Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Emily Barth Isler GENRE: Middle-grade Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: September 7, 2021 RATING: 4.5 stars In a Nutshell: What a brilliant book this is! And yet, it leaves me with a niggling doubt about whether its content is suitable for children. Plot Preview: Twelve year old Lucy’s family is struggling with the death of her younger brother from a congenital heart defect. In an attempt to make a fresh start, the family shifts to a different town. But Lucy finds that her new classmates are dealing with a different tragedy of their own – they are the survivors from a school shooting that happened in their class 4 years back. The book depicts the impact of tragedy on these young lives, with Lucy struggling to fit in a class full of children dealing with PTSD in different ways, and her own tragedy making her a misfit in her new social circle. All Lucy has as a source of comfort is her love for math, which seems to be reliable and definite, unlike most other things in her life. Soon, Lu

AUTHOR: Bella Osborne NARRATOR: Laura Brydon GENRE: Romantic Comedy RATING: 4.5 stars. I don’t even remember when I last rated a “chick-lit” this high! So today is indeed a rare day. This was an absolutely fabulous book to listen to and with some hilarious writing to boot! Story: Ruby, a florist in her day-time job, is a huge romantic who has not found anyone special yet. She dreams of the day when someone will swoop her off her feet with his grandiose romantic gestures. During one train ride to London, she discovers that the interesting stranger she was seated next to and who was going to propose to his girlfriend that day has left the engagement ring behind. Ruby takes it up as her personal agenda to return the ring. The problem? Another passenger on the train, a surly fellow named Curtis, doesn’t trust Ruby with it. So he creates his own personal agenda: accompany Ruby on her quest to ensure she completes it successfully. A secondary love story comes to us from Ruby’s boss, Kim, who

Author: Amanda Skenandore Narrator: Nicole Poole Genre: Historical Fiction Rating: 3 stars. So many books I’ve read lately have a novel concept but fall short in delivery (or maybe my expectations from such books need to come down.) This is one more to add to that list. The concept in this case: An inside look into the only lepers’ colony in the US. Story Synopsis: Mirielle West is a stereotypical movie-star wife, rich, spoilt, vain, and self-obsessed. Living with her silent-film superstar husband Charlie and 2 young daughters in 1920s Hollywood, thirty-two year old Mirielle seems to have it all. But when a small skin lesion on her hand gets diagnosed as leprosy, she is carted all the way to Louisiana to the only leper colony in the United States, a mission hospital named Carville. The story is not just about Mirielle’s separation from her family but more about how people were branded as outcasts and shunned just because of this disease. Where the book clicked for me: ✔ I must admit I

Author: Fredrik Backman Series: Beartown (#2) Genre: Literary Fiction, Contemporary Drama. Rating: 4.5 stars. Sometimes good people do terrible things in the belief that they’re trying to protect what they love. If you haven’t yet read Beartown , stop right here. Read that book first! Not because there are any spoilers in this review, but because YOU NEED TO READ THAT BOOK ASAP! Then come back to continue with this review. Beartown leaves you on a bittersweet note. There are so many characters who entrench themselves in your heart, there are so many events that leave you baffled-cum-captivated, there are so many plot tracks that you want to know more about. Imagine the pressure created on Backman to write a quality sequel for this stupendous story. Does he deliver up to expectations? A resounding yes! Us Against You (UAY) is a sequel in the true sense of the word. There are so many authors who write sequels to capitalise on the success of their earlier novels, but in many cases, the se