A roundup of several smaller reviews I wrote in Winter 2025-2026. Beware of spoilers!
Title: 100 Days of Sunlight
Author: Abbie Emmons
Series: Tessa and Weston #1
This author has a “writing how-to” YouTube channel that I’ve watched a few times, and when I learned she’s published a book with an interesting premise and it was available at my library, I wanted to check it out and see if Emmons can walk the walk or just talk the talk.
DNF 19%. Weston seems okay so far (though some reviews suggest that opinion won’t last), but Tessa’s just absolutely miserable to be around. Doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of charisma she needs to compensate for being a self-centered asshole. She’s having a raging pity party, lashing out at everyone, and her blindness is only going to last 3 months! Why is it framed as “YOU’RE BLIND” instead of “you’re eyes need time to heal”? It’s no different from breaking your leg and being temporarily disabled in a cast. That healing time sucks and feels like forever, but her life is hardly ruined. She doesn’t even have to navigate school like that. Frankly I’m shocked anyone has any sympathy for her.
Maybe there’s later a twist in which they find out her blindness is permanent; then her being mad at the world would be a little more warranted. If not, Emmons really should have just made Tessa permanently blind and prevented her coming off like a pretentious, melodramatic Karen. Her blog! Her blog! Whatever will she do if she can’t blog her poetry? (I’m not blind, but I’m pretty sure the blind can use computers.)
I also didn’t care for the author’s narration. I’ve heard worse, but something about her voice or the way she speaks rubs me wrong. I can’t listen to her YouTube videos for long, either. If the library had a print version, I might have stuck with it longer and seen where it went, but I couldn’t listen to Emmons anymore.
Oh my god, there was one point where Tessa’s inner monologue was “Help me” repeated like, two dozen times. My ears almost bled, I swear. If that wasn’t one of the most amateurish things to do, I don’t know what was. Irritation, not sympathy, is cultivated through repetition.
Good to be reminded that possessing all the writing knowledge in the world doesn’t mean you can write well. Those who can’t, and all.
Title: Alanna; In the Hand of the Goddess; The Woman Who Rides Like a Man; Lioness Rampant
Author: Tamora Pierce
Series: Song of the Lioness #1-4
I kept seeing Tamora Pierce credited as an influence in other books, particularly romantasy, so I had to read her and find out why. Her writing has faults, but I can see how her work might have inspired today’s writers.
I devoured books 1 and 2, but 3 and 4 feel rather redundant and tangential. The biggest things driving 3 and 4 are the love triangle/Alanna’s indecision about life and wrapping up loose ends–almost like an absurdly long epilogue for books 1 and 2. And since the love triangle is my least favorite part, I’m struggling. I made it through book 3 but book 4 is rambling and I’m calling it at about halfway. I just don’t care anymore and want to move on. I answered my lingering questions with a simple Google search.
Also, I’m all for women exploring their sexuality, but Alanna’s not exactly dating these guys one at a time; she’s kinda got a guy in every port, as it were, and sleeps with whomever’s closest at the time. It feels….icky.
Title: Murder at Cottonwood Creek
Author: Clara McKenna
Series: Stella and Lyndy #7
Thank you to Clara McKenna, Kensington, and NetGalley for allowing me to read a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Title: The Clutter Connection
Author: Cassandra Aarssen
Series: n/a
This book is such a wild contradiction that it undermines its own validity.
It simultaneously tells you to declutter and get rid of shit you don’t need while also telling you you need to buy a gazillion storage units and containers to organize successfully. Relative, it says you have to organize to fit your space…but also, according to the pictures, more space is ideal.
It simultaneously tells you it’s okay to struggle against society’s expectations while also telling you you have to meet society’s expectations—here’s how to try harder (aka ableism).
It acknowledges mental illnesses and neurotypes and at the same time completely disregards them, like a clutterbug type can perfectly explain you. It does allow for overlap but ignores it because overlap rather invalidates the only-four-options philosophy.
Despite presenting some interesting concepts like visual simplicity and offering a genuinely helpful tip here and there, overall the book comes off as contradictory, oversimplified, ignorant, capitalistic, and maybe classist and ablist—a woman trying to tell us she has a very simple way to understand the very complex human mind.
At the end of the day, folks, you have to ignore other people’s expectations and do what works for you—your lifestyle, your energy level, your taste. If you share a living space, communication and compromise is key.
If she’d nixed the cutesy, ridiculous only-four-options-to-classify-all-mankind business and instead just explored the different ways to organize—visual abundance vs simplicity, organizational abundance vs simplicity—and the psychology behind them, the book might have been more useful and taken more seriously.
Title: Witches of Dubious Origin
Author: Jenn McKinlay
Series: n/a
Title: The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Magic & Murder
Author: Kiri Callaghan
Series: The Hemlock Saga #1
My rating reflects the audio production, not the story.
When I saw “full cast” on the audiobook cover, I groaned. Gave it a shot anyway because I already had it. I’m not sure I got five minutes in before shaking my head and returning it to the library.
The first time it happened, I was confused: A male with a British accent was narrating, there was an abrupt, high-pitched chime, then a female with an American accent delivered a snippet of background information–then we’re back to the male with the British accent. It was thoroughly disorienting and disruptive. The second time it happened, I realized there must be a footnote-like story device and the chime and narrator switch was how the audio format was conveying the footnotes.
Unequivocally hated it. Focus is hard-won for me, so the fewer disruptions to the narrative, the better; not only would I have to reorient myself every time we switched to one of four different narrators, I would have to reorient myself every time one of those stupid footnotes shot-put me out of the story. No thank you.
I’m still interested in the story, so the print version will remain on my TBR, but the audiobook gets a big ol’ nope.
