would have loved to have had the chance to figure these out for myself so will be more selective with the reviews I read before I’ve finished a book in the future.
Bonus Points for the Author: Anyone who includes Tori Amos in their book’s acknowledgement section gets a lifetime Kindred Spirit award from me. 🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Meet Kate Malone – straight-A science and math geek, minister’s daughter, ace long-distance runner, new girlfriend (to Mitchell “Early Decision Harvard” Pangborn III), unwilling family caretaker, and emotional avoidance champion. Kate manages her life by organising it as logically as the periodic table. She can handle it all – or so she thinks.
Then, things change as suddenly as a string of chemical reactions; first, the Malones’ neighbours get burned out of their own home and move in. Kate has to share her room with her nemesis, Teri Litch, and Teri’s little brother.
The days are ticking down and she’s still waiting to hear from the only college she applied to: MIT. Kate feels that her life is spinning out of her control – and then, something happens that truly blows it all apart. Set in the same community as the remarkable Speak, Catalyst is a novel that will change the way you look at the world.
Seventeen year old Chessie dreams about the old farmhouse every night. She learned to keep her mouth shut about her dream house when she was young; it turns out that telling people you have a recurring dream about a house where eight people were murdered can land you in a psychiatrist’s office.
Chessie is spending the summer with her grandparents in Villisca, Iowa. They live directly across from the Axe Murder House, the farmhouse in Chessie’s dreams.
Villisca is known for murder. But other than that, it’s a cute town.
The 1912 murders remain unsolved and haunt this small community. The townspeople are also on edge because some young girls have recently been reported missing. Soon after Chessie arrives in town she hears someone calling her name and asking for help, which wouldn’t be as scary if she wasn’t alone in her bedroom at the time.
During the summer Chessie gets to know David, who’s cute but has a secret, and Mateo, a wannabe Ghostbuster. Chessie hopes they will be able to help her discover out what her connection is to the farmhouse and whether there’s any connection between the 1912 murders and the girls that are currently missing.
“People are afraid of the devil when they really should be afraid of each other.”
I got into this book straight away and enjoyed trying to figure out what Chessie’s connection to the Axe Murder House was and the secret David was hiding. If I were Chessie I would have gone straight to the library to check out what the historical records could tell me about the 1912 murders but that could have taken some of the fun out of this read.
After the first round of reveals I was able to figure out where the book was heading, so wasn’t surprised by any of the subsequent reveals. While I can find predictable elements annoying in some books I didn’t have a problem with them here as it meant what I’d hoped would happen did.
I would have liked to have gotten to know Chessie’s grandparents more but was satisfied with learning the backstories of other characters. There wasn’t as much banter as I’m used to in books that have a romantic component but, given the characters are dealing with unsolved murders from the past and missing children, it wouldn’t have been overly appropriate.
Since it happens so infrequently in books, I’m always thrilled when book characters actually use the bathroom, so this book won realism points from me each time Chessie took a bathroom break.
I wasn’t that keen on how the final showdown was set up. Surely if there’s a guy standing in the middle of the road and their car is parked on the shoulder, you could drive around them or through them. They had a gun so to make the characters stop the car so the subsequent confrontation could happen didn’t work for me. How was David able to drive anyway since he’d just woken up from being drugged?
Thank you to NetGalley and Entangled Teen, an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC, for the opportunity to read this book. I’m interested in reading more books by this author.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
All her life, seventeen-year-old Chessie has had recurring dreams about a little white farmhouse. Quaint? Not quite. The house is the site of the unsolved murders of Villisca, Iowa, where eight people were slaughtered in 1912. With her parents on the verge of divorce, Chessie is stuck spending the summer with her grandparents in Villisca – right across the street from the axe murder house.
She’s soon hearing voices calling out for help and begins unraveling a link between herself and the town’s bloody history. And when she falls for a cute boy harboring a big secret, the pieces fall into place as she at last discovers the truth of Villisca’s gruesome past …
Voltina is back!!! I adored her when she was introduced in Phoebe and Her Unicorn in the Magic Storm because she’s a dragon and even more importantly, my favourite nerd, Max, finally had his very own friend/magical creature.
This is Phoebe and Marigold’s second graphic novel and this time they’re going to summer camp. I was glad they didn’t wind up at music camp again because that’s where they’ve always gone. This time they’re going to drama camp and Marigold’s sister, Florence Unfortunate Nostrils, is coming too. Interestingly, Florence’s nostrils aren’t as unfortunate as they have been previously.
Phoebe is initially jealous of the time the two unicorn sisters are spending together. Thankfully Sue and Max are also there, along with Ringo the lake monster and Voltina! Max is so adorably awkward and nerdy
and each time Sue says something weird I remember why I want her to star in her own graphic novel.
Unicorn transport is just as wonderful as I hoped it would be. With drama on and off the stage and some commentary about friendships and sisters, this is a lot of fun and a nice return to the graphic novel format. I’m crossing my fingers that Voltina makes her way into the collections as well as the graphic novels.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Summer is here, and Phoebe and Marigold are headed to drama camp. At Camp Thespis, Phoebe and her friends have their work cut out for them: writing, producing, and acting in an entirely original play! Phoebe’s expecting some quality time with her best friend, but in a surprise twist, Marigold has invited her sister, Florence Unfortunate Nostrils! The newest Phoebe and Her Unicorn graphic novel is a sparkling tale of sisterhood and summer fun, as well as a reminder that sometimes it takes a bit of drama to rediscover true friendship.
Mia Macarooney is having a super day. She’s just found out she has superpowers and comes from a family of superheroes; her mother can fly and her father can talk to animals and repair objects by shooting lasers out of his hands. Now Mia’s going to the PITS – the Program for In Training Superheroes.
This is a fun chapter book with illustrations on most pages. In this book you meet Mia’s parents, Chaos (her cat) and her best friend Eddie. I loved the imaginative names of the people Mia meets at the PITS, including Dr Sue Perb, Professor Stu Pendus and Professor Dina Myte.
I found a couple of plot points a bit questionable but I doubt I would have noticed these as a kid. Wherever this family live their postal service must be terrible because Mia’s letter from the PITS arrived three years late even though the PITS Academy is located in the seemingly abandoned warehouse right next to her school. Also Mia and the other superheroes arrive to the PITS building in their superhero costumes which I imagine would be very obvious to the rest of the community considering its location.
I would have adored this book as a kid and I’m plan on reading more of this series to see Mia learning to use her powers.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Meet Mia Macarooney, an ordinary eight-year-old who finds out she has an extraordinary super-secret in this first chapter book in the brand-new Mia Mayhem series!
Mia Macarooney is a regular eight-year-old girl who finds out that she’s A SUPERHERO! Her life literally goes from totally ordinary to totally super when she’s invited to attend the afterschool Program for In-Training Superheroes, a.k.a., THE PITS! And the crazy thing is, in a weird meant-to-be sort of way, all of this news somehow feels super right. Because all her life, Mia thought she was just super klutz … but it turns out, she’s just SUPER! So now, it’s up to Mia to balance her regular everyday life and maintain her secret identity as she learns how to be the world’s newest superhero!
With easy-to-read language and illustrations on almost every page, the Mia Mayhem chapter books are perfect for emerging readers.
‘Maybe it would be best,’ she said at last, ‘if you left the Devil alone in his hiding place.’
This book had so much to love – a serial killer on the loose, a medieval castle with a dark history that’s now an asylum and a psychiatrist delving into the minds of the most notorious murderers in Europe, all steeped in folklore and mythology and set in the lead up to WWII.
I adored the settings, from the creepy castle to the shadowy forests and the bone church. The writing flowed well and it felt like the author had done a lot of research, particularly around Central European myths and legends, which I need to learn more about now that I’ve had a taste. I really enjoyed the blend of psychology and mythology.
Here am I and I here stay, for this is where Evil resides. Here am I and I here stay, for this is where the Devil hides.
The idea of having a front row seat (nestled behind the safety of the pages) when infamous criminally insane people told their stories was a big draw card for me. While I was interested in the backgrounds of each of the Devil’s Six, none of them gave me the chills I experienced when I first met Hannibal Lector so many years ago.
I found myself just getting into one of the Six’s stories and then it would be over; I’d want more but the story moved on. Each of the six could have had an entire book devoted to their story so sitting in on one session with their psychiatrist was never going to be enough for me. I was disappointed when I found some of their stories fairly predictable, especially the Vegetarian’s.
Has obsessing over more than 300 episodes of Criminal Minds finally ruined me? I am notoriously terrible at figuring out who did it and why, yet there’s been a disturbing recent development; I’ve been working out who did it early on and then spending the rest of the book hoping for a blindside that never arrives. It happened again here and I don’t know if it’s because I’ve magically levelled up in my ability to sniff out the clues from the red herrings or if it really was that obvious.
Thank you to NetGalley and Constable, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group UK, for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
In 1935, Viktor Kosárek, a psychiatrist newly trained by Carl Jung, arrives at the infamous Hrad Orlu Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The state-of-the-art facility is located in a medieval mountaintop castle outside of Prague, though the site is infamous for concealing dark secrets going back many generations. The asylum houses the country’s six most treacherous killers – known to the staff as The Woodcutter, The Clown, The Glass Collector, The Vegetarian, The Sciomancer, and The Demon – and Viktor hopes to use a new medical technique to prove that these patients share a common archetype of evil, a phenomenon known as The Devil Aspect. As he begins to learn the stunning secrets of these patients, five men and one woman, Viktor must face the disturbing possibility that these six may share another dark truth.
Meanwhile, in Prague, fear grips the city as a phantom serial killer emerges in the dark alleys. Police investigator Lukas Smolak, desperate to locate the culprit (dubbed Leather Apron in the newspapers), realizes that the killer is imitating the most notorious serial killer from a century earlier – London’s Jack the Ripper. Smolak turns to the doctors at Hrad Orlu for their expertise with the psychotic criminal mind, though he worries that Leather Apron might have some connection to the six inmates in the asylum.
Steeped in the folklore of Eastern Europe, and set in the shadow of Nazi darkness erupting just beyond the Czech border, this stylishly written, tightly coiled, richly imagined novel is propulsively entertaining, and impossible to put down.
This book took me back to the Point Horror books of my childhood (if their characters swore). Addison is a 17 year old who is obsessed with a series of books and writes fan fiction on her popular blog. Reader dream #264 comes true for her when the mysterious author of the Gap Lake books contacts her and asks for her help in generating buzz for the upcoming series finale.
Addison and her best friend Maya stumble upon the body of the most popular girl in school, the details of which eerily mimic those of the snippets of the new book the author has asked Addie to post on her blog. Addie begins to wonder whether the person contacting her really is the author or if she’s talking to the killer.
While there was nothing specifically wrong with Addie’s character it was Maya that made the book for me. I loved her snarky quips and the banter between her and Addie. Spencer, ex boyfriend of the dead girl and Addie’s crush, and Colton, who is not so secretly in love with Maya, both felt mostly two dimensional. I wasn’t a fan of Addie’s dad or Maya’s parents, although I’m fairly sure Mr Garcia could twist my arm and force me to eat some of his cooking.
I loved the snippets of the Gap Lake book that the author sends Addie as they had a creepy teenage horror vibe. I’ve read so many books like this and am a lot older than the target audience so I found the plot really predictable and I knew who was responsible for the murder early on. Had I read this as a kid I expect the whodunnit aspect probably would have floored me. The explanations espoused during the baddie monologue are quite groan worthy.
I was fortunate enough to have an ARC but life happened so I read it after its release. This became a fun game for me once I realised that the library book in one hand and the Kindle in the other didn’t always match. I preferred the ARC, mostly because there are two missing chapters in the final version. Not a lot happened in the first one but without it the continuity was off and I did flip back through the pages of the book to try to work out what I’d missed before I realised the ARC version made the story flow more smoothly.
My favourite difference between the ARC and the final version is totally irrelevant to the story itself but talked about food which always holds my attention. In the ARC Mr Garcia gives Addie “lessons on making something like gumbo or étouffée”. In the final version it’s his “signature enchiladas”.
I had a few irks and question marks while reading and think I may have tripped over some plot holes but there was nothing that made me want to stop reading.
Early on we’re told multiple times that Maya’s mother is the chief of police and her father is a homicide detective. I got it the first time. The descriptions of Addison’s saliva were also repetitive and included “Addison’s saliva tasted sour”, “Her saliva soured”, “her saliva going sour”, “saliva that tasted like hot metal”, and “her saliva tasting bitter”.
Addison’s phone pinged twice and another character mentions how insistent the person sending the message is. When Addison checks her phone there’s one message, not two.
When her blog was hijacked I screamed at Addie to take some screen shots so she had some evidence but alas, she didn’t hear me.
Maya is hit by a car and taken to hospital by ambulance. Addie is driven home at the same time. Addie walks in the door, slumps to the floor and calls Maya. Maya’s mother tells Addie that she’s taking her daughter home now. She was hit by a car! Either Barry Allen works at the hospital or she’s a meta so heals rapidly (yes, I’m currently bingeing The Flash! Why do you ask?!) or something is wrong with this picture. After knowing that Maya has been taken home Addie has a thought bubble: “You’re the reason Maya is lying in a hospital bed somewhere.” Then Maya’s parents are at work together maybe an hour later while their daughter who’s been hit by a car is either home alone or in the hospital. Perhaps this is a job for Schrödinger?
There were a few others but you get the point. It’s the sort of thing you expect to be picked up during the editing process and because I wandered through several ‘huh?’ moments I started questioning whether I was stupid, having missed a whole pile of information, or whether I was super smart for finding them when those before me didn’t. I’m still unsure.
Overall this was a fun, easy read and I’ll be checking to see if my library has any more books by this author. Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Everyone is dying to read the latest book in the popular Gap Lake mystery series, and Addison is no exception. As the novels biggest fan, Addison is flattered when the infamously reclusive author, R.J. Rosen, contacts her, granting her inside information others would kill for.
But when the most popular girl in Addison’s high school is murdered, Addison can’t help but think that life may be imitating fiction. And as other terrifying events from the book start happening around her, Addison has to figure out how to write her own ending – and survive the story.
Schizanthus Nerd 