The Overbooked Bibliophile

Rating:  4.5⭐️ A chance meeting between twenty-two-year-old Winona and a young woman named in a grief counseling group eventually leads to her renting a room at the infamous “Mirror House” – a rental property decorated on the outside by its residents with mirrors - where she hopes to find friends and a sense of family. Simon Spellmeyer, an eccentric former psychologist who leads the group, employs his own unconventional methods for self-improvement that the Mirror House boarders must be willing to accept. Winona, despite her misgivings, convinces herself that giving in to Simon’s methods is the best option for her. We follow Winona as she navigates the shifting dynamics within the group and Simon’s leadership and his eccentricity. As she begins to buckle under the personal and psychological pressure of being a “Mirror House girl,” will she be able to extricate herself from the hold that Simon and her new “family” have on her and if so, at what cost? Smartly crafted with an interest...

  Rating:3.5⭐ Jolene Vero has spent the last ten years consumed by guilt over her role in an accident that left her school friend Elizabeth Smith grievously injured. After spending years moving from place to place, career to career, unable to settle down, she moves to Berkley prepared for a fresh start. What she wasn’t prepared for, however, was meeting Elizabeth again. Elizabeth, still bearing the physical scars of her accident, tells her that she has no recollection of how the accident happened and proceeds to befriend Jolene. Jolene is initially uneasy but wants to believe Elizabeth. Is she being paranoid? Should she listen to the voices in her head? Is it her own guilt that’s making her suspect Elizabeth’s hand in the strange things happening to her, or does Elizabeth know more than she is letting on? There is a lot about  Like It Never Was  by  Faith Gardner  that is praiseworthy. The narrative, presented from Jolene’s first-person POV in past and present t...

Rating: 4.5⭐ When newcomer Olivia West befriends her classmate, sixteen-year-old Eliza Hunter, they quickly become inseparable, and Olivia becomes a frequent guest in Eliza’s home. Olivia’s family situation is in stark contrast to the close-knit, well-to-do Hunters – Eliza’s parents Angela, a psychiatrist, and Carson a true crime writer, and her older brother seventeen-year-old Ezra – and enjoys spending time in their home. However, Eliza begins to distance herself after Olivia reveals her darker side, leaving Eliza feeling unsettled and suspicious of her intentions. But Olivia is quick to become romantically involved with Ezra, with whom she is pleasantly surprised to find she has much in common and is easy to manipulate. After a shocking series of events, Olivia finds herself living in Eliza’s home, but there is much more to this seemingly perfect family than meets the eye – secrets they would do anything to protect. Similarly, the Hunters have no idea of how far Olivia could go to g...

My Rating: 3.5 ⭐️ Eighteen year old Maeve Murray has her future planned out. Waiting for her A-level results to be published, she decides to take a summer job in a shirt factory with her closest friends Aoife and Caroline to earn some money before she moves to London to pursue higher education with the intention of embarking on a career in journalism. She can’t wait to get out of her Northern Ireland town and start a new life. Her first step towards independence is getting a summer job (despite the fact that she has to deal with an unpleasant boss whose treatment of his female employees is disrespectful to say the least) and renting a flat with her friend Caroline near her (temporary) workplace. Over the next few months, we follow Maeve as she adjusts to life as a factory worker, meets new people and makes new friends all the while hoping for a better future. Michelle Gallen’s Factory Girls  is an entertaining novel. Maeve is spirited (a bit brash at times) and resourceful. She obs...

My Rating:  4.5⭐ It’s Christmas and we’re back in the world of luxury solar-powered cars, flying feather dusters (I could really use one!) and lifelike companion bots designed and manufactured by Jolvix. It’s been two years since all of the Jagger siblings came home to Santa Barbara for Christmas. The last time they were together with their widowed father Jeremy and his new companion bot January ended in an act of violence toward January committed by Jesse, the third sibling. The siblings’ mother committed suicide years ago and Jeremy’s acquisition of January came as a surprise for all the siblings. But while Josiah, Julianna and Jada keep their opinions to themselves, Jesse in a fit of rage, attacks January causing severe damage. Fast forward two years and the family is together again with January (who has been repaired completely with a wiped memory, or so we are made to believe). It’s going to be an interesting  (to put it mildly!)  Christmas at the Jagger family home,...

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ It has been over six months since Sophie Portman lost her husband Jack. Jack a, a geologist by profession, had been selected for a project near the Arctic Circle, and from what we gather from her conversation with her psychiatrist Dr. Thacker disappeared during the expedition. Sophie, a teacher by profession, is yet to resume her work and spends most of her time at home. In addition to her difficulty in coping with the loss of her husband, she also has a feeling that she is being watched and assumes that someone is following her and tracking her every move, even when she is at home. In her initial sessions with Dr. Thacker, she finds it hard to talk about her marriage and her husband but gradually she opens up, giving us insight into her personal life.