thoughts on books

Author: Angie Miale

  • the dream hotel by laila lalami

    Wow. I will be thinking about this book for a long time. Literary Fiction and Speculative Dystopian fiction, this book speaks to our deepest fears about our changing society. In a future not so far away, you can buy a dreamsaver, a device that saves and records your dreams, but also shares this data with the government. In fact, the algorithm can apparently detect when you are about to commit a crime. You are assessed with a “risk score” by which the government can retain you at a retention center. Idea being, you stay for 21 days until the risk of you committing a crime goes down. However, most of the women there have been there much, much longer, Sara Hussein has been retained over 300 days. She misses her husband and her young twins terribly. Sara was an archivist, and now spends her meager commissary account on shampoo, snacks and internet time to read the news and email back home.

    How was we reconcile the freedoms we hold most dear with changing technology and culture? What does “freedom of speech” mean when millions can be at risk if someone shares viral misinformation? Do I have the same freedom of speech as celebrities and influencers with millions of followers? What does the second amendment really mean when we have guns that can shoot 700 rounds per minute? What responsibility does the government have to keep its citizens safe?

    This book extends that to our fear about our privacy and data collection. What can be done with the collection of our data? Over time, our habits, our searches, our DNA are all collected in an effort to sell us more things and to keep increasing the wealth of a handful of citizens. Many people, myself included, would like to see common sense gun laws to keep dangerous guns away from those that shouldn’t have them. And what if we had even more data? Could we save lives by eliminating the crimes in the first place?

    This book is a 1984 for our time. While the people of 1948 feared dictators when that classic was published, we fear our freedom being lost in the name of safety. Our privacy being taken and misinterpreted.

    It reminds me of a friend of mine who kept seeing ads for diabetes medicine in her social media feeds. For months she saw this and couldn’t understand it. At her blood draw at her annual physical she found out… you guessed it… she has diabetes. I have 1600 books read and reviewed on Goodreads, and I have entered COUNTLESS giveaways. I am happy to disclose that I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway. And now I am sure that I won because the algorithm knew I would rate this 5 stars.

    It comes out March 4, 2025. I can’t wait to talk to other people about it, it’s going to drive me nuts. I LOVED THE ENDING. Based on that pub date, I just know it will be picked for one of the celebrity book clubs. Tons of people are going to read this, although many will hate it, it’s not a feel good book. But it will inspire great discussions at your book club!

  • celebrity crush by christy swift

    Jason is Emmy’s celebrity crush and the subject of her NYT bestselling book, #CelebrityCrush. It is veiled portrayal and easily comes out that Jason, who is a TV superhero Hollywood star, is who her novel is based on. Emmy’s dream comes true when her agent sells the movie rights and Jason’s part will be played by Jason. To add to the truly miraculous fantasy, Jason and Emmy will do marketing together for the film. And they play up their relationship for the cameras. So we have forced proximity, insta-love, single mom/dad as our main tropes.

    For fans of Tessa Bailey, similar tropes, similar character-types and spice level.

    This book had a lot of heart but I didn’t love either of the main characters, they came across as whiny and entitled and simplistic. I could do without his chapters that kept describing her “muscular and curvy” body and her suntan. Her internal dialogue referred a lot to his “rock hard body”- I dont know, it was just heavy on the lust language. I liked the book a lot until around 30% but the conflicts were contrived and it went downhill from there.

    I would read another book by the author and liked the setting but this one wasn’t a big win.

    Audiobook narrators did well- particularly the performance of the male narrator, I found it easy to follow. This story does have good pacing so it lends itself well to the audio format.

    Thanks to Netgalley and Hachette Audio for the ARC. Book to be published 2/11/25.

  • maid for each other by lynn painter

    I am a huge fan of Lynn Painter’s YA Romance, each one is better than the last. Thus far I have a bit disappointed in her Adult RomComs, I just don’t love the pacing. I felt like I never understood or knew the characters very well, but I am happy to say that this Adult Romance definitely has some of the humor, witty banter and the spark that I love in her YA titles.

    Maid For Each Other is a fake dating/ working class girl meets rich guy storyline. The MMC Dex comes from CrashPad, which is a furniture store subsitute for Nebraska Furniture Mart. Similarly a family business purchased by Hathaway Holdings (see “Berkshire Hathaway”) which is run by billionaire Warren Hathaway (see “Warren Buffett”). So Declan “Dex” Powell has the good heart and hard working nature from the family owned business while having access to and rubbing elbows with the elite private equity people. He is also a workaholic and lies about having a girlfriend named “Abby” — coincidentally, our FMC, Abi Mariano, is his housecleaner and has been sleeping at his empty apartment since her apartment was being fumigated. All of the cute coincidence that helps Declan and Abi fall into their fake dating/forced proximity trope happens really quickly in the first few chapters.

    This is very cute and lower spice level- does have swearing but not a lot of spice- I would call it a “fade to black” romance rather than a “clean” romance- just allowing the reader to use their own imagination, easy to do since there were great sparks and sizzle between Declan and Abi.

    If you are looking for a fast paced beach read that will tap into our deepest fantasies, pick up “Maid For Each Other” this summer.

    Thanks to @netgalley and @berkleyromance for the ARC. Book to be published July 15, 2025.

  • how to be a saint: an extremely weird and mildly sacrilegious history of the catholic church’s biggest names

    A very funny and informative book about obscure Catholic history. When I requested this ARC, I thought it would be 75% humor and 25% learning, but this was pretty well researched and had a lot of solid information portrayed in a humorous manner. Kate Sidley is a great writer, having made her career writing for television. Her voice reminds me of Tina Fey or Mindy Kaling, who also write for TV but their books have sharp observations and random quirkiness. If you are interested in history/anthropology/religion and are okay with not taking it too seriously, you would enjoy this book. There are many pictures of renaissance and earlier art of various Catholic saints, which adds to the narrative and inspires the author to humorous ideas about them. You can’t really study European history without studying the history of the Catholic Church.

    While the tone is light and silly, and overall does call out all of the ironies and hypocrises in the church, it somehow manages to be respectful if not deferential of the church. It makes the history accessible and funny. Like the subtitle says, it is sacrilegious, but only mildly so.

    I am pretty devout myself, but I think God has a good sense of humor.

    Thanks to @netgalley and @sourcebooks for the ARC. Book to be published August 19, 2025

  • the perfect rom com by melissa ferguson

    Hmmm, this one was not a favorite for me. I love a good closed door romance, but the pacing and characterization was all off. While I love a story about the publishing industry, I do not like a girl vs. girl “catfight” with one girl prettier, mean girl, rich privileged “villain.” It is very one dimensional and, I think, a harmful trope to pit women against each other that should be collaborating and partners.

    Our prologue begins with our main female character Bryony, meeting her agent Jack and immediately disliking him. Then the story skips two years and they are best friends. I can’t help but feel like we skipped over the best part of a rom com, which is the relationship building and connection. Bryony is ghostwriting successfully for Amelia- a Paris Hilton entitled type who wrote one cute book then can’t even be bothered to read the ones that Bryony ghost writes for her. I don’t love a story set up with one person we root for and one with no redeeming qualities. The ending was a bit too “deus ex machina.”

    I have liked other books by this author but this one missed the mark.

    I was given a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas Nelson Fiction. Book to be published February 11, 2025.

  • playing flirty by shameez patel

    https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7211329694

    I gave this geek-driven rom com 2 stars for a couple of reasons; mostly that I did not like the main character and I didn’t believe her. The MMC, William, was a little one dimensional. Although I found his actions endearing and lovable, I didn’t know him like I like to. I was missing the chemistry. The relationship between Rose and William’s half brother Shaun was a solid one, Shaun gets engaged to Rose’s female best friend early on in the book. I liked that Rose was good friends with both of them equally and also as a pair. 

    Much of the middle was boring, we don’t see her attraction to her boyfriend Patrick, he treats her terribly and they aren’t right for each other. Although there is a rivals-to-lovers trope, it comes along slow and drags in parts. I couldn’t get used to the prose and it was challenging for me. 

    So while I didn’t love the content, I do want to give the audiobook 3.5 stars- I was gifted an audiobook from Hachette Audio and NetGalley. To separate the content from the narrator, I did feel like the audiobook narrator did a good job of the Rose dialogue. There were longer pauses so I listened at 2.0 speed although I listened 3 times through because I wanted to give me diligence to the audiobook narration separate from the content of the book. While I probably wouldn’t pick up another book from this author, I would happily choose another book by this narrator. 

    Thanks again to Netgalley and Hachette audio. Book was published January 14, 2025.

  • everything’s coming up rosie by courtney walsh

    Rosie went to live her dream in NYC to become a broadway actor, but the best thing she did was play a corpse on Law and Order. On the brink of bankruptcy, she takes a temporary position in Wisconsin at an assisted living facility to cast and direct a production of Cinderella, starring the octogenarian residents.

    Everyone is in love with Booker, the old and young ladies alike. Eventually Rosie falls for Booker and has to decide if she is going to give up the dream of acting on stage or keep going.

    Rosie has a sad (but not overly tragic) backstory. The older crowd has some cranky naysayers and some filled with wisdom. They are a cute side character addition and a fun setting. If I have one criticism I would have liked to see more of the residents, less of Rosie’s insecure internal dialogue.

    I am a fan of Courtney Walsh, she is the master of building chemistry while still keeping the bedroom door closed. It’s not easy to do. But I always end up a little happier when I finish her books.

    Book to be published June 10, 2025. Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas Nelson fiction for the ARC.

  • unromance by erin connor

    Wow!! This book was so well written, the best book boyfriend, the clever interspersed references to romance tropes. It’s a love letter to the genre!!

    Sawyer broke up with her girlfriend 3 years ago and hasn’t dated since. She’s been a moderately successful romance author, but she has writers block. And it’s set in Chicago!! (Exactly where I listened to it, so it was obviously meant to be).

    Mason very recently broke up with his costar girlfriend, he is a hunky TV doctor and the son of a soap star, Mason really loves love.

    Then the meet cute; they get stuck in an elevator together. The plot goes from there; a one night stand then inevitably running into each other afterwards. Add in Sawyer telling Mason the tropes as they come to life.

    This is really a five star audiobook; easy to follow the plot of audio and well acted. This is multi POV, so the Sawyer narrator and the Mason narrator alternate. I especially enjoyed the Sawyer narrator — it’s always a challenge to do witty banter with one voice, but she does well.

    Full disclosure— I am more of a “fade to black” person so I did skip past the smutty parts. I can’t speak to if they are great or not. It’s a personal preference, just not for me. I’m not saying the spicy parts are bad, I just don’t know, I skipped them.

    Outstanding pop culture references, laugh out loud banter, realistic inner dialogue that bring the characters to life off the stage. Even though this book is about a male and female, I love that Sawyer is bisexual. It’s enough to keep the homophobes away (bye).

    I kept seeing this book all over instagram and I’m grateful I got to listen to it- thanks to NetGalley and hachette audio for the Audio ARC. A best romance of January. (And there are so many great ones!!)

  • the mother next door: medicine, deception and munchausen by proxy by andrea dunlop and mike weber

    This book is a bit uncomfortable, in a good way. It has big “podcast” energy, sort of like a large format “Did you hear THIS crazy story?” townie bar conversation.

    Andrea Dunlop is an author and podcaster, her sister was lost to her due to Munchausen by proxy. Because of her personal experience she created a podcast based on a famous case of MBP, Hope Ybarra, who pretended to have cancer 4 times and faked that her daughters had cerebral palsy and cystic fibrosis. At first her family thought she was delusional. Then they discovered she was guilty of fraud, falsifying medical documentation.

    Mike Weber was the sheriff/law enforcement on the Hope Ybarra case, he has made his career on several child abuse cases to varying results.

    On one hand, this book is a good guidebook for those who want to know the patterns. On the other hand, it is also a good guidebook for how to work on this and pull it off. For me it felt like “eek this is none of my business” and I legitimately felt like a rubber necker… but I suppose there is a bit of that in all true crime genre.

    It was an eye opener. I learned a lot. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around MBP is both a mental illness and a crime.

    Thanks to Netgalley and St Martins Press for the ARC. Book to be published February 4, 2025

  • one murder at a time by abbi waxman

    Absolutely hilarious, fun raucous mystery set in Hollywood, complete with burlesque dancers, AA meetings, studio politics and unexplained deaths. Abbi Waxman is my new favorite writer!

    Mason is at her typical recovery meeting, complete with recovering alcoholics from all walks of life who complain that each other is guilty of “cross talk.” Just then, an older woman – Julian Mann- comes in with a court card, 3 days sober and with a crazy story. A dead body in a pool followed by a high speed Lamborghini car chase and assault to the police officers. Oh and she blew a 0.35. So naturally Mason volunteers to be Julia’s temporary sponsor.

    Soon Julia is arrested for the murder of the aforementioned, dead body, her sworn enemy and past lover, Tony. Back in the day, Julia was an Oscar winning actress, then she went to prison for murdering her husband, a crime of which she has always maintained her innocence. While imprisoned, Julia became a lawyer. Julia hires Mason to be her assistant, they set out to find the real killer.

    Murder mysteries either can be a police procedural, which handicaps the author into following the actual process, or some sort of vigilante type investigation. This one is the latter. Figuring out the how and why of someone is investigating a murder without being a cop is always a challenge. Often you have a former cop, a true crime podcaster, a mystery writer. It’s really hard to come up with a plot device to create this storyline in a creative way. An AA sponsor has to be my all time favorite. The banter between Mason and Julia is truly outstanding, some of the most clever dialogue I have read. They have incredible chemistry together, despite being different generations and backgrounds, both being alcoholics.

    This book is a MUST READ for those who love a feel good mystery

    Abbi Waxman, you had me from the dedication. Thanks to @netgalley and @berkleypub for the ARC. I can’t wait until the pub day, this will be the first thing in my shopping cart on April 15, 2025.

    top read of 2025