Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Jenna Beatrice ILLUSTRATOR: Annabel Tempest GENRE: Children's Picture Book. PUBLICATION DATE: March 18, 2025 RATING: 2.7 stars. In a Nutshell: Sorry to be the party-pooper on a kids’ book, but I didn’t like this as much as I thought I would. ☹ The illustrations are fabulous, but the story itself, while silly enough to be entertaining, leaves a lot of loopholes. I also don’t like the inadvertent message that comes out from one characters’ behaviour. Might work for some readers, but overall, a mixed bag for me. This is an outlier review. Plot Preview: Young Annabelle is a party planner extraordinaire. No matter what party planning assignment comes her way, she blows away everyone (including the grumpiest of persons) with her resourcefulness and fun activities. As everyone’s expectations are high for the upcoming Block party, Annabelle feels the pressure and ropes in her elder brother Anthony for help. Unfortunately, Anthony’s giant headphones are always on and he messes up ...

EDITORS: S.K. Ali & Aisha Saeed GENRE: OwnVoices Anthology. PUBLICATION DATE: May 5, 2020. RATING: 3.7 stars. In a Nutshell: A fabulous OwnVoices middle-grade anthology with all stories connected to Eid in some way or the other. Excellent plots and characters and diversity. I loved how much it surprised me and taught me. Much, much recommended! For a reading challenge I am participating in, I needed a book set around any festival. I knew for sure that I would not take a book connected to Christmas – I have already read plenty of them and I am tired of seeing Christmas books be more about parties and Santa and gifts than about prayer and church and community. So when I found this anthology, its beautiful cover, the classic “Once Upon A…” in a title and the joyous tagline won my heart. The content proved to be even better. This collection of fifteen stories is OwnVoices in every way. Each contributing author, including the editors and the illustrator, is a practising Muslim, comin...

AUTHOR: Ai Jiang SERIES: Natural Engines #1 GENRE: High Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: April 15, 2025 RATING: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A high-fantasy novella about a Tree-like girl seeking revenge against a human. The first of a duology. Grand world-building, okay character development, amazing themes, slow pace, lyrical writing. This could have been a single novel instead of a pair of novellas. Plot Preview: Liu Lufeng is the eldest princess of the Feng, nature-loving and tree-resembling forest dwellers. Because of her grandmother’s insistence on her duty, Lufeng is the next bride of the human king. The bridewealth of their proposed wedding is the only way to ensure a future for Feng by stopping the unbridled human expansion into Feng land. Feng has already lost four family members to the king. So Lufeng has a secret agenda – she will kill the king to stop his devious plans. But when she reaches the palace of the human king, she realises that there are many more secrets hidden inside it...

AUTHOR: Huda Fahmy SERIES: Huda, #1 GENRE: OwnVoices Graphic Novel. PUBLICATION DATE: November 23, 2021. RATING: 4.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A OwnVoices graphic novel about the experiences of a hijabi American (of Arab-Muslim background) as a high-schooler in America. Excellent combination of humour and meaningful themes and social discrimination. Much recommended! I first discovered Huda Fahmy’s work when I stumbled upon the delightful “That Can Be Arranged: A Muslim Love Story” , a graphic novel about how she met her husband. Her wit and her intelligence both are on ample display in her books and her Instagram page. So when I got the ARC of her upcoming work – the third book of the Huda series, I finally decided to catch up on the first two. I adore the name of this series! Using her own name in this twisty pun is such a creative idea, especially when it represents the way her name is mangled by many USians. This first book of the Huda series deals with Huda’s experiences as a Hijabi...

AUTHOR: Kate Forsyth GENRE: Historical Fantasy, Retelling. PUBLICATION DATE: March 20, 2025. RATING: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A three-in-one historical fiction: a Rapunzel retelling, a real-life author’s fictionalised biography, and a witch’s origin story. The scope is thus wide and impressive, but also lengthy and complex. I liked the three stories (to varying degrees) but am not too happy with how they were structured and with the gratuitous adult content. Recommended to historical fiction readers, as long as you are okay with reading dark, R-rated sexual content and violence. (Take this last warning seriously; it gets very disturbing.) Plot Preview: 1697. Versailles, France. Charlotte-Rose de la Force – always a great teller of stories, now banished by Louis XIV to the convent for going a step too far. She is not prepared for spartan novice life after all the years of palatial luxury, all the more as she isn't even Catholic but one of the persecuted Huguenots. When a fellow n...

AUTHOR: Hanna Thomas Uose NARRATOR: Lydia Wilson GENRE: Speculative Literary Fiction. PUBLICATION DATE: March 27, 2025. RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A literary speculative-fiction novel coming from multiple characters and timelines. Innovative concept, thought-provoking exploration, excellent character-driven writing, slow pace. Can’t believe this is a debut! Much recommended but not to all. Don’t read the GR blurb. Plot Preview: 2025, London. Yuki and Sam, both in their mid-to-late thirties, are just another ordinary married couple. Happy with each other, a bit bored with their routines, desperate to have kids but not successful yet. Yuki is an enthusiastic member of the local MP’s team and is passionate about causes. Sam is a slightly frustrated work-from-home graphic designer with ambitions of becoming a musician. An American pharma company plans to introduce Yareta in the UK market. Yareta is a drug that can extend human life by at least 200 years and already successful in ...

AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR: Dayeon Auh TRANSLATOR: Tim Mohr GENRE: Children's Picture Book. PUBLICATION DATE: March 25, 2025 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A cute picture book based on a Korean folktale. Enjoyed the plot. The illustrations were unusual, I’ll give you that. A good story overall with a nice message. Plot Preview: Grandfather lives in a nice cottage in a small village. Whenever he needs to go to the market, he has to cross the nearby mountain. Unfortunately, “Misfortune Mountain”, as it is known locally, comes with a dreadful myth: anyone who falls while hiking over it has only 3 years left to live. One day, when Grandfather sets off for the market, he begins climbing the mountain carefully. However, a sudden noise startles him and he ends up losing his balance. He knows that his destiny is sealed: he will die after three years. After the time passes by with the old man just waiting for his death, someone pops in with a possible solution. This book was originally p...

AUTHOR: Alix E. Harrow GENRE: Short story, Dystopian Fantasy. PUBLICATION DATE: March 11, 2025 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A dystopian-fantasy short story about love, trust, fate, hope and courage. Imaginative plot, well-sketched characters, lyrical prose, unexpected twists, apt ending that left me wanting more. After a long while, I read a story without any distractions or pauses. Much recommended! Plot Preview: In a post-apocalyptic world, a small outland town named Iron Hollow, set along the Red River in the Appalachian mountains, finds itself facing many challenges, but none like the demons rising from its own people. When the leader summon a legendary knight for help in hunting the latest monster, seventeen-year-old Shrike is not happy. The knight is just as determined to do his job and kill the demon as Shrike is to get rid of the knight. Why? Read and find out. The story comes to us in Shrike’s first-person perspective. PSA: The Goodreads blurb reveals way too much. (...

AUTHOR: Ginny Myers Sain GENRE: YA Mystery PUBLICATION DATE: March 4, 2025 RATING: 3.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A YA Paranormal-Fantasy-Mystery about a teen girl who can hear the bones of the dead. Amazing atmosphere, great use of the setting (The Ozarks), interesting characters, average mystery, simplistic plotting. Recommended to YA readers. Plot Preview: In the last three years, more than two dozen people have disappeared in the hiking trails of Lucifer’s Creek, a small town in the Ozark mountains. There’s never any clue about what happened to these hikers, until seventeen-year-old Dovie hears the bones singing, calling her to dig them up. Dovie’s special skill is the only way the sheriff can discover the location of the dead. Several people believe that it is the Ozark Howler, the mythical monster, who is doing away with the visiting hikers. But despite her skill, Dovie doesn’t believe in magic, or in the Howler, or in her best friend Lo’s claim that he is being haunted by dark shado...

AUTHOR: Christopher Willard & Tara Wosiski ILLUSTRATOR: Toshiki Nakamura NARRATOR: Tim Campbell GENRE: Children's Picture Book - Audio Version. PUBLICATION DATE: April 8, 2025 RATING: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: Possibly the most creative exploration of feelings I have ever read! Love how it combined the two troublesome F words (Feelings and Farts, ye of dirty mind!) and establishes the similarity between them. A great book for kids – fun and educational. ________ are a necessary part of being human. All of us have ________. We can sense ________ building up in our body at times, but sometimes, they pop out unexpectedly. Depending on the type of ________, the resultant explosion can be hilarious or stinky or embarrassing. Holding onto the ________ until we reach a safe place isn't always possible. At times, it is just better to let ________ out immediately. Don’t worry much about the consequences, because all ________ pass in a while and you will feel better afterwards. Eac...

AUTHOR: Sapna Punjabi GENRE: Cookery PUBLICATION DATE: April 8, 2025. RATING: 3.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A good cookbook for those wanting to try the two staples of Indian cuisine: dal (lentils) and chawal (rice). Great variety of recipes, combined with the power of ayurvedic knowledge and nutritional expertise. Love how it doesn’t compromise on authenticity of process or accuracy of nomenclature just to make the recipes *palatable* to Westerners. I found the recipes easy enough for beginners. But the ingredients and recipes are mostly familiar to me as I belong to this culture, so my opinion won't exactly be representative of Western opinion. Dal-chawal in its various options is comfort food for most Indians. While there is no standard “Indian cuisine” ( we have a variation in cuisine after every few hundred kilometres! ), dal and chawal are used in myriad ways across the country. Chawal is the Hindi word for rice. Dal is Hindi for all types of lentils. The book expands the defin...

AUTHOR: Emily Henry GENRE: RomCom PUBLICATION DATE: May 3, 2022. RATING: 1.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A steamy romcom about two book lovers. The ‘book about books’ factor tempted me, but this turned out to be absolutely not my kind of read with its overdependence on tropes and needless spice and an abundance of clichés.. I should have listened to my friends’ warnings about this book. 😬 Outlier review yet again. Plot Preview: Thirty-two-year-old Nora, a literary agent whose life revolves around books, hates that she is destined to be the cliched career-loving city girl whom men ditch in order to find their true soulmate. But she is dedicated to her work and to her younger sister Libby, and for the latter, she can do anything, including going to the small town of Sunshine Falls for a month-long getaway. The last person Nora expects to run into in a place so far from New York is her nemesis Charlie, a brooding editor from back in the city. The two keep bumping into each other… ( You can ...

  AUTHOR: Tabatha Jean D'Agata  ILLUSTRATOR: Mark Millicent GENRE: Children's Picture Book PUBLICATION DATE:  March 18, 2025 RATING:  3.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A picture book about friendship and cooperation and nostalgia and utility. Good story, many discussion points, lovely illustrations. “Charlotte’s Web” vibes thanks to the farm animals. Recommended!  Plot Preview:  Farmer Fred's corn fields have been protected by an old scarecrow named Tom since many decades. But now, Tom is old, so the crows aren't afraid of him anymore and they raid the corn fields every day without worry. When Farmer Fred wonders aloud if it might be time for a new scarecrow, the farm animals, who love Tom, decide to help him in driving away the crows. Will Goose, Pig, Cow, and Sheep succeed in their plan? Or is it time to say goodbye to old Tom? Kids today might have heard of scarecrows only through ‘The Wizard of Oz’. So this lovely story is a good way of reintroducing...