Roger's Reads

Author & Book Reviewer

Review of Six Month Later by Natalie D. Richards

by Leave a Comment

Six Months Later is YA mystery/thriller. The story opens during the month of May and follows a high school girl named Chloe Spinnaker who falls asleep in Study Hall. But when she wakes up from her tiny nap, it’s now November. Somehow, six months have passed, and she doesn’t remember anything about them.

But that’s not all. Her life is also now completely different:

  1. Where she was once a mediocre student, she’s now at the top of her class and is being recruited by Ivy League universities. Yes, she is now apparently super smart.
  2. She’s now dating Blake Tanner, the most popular guy in school, someone to whom she’s barely spoken to over the years, and who happened to be was her secret crush.
  3. Where before she was a nobody, now she is super-popular at school.
  4. Her best friend Maggie is no longer speaking to her, and she has no idea why.
  5. She also seems to be involved in some kind of relationship with the school bad boy named Adam Reed, another boy she barely knew until now. Actually, she finds herself strangely attracted to him, which makes no sense to her.

So now Chloe is on a quest to find out what happened during those missing six months, and as she soon learns, remembering could prove deadly for her, especially once she starts getting close to figuring things out.

I had so much fun unraveling this mystery, and it really was a compelling mystery. The characters in the story are mysterious; the sudden spike in her IQ also mysterious, and the events of the last six months, even more mysterious. I enjoyed the fact that in this story, you just don’t know who to believe.

I loved how the author slowly gives us pieces of the puzzle, bit by bit, peppered in with numerous twists and turns, all of which propelled the story to its surprising conclusion. It was fun trying to guess what was going on, though none of my hypotheses (aliens, parallel worlds, a brain tumor, or magic) were correct.

And what about all these new people in her life? Are they hiding something? What about her parents? Are they in on it? There were many questions that needed answering.

A creepy and captivating mystery, with even a murder thrown in, that kept me riveted throughout — so much so that I read it in one sitting. The characters are excellent as well, especially Chloe, who I found to be brave, determined, and headstrong — also quite snarky, which was fun. Additionally, I liked that I wasn’t able to guess the ending, so it was fun being surprised. All in all, an enjoyable, fast-paced, well-plotted story.

Purchase Six Months Later from Amazon

Review of Over and Over by Ran Michael Ekman

by Leave a Comment

Over and Over is a delightful graphic novel that follows Tom, a young gay man recovering from a breakup, and he’s feeling kind of down in the dumps at the beginning of our story. But he decides to get back into the dating game, and we then follow his adventures as he does so. The story takes a turn when he encounters a man named Omer, who could end up being just a friend or maybe something more.

First off, I loved the plotline. It was a whole lot more than merely a “bad breakup” story, and I adored the surprising and unexpected twist at the end. The story gripped me right off the bat with its compelling storyline and relatable characters.

This talented author does a fantastic job of bringing the story to life through the beautiful artwork, and I feel that the art really fits well here with the storyline. The entire set-up for the story, and how it plays out is phenomenal.

I adore this author’s art style, especially how expressive the emotions are drawn. Art can make or break a graphic novel for me, and the art in Over and Over made it. It’s accessible, engaging, and appropriately atmospheric. I love it when a graphic novel manages to tell a personal and poignant story, and this one definitely succeeded.

The author also includes several bonus goodies at the end of the book, including an alternate ending, various characters sketches, unused cover layouts, and preliminary layouts for each of the panels. I enjoyed the extras and am glad that they were included.

I hope this author continues to publish their work as they definitely have some mad skills. Loved it!

Purchase Over and Over from Amazon

Review of I See The Light by Arden O’Keefe

by Leave a Comment

I See the Light is a delightful and endearing Christmas novella that takes place on Christmas Eve. It follows a a man named Heath who, after feeling like an outsider his entire life, discovers a new and exciting world that he never knew existed.

The author then leads us on an unforgettable journey into the world of the Elves, where Heath meets an exceptionally handsome Elf named Shea, and it doesn’t take long before sparks fly between the two of them.

I loved how this story combines the bitterness of loneliness and exclusion with the sweet excitement of a newly found family, creating a heartfelt and memorable book. Though our main character Heath is considered an oddball by most of the townspeople who know him — especially given that he has the ability to communicate with animals — he also has an enormous heart.

When his newfound Elf-friend Shea takes him to witness a heart-wrenching scene, my heart broke right along with Heath’s because of his extreme desire to help — but it being “against the rules” to do so.

But I will say though that the grim situation that we witness is somewhat lightened by realistic dialogue and genuineness of feeling from the characters. I loved how Heath has such a sad, sweet whimsy about him, which balances perfectly with Shea’s almost stubborn determination to win the boy over.

I enjoyed how unique this story’s setting is, and I found the tale to be lush and ethereal, making me feel like I’d been enraptured by some old fairy tale that, strangely, felt completely modern at the same time. The evocative prose took me on a thrilling holiday adventure for the mind and the heart, and I really felt the magic inside of this story.

The writing evokes the feeling of a myth or fairytale and does so without creating too much distance from the characters, which is an incredibly hard line to walk.

So when the night comes to an end, Heath is asked to make a decision: either entirely embrace the magic of the elves and move forward with Shea or remain as a human and return to a world without Shea in it. A couple of other elements ensure that this decision is not an easy one.

At the end however, I felt happy, hopeful, when I finished—everything you want to feel at the conclusion of a great story.

Readers seeking feel-good fantasy tales with an endearing holiday message will love journeying along with Heath from when he was a five-year-old boy to the twenty-three-year-old young man who makes a startling discovery in the woods.

This big-hearted book is a love letter to anyone who has felt uncomfortable in their own skin and wondered where exactly they belonged.

Note that this is a “sweet” Christmas story, so as such, there is no sex on-page or off.

Order I See The Light from Amazon

Review of Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

by Leave a Comment

This was such a fun, witchy, and ghosty read! It follows our main character Yadriel, a sixteen-year-old Latinx boy born into a family of witches or “Brujos and Brujas.” He’s hoping to partake in a ceremony in which he’ll become an office Brujo, a ritual overseen by Lady Death herself. However, the problem is that his traditional family is having a difficult time accepting his gender, and they deny him the ceremony.

So Yadriel, determined to prove to himself and to his family that he’s a real Brujo, performs the ritual himself. But to be a true Brujo, he needs to find a ghost and set it free. He decides to summon the spirit of his murdered cousin Miguel; however, the summoning didn’t quite go as he planned, and he ends up summoning Julian Diaz, the school’s snarky resident bad boy. Julian refuses to break set free until he can find out what happened to him, how he died. Yadriel has no choice but to help the rebellious boy because the sooner he finds out what happened to Julian, the sooner he can release him and become an official Brujo. But the more time he spends with Julian, the more he wants him to stay.

Oh, and there’s also an evil villain who may or may not bring about the end of the world.

This was such a clever and unique plot with a compelling mystery to solve as well. I also loved the developing relationship between Yadriel and Julian, and there was plenty of witty banter and bickering between them that had me laughing out loud several times. I truly enjoyed the dynamic between these two characters — they just felt so genuine to me as well as purposeful.

But I will say that my heart broke for Yadriel, who desperately craved to be accepted by his family and his community. Though his family wasn’t unlikable by any means, they were extremely traditional, so Yadriel had quite a task in tearing down those patriarchal walls built up over generations and show them that you can combine the traditional with the modern. Though, to be fair, they did use his chosen name and his correct pronouns, but some traditions were so firmly entrenched that they were unwilling to budge.

Though the book’s overall tone was light, the author touched on some serious and heartbreaking themes, such as homophobia, transphobia, deadnaming, misgendering, gang violence, teen homelessness, child abuse, deportation, and racism. So that being said, there were definitely some difficult and heartbreaking moments in the story.

Now, I love books about Latinx culture, identity, and mythology, so I enjoyed learning about this family of witches who lives in a cemetery and who commune with the local spirits, setting them free when necessary. I especially enjoyed reading about Yadriel’s family and their history and journeying along with them as they prepared for the Día de Muertos celebration.

That being said, I loved the book’s heavy focus on family and friendship. Additionally, though Yadriel being trans is the basis of the plot, the book is not solely about his difficulties in that regard, but at its core, Cemetery Boys is a lovely romance between a boy and a ghost, a romance which was extremely well-done in my opinion.

All in all, I thought this book was a wonderfully diverse, affirming, atmospheric, and well-written paranormal urban fantasy with delightful characters and a heart-warming slow-burn romance. I sure hope this author continues to write and look forward to seeing what they’ll come out with in the future.

Purchase Cemetery Boys on Amazon

Review of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

by Leave a Comment

I love books about memory/forgetting, so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one, especially since it’s by one of my favorite authors. The story opens in France in the year 1714 and follows a 23-year-old woman named Addie Larue.

She’s arranged to be married to a recent widower that she doesn’t really know, destined to a life of babies, subservience, and backbreaking chores — a life which she desperately wants no part of.

So on her wedding day, she runs off into the woods and prays to the old gods — pleads with whatever deity may be listening to save her, ignoring the advice of her friend and neighbor to “Never pray to those who only answer when it’s dark.”

Well, a dark god of some sort answers her, and she asks him for a chance to live, be free, and have more time. The god agrees, and they make a Faustian bargain in exchange for her soul. She will be able to escape her current life and will never age or die.

Of course, the dark ones don’t play fair and what she wasn’t aware of was that there’s a stipulation to the deal: Nobody will ever remember her for more than a few moments. Once she leaves a room, she is immediately forgotten, and each time she returns to it, it’s like it’s the first time. Out of sight, out of mind.

So the book then chronicles her fascinating struggles over 300 years — all of the pain, solitude, challenges, and loneliness she had to go through. Given that nobody can remember her, she couldn’t hold a job or sign a lease, so she pretty much had to turn to a life of crime and prostitution to survive. She’s not even able to write or sign her name. She’s unable to leave any kind of mark behind. There is never any evidence of her having existed, though she does come up with some creative ways to bend the rules and, in so doing, inadvertently leave her mark on the world.

She also cunningly alleviates her loneliness by spending months with a person, meeting them anew every day, as far as they are concerned. We also follow her odd and messy relationship dynamic with Luc, the demon/god who randomly appears in her life over the centuries, sometimes just to meddle in her life and mess with her. He desperately wants her to tire of life — to tire of being forgotten — so that he can collect her soul.

But one day, things change for Addie when she walks into a bookstore she visited the previous day, and the young man says to her, for the first time in centuries, “I remember you!” So the question is: why does he remember her, and what does that mean for Addie’s life from this point forward? Did she finally pull one over on Luc?

I can’t express how much I loved this complicated, moving book and sometimes raw story. I adored the premise of this breath-taking book. There’s real depth to the story, which delves into themes of grief, loneliness, suffering, that which makes us human, art, our need for connection, our need to live a fulfilling life, family, self-acceptance, leaving our mark on the world, being remembered, being loved and grief.

It’s a fascinating life journey – a character-driven tale that sucked me in and stole my heart. It caused me to laugh, gasp, sob, smile, frown, and experience countless other emotions throughout its pages. I think this will end up being my favorite book of 2020.

Purchase The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue from Amazon

2021 Netgalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge

by 2 Comments

Given that I tend to read a lot of Netgalley ARCs, I decided to take on the 2021 Netgalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge hosted by Socrates’ Book Reviews. I decided to give the Silver level a go which is 25 books. I think I may have read even more than that this year.

Most of my books will be from Netgalley though; for some reason, I rarely get approved for books from Edelweiss and I have not been able to figure out why, given that I post my reviews on this blog, on Goodreads, on Amazon as well as on my BookTube channel. Quite curious.

So I’ll be updating this page as I read books from my list.

Challenge Guidelines:

  • The challenge runs from January 1, 2021 – December 31, 2021. There is no deadline to sign up.
  • Everyone is welcome to participate – you do not need to have a blog.
  • Any genre, release date, length, etc. counts – it just needs to be a book from NetGalley or Edelweiss.
  • Books can count for more than one challenge that you are participating in.

My Books:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.