Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Colm Tóibín GENRE: Short Story Collection PUBLICATION DATE: March 31, 2026 RATING: 2.1 stars. In a Nutshell: A literary short-story collection by the acclaimed Irish writer. Interesting variety of characters and situations. A bit haphazard in plot development. Flat in character development. Bleak. Feels very lengthy because of the slow pacing and meandering structure. Disappointing endings at times. Didn’t work much for me. This collection comprises nine stories, a few of which have been published before in other publications. The stories are set across multiple countries, Ireland included. I had grabbed this collection mainly for two reasons. One, I have enjoyed a majority of the literary works written by contemporary Irish writers and want to explore more Irish fiction. Two, I liked one short story written by this author for Amazon Original Stories. ( ‘The Shortest Day’ ) However, this collection just wasn’t for me. For one, the 300 pages seem endless as each story is terribl...

AUTHOR: Anna Rose Johnson GENRE: Middle-grade Historical Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: March 5, 2024 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: An OwnVoices middle-grade historical fiction about an orphan sent to live with a new family. Great use of the lighthouse setting. Annoying main character. Good secondary characters. Slightly repetitive and bland storyline. Minimal Ojibwe representation. I hope it will work better for the target age group. Plot Preview: 1912, Michigan. As eleven-year-old orphan Lucy Landry has no one to take care of her, she is sent to foster with a family selected by her late guardian. The Martins reside in a lighthouse in the middle of the gigantic Lake Superior. Lucy has been frightened of the water ever since her sailor father died at sea, but she doesn’t have any choice. Though the Martins are strangers to her, they seem kindhearted. However, there are too many of them and there is too much work to do, so Lucy struggles to fit in her new home. But one day, she learns that...

AUTHOR: Luis Amavisca ILLUSTRATOR: Gusti GENRE: Children's Picture Book PUBLICATION DATE: April 21, 2026 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A picture book about a young superhero who longs for anonymity and ordinary life. Started relevant, but ended in a direction I didn’t see coming. Cute graphics though. Plot Preview: SuperFreddy is a superawesome superhero who saves someone every single day. This makes him very popular in town, with everyone asking his autograph or wanting him to show off his superpower. SuperFreddy feels sad that he has no privacy and no time for personal fun. When his superhero costume is given to the tailor to be fixed, Freddy has to roam around the city in his ordinary clothes, and no one recognises him. Thus he gets a taste of anonymity and enjoys it. Can he now return to being a superhero? This story was originally published in Spanish in 2025 under the title ‘SuperFede’. This English translation is to be released in April 2026. I loved the concept of a super...

AUTHOR: Tory Henwood Hoen NARRATOR: Barrie Kreinik GENRE: Contemporary Drama PUBLICATION DATE: December 2, 2025 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary drama partly focussing on memory and memories. Expected to like this much more, but it felt more like a Hallmark depiction of Alzheimer’s. Many of the plot inclusions weren't my cup of tea. This is an outlier opinion. Plot Preview: Though twenty-six-year-old Cricket is doing decently at her job with a modern wellness company, she feels like she is weighed down under the burdens of a past tragedy and of a present worry: her father’s Alzheimer’s has worsened. When her elder sister Nina declares that they need to move their dad Arthur into a hospice-care facility, Cricket decides to use his health as the catalyst she needed to make a change in her life. She quits her job and moves to their home in the Adirondacks to become Arthur’s caregiver, and in the process, hopes to heal the old rift between them, though he doesn’t rememb...

AUTHOR: Hans Christian Andersen GENRE: Fairytale, Classic. PUBLICATION DATE: May 8, 1835 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A classic fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. Hasn’t aged well, though the comic edition I read resolves many of the issues in the original story. I read this for nostalgia and came away questioning my younger self’s reading choices. 🤭 Reading ‘Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil’ reminded me of the existence of this story that I had read in my childhood. I didn’t recollect anything about the plot except that it had three dogs with huge eyes. So I decided to reread it again after all these years. Oh boy! Present-me is convinced that Past-me was so fascinated by the dogs that she ignored all the other red flags. 😏 This is the first story published by Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen in 1835, and it has some elements in common with Aladdin. Reading this tale made me realise why it is not more popular. It is not at all a happy story for anyone except the ...

AUTHOR: Marie-Fleur Borac ILLUSTRATOR: Sonny Lata Yiu GENRE: Children's Illustrated Story. PUBLICATION DATE: November 6, 2025 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: An illustrated storybook about three unlikely characters coming together for a quest. The story is sadly a bit flat and disjointed. The hand-painted illustrations are the best feature of this book. If parents can add some embellishments to the events, this indie offering might work as a decent readaloud option. Plot Preview: When a butterfly’s treasure is stolen by an evil witch, the distraught butterfly decides to go to her house deep in the forest to get it back. He doesn’t have a plan but hopes to make one soon. Along the way, an anxious chickadee and a vain unicorn join him on his quest, though both of them do it for their own selfish reasons. How can the three work together to outwit the witch and get the treasure back? At the surface level, this book shows a lot of promise. Fighting for what is rightfully yours even whe...

AUTHOR: Lauren Haldeman GENRE: Comics Collection PUBLICATION DATE: March 10, 2026 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A “diary comic” collection by the poet-artist. Covers random musings, confessions, and funny moments from routine life. Hazy in its purpose and disjointed in execution, hence leading to a lacklustre reading experience. I had expected far better from the blurb. The blurb tells us that the author is an award-winning poet and that this book offers “a fresh, humorous, and emotionally resonant perspective on the wonders and weirdness of everyday life.” This tempted me to give this book a try. I mean, we do see plenty of the weirdness on display in real life these days, but it would have been great to look at the wonders as well. Sadly, the book doesn’t exactly do justice to this claim. The blurb also calls this a ‘debut book from an exciting new voice in comics’, but this also is inaccurate. The author already has a couple of published graphic novels to her name. (Unless the blu...

AUTHOR: Joe Hill GENRE: Fantasy-Horror. PUBLICATION DATE: October 21, 2025 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A fantasy-horror about a bargain that goes wrong and the consequences of the same. Epic plotline covering many decades, multiple flawed characters. Decent horror. Political content. Overload of themes. Many vulgarities in the writing; I hate such a writing style. This is an outlier review. (Like… a really, really, outlier review! 😬) Plot Preview: 1980, Maine. Arthur Oakes is a young student at Rackham College, working as a senior student librarian at its exceptional library. His life goes awry when a local drug dealer and her partner force him to steal rare books from the library. When his close friends discover the trap Arthur is caught in, they all step in to help, concocting a wild scheme that involves using the disquieting Crane journal (bound in the skin of its author) to summon a dragon to do their bidding. Unfortunately for them, they end up calling not just any dragon, bu...

AUTHOR: V.E. Schwab GENRE: Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: June 10, 2025 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A multi-timeline vampire fantasy about needs, wants, and desires. Triple POV, but only one was interesting. Good prose, lacklustre plot, repetitive scenes. Mostly boring. Only the finale has a few thrills. This is an outlier opinion. Plot Preview: 1532. Spain. Maria. A beautiful girl married to a viscount who views her only as a vessel to bring forth his future children. She longs for freedom. 1827. England. Charlotte. An idealistic girl who's sent away to her relatives in London to hide a clandestine affair. She longs for love. 2019. USA. Alice. A Scottish girl who joins college in Boston hoping for a fresh start and a clean break from the past. But one mistake imperils her plans. She longs for revenge. How do the lives of these three girls intersect? The story comes to us in their third-person perspectives spread across multiple countries and centuries. In all honesty, had I realise...

AUTHOR: Liadan Ní Chuinn GENRE: Short Story Collection PUBLICATION DATE: January 20, 2026 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A short story collection. Character-driven, introspective, mostly gloomy. Some good bits of writing here and there but on the whole, this failed to capture my attention. As I have enjoyed whatever Irish works I read, I thought that this collection, promoted as a debut collection by an Irish writer, would be my cup of tea. [ One big mistake I made here was to assume that “Irish writer” meant a writer from Ireland. I forgot about Northern Ireland, a country I know very little about.  😬] What is further intriguing is that other than that fact that the author was born in Northern Ireland in 1998, we know nothing about them. ‘Liadan Ní Chuinn’ is a pseudonym, and the writer has no publicity photos or social media presence under this identity. It is quite brave of a debut writer of literary short stories to refuse promotional mandates. Sadly, the above made no differ...

AUTHOR: Clare Swatman GENRE: Contemporary Romance-Drama PUBLICATION DATE: December 3, 2025 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A romance using timeslip as its main point of drama. Plot divided in three sections, each offering a distinct experience. The book started off well, became slightly repetitive and then turned a bit tedious. The characters are interesting but often take stupid decisions. Good for those who can read without overthinking. Plot Preview: Widowed Emma has no intention of falling in love again. But when she bumps into widower Nick in a somewhat secluded rose garden of her local park, she can sense the embers of hope and attraction flickering back to life. As they keep meeting in the same place, their feelings for each other grow stronger. But one day comes a shocking revelation: they both stay in two different times. Nick’s ‘present’ time is 1999, while Emma is living twenty years later in 2019. Is there any future possible for the couple when their years don’t align and ...

AUTHOR: Jen Storm ILLUSTRATOR: Ryan Howe GENRE: YA Graphic Novel PUBLICATION DATE: September 3, 2024 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A YA graphic novel about an Ojibwe family trying to navigate life after a tragedy. Had great potential, but couldn’t capitalize on it. I appreciate the intent, but the execution felt a bit cluttered and half-baked. The ending could go either way for readers. Not a happy story. Plot Preview: Ever since Reanna’s sister Chelsea went missing after school, her family hasn’t been the same. Struggling to find closure, each member copes in a different way, with some drifting apart and some coming closer, some seeking a change and some finding comfort in the old and familiar. The story comes to us mostly in Reanna’s third-person perspective. I admire the theme of this book. Attempting to highlight the difficult topic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) deserves applause. However, the execution of the theme didn’t work that well for me. The key problem ...

AUTHOR: Maiga Doocy SERIES: The Wildersongs Trilogy #1 GENRE: Fantasy-Romance PUBLICATION DATE: October 15, 2024 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A fantasy-romance about two rivals forced to work together to overcome a challenge. Decent amount of fantasy, barely any romance. Interesting magic system. Annoying lead characters. SLOWBURN (use of CAPS deliberate!). Aimed at adults, but strong YA feels. First of a planned trilogy; incomplete ending. This is an outlier review. Plot Preview: Leo Loveage‘s passion lies in music, but he is forced to continue his family legacy and study sorcery to satisfy his father. He can handle small magic, but fails miserably at grand magic. To add to his troubles, magic partners have been reassigned this semester, and Leo now has to work with his long-time nemesis Sebastian Grimm, a talented grump. A muddled spell causes Leo to be under Sebastian’s command. They both realise that if anyone discovers this mistake, their future will be in jeopardy because of t...