Review: We Burned So Bright

Review: The Midnight Bookshop

The Midnight Bookshop by Amanda James My rating: 3 of 5 stars 🌅 A bookshop that only appears when you need it most—what reader could resist that premise? The Midnight Bookshop invites us into the lives of Jo, Adelaide, and Kye, three strangers weighed down by secrets, disappointments, and broken relationships. Each stumbles across a mysterious flyer that leads them to Fay’s bookshop, where the motto is simple but powerful: “You don’t choose the book, the book chooses you.” From there, their paths begin to shift in unexpected ways, suggesting that stories can help us rewrite our own. At its best, this novel is warm, comforting, and steeped in the quiet magic book lovers will immediately recognize. The underlying themes of healing, resilience, and friendship shine through, making this an easy, cozy read for a rainy afternoon or a lazy beach day. That said, the execution didn’t always match the promise of the premise. The multiple points of vi...

Review: Such a Bad Influence: A Novel

Such a Bad Influence: A Novel by Grace Demyan My rating: 4 of 5 stars 🌅Thank you, Grace Demyan, for sending me the advanced reader copy (ARC) of Such a Bad Influence. It is a fantastic debut novel that shows what happens when grief, a blueberry farm, and a troublemaking teen collide. It was an enticing mix of heart, chaos, and small-town drama that, for the most part, kept me turning the pages. At its core, this is Felicity’s story. Still reeling from the loss of her mother, she spends her days running the family farm and leaving voicemails on her mom’s old number. But when that phone number ends up in the hands of Alex, a foster kid recently aged out of the system, Felicity’s solitary routine is disrupted in ways she never expected. A single call for help turns into bail money, an unexpected roommate, and eventually—thanks to Alex’s wild imagination—a side hustle in “revenge consulting.” Toss in Wade, the handsome-but-complicated neighbor wi...

Review: Archive of Unknown Universes: A Novel

Archive of Unknown Universes: A Novel by Ruben Reyes Jr. My rating: 3 of 5 stars 🌅I received an advance listening copy of Archive of Unknown Universes from the publisher in exchange for my honest review. This novel blends love, war, and the weight of silence through the speculative device known as the Defractor. The story moves between Ana and Luis, Harvard students in 2018, unraveling family secrets, and Neto and Rafael, revolutionaries in 1970s El Salvador, whose forbidden love unfolds amid conflict. Together, their timelines reveal layered echoes of history, love, and generational trauma. While the premise is compelling, the execution often falters—especially in the audio version🔊. The book constantly shifts timelines and points of view, sometimes multiple times within a single chapter, and without clear markers, it becomes disorienting to follow. In print, distinct fonts or headings might have clarified whose perspective or which era we ...

1st Light - Dawn Reads and Reviews

Search This Blog