Leigh Stein's influencer-age Gothic has sharp ideas about technology and self-image — but ambition outpaces execution.
All in Audiobook
The Correspondent – Virginia Evans
Overall, this was a quick, thoughtful crowd-pleaser with enough emotional depth (keep the tissues nearby in the final pages) to feel earned rather than gimmicky. Book clubs will eat it up.
A History of Loneliness – John Boyne
“A History of Loneliness” is a powerful literary novel exploring the Irish Catholic Church abuse scandal through the eyes of a well-meaning but complicit priest. Set across several decades, this character-driven story examines faith, silence, and moral responsibility with John Boyne’s signature emotional restraint and sharp prose. Ideal for fans of historical fiction, complex character studies, and books like John Williams’ “Stoner” or the author’s own “The Heart’s Invisible Furies.”
The Favorites – Layne Fargo
The drama escalates to a level that strains credibility, particularly around the Olympic fallout and the Sochi scheming. At a certain point, the twists feel less sharp and instead repetitive bloat. I kept thinking this could have been 100-pages shorter. It’s not high art, but it’s also not trying to be.
Man o’ War – Cory McCarthy
The first half may test some readers’ patience. The characters can be a little grating and the story wanders. But if you stick with it, the back half becomes something much more endearing and honest.
Grey Dog – Elliott Gish
Often labeled feminist horror, the book’s sharpest menace isn’t supernatural but social: rigid expectations around marriage, reputation, and female behavior, and the quiet normalization of violence against women. That tension works well early on, grounding the protagonist’s unraveling in her environment.
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection – John Green
Even at under 200-pages, it occasionally felt longer than it needed to be. Some of the deeper historical sections dragged, especially when the narrative moved away from Henry and into more abstract history. I found myself most engaged when Green leaned into the anthropological and human rather than the historical.
Red Clay – Charles B. Fancher
Earlier on, I felt like I had stumbled onto a hidden gem, one that was sharp in its observations about Reconstruction without being preachy or sentimental. Instead, the novel veers into revenge-thriller territory and loses much of its credibility. Had this been published after Percival Everett’s “James,” I might have assumed Fancher was trying to chase the same idea.
My Sister, the Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite
This isn’t a thriller in the traditional sense, and it isn’t interested in justice or closure. It’s a story about complicity, self-erasure and the lies we tell ourselves in the name of family. Perfect for fans of “Dexter” or “Yellowjackets.”
The Blueprint – Rae Giana Rashad
This isn’t an easy book, nor an unimportant one. Rashad has strong ideas, clear anger and real imagination. But too many concepts are crowded into too few pages, and the novel ultimately lacks the polish and focus needed to make its themes land with full force.
The Book of Delights – Ross Gay
An uneven but occasionally rewarding listening experience, “The Book of Delights” is structured as a yearlong project in noticing joy, in the form of short essays—some only a paragraph, others a few pages—each documenting a small delight from Ross Gay’s daily life.
Take My Hand – Dolen Perkins-Valdez
For a novel dealing with reproductive justice, eugenics and coerced sterilization, “Take My Hand” was surprisingly compulsive. It moved quickly without ever feeling careless. Readers drawn to emotionally grounded historical fiction — Kristin Hannah fans in particular — would likely move through this fast, even though it was in no way a light read.
Sink: A Memoir – Joseph Earl Thomas
By the end, “Sink” felt like a polished diary – confessional and a little depressing, but largely more meaningful for an audience of one.
Ours – Phillip B. Williams
There are meaty ideas at work here: the spiritual cost of survival, the fragility of utopia, how protection slides into control and how power corrodes even well-intentioned communities. The rotating perspectives allow Saint to be seen as both savior and tyrant, loved and loathed in equal measure. Yet too many of these threads are buried beneath excess.
The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
“Year” is not simply a memoir of grief; it is an exploration of how the mind bends and folds in the face of incomprehensible loss. In just over 200 pages, Didion maps the terrain between shock and mourning with a precision that is at once clinical and devastating.
Teacher of the Year/Husband of the Year – M.A. Wardell
I still had a few annoyances, but they felt minor because the overall tone is charming in Marvin and Olan’s love story. This is a low-stakes romance that doesn’t pretend to be anything else. I’m still not ready to say I “read M/M romance” as a genre category, but this was a good test case of what works for me and what doesn’t.
Half His Age – Jennette McCurdy
The plot itself is straightforward, almost austere, and not particularly original – May/December and power-imbalance relationships have been de rigueur in literature for centuries. What gives the novel its spark is McCurdy’s refusal to sand down the uglier edges of either character.
Hamnet – Maggie O’Farrell
Ultimately, “Hamnet” is a moving examination of grief and the quiet costs of ambition. By keeping Shakespeare himself mostly offstage, O’Farrell centers the family left behind. Not for everyone, but worth the time for readers who enjoy dense, atmospheric historical fiction.
The Audiobook All-Stars and the Hall of Shame
Curious who the best and worst audiobook narrators are? I’ve compiled a hall of fame and shame based on five years of audiobook reviews.
The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) – Rabih Alameddine
“True True” is far more entertaining than its dust-jacket suggests, and it’s absolutely worth the time. It exceeded my expectations and, like last year’s winner “James,” suggests the National Book Award isn’t afraid of honoring a novel that’s broadly appealing without being shallow.