thoughts on books

Author: Angie Miale

  • the underachiever by david a price

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    A delightful YA Dystopian satire that will warm your heart and make you laugh. This speculative fiction read is about AI taking over in the not-too-distant future. Our hero is Wyoming, a dumb yet lovable prep school kid in Washington, DC. He comes from money and doesn’t see the need to try too hard at life. He figures he should interview for Harvard, since that’s where his parents would want him to go. And he would like to “lie in the grass” there, he mentions this several times. However, he crosses paths with Kayleigh, who has been ostracized for seeing that AI may be sentient. Soon Kayleigh and Wyoming need to team up and save the world.

    I stumbled across this funny book offered on NetGalley, it was a delightful surprise. As someone concerns about the rise of AI and the problems it could cause, I also find the teenage boy endearing. Because I am a mom to a teenage boy, who is as smart as he is dumb. The book gave me a lot to think about but plenty of opportunities to laugh. I loved the idea that the AI started putting extra fingers in our art as a way to give humanity “the finger.” Kayleigh was a great foil. The book has a great message without being too heavy handed.

    Also- the acknowledgements are written from the PoV of the main character, who thanks the author, which was creative and really cute.

    Thank you to NetGalley and Houston Street Press for the ARC. Book out now! Congratulations Houston Street on your debut title!

  • the good mothers by caitlin weaver

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    Exactly the kind of heart wrenching drama and thriller I always expect from Caitlin Weaver. She is absolutely an auto-buy author for me and for good reason. Her books are often on kindle unlimited, and they always have strong female leads and always shitty dudes. I gotta say, I love this formula.

    In this case we follow Lacey, who is down on her luck- going through a divorce from her awful ex husband Judd (the perfect name for him)- he is vile and won’t pay for their son Elliott’s ADHD medication or even administer it to him when he is with him. Judd is fighting Lacey for custody. She is fired from a job and accidentally hits a parked car. Life is hard. Then she finds a group of moms in communal living who share living expenses and child care and offer a loving environment for their kids.

    Elliott is a dollface 8 year old, but parenting a child with an ADHD diagnosis is always challenging even in the best of circumstances. I really was so sucked in and wanted to throw my kindle across the room at Lacey’s custody issues. The moms get her the opportunity to be an executive assistant and get a job better than the one she has before— but are they hiding something?

    If you love a thriller but you aren’t interested in the higher stakes- bloody murdering or random type thrillers, Caitlin Weaver proves you can have a beachy-popcorn thriller that is just as much of a page turner without all that.

    Thanks to @netgalley and storm publishing for the ARC. Book to be published January 15, 2026

  • ideal life by evelyn skye

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    Lightly magical, this is a romcom tech industry with a wristwatch that works exactly like the time turners from the Harry Potter universe. A few different POV, ideal life is a company owned by Talia Morgan, a Stanford grad with the ability to quickly rewind time. Her lifelong best friend Sam is in love with her. He makes Talia promise to only use it in case of an emergency. As time goes on, she finds herself becoming perfectionists and controlling.

    A blend of magical realism, romance and tech boom culture, I would have liked a bit more character development and a
    Deeper dive into the Ideal Life products and how they work. I saw infinite possibilities and I wish it had been explored a bit more. A clever premise! For me, this one was a like, not necessarily a “love.”

    Recommend? Sure. It was harmless and cute.

    Thanks to NetGalley and Atria for the ARC. Book to be published August 18, 2026.

  • good intentions by marisa walz

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    If you like a slightly manic, nervous wreck unreliable female main character, you’re going to love this book. Cady is dealing with grief of losing her twin sister, Dana, with whom she had a codependent relationship. In the emergency room, she sees and becomes obsessed with a woman named Morgan, who is frantic to hear about her son who has been taken in for injuries sustained by an accident. When she discovers that the woman’s son has died, she joins her grief group and becomes obsessed with her and begins following and stalking her.

    Audiobook review- what a performance. The tone becomes increasingly frantic as the book escalates, it is all first person narrative with plenty of anxious internal dialogue. The book is written as a “letter” to her sister Dana, so she speaks directly to Dana, calling her by name several times each chapter. I found it a bit distracting but I do think this helps the reader to remember the obsession that Cady had with Dana. Which is a big old advertisement for therapy.

    Recommend? Yes. It’s a debut and I sort of wonder if the author has ghost written for other thriller authors in the past. This book is perfect for fans of Shari LaPena, Lisa Jewell and Gillian Flynn.

    Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the ALC. book to be published February 3, 2026.

    macusa2025

  • skate it till you make it by rufaro faith mazarura

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    I am so grateful that we have a female POC author in closed-door romance! 💘

    Ari and Drew meet on New years as she is about to be the captain the British women’s hockey team in the Winter Olympics. He is a photographer and little does Ari know, he is the brother of one of her rivals from the US team. It becomes mutually beneficial to fake date him to avoid her narcissistic Olympian ex, Harrison.

    I am shocked at the amount of fake dating tropes that have arisen in 2026 romcoms. It is by far the most common trope that I am seeing for this year, despite the fact that fake dating almost never happens in real life. That aside, I enjoyed this very sweet story and loved the Olympic setting. I don’t know much about hockey, but I loved the storyline about female athletes, how they work together as a team, and the interpersonal relationships. Some really fun and inspiring minor characters. I also love a good kiss cam scene, and I really enjoyed the banter between Drew and Ari.

    Audiobook review – I thought that the performance was well acted and easy to follow. Great narrator and the pacing is perfect for audio. This is the perfect winter romcom if you are looking for something lighthearted in the new year.

    I might even watch Olympic women’s hockey instead of just figure skating and skiing this year!

    Thanks to NetGalley and McMillan audio for the arc. Book to be published 2/2/26

    macaudio2025

  • summer of second chances by kl walther

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    Olivia is floundering a bit. Well, at least she is according to her stepmother. At 19, she deferred her first year in college at Northwestern in order to work part time at a bookstore and to spins lots of time with her grandmother, Annie, who is deteriorating with dementia. Annie is Olivia’s favorite person in the world, and while sometimes she greets her as her believed granddaughter, sometimes she honks Olivia is an aide at the assisted living facility. Sometimes she says things that don’t make sense, but Olivia is doing her best at loving Annie the best way she can.

    After she finds some photos of Annie on Martha’s Vineyard that raise a lot of questions, Olivia is determined to find out what her grandmother was like before her dad was born. She doesn’t count on reconnecting with Connor, who she went to camp with, nor does she count on getting sidetracked by love.

    I am grateful for the chance to early read this book- I loved KL Walter’s While We’re Young and find her YA work to be very effervescent and positively uplifting. I loved this book’s first 20% as we got to know Olivia and Annie, and the portrayal of caring for a loved one in dementia was very touching.

    For me; the story somewhat slowed when she got to the island. Connor seemed fine and the chemistry was sweet. I was anxious to return to Annie’s storyline and the ending was just as magical.

    I definitely recommend this clean YA romance for the grandma and mostly the vibes.

    Thanks to NetGalley and sourcebooks fire for the ARC. Book to be published May 5, 2026.

  • enormous wings by laurie frankel

    A truly magnificent book about our agency, not just how much power we have over our own bodies when pregnant, but as people. It starts when 77 year old Pepper gets into a car accident, her daughter takes her driver’s license, and she moves her into the same assisted living facility that her ex-husband is in. But doesn’t that make sense? That Pepper’s kids would want her to be in the same place as their father? Still, this is where the theme begins that Pepper loses her ability to make decisions about her life. She didn’t expect to fall in love, and NO ONE expected her to become pregnant.

    What a crazy premise? I thought this would be more speculative, and although the premise is a little “out there” it is told in a realistic way. There is a fictional plot reason why she is an outlier of pregnancy. But even with such a fantasy-driven premise, this book ends up really making the reader think. If you like well written found-family books that make you think, this is the perfect book for you.

    I have loved all of Laurie Frankel’s novels, and this one absolutely met my SKY HIGH expectations. One of my pet peeves on GoodReads is when an early reader says “well I liked this book but I didn’t like it as much as the author’s previous work which is my favorite” – Early readers can fall into that trap of having high expectations that result in lesser than fair ratings. In this case I can confidently tell you that I absolutely LOVED this story, LOVED the characters, I laughed so hard at Pepper, her English teacher observations, and her general acceptance of her life.

    I could not tell what was going to happen next, and it was also sad to see so many people exploiting the pregnant septugenarian for their own political gains, you just wanted to scream, she is a HUMAN BEING not your mascot! Wow. I was fiercely protective of her.

    Laurie Frankel is just a genius, “Family Family” was very pro-adoption without being anti-choice, and this was so, so needed in women’s literary fiction. This book takes an equally divisive topic and makes it really about the story. If you are sensitive about reading books about narrators that may not make the same decisions you would, this book could trigger you. But either way, I think it would be an excellent book club book to encourage lively discussions.

    One of my top books of 2026!!

    Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt for the ARC. Book to be published May 4, 2026.

  • you’ll love it here by natalie sue

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    A vibrant and purely tender hearted sophomore novel from Natalie Sue. As a big fan of her debut novel, I jumped at the chance to preview her latest and I am so glad I did. I found these characters to be very original and the ensemble cast to be delightful.

    Mona’s alcoholic father died a few months ago. They had a strained relationship and never made things right, so she didn’t think she needed any time to grieve. But when one of her biggest clients makes a rude remark, she snaps right back at him. Her boss thinks she should take her leave and all of her back PTO, so this workaholic had some time on her hands. She takes up an offer to be a stand in super at her apartment. It’s always because she has always tried hard to avoid the people in her apartment building, but suddenly she finds herself getting by to know them as she helps the owner prepare the apartment for sale.

    It’s a sad but common tale of gentrification, delayed grief, and reconciling how her workaholism is her way of avoiding her father’s alcoholism. Mona was frightfully a bit of a mess, but we learned along with her and rooted for her journey. There is also a love story with Sami at the diner, an almost obligatory storyline that is really overshadowed by the residents. It’s about how we think we know people we see every day, but how we see them is just a reflection of how we see ourselves. Just like in real life, there is more to each complicated person than meets the eye.

    Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC. Book to be published August 11, 2026

  • into the blue by emma brodie

    AJ and Noah are soul mates, for real. He comes from a Hollywood royalty family, she is a woman in comedy that dreams of writing for SNL. They connect when she is working at a video store then 7 years later they are cast in a space show called Into the Blue.

    My goodness, team, this is a very romantic, overly dramatic, “meant to be” vibes. This is like that movie “Love Story” in the 1970’s which is why every 45-50 year old woman is named Jennifer. But I digress. If you love to sob your face off at a love story this is going to be your top best number one book of 2026.

    The blurbs are treating this as a spoiler, that Noah knows he has a short life span and will die of a very rare, inherited genetic disorder called Huntington’s disease. Therefore I will mark this whole review for spoilers. I am not a book marketer, so hey, what do I know. But this is what the story is, a tragic love story about a man who doesn’t want to get close because he knows he will deteriorate and die in his 40’s. This kind of story is jarring and not for everyone, and others will really love it. I found it to be tragic, beautiful, at times maybe a bit too sad. Honestly based on the blurb I was not prepared for this kind of story and I cried a lot.

    I am sure that this book will be very popular and it will get a lot of 5 star ratings and others will feel catfished. The characters are excellent and the ending was purely beautiful

    Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine for giving me the chance to read this very buzzworthy ARC. Book to be published July 14, 2026.

  • the library after dark by ande pliego

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    A highly addictive, eerie licked room mystery that takes place on the history tour of an old library. No one is who they say they are. Some people aren’t even who they say. They are the second time.

    Ande Pliego’s sophomore Effort does not disappoint. It is less jump-scare, and more immersive world building. Darkly suspenseful, we follow aria and her new boyfriend Jasper as they go to take a tour of the locally famous Dedalus library. What a name, right? Although Jasper thinks this is going to be a private tour, they are surprised to find a group that will also be a part of the tour of the historical landmark. They are even more surprised when they find themselves, unfortunately, locked in. And with at least one killer amongst the group.

    You won’t be able to put this one down! Although the room is full of a character cast, they have enough differences that you can easily tell them apart, and guess who is next. The internal dialogue, contributes to the intricate plot, and while the ending is somewhat unbelievable, I was 100% along for the ride. I love the way this author sets up a story.

    If you love books, and have fantasized often about living in a huge old library, you will love being a part of this world for a while.

    Thank you to NetGalley and Bantam for the ARC. Book to be published May 4, 2026.