Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Clara van Houten GENRE: Psychological Drama PUBLICATION DATE: October 6, 2026 RATING: 3.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A psychological drama about a writer caught in a trap of her own making. Innovative premise, interesting execution. The kind of book where you want the protagonist to win even as you want to shake some sense into her. The last quarter is a bit weak and has a couple of logical loopholes, but on the whole, this is a good indie read. Definitely recommended. Be prepared to suspend disbelief as it goes quite extreme in certain developments. Plot Preview: 1997. London. Aspiring novelist Debra Cowdrey is tired of getting rejection after rejection for her manuscript. So when her best friend jokingly suggests that she submit it under a male pen name, Debra does so. To her surprise, her manuscript immediately gets picked up by an agent. Thus begins a series of deceptive actions, which soon spirals out of Debra’s control as the publishing world and the public clamour to know wh...

AUTHOR: Tasha Gold GENRE: Contemporary Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: May 12, 2026 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary fiction containing romance, redemption, and revenge. Some good secondary characters, but the lead character has double standards. Nice storyline, but contains way more romance than I thought it would. Great representation of Jewish culture. Not a light read. Many triggers, including brutal animal death (though nothing harsh is described on page) and holocaust. An interesting novel that might work better if you don’t overthink as much as Scarlett and I do. Plot Preview: 2018. USA. Thirty-year-old Scarlett has hidden her identity for most of her adult life. Even her husband Daniel doesn’t know her backstory. But when her uncle Arthur, her only true guardian in her younger years, suffers a health setback, she is forced to confront the past that she has ignored all this while, and return to his small-town home. The place also holds Brackson prison, a place that st...

AUTHOR: Annie Proulx GENRE: Short Story PUBLICATION DATE: October 13, 1997 RATING: 2 stars. This story has its good moments ( the final scene was particularly poignant ), but I think my poor experience was a case of expectation mismatch. Based on the little I had heard about the movie, I thought this was a sensitive love story. So the crass words, the lustful portrayal of the relationship and the darker content such as physical violence caught me unawares. The conversation-dominant narrative also didn't help. This might be a good story for some readers ( especially those who favour strong prose ), but it wasn't my cup of tea. Mine is clearly an outlier opinion, so just make sure you go in with the right expectations if you wish to give this award-winning story a go. The story was first published in the New Yorker, for which it won the National Magazine Award for Fiction in 1998. The expanded version has been published in book form, but if you wish to read the original, you can...

AUTHOR: Stefany Valentine GENRE: YA Romance PUBLICATION DATE: January 14, 2025 RATING: 1 star. In a Nutshell: A YA “romantic dramedy” (Official label.) This didn’t work for me in any way: plot, writing, characters, agenda, realism, romance, drama. The only thing I liked other than the cover was the Taiwan rep. It hurts me to rant about a debut OwnVoices book, and I tried my best not to, but I just can’t recommend such a poorly written book that sends the wrong message to youngsters. Plot Preview: Seventeen-year-old Catie Carlson, a half-white half-Taiwanese girl, doesn’t remember much about her birth mother. Her parents divorced when she was just five and her father moved with her to the USA, and later remarried a white single mother. After his death two years ago, Catie feels like she has no family of her own, even though her adoptive mother – her father’s second wife – treats Catie with the same love as she does her own daughter. When Catie stumbles into an opportunity to learn Manda...

AUTHOR: Tochi Eze GENRE: Domestic Drama PUBLICATION DATE: August 5, 2025 RATING: 3 stars. In a Nutshell: A dual-timeline domestic drama exploring the effects of contradictory beliefs on a marriage. Character-driven. Interesting exploration of the central theme and some other tough topics. Flawed but well-sketched characters. Thin plot with too many themes. Good use of the Nigerian setting. Slow-paced. Not everything settled at the end. Somehow a bit distanced in execution. Quite ambitious for a debut. A good one-time read. Plot Preview: Then in 1960s Lagos. Independent-yet-traditional Margaret didn’t expect to form a relationship with British-born half-Nigerian Benjamin. But their rapport is strong, and despite indications from both their families that they should separate and despite learning that their pasts are more connected than they knew, they get married in secret. But the burden of marriage and parenthood on a young couple without familial support is always high. Margaret’s wor...

AUTHOR: Bruce Holsinger NARRATORS: Stacy Carolan and January LaVoy GENRE: Contemporary Dystopian Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: July 8, 2025 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary drama about a family whose life changes after an accident. Interesting representation of technology (specifically AI) and its impact on real-life issues. Goes overboard on subplots and secrets. I expected to like it better given my antipathy towards excessive AI reliance, but the OTT drama and the annoying lead character were a turnoff. This is an outlier review. Plot Preview: The Cassidy-Shaw’s self-driving minivan gets into an accident when seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver’s seat, his father Noah is next to him working on his laptop, and his mother Lorelei (a renowned expert on AI ethics) and tween sisters Alice and Izzy are in the backseat busy with their own phones. The accident results in the deaths of the two people in the other car. Who is to blame for their deaths? The situation gets fur...

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: Caitlin Rozakis NARRATOR: Megan Tusing GENRE: Dark Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: May 27, 2025 RATING: 2.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A cozy fantasy garnishing a parent-school drama with cryptids and competitions and prophecies. Great concept, average execution, annoying adult characters. Think ‘Big Little Lies’ (PTA politics) plus ‘Gilmore Girls’ (mother-child drama) plus ‘Wednesday’ (cryptid magic), but without the charm. Might work better if you expect a parenting drama with mild fantastical vibes than a cozy fantasy featuring parents. Plot Preview: When five-year-old Aria was bitten by a werewolf, her parents Vivian and Daniel had no choice but to move to a hidden magical community in New England that has a special school for such children. Living in a new neighbourhood filled with mages and cryptids isn't easy, especially when you are a mere human. But Vivian is determined that she will do whatever it takes to ensure that Aria gets the future she deserves, even if it means lear...

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: 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: 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: Shauna Robinson GENRE: Contemporary Romance-Drama. PUBLICATION DATE: November 1, 2022 RATING: 2.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary romance-drama, though the romance is secondary to the drama. Book about books. Annoying main character. Straightforward plot with some loopholes and some convenient developments. Plenty of humour and heart, but also plenty of judgement and aggravation. A decent pastime option when you want a light read that doesn’t tax your brain. Plot Preview: When twenty-eight-year-old Maggie, frustrated at not having a successful career path, gets a call from her best friend asking for help taking care of her bookstore for a few months while she goes on maternity leave, Maggie accepts, even though she isn't fond of reading. It’s not just this lack of interest in books that makes Maggie’s task difficult. The bookstore is one of the central attractions in a town with a strong literary history, and as such, its governing body, the Bell Society, doesn’t all...