Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Gayle Forman GENRE: YA Contemporary Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: January 7, 2025 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: A YA contemporary fiction with mild fantasy elements. Could have been awesome but the FMC is too YA, if you know what I mean. 😬 Basic writing, annoying characters, convenient developments. Minimal and ad hoc fantasy content. The only thing I liked was the plot structuring. Can’t recommend this, sorry. Plot Preview: When Amber cycles home one spring afternoon, the last thing she expects is her mother to scream on seeing her walk in. The reason is horrifying even to Amber. It seems she has been dead for seven years, having lost her life in a hit-and-run accident while riding the very same bicycle she just rode home. But Amber doesn’t feel dead! The return affects not just Amber but her family and other acquaintances who were active in her life when she was alive. A lot has changed in the last seven years and Amber needs to be prepared to face those developments bas well....

AUTHOR: Isabel Ibañez SERIESS: Secrets of the Nile, #1 GENRE: (YA) Historical Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: October 31, 2023 RATING: 1 charitable star. In a Nutshell: A historical fantasy with an annoying lead, half-baked worldbuilding, minimal magical detailing, and anachronous behaviour. It’s a book with an identity crisis – it just doesn’t know what it wants to be. Officially YA but many scenes aren’t suitable for younger YAs. Cliffhanger ending, but I am not interested in knowing what happens next. Not recommended at least to sensible adults. Older YAs might try their luck. Plot Preview: 1884. Bolivian-Argentinian Inez has always lived a comfortable life at her aunt’s place, but the one thing she wants the most is to be with her parents who work with antiques in Egypt. When the eighteen-year-old receives news of their sudden deaths, leaving her a wealthy orphan, she decides to sail to Cairo to her maternal uncle, an archaeologist, to know what happened to them. She carries her sketch p...

AUTHOR: Torie Jean GENRE: Romance PUBLICATION DATE: September 20, 2022 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: A romance where the FMC has endometriosis. Loved the cover and liked the endometriosis rep. But was bored by the conversation-dominant writing style, the flat plot, and the ad-hoc character development. Very disappointed. Plot Preview: Twenty-seven-year old Evie has been staying in Paris since seven years, hoping to fulfil her dream of having a bakery but struggling with her chronic pain and endometriosis. She keeps her distance from her family back home, especially her toxic mother Caroline. When an upcoming event needs her presence back in Massachusetts, Evie is forced to convince her childhood nemesis Liam Kelly to be her fake date so as to get through the wedding without too many barbs from Caroline. Little does she realise that her suppressed feelings for Liam will get in the way of this pretend relationship. The story comes to us in Evie’s first-person perspective. I grabbed this...

AUTHOR: Deborah Hext GENRE: Middle-grade Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: July 28, 2025 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: A middle-grade fantasy about the magic of storytelling. Had excellent potential, but the execution needs much more finetuning. The story-within-a-story part is somewhat decent, but the plot development, the writing style and the fantastical content could have worked far better for me. Plot Preview. Cornwall. Present day ( I think... There’s mention of social media. ) Thanks to her late Storyteller father, eleven-year-old Tamsyn has always known the power of stories. Living with a foster mom and her other wards isn't the same as being with her own parents, but they are all still a close-knit and loving group. Tamsyn uses her storytelling skills to enthral her foster siblings. When a stranger arrives at their doorstep claiming that the magic of the world is being destroyed and Tamsyn is the only one who can save them, the young girl learns for the first time that stories co...

AUTHOR: Hank Phillippi Ryan GENRE: Mystery-thriller. PUBLICATION DATE: September 9, 2025 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: A cat-and-mouse thriller unfurling during an author's promotional book tour. Annoying characters, annoying plot developments, annoying repetition, annoying ending. I came THIS 🤏🏻close to DNFing it! Instead, I powered through it with loads of eyerolling and tsk-tsking. This is an outlier opinion. I'm officially giving up on contemporary thrillers. Plot Preview: Tessa Calloway never dreamt that her debut novel would be a bestselling sensation, or that her lead character Annabelle would inspire hundreds of women to stand up for themselves. Tessa is currently on a whirlwind book tour across the country, travelling and visiting local indie bookstores for reader interactions. She has nothing to worry about as her two kids are in safe hands with her husband Henry back home. Well, she *didn't* have anything to worry about. But now, Henry's behaving suspiciou...

AUTHOR: Jim Benton GENRE: Sequential Art Novel PUBLICATION DATE: January 24, 2024 RATING: 1 star. A comic collection by "the most visible cartoonist in America". I grabbed this for the title and the cover illustration. Sadly, that turned out to be the best comic of the book. This collection compiles single-panel comics as well as comic strips, covering topics as varied as animals, body parts, existential crises, and God. A few of the comics made me smile lightly. ( The ‘God’ comics were the best. ) Most left me feeling meh. The randomness of the topics didn’t help as it made me feel like I was reading a row of random newspaper funnies with no link. Further, I found some of the humour insensitive. How can topics such as obesity, ebola deaths, mental health issues be considered funny? A few of the comics do go deep, covering topics like male ignorance about women’s anatomy. But no use having 1-2 such thoughtful satirical pieces and juxtaposing them with fart jokes… 🤦🏻‍♀️ The...

AUTHOR TEAM: Archie Superstars GENRE: Comic. PUBLICATION DATE: February 21, 2023 RATING: 1 star! In a Nutshell: Super cringe-y! My younger daughter warned me against reading this book, saying she found it utterly boring. But my curiosity got the better of me. It's the Archies, after all! The staple comic of my youth, despite its obvious red flags. I used to love the characters, and assumed that seeing them in India would work as a pleasant combination of nostalgia and curiosity. Remind me never to question my daughter's tastes again. Not many outside India might know that there was a special Bollywood adaptation of ‘The Archies’ released in 2023 by a top production studio. Don’t bother looking it up. The movie was awful! But on that momentous occasion, the producers and the Archies team teamed up to release this special comics collection. Turns out, this collection is even more awful than the movie. This book includes every story where Archie and his friends have travelled to I...

AUTHOR: Chris Bohjalian SERIES: Alibis Collection, #4 GENRE: Short Story PUBLICATION DATE: June 2, 2025 RATING: 0.5 stars. In a Nutshell: The fourth story in the Alibis collection. The first chapter is the only one worth reading. Which isn’t a good thing for a story of eleven chapters. No thrills, no major surprises, not much action, not even any alibi. Can be safely skipped. Plot Preview: (Too bored to write sensible sentences, so bear with the below gibberish.) Two skydivers – one fatal incident – one key witness – many contradictions. Two brothers – one dead father – one farm – many arguments. Both the above tracks come to us in alternating chapters and are interlinked. This is the fourth standalone story in the 'Alibis’ series, described on Amazon as “stories about lies, truth, and deception. It’s just a matter of what you can get away with.” In my review for the third story, I declared it “the weakest story of the series so far.” I had to put my foot in my mouth and jinx the ...

AUTHOR: Ashley Poston SERIES: The Improbable Meet-Cute, #5 GENRE: Romance Short Story. PUBLICATION DATE: January 23, 2024 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: Another illogical insta-love short story masquerading as a “meet-cute”! Better than Story #6 , but by a minuscule margin. Plot Preview: Audrey Love has a special ability – anyone she kisses finds their soulmate on the next day. However, she herself is destined to stay single. When she is asked to be the “best man” at her friend Rhett’s wedding, she is annoyed to find that the bride’s “maid of honour” is the bride’s best friend Theo, who did something annoying to Audrey when they first met. However, on the big day, Rhett goes missing, and Audrey is forced to assist Theo in searching for her lost friend. What doesn’t help is that Audrey has a hangover after the bachelor party and she can’t remember if she kissed Rhett last night. Did she indirectly help him find his true soulmate? Can she find Rhett in time for the wedding without being...

AUTHOR: Sariah Wilson SERIES: The Improbable Meet-Cute, #6 GENRE: Romance, Short Story. PUBLICATION DATE: January 23, 2024 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: More “Improbable” than “Meet-Cute.” Plot Preview: Princess Ilaria of Monterra ( probably the fictional equivalent of Monaco ) is fed up of the paparazzi watching her every move. A day before Valentine’s, when she is in Rome for a royal obligation, all she wants is one normal day without anyone’s judgemental stares or intrusive photos. So she gets her PR assistant to swap places with her for the weekend. Her first day as a “commoner” on the streets of Rome gets off to a shaky start, but a Scottish photographer swoops in for the rescue. There is an instant (🤦🏻‍♀️) connection between the two, but can there be any future to such a liaison when she has royal duties awaiting her? The story comes to us in Ilaria’s first-person perspective. This is the sixth standalone story in 'The Improbable Meet-Cute’ series, described on Amazon...

AUTHOR: Jonathan Vischer GENRE: Historical Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: September 25, 2022 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: Such amazing potential, such shoddy execution! ☹ Plot Preview: 1621. An old lady named Elizabeth Sawyer has been imprisoned on charges of being a witch. A few days before her schedule execution, prison chaplain Henry Goodcole comes for her final confession, hoping to see some guilt and regret in her behaviour. On the contrary, Elizabeth is as defiant as ever, and instead of atoning for her “sins”, she proceeds to narrate three anecdotes from her life, which end up making Henry question what he has been told about her. The story comes to us partly in Henry’s third-person perspective and partly in Elizabeth’s first-person POV when she is narrating her life stories to Henry. Bookish Yays: 🔮 The blurb – shows the actual potential of the plot. 🔮 No ‘kitchen sink clutter’, despite being a debut work. 🔮 The depiction of the horrendous treatment meted out to women by the hi...

AUTHOR: McGarvey Black GENRE: Psychological Thriller PUBLICATION DATE: October 10, 2024 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: No. Plot Preview: When she was fifteen, Abbie killed her mom. She wasn’t caught. Over the past twenty years, she has turned her life around. Now married to an extremely wealthy investor and living in a large home with her two little daughters, Abbie uses her time to be the best wife and mom, and volunteer for various social causes. However, the past has now come to haunt her. Someone knows her secret and is threatening to reveal it. With her husband unaware of her murky past, Abbie has to make sure that her secret stays buried. The story comes to us in Abbie’s first-person perspective. I am very picky with my thriller reads because more often than not, they turn out to be OTT messes. The title of this book eroded my resistance somewhat, and seeing the high ratings of the other books written by the same author, I thought I would be in good hands. As is evident, I w...