Roger Hyttinen

Review of Unfollow Me by Charlotte Duckworth

March 10, 2020 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Unfollow Me follows a hugely popular mommy YouTuber named Violet Young, who has over a million subscribers who faithfully watch her daily vlogs about her life and family. But one day, she completely disappears from the online world. Overnight, Violet has taken down her YouTube, Twitter, Instagram accounts — it’s as though she’s never existed.

What’s interesting about this story is that it’s told from the point of view of two of her most avid fans as they investigate Violet’s disappearance and try to figure out what happened to her. They are pretty much in a panicked frenzy as they scramble to determine why Violet shut down all her social media accounts.

First, there’s Lily, who is living alone with her three-year-old son Archie and Yvonne, a 40-year-old married woman who is desperately trying to get pregnant. The story is told from alternating timelines between Yvonne and Lily and later on in the story, from Violet’s husband, Henry.

What follows is quite a fast-paced narrative as Violet’s story begins to unfold from alternating perspectives with some surprising twists in the process. This is one of those stories where none of the characters are what they seem, which is one of my favorite types of tropes. Thus, it’s up to the reader to determine who is lying and what is real, which is no easy task. It’s also worth mentioning that most of the characters are mostly unlikeable, which added an extra exciting element to the story.

The book dealt with a variety of themes such as obsession, celebrity worship, lying, loss, jealousy, grief, Internet trolls, online stalkers, online influencers, privacy, and, of course, social media addiction. What especially intrigued me about this story, however, is that it’s not really so far-fetched as I see this type of thing all the time online.

This story about a mommy vlogger sucked me right in, and before I knew it, I was as obsessed as Violet’s fans about finding out what happened to her. I also enjoyed how the story illustrated how the lives that people portray online might not be actual fact, and in the case of this story, everyone involved seemed to have their share of dark secrets. It also makes you question the information we share about ourselves online and how the trolls we encounter on Social Media may not be as harmless as we think.

I’ve discovered that I really enjoy stories about the world of social media, and this one did not disappoint. Unfollow Me is a multi-layered creepy psychological thriller with dark undertones and a fun mystery to solve, which rendered it truly unputdownable for me. I love the types of stories where you can’t trust anyone, and that was definitely the case here, and the web that the author created was exceptionally intricate. I also thought that the ending was satisfying, as was the fun epilogue.

I thought Unfollow Me was brilliantly paced, well-constructed, emotionally intense, and flawlessly executed. All in all, this is a chilling and eye-opening book about the impact that Social Media influencers have on the lives of others, and I loved it.

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Review of Murder at Pirate’s Cove by Josh Lanyon

March 8, 2020 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Murder at Pirates Cove book Cover Murder at Pirate’s Cove is a cozy mystery that follows our main character Ellery Page who has inherited a failing bookstore and a somewhat crumbling mansion, both located in the seaside village of Pirate’s Cove. Ellery, who is determined to make a fresh start in his life after a particularly bad break-up in New York, takes on the challenge of turning the bookstore into a profitable venture.

One night on his way home from dinner, he notices a light on in his bookstore. When he stops to investigate, he discovers a dead body on the floor, and, as it so happens, the victim, Trevor Maples, is a man with whom Ellery had been arguing only hours earlier at his store as witnesses can attest.

The handsome yet gruff police chief Jack Carson investigates and doesn’t hesitate to let Ellery know that he is the prime suspect in the case. Even though Ellery isn’t a detective, he takes it upon himself to investigate Trevor’s murder in order to prove his innocence, much to the chagrin of Chief Carson. The task proves more difficult than first Ellery first imagined given that pretty much everyone in Pirate’s Cove disliked Trevor, and many of the residents have their own secrets, hidden motives, and reasons for wanting the man dead.

I typically don’t read Cozy Mysteries as they aren’t my favorite genre, but given that I tend to enjoy this author’s work, I wanted to check it out — and I’m so glad I did. This story was not only fun but also gripping and kept me turning the page until the big reveal at the end.

The story is populated with delightfully eccentric and zany characters/suspects that made reading this so much fun. I especially loved Ellery’s character and found him to be much more relaxed and less stuffy than some of the characters in the author’s other mysteries (Adrian English comes to mind). Though certainly impulsive and flawed, I found Ellery to be relatable and endearing as well, and going through the same struggles as many of us are. I found Ellery to be a breath of fresh air.

As this is a Cozy Mystery, there is no violence or sex on-page, so this is a perfect book for those who don’t like their mysteries too gory or too sexy. And though Lanyon typically writes M/M Romance, you won’t find much of that here. However, there is a heated energy between Ellery and Jack, hinting at the budding of a potential relationship in future books. But any attraction between the two characters takes a back seat to the main plotline of who murdered Trevor Maples.

All in all, I found Murder at Pirate’s Cove to be a delightful and well-crafted mystery that kept me guessing until the end. What an unexpected gem this turned out to be! It was so much fun solving this mystery along with Ellery and Jack, and the excellent writing makes for a seamless reading experience. There’s just enough tension and drama to bring the story home to a pretty compelling and satisfying conclusion, and I look forward to reading future books in this series.

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Review of Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales

March 3, 2020 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Only Mostly Devastated is a super-fun boy-meets-boy spin on Grease, which follows our two main characters, Ollie and Will. The story takes place in North Carolina, and the two boys have had an amazing perfect summer romance by the lake, which comes to an end when Ollie’s family is supposedly heading back to California. But Ollie is confused and a bit heartbroken when Will subsequently ghosts him, not returning any of his texts or emails.

Then Ollie’s family has a last-minute change of plans and ends up staying in North Carolina to help with his dying aunt, meaning he has to attend a new school. So imagine Ollie’s surprise when he discovers that Will goes to the exact same school as him. But their reunion is by no means sunshine and roses. Ollie is immediately heartbroken when he sees Will at a high school party, and Will snubs him, acting as if nothing has ever gone on between them.

As we learn, Will is a star basketball player at school and still deeply in the closet. He’s also quite freaked out by Ollie’s presence as his school, but yet, he can’t deny his feelings for Ollie. So now Will has to decide whether he should follow his heart and in the process risk his popularity and friendships with the other basketball players, or stay the course and stay in the closet.

Both boys attempt to move on from each other, but as they learn, moving on is a lot more complicated than they’d thought.

I thought this was an adorable young adult rom-com with a lot of heart. I appreciated that the author wrote sensitively about a person’s decision to stay in the closet and their right not to be outed by others. On the surface, this may seem like a fluffy romance, but actually, there’s real depth to this story, which delves into themes of death, grief, coming out, identity, sexuality, family, heartbreak, and first love. What I liked was how the author balanced the heavier themes with light, sweet humor resulting in an all-around balanced narrative.

I love Sophie Gonzales’s writing: clear and evocative, with just the right amount of description. I also felt that her characters were a joy to read, especially Ollie, who was super sweet, likable, caring, a bit bumbling, and perhaps a tad melodramatic, which rendered him all the more endearing. The author does a great job getting into the heads and hearts of her main characters, and her secondary characters are also vivid, well-drawn, and add to the impact of this book. They all felt genuine to me.

I also enjoyed the amount of personal growth that the characters, including several of the secondary characters, experienced throughout the story. So in this way, I thought the character development was stellar.

As for the romance, Ollie and Will together are great. They have this fabulous chemistry, in spite of Will’s hot and cold moods and Ollie’s attempts to distance himself from Will. What I liked was how the author gave our two characters space and time to find their place in the world and to find each other, and in this way, people struggling with their own sexuality might find this to be a thought-provoking read.

Readers who like a little messy YA romance will definitely get that in abundance here – Ollie and Will’s interactions are humorous, awkward, a bit frustrating, and sometimes exactly as confrontational as they need to be. Only Mostly Devastated is the type of story that you’ll want to fall head over heels in love with again and again, and it was a solid 5-star read for me. Loved it!

A huge thank you to NetGalley and to St. Martin’s Press for providing me with an ARC of this story.

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Review of Lab Partners by M. Montgomery

February 29, 2020 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Lab Partners follows a lonely high school senior named Elliot Goldman. He’s sort of an outcast with no friends at school (except for Holly, who is mainly his sister’s friend) and who has been battling incessant bullying since middle school by three boys who seem to especially “have it out” for Elliot.

But Elliot’s life suddenly changes when a new student named Jordan joins their school and ends up being Elliot’s new chemistry lab partner. The two boys take to each other right away and become immediate friends. Jordan begins to be the bright spot in Elliot’s life. They even start spending time with each other outside of school, which is unheard of for Elliot.

But then things change one night when Jordan kisses Elliot, causing Elliot to question everything he knows about himself, including his sexuality and his relationship with Elliot. He now must decide what he really wants and whether he’s willing to take that next step with the boy that sends his stomach into flutters.

Now at first glance, I thought this was going to be a sweet coming-of-age story, and there certainly was that aspect to it. I loved the relationship between Jordan and Elliot and thought they had terrific chemistry together (both literally and figuratively). But this was also quite a serious treatment of bullying in high school, rendering some parts of the story difficult to read because of the brutal scenes where the three boys attack Elliot. The story illustrates just how far bullying can escalate when teachers and school administrators turn a blind eye and how it can affect a young person’s outlook on life and about themself. The despair and depression that Elliot went through were heartbreaking, though I will say, without any spoilers, that it all worked out in Elliot’s favor at the end.

The characterization in this book is really powerful, and I loved our two main characters. Elliot’s bravery is admirable as he risks his own safety in order to protect other kids in his school from bullying, resulting in him becoming their primary target. Jordan is also an amazing character, a boy completely comfortable in his own skin and who steadfastly supports Elliott every step along the way, both during Elliot’s coming out process and regarding the bullying.

The book not only addresses the dangers of bullying but also encapsulates depression, sexual orientation, self-discovery, and young love. The story also does an excellent job of illustrating the fluidity of sexuality and that for many people, one’s sexuality is not always so black and white. That being said, there’s also excellent aromantic/asexual representation in the story.

Now I will say that the book starts out a tad slow and I nearly gave up on it. The descriptions of mundane tasks were agonizingly detailed, most of which didn’t seem to have anything to do with the story. So in this way, it could have used some additional editing. But I’m definitely glad I stuck with it as it ended up being a captivating and sensitive coming-of-age story that, in addition to bullying and homophobia, adeptly tackles the confounding nature of sexuality.

The book is available now worldwide on The Book Depository and will be available in the US on March 10.

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Purchase Lab Partners on The Book Depository

Review of Winter Masquerade by Kevin Klehr

February 21, 2020 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

50433565 SY475 Winter Masquerade is an absurdist fiction story that follows a young man named Ferris who awakens on the Sea Queen, a ship that is sailing on a sea of chocolate and which contains passengers with names like Miss Calculation, Miss Communication, Miss Assumption and Miss Represent. He had no idea where he is or how he ended up in this bizarre, surrealistic world; all he wants to do is get home to his boyfriend, Harris. On the ship, he befriends an eclectic group of individuals who agree to help him find his way back. There is supposedly one person on the ship who can help him called The Alchemist, but unfortunately, he’s just been kidnapped, creating another mystery to solve.

A further mystery is the fact that Ferris seems to keep temporarily slipping into a darker, grittier, more menacing alternate dimension in which one of the ordinarily friendly musicians is trying to kill him, the ship he is on is nothing more than a rusted hunk of scrap metal, and the ocean is chock-full of garbage. What’s strange is that this only seems to happen when he thinks about a certain someone back in his “real” world.

This story really had an Alfred Jarry/Alice in Wonderland vibe to it, which was a lot of fun. Though at first glance Winter Masquerade seemed like an absurdist, possibly silly story, there were actually many layers to it, especially once we figured out the true reason that Ferris found himself on the Sea Queen, which was slowly revealed to Ferris throughout the course of the book.

I found it fascinating how Ferris’s new experiences paralleled what was going on in his real world and how the book ended up being a story about survival and finding your own inner strength — about taking back your power. It also served to remind us how easily someone can take that power away from us and, in the process, asks a lot of complex questions.

The characters in the story were charming and yes, silly, and each of them served a purpose in Ferris’s narrative as each helped Ferris to understand the life lesson his time on the Sea Queen is proving him. I especially liked Cole’s character and enjoyed how Ferris slowly unraveled the mystery, thanks to Cole’s influence. There’s also an interesting backstory surrounding Cole and Ferris’s relationship, which added an extra compelling layer to the story. All the quirky and outlandish events in the narrative were kept steady and were grounded by the realism and truth behind it all.

This was a wild ride of a story with stellar world-building, a fun cast of zany characters, and an important message underneath it all. I loved seeing Ferris come into his own and become the person he was meant to be. I thought this was utterly enchanting and a treat for anyone who enjoys an off the wall tale with many layers — an intense roller coaster ride through a world of chocolate and danger. This story is so inventive and so much fun that it repeatedly brought a smile to my face as I worked my way through it. I loved this little gem!

But at the end of the day, one cannot forget one of the most important lessons of the book: “Never fall in love on Wednesday. Nothing good can ever come from anything happening on a Wednesday.”

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Review of Unspeakable Things by Jess Lourey

February 16, 2020 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

This story is based on true events that take place during the 80s in a small Minnesota town and is told from the point of view of a 12-year-old girl named Cassie West. Her life, however, is far from innocent and idyllic as her parents throw strange parties with people indulging in…shall we say…very adult activities. There’s also the fact that Cassie lives in constant fear of her father coming up the stairs to her room at night. Additionally, because of their father’s erratic and often dark moods, Cassie and her sister try to stay under his radar at home as much as possible, as he is definitely someone to be feared. I found him to be a truly scary monster of a man whose subtle manipulations intrigued, disgusted and terrified me.

But Cassie’s life really changes, and the atmosphere of the story takes an even more chilling turn once some when local boys go missing. The culprit, who wears a hockey mask, abducts the boys and then returns them, but they are different afterward — they’re sullen and violent. Some people claim they’ve been molested. The rumors and finger-pointing begin as neighbors accuse each other, and the town’s dangerous secrets begin to surface. So when Cassie’s own sister begins to undergo a dark change, she knows she must figure out the dark mysteries in her life and her town if she and her sister are to survive. So in this way, the story ends up being one of self-preservation.

What follows is a pitch-dark, gut-wrenching, and nightmarish portrayal of a teenager whose childhood is stolen by the monsters in her life — the sinister child-predator who’s committing unspeakable crimes in her town and the monster under her own roof. It’s also worth mentioning that the sheriff and many of the town’s locals aren’t much better. There were times that the story felt so intense and anxiety-provoking, that I had to stop and breathe for a minute. The tale has an ever-increasing darkening atmosphere that increased the sense of foreboding and menace as we moved forward through the narrative.

This book ended up being completely different than what I expected. I went into it thinking it would be a book about a kidnapper/child molester, but it ended up being more about Cassie and the horrible secrets right under her own roof. What I especially enjoyed about Unspeakable Things, is that Cassie never explicitly describes what’s going on at home. She drops a hint here and a glimpse there, encouraging us to use our own imagination and try to piece together ourselves what’s going on. This aspect of the story certainly got my imagination churning and, in the process, led me into some very dark places.

Now though a 12-year-old girl narrates this haunting tale, this is definitely not a children’s book. It’s super dark and disturbing on many levels. Many terrible things happen, and they happen to children. So sensitive readers be warned.

My only quibble with the book was that I found the ending a tad abrupt though the journey getting there was fun. The author does have an epilogue on her website, which I thought rounded off the story nicely. But be sure not to read the epilogue until after you’ve finished the book as it does contain spoilers.

All in all, this book has the perfect balance of mystery, spine-tingling suspense, and wonderfully detailed descriptions that kept my eyes glued to the page, and though it was highly disturbing and mesmerizingly twisted, I ended up enjoying this story.

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