Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Josh Silver GENRE: Contemporary Satirical Thriller PUBLICATION DATE: August 4, 2026 RATING: 2.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A satirical psych thriller offering a dark look at an author who is desperate for success. Somewhat meta in approach. Complex flawed characters. A jerky writing style with too many short sentences and too much rambling. Slow pace and much lengthier than needed. Recommended, as long as you have the patience. Plot Preview: Mallory Maddox had a successful debut novel seven years ago. But since then, she has had a writer’s block. She is desperate for inspiration, so when Leo – a homeless drug addict trading sex for survival – stumbles into her life, she doesn’t hesitate before appropriating his life story for her next work. After all, Leo’s story is important and deserves a wider audience. So what if he himself is unaware of her interest in him. But as the number of secrets multiplies, Mallory is forced to ask some tough questions about how far she can go for her c...

AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR: Clarice Tudor GENRE: Satire PUBLICATION DATE: May 5, 2026 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A humorous book about contemporary dating misadventures but worded and illustrated in medieval English style. Funny in content and illustrations, though the humour is also a painful reminder of the travails of dating (men in particular.) Recommended to readers with a funny bone and a frustrated love life. One look at that title, cover art, and blurb was enough to make me grab this book. I am long past my dating days, but no woman can resist a chance to empathise with other women’s dating mishaps. Reading this book is like a virtual gossipy session with a fellow woman, bitching about the male specimen of our species. While there might be many books with dating misadventures, what sets this one apart is the medieval style. The tagline calls this “A Modern Medieval Guide to Bad Dates and Worse Decisions”, and the content sticks to this agenda. The author says the content was...

AUTHOR: Abby Cooper ILLUSTRATOR: Eliana Gutiérrez GENRE: Humour PUBLICATION DATE: March 10, 2026 RATING: 4.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A clever satirical picture book speaking to babies and toddlers about how to take care of their new moms. 😉 Absolutely loved the concept and the implementation. The satire is excellent, as is the strong tone of empathy. Much recommended to all moms-to-be and new moms. The title was enough to get me to grab this book. With the twist on the usual “It’s a Boy/Girl”, “It’s a Mom” made me curious to see the content. Turns out, it is a care package for new mommies wrapped in a lot of satire. What fun! I enjoyed the concept as well as the execution. The text is directed at kiddos aged 2 to 5 ( wink, wink! ) and is a guide on how to take care of their new moms ( more exuberant winking! ). Thus it offers advice about essentials such how to help moms stay awake at night, how to ensure that moms have a wash during your bath time, how to allow her tummy time, and so ...

AUTHOR: Veronika Dapunt GENRE: Dark Comedy-Mystery. PUBLICATION DATE: January 6, 2026 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A speculative, darkly comic mystery with Death as the narrator. Funny at the start, mysterious in between, somewhat deeper and philosophical towards the end. Creative throughout. Enjoyed the characters, the humour and the flow. Unexpected religious angle, but it was highly interesting. Didn’t like one particular aspect of the plotting, but otherwise, this offered an entertaining ride, as long as you read it in the right spirit of going with the flow without asking too many questions. An excellent debut that overly conservative Christians better avoid. Plot Preview: Death is tired of humans picturing her as a skeleton with a black ‘potato sack’ and a scythe. No matter how well she does her job, she still doesn’t get welcomed with joy or treated with respect. So when she learns from a newly departed soul that there’s something called a work sabbatical, Death immediatel...

AUTHOR:  Lisa Fox GENRE: Satirical Story Collection PUBLICATION DATE: 7th December 2025 RATING: 3.6 stars. In a Nutshell: A short story collection that takes a satirical look at several relevant topics. Varied in genres and protagonists. The humour is somewhat dark. Entertaining enough, as long as you expect the OTT tone common to satire.  Author Lisa Fox has penned two short story collections prior to this one: ‘Core Truths’   and ‘Passageways’ . I had enjoyed both of these speculative collections and hence looked forward to her latest set of stories. This one is slightly different from the earlier two, in that it doesn’t contain a unifying theme.  The stories in both “Core Truths” and “Passageways” were embodiments of their respective titles, with every story containing a “core truth”/“passageway” as applicable. I think that helped me appreciate the author’s cleverness and creativity better. This time, there was no thread connecting the stories beyond the sati...

AUTHOR: Coco Cooper GENRE: Contemporary Fiction, Satire PUBLICATION DATE: June 13, 2025. RATING: 3 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary satirical fiction about a character with an identity crisis. Mostly quirky, fairly funny, somewhat reflective, a little distressing. Goes overboard in the final quarter. As long as you go with the flow and are prepared for some disturbing events, this book can be entertaining. Plot Preview: Teddington Miles aka Teddy lives a happy life with Millie. As she works from home, they spend many happy hours enjoying each other’s company. The only thorn in Teddy’s existence is Charlie, the unwelcome visitor who always turns Millie’s attention away from Teddy. When Millie suddenly vanishes one day, Teddy is sure that Charlie is the guilty party. He begins a secret investigation with the help of some trusted companions, but the truths that come out aren’t what Teddy expected. The story comes to us in Teddy’s first-person perspective, with some epistolary interl...

\   AUTHOR: Marco Ocram SERIES: The Awful Truth, #2 GENRE: Crime Thriller Parody PUBLICATION DATE: June 4, 2019 RATING:  3.75 stars.  In a Nutshell: A spoof crime novel, the plot of which is nigh on impossible to explain in a line. Possibly the silliest book I have ever read! (I mean this as a compliment!) Enjoyed it to a great extent. Recommended, but only to those who read spoofs the way spoofs are meant to be read: by tossing out their thinking caps.  Plot Preview: (Honestly, I have no idea how to offer a preview to this crazy book! Trying my best!) Marco Ocram ( Yup, the “author”! ) is a high-achieving, super-intelligent, uber-popular, humble writer who has a secret: whatever he writes happens immediately. As his natural affinity is towards writing crime, Marco writes crime novels, much to the chagrin of his book’s lead character DI Como Galahad, who is stuck solving the crime while Marco keeps penning impossible twists and getting them into d...

AUTHOR: Daniel Aleman GENRE: Dark Comedy PUBLICATION DATE: December 3, 2024 RATING: 3.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A dark, almost satirical comedy about a writer who finds himself “in trouble”, a clue of which is present in the cover art. Humorous, serious, bizarre, suspenseful, entertaining! Though this wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, and some of the content was way too forward for me, I still liked this ride. Recommended, but not to all. Works better if you go in prepared for a whole load of absurdities and with your logic kept aside. Plot Preview: Until a couple of years ago, David Alvarez was a success in every way. He had an acclaimed debut novel, a loving partner in Jeremy, and a fabulous book deal for his next writing attempt. But times do change, and now, Alvarez is all alone, with a poorly-received second book, no feasible plot idea for his third manuscript, and on the verge of financial bankruptcy. Stressed out, he often uses an online dating app to relieve his mental and sexual...

AUTHOR: Fredrik Backman TRANSLATOR: Elizabeth DeNoma GENRE: Short Story PUBLICATION DATE: December 1, 2024 RATING: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: My answer to this story isn’t No, but it isn’t exactly a strong Yes either. A good story with enough wit and enough thought-provoking quotes, but the humour seems forced at times. Not Backman’s best work. Better if read as a satire, though it isn’t promoted as one. Plot Preview: Lucas is not exactly a people-hater; he just isn’t fond of them. He lives his life in a way that his interactions with people are at the bare minimum level. And he is perfectly happy with this status quo. Until one day, when a frying pan changes the situation! Suddenly, Lucas is forced to interact with people regularly – Yikes! How can he get his life back to normal? The story comes to us in Lucas’s third-person perspective. I am such a huge fan of Fredrik Backman’s work that I didn’t even read the blurb before I grabbed this story. His name on the cover was enough! An...

AUTHOR: Mirka Andolfo SERIES: Blasfamous , #1-2 GENRE: Graphic Novel PUBLICATION DATE: October 8, 2024 RATING: 3.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A satirical graphic novel that combines evangelical zealotry and celebrity worship culture into a zany plot. A dark plot that left me speechless, for various reasons. Mindblowing illustrations. Cliffhanger ending!! ☹ Plot Preview: Clelia is the reigning queen of pop, but not in the way you would imagine. Her is a world where pop stars are divine and can bestow miracles on their fans. Managed by Father Lev, Clelia has to ensure that her performance is top of the charts in every way, so that devotees continue attending her concerts and bow to her in veneration. But the situation is threatened by two new factors: a mental health issue that causes Clelia to self-harm, and a newcomer who seems to be endowed with more prowess (musical or otherwise) than Clelia. The battle for religious dominance this begins, and no one knows how the fight will end. This ...

AUTHOR: Faralee Pozo GENRE: Sci-fi Romance PUBLICATION DATE: August 30, 2024 RATING: 3.5 stars In a Nutshell: An unusual novel straddling multiple genres: humour, romance, mystery, thriller, science fiction, and end-of-the-world. Slow-paced and a bit repetitive, but entertaining enough if you are looking for a light read with an unusual plotline. Plot Preview: Let me copy-paste the GR blurb here for once: “It's the age-old story. Boy meets girl. Girl lies to boy about being human. Girl accidentally destroys planet. Girl apologizes super hard.” This story is epistolary, written as the apology letter by the girl to all humans, especially Greg. The “girl” is an alien queen, and that’s what turns this *age-old story* into a humorous novelty. Bookish Yays: 👽 Our narrator and the writer of this extended apology: the alien queen known as Aria. Unlike any queen you have ever met in fiction, be it human or animal or alien, Aria’s quirky nature and impulsiveness lead to many goof-ups, a...