Book Reviews

Isabel Cañas's THE HOUSE OF GARDENIAS

9/30/2026

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Penguin Teen for the digital ARC of Isabel Cañas's The House of Gardenias. The book is now available!

Isabel Cañas’s reliably captivating historical novels, each of which blends deep research with a fabulous, fantastical element, set my expectations high for her YA debut, The House of Gardenias, and I’m thrilled to share that I absolutely loved it.

The novel centers on Minerva Treviño, a teenager whose home life is one of poverty and abuse. Her older brothers offered some comfort, but when they leave her home and she’s left with her parents and younger siblings, she knows that she needs to find a different path for herself.

Minerva runs away, seeking a job with Encarnación del Valle, a wealthy woman whose kinship with the deposed viceroy puts her under suspicion for some but also offers her a life of privilege. As Minerva learns under her mentorship, she begins to feel hopeful that she can maintain a life of security and contentment.

Then, during an uprising to bring the viceroy back to power, Encarnación decides to move back to her homeplace, Casa de las Gardenias, taking Minerva with her. Quickly, Minerva realizes that everything is going to change—she faces dangers both from Encarnación’s petty, cruel family members and from a paranormal threat that she doesn’t yet understand.

Cañas’s ability to build an amazing Gothic world atop the unrest of an unnamed South American society plagued by class warfare is astonishing. Minerva is an incredible, complex character whose motivation to look out first for herself is understandable, even while I hoped that she might make a more noble choice. Rich with vivid settings, compelling characters, and a shocking plot, The House of Gardenias would be a perfect fall read for teenagers and adults alike.

Lynn Painter's TRUST FALL

9/12/2026

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing for the digital ARC of Lynn Painter's Trust Fall. The book will be published on Tuesday, September 29.

Lynn Painter’s new YA book Trust Fall has a fairly complex plot resting on top of a fairly complex premise. At its heart, though, the novel is about two teenagers from very different worlds who—despite appearances—have a great deal in common.

The story begins with an inheritance. Julia and her family (Mom, Dad, and twin brother Liam) live in small-town Nebraska. They have a store, a nice house, a simple life. The main hiccup thus far has been Julia’s difficult breakup with her former best friend/boyfriend and his near-immediate attachment to a new girl. Otherwise, life is good.

And then Julia and her family learn that their dear friend Lou, an older man who moved to their small town and then adopted them as his own, has left them both a fortune they didn’t know he had and a wondrous house. In New York. And to keep the inheritance, they have to live there for six months, and Julia and Liam have to attend a particular, exclusive school.

Despite some misgivings, they move—temporarily—to NYC, the twins enroll in school, and they begin to adjust to a new life that somehow doesn’t seem quite real.

Sadly, the complications set in quickly. In order to earn her place at school, Julia has to bring around her unsatisfactory math grade. Her tutor? It is, of course, an unutterably rude boy with whom she had an unfortunate run-in shortly after moving. Damion is rich and mysterious and a complete jerk. But Julia has little choice other than to accept his help, or she’ll lose her place at the school . . . and, by extension, her family’s inheritance.

Damion, however, has some secrets. Lou is actually his great-uncle, the only person who really understood him, and Damion had always assumed that he would be the one to inherit the house. He and his lawyer father are convinced that Julia’s family perpetrated a scheme upon the unsuspecting Lou, and they’re determined to gather proof.

Painter always has a deft touch with characters, and I enjoyed the evolution of Julia and Damion, both separately and together. I don’t really love plots that require characters to lie to each other for large portions of the story, so that wasn’t my favorite facet of the book. I did, however, love Julia’s character and the way she navigated the array of challenges she faced after moving. It took me longer to warm up to Damion—while Painter effectively built up the reasons for his suspicion of Julia and her family, he is often just unkind, particularly at the beginning of the novel, and I thought that Julia’s attraction to him developed a bit quickly given the way he acted. Once they started getting to know each other, though, I appreciated the way they navigated each other’s vulnerabilities. And I loved Julia’s brother Liam.

Overall, Trust Fall is a compelling romance with a strong sense of place, engaging characters, and a fun, twisty plot that I’m happy to add to the list of Painter’s books I’ve enjoyed.

Noelle Michel's THE SHADOWS TOMORROW

8/3/2026

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the digital ARC of Noelle Michel's The Shadows Tomorrow, translated by Frank Wynne.

Noelle Michel’s The Shadows Tomorrow offers an interesting premise: scientists have recreated the Neanderthal race and set up a microcosmic society for them. Secluded by a series of barriers, the clan is—unbeknownst to them—the subject of a documentary reality series.

The novel shifts between the early days, when scientists are raising the newly-created babies, and generations later, when their descendants have a well-established society that comes into contact with odd-looking strangers from another clan. There are a cluster of both human and Neanderthal characters who play out the plot, and the narrative shifts between both time periods and points of view with each chapter. The novel taps into some eternal questions of sci fi: whether being able to do something is reason enough to do it and what it means to be human among them.

I did appreciate Michel’s portrayal of a potential future in which science is twisted by those who wield it for selfish reasons, and, ultimately, The Shadows Tomorrow was an interesting read. I had, however, hoped for its central questions to be explored more thoroughly, for its characters to feel more developed.

Valeria Luiselli's BEGINNING MIDDLE END

7/22/2026

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Knopf for the digital ARC of Valeria Luiselli's Beginning Middle End. The book will be published on Tuesday.

Valeria Luiselli’s Beginning Middle End is, at its heart, about story—about the stories we tell ourselves; about the stories we use to understand our lives; about the stories others have written that help us to move through the world more thoughtfully.

I didn’t realize it when I picked up the egalley, but this novel is a sequel to Lost Children Archive, one of my absolute favorite books of 2019. (One note: you don’t have to have read Lost Children Archive to understand Beginning Middle End: the books stand alone.) Here, the narrative follows the mother and daughter of the earlier book; the mother and father have divorced—his son has stayed with him—and this pair is trying to figure out the new shape of their family.

The mother is a novelist who is struggling to write her newest book; she takes her daughter out of school for a trip to Sicily, where she hopes both to forge a rich relationship with her daughter and to make some progress with her work.

Several threads weave through the novel. The mother’s mother is beginning to lose her memory, highlighting the potential loss of stories that help her to define herself. One important part of their heritage is the mother’s grandmother’s work on an archaeological dig, where she took an artifact featuring Proteus, a mythological shapeshifter—that metaphor of transformation becomes important.

The mother and daughter are staying at the home of a friend and sometimes lover who owns a collection of classics whose wisdom begins to inform the pair’s choices and their understanding of their circumstances.

The shifting winds of Sicily provide a sort of structure for the book and for the family’s travels, highlighting the transformations that characterize the story’s progression.

And, always, there’s the notion of storytelling, of truth, of where our stories begin. Now that they are part of a twosome rather than a foursome, they are beginning again, testing their identities against each other and against their understanding of themselves.

I loved the way the book peels back the layers on these relationships, showing the mother’s deep concern in caring for her daughter but also highlighting the way the daughter steps in as a caretaker when her mother needs her support. Their shifting roles echo the mother’s feelings toward her own mother and to her grandmother, the ways that it is her responsibility to preserve and continue their stories and, ultimately, to pass on those responsibilities to her daughter.

Of Lost Children Archive, I wrote, “the more I think about that book and everything that Luiselli is doing throughout the novel, the way she balances experimentation with pure readability, the way she takes on family and larger society, the more I admire the novel (and want to add it to my list of books to re-read!).” I’ll echo those earlier comments. What a wonder of a book. I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

Shea Ernshaw's HABITS OF THE SEA

6/29/2026

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Atria Books for the digital ARC of Shea Ernshaw’s Habits of the Sea. The book will be published on July 7!

As a reader, I know that I can always count on Shea Ernshaw’s novels to offer rich, evocative, and atmospheric narratives. Some are spookier than others, but all of them have a sense of stories unearthed.

Ernshaw’s newest book, Habits of the Sea, is her second written for adults, and it is gorgeous and completely immersive.

The novel begins with a horrible loss: the death of Clay Lockhart’s wife and unborn twins. His grief is such that it causes their land to break away from Scotland, becoming an island that drifts on the whims of the ocean, meeting up occasionally with a coastline here or there, and then drifting away again.

Ellie Mills first encounters the island when she’s twelve. She’s awakened by a strange light, goes out to the island to see if she can help, and meets Clay briefly before returning to shore.

When she arrives home, her grandmother tells her that a week has passed.

Though Ellie shares her strange story, no one believes her. Called a liar for her entire childhood, she has spent her life denying the existence of the island and of Clay, seeking counseling to help her accept her own denials. In her thirties, Ellie is now a counselor herself and is desperate to capture the stability that has escaped her for most of her life.

And then the island reappears.

Unable to resist, Ellie travels to its fleeting location, swims out to the island, and finds that Clay and the island DO exist . . . and that Clay hasn’t aged since she last saw him, decades before. Now, she’s trapped, separated from her family and fiance, uncertain of how much time is passing as she and Clay reach a type of truce.

Oh, this is such a fabulous story, one fueled by dueling forces of grief and hope, betrayal and loyalty, denial and belief. It once again confirms Ernshaw as an auto-read author, able to spin out captivating stories that I can’t stop reading.

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé's THE HEIRS

5/31/2026

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for the digital ARC of Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé’s The Heirs. The book will be released on Tuesday!

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímíd’s new book The Heirs struck me differently from her previous novels (Ace of Spades and Where Sleeping Girls Lie), offering fewer of the surreal, disorienting moments that both disorient and challenge the reader. The Heirs reminded me of nothing so much as The Umbrella Academy . . . with the speculative elements removed.

The novel alternates between one, current storyline that predominantly takes place over just a few days and flashbacks. The chapters also shift between the characters’ perspectives, with five siblings—Octavius the Maestro, Fola the Brain, Bilal the Olympian, Perdita the Artist, and Romeo the Failure—as the primary focus and occasional chapters dipping into other, secondary characters’ points of view.

These genius siblings were adopted by their father, Leontes Button, as part of an experiment to prove that nurture outweighs nature. Each of their areas of genius was chosen when they were toddlers who gravitated towards a symbol—a violin bow, for example, for Octavius. Then, Button poured his generous resources into relentless training and support that has resulted in their status as prodigies but also in some serious mental health issues.

Every year, Button holds an exclusive Prodigy Ball both to publicize his Button Method and to honor other prodigies. This year, during the tenth ball, which is held on a yacht, Leontes is murdered. His children—along with everyone else who attended—are the suspects.

The book rolled along quickly for me, and I was compelled to discover both the secrets that inhabited their pasts and, of course, the solution to the mystery of Leontes’s murderer. I did, however, yearn for a deeper consideration of the characters’ psychology, though the plot-centered nature of the book certainly kept my attention. I did feel that the conclusion of the book was a bit rushed, with several important developments occurring through exposition dumps rather than evolving naturally.

Overall, The Heirs was a solid read that will, I think, satisfy lovers of YA mystery.

Dahlia Adler's SOON BY YOU

5/21/2026

Thanks to partners NetGalley and St. Martin's Press Judah, meanwhile, both marvels at her inappropriateness and fights the way he can’t get her out of his head. As they meet up at wedding after wedding—Judah as wedding singer and Arielle as the always-bridesmaid—they begin to give into their attraction.
I loved watching the way Ari and Judah navigate their very different romantic histories and their seemingly opposite visions for their romantic futures. Seeing each grow and compromise, wrestling with the perceptions of their families and Judah’s fans, was so, so compelling. Soon by You is a great, satisfying read.for the digital ARC of Dahlia Adler’s Soon by You.

I have been such a fan of Dahlia Adler’s YA romance books that I jumped on the chance to read her first adult, open-door romance, Soon by You. I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, which delves into the intricacies of the Orthodox faith that serve both to unite and to complicate the burgeoning, enemies-to-lovers relationship between Arielle Becker and Judah Klein. After Arielle has a few bridesmaid-related mishaps in one of the many weddings of which she is a part, she revels in raging at Judah for his judginess of her.

Lynn Painter's FIRST AND FOREVER

4/6/2026

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for the digital ARC of Lynn Painter's First and Forever. The book will be published on May 12!

While I haven’t read all of Lynn Painter’s books, her work has been reliably excellent for me. I primarily think of her as a YA romance author, but First and Forever is the second of her adult romances that I’ve read and enjoyed.

The characters here are the novel’s biggest strength: they’re quirky and sweet, and I love the way Painter weaves in some fabulous secondary characters. In First and Forever, Duffy Distefano begins the book as a target because of a very public, very negative interaction with the mascot of the Minneapolis Coyote football team. In a desperate attempt to quell the trolling, Duffy’s dad Tony sets up an interview for Duffy on the local tv station; unbeknownst to her, Connor Cunningham, the Coyotes’ tight end, joins her for the segment.

Their hilarious banter and obvious chemistry is a hit, which helps both Duffy and the Coyotes, and the PR team asks Connor to go out with Duffy again. He reluctantly agrees, and finds that their chemistry is even better than he’d thought. For Duffy, the prospect of dating someone famous isn’t appealing at all . . . but the joy this relationship brings her dad, who is in poor health and also grieving Duffy’s mom, inspires her own, more transparent fake dating proposition to Connor.

The prospect of just when and how Connor’s deception will arise hovers in the background throughout the book, and that relationship-built-on-a-lie is almost always a negative for me. Fortunately, Painter’s writing—the cleverness of the banter, the quirkiness of the characters—helped me to (mostly) set aside my qualms. First and Forever isn’t quite as strong as Painter’s other books for me, but I still recommend it.

Adib Khorram's ONE WORD, SIX LETTERS

3/1/2026

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing for the digital ARC of Adib Khorram's One Word, Six Letters.

Adib Khorram’s One Word, Six Letters is inspired, he explains in his Author’s Note, by an actual event when—during an author talk at his school—someone yelled a homosexual slur, presumably aimed at Khorram, in the middle of the assembly.

In Khorram’s fictionalized version of events, the boy who yells the slur is Dayton. He shouted the word on a bet from a friend. He realized that it wasn’t a word he should say, but he also didn’t realize it was all that big a deal. So, Dayton is somewhat shocked that, in the aftermath, he loses the respect of his brother and his two best friends and becomes the target of whispers and stares at school.

Farshid is Dayton’s classmate and has always liked him fine. But now? Farshid feels that Dayton’s shout has set off rumors and whispers in the hallways, considerations of who might be gay. And Farshid is worried that the speculation may fall on him. He undertakes a regimen of boxing and weightlifting and extreme diet restriction to ensure that he looks the part of “being straight.”

Khorram’s narrative, alternating between the two boys’ points of view, developing each perspective with nuance and empathy. He makes no excuses for Dayton’s decision but does allow him to grow and learn, to seek new friends, to consider the suspicion with which he is now viewed. Farshid—who I found to be the much more sympathetic character from the beginning—is similarly complex, wrestling with his sexual identity and imagining the reactions he could face from his family and friends if he faces the truth he suspects he knows.

As in his other books, Adib Khorram excels at crafting a story meant for young adults but rewarding for any reader. One Word, Six Letters is a worthy read delving into issues we should all be considering: of casual cruelty, of empathy, of friendship, and of the ways that we can grow.

Rebecca Serle's ONCE AND AGAIN

3/1/2026

Thanks to partners NetGalley and Atria Books for the digital ARC of Rebecca Serle's Once and Again.

Rebecca Serle’s novels are always so lovely, featuring a central instance of magic around which the reality of the characters’ lives revolves. In her newest novel, Once and Again, the magic is a ticket that allows each new woman in the Novak family the chance to turn back time, to change their fate, just once.

For Lauren Novak, the ticket has always seemed to be both gift and burden. The chance to reverse an irreversible occurrence—as when Lauren’s mother undid the death of Lauren’s father when Lauren was fifteen—is miraculous. But it’s also a choice and, once made, it’s not available again, so knowing the right time to use the ticket and that, once used, it won’t be available again, is always on Lauren’s mind.

Lauren is married happily, to Leo, and has a strong relationship with her parents; with her grandmother, Sylvia; and particularly with her father, her kindred spirit. Her mother’s caution after having used the ticket, of knowing that she must live with anything that happens, has caused her to tread through life so carefully that she hardly lives it. Lauren’s father, on the other hand, lives life with joy, immersing himself in each day with disregard for risk or fear.

While Lauren’s husband is away on an extended work trip, she goes to stay with her parents, and finds that her former best friend and boyfriend Stone, who she has not seen for years, is staying nearby with his parents. As she is drawn back into the rhythms of her life before Leo, Lauren begins to think about the choices she has made and what they have meant for her.

While Once and Again didn’t quite reach the magical heights of her other novels for me, I could stop reading, eager to know what choices Lauren would make. I appreciated Serle’s decision to weave reflections from her mother and grandmother through Lauren’s story, revealing the different ways that they have navigated the knowledge of and the choices involved in possessing the silver ticket. I look forward to Serle’s next foray into magic.