Even though A Flicker in the Dark has an interesting premise, its reliance on the confused and drugged-up female narrator trope prevented this story from being as great as it could've been.

Chloe Davis has lived in the shadow of fear for a long time. When she was twelve years ago, six teenage girls disappeared in town, one right after another. The nightmare finally ended when her own father confessed to the killings, upending her childhood and leaving her family in ruins. Now twenty years later, girls are going missing again. And Chloe can't help but feel there is a link between what's happening now and what happened so long ago.

I've read plenty of serial killer stories from the perspective of investigators, the victims and their families, and regular townspeople, but I'm not sure I've ever read one from the killer's own daughter. And coming at it from that angle makes this story feel fresh and unusual. Chloe still suffers from the fallout of her childhood, and her narrative envelopes the whole story in her dark and foreboding mood.

Where this didn't quite work as well for me is the pacing. It's very slow, with hardly anything happening in the first 250 pages. Instead, we spend a lot of time in Chloe's head as she ruminates, freaks out, consumes copious quantities of alcohol and prescription drugs, sticks her nose where it doesn't belong, and in general, just bumbles around being confused and paranoid. To be fair, this is a pretty common trope for the genre, but it just isn't my favorite as I find it to be pretty dull and a bit exasperating.

Clearly, this is the sort of psychological thriller that leans heavily towards the psychological side, whereas I like mine to be more on the thriller side. I always enjoy a more active investigation instead of a more active rumination. However, that's just a personal preference. I think a lot of what I found to be slow is what a lot of readers find fascinating, so your experiences may be the opposite of mine.

The pacing does finally pick up in the last 100 pages, and we are treated to one revelation after another. I wouldn't necessarily say any of it is surprising (I've read too many thrillers at this point), but it is exciting. The way everything comes together is really the highlight of the book, and made this a worthwhile read for me.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

This was my Book of the Month pick for December. If you're curious about BOTM or want to find out how to get your first book for $5, click here.

No One Will Miss Her has been getting rave reviews from everyone I know, so I went into it with high expectations. Too high, as it turns out, because it pretty much underwhelmed from beginning to end.

First of all, this is a relatively thin story. There isn't a lot of substance in here, and it's very much predicated on its one twist. The problem is that I figured it out almost from the very beginning. It's something I've seen done in a few books already, so it's quite obvious. And once I saw it, there just wasn't much else interesting in here.

Now, I know reading thrillers like this require suspension of disbelief. But this book took it pretty far, such that it's not only improbable, but also actually impossible. I mean, this isn't science fiction, so my suspension of disbelief can only stretch so far. It's hard to remain in the story when I'm laughing at the absurdity of it all.

Another issue is that this style of domestic thriller isn't my favorite. We spend a lot of time in the characters' heads while they ruminate about who they are as people, what others think of them, and how great/not great they are. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but I find it fairly dull and my eyes glaze over quickly if there are paragraphs upon paragraphs of that stuff.

Also, this book has what seems to be the largest amount of wrap-up to actual story I've ever come across. More than 100 pages of this book is wrapping up, which is just ridiculous on a 280 page story. At some point, I'm thinking to myself, Is this really it? Surely something else will happen. But no, that was all it was.

Gosh, that all sounds super negative, but it wasn't that bad. I was mostly indifferent to this story. Obviously, you should take my review with a grain of salt. So many other readers loved this and the twist made their jaws drop and their heads spin. But my jaw and head remained firmly in place, and no one's sadder than me. So my search continues for a mystery thriller that will actually thrill me.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

The dialogue and action were so shrouded in euphemism, so opaque in meaning and intention, alternatively dull and worrisome, that no one could decide what the play was about, if they understood it, let alone enjoyed it.

I can't help but think Colson Whitehead was talking about this very book when he wrote that prescient line into it.

Harlem Shuffle is a set of three loosely-related stories about furniture salesman and reluctant crook Ray Carney. He wants to lead an honest life, but that's not easy as a Black man in 1960s Harlem. So due to necessity and unfortunate circumstances, he keeps getting pulled into dodgy business.

The book blurb promises heists, and I'm immediately thinking of well-planned and well-executed ones à la Ocean's Eleven. But what I got instead were hijinks. Carney and his friends, through schemes and poor-decision making, would cause the sort of trouble that Carney can then only straighten out via crooked ways. Now that sounds interesting enough, but for some reason, it didn't feel compelling when I was actually reading it. Perhaps I'm just not the right audience for this type of gangster noir.

However, an even bigger problem is that the writing style didn't work for me. Instead of leading with contextual information, Whitehead often dropped the reader right into random thoughts or new characters—of which there were many—without explanation. Then after many paragraphs of incomprehensible blather, he finally provides context, at which point the reader would be forced to go back and reread it all again in order to gain understanding. In this way, I read numerous portions of this book many times.

The writing also has a tendency to be unfocused. Even the most straightforward of scenes would stretch to fill many pages, stuffed full of irrelevant musings, asides, and tangents. Those musings often involved characters we don't know or context we don't have, which adds to the confusion. And by the time I've come out of it, not only did I not understand, but I've forgotten where I am in the original scene.

I'm sure there is an interesting story in here somewhere, but my patience was stretched to the limits trying to find it. The third part (the last 100 pages) did finally feel closer to what I expected from the author, as if that was the story he had meant to write all along, but on realizing he was 200 pages short, fluffed out the rest and that's what we got.

This was a pretty disappointing read for me, especially from an author of Colson Whitehead's caliber. If you prefer your stories to be maximumly tedious and difficult to follow, then I recommend this book. For everyone else, I'd say stay away.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars

Are you looking for the perfect beach read and murder mystery, all in one go? Well look no further, my peeps, cause this is it.

Let’s be real, it isn't summer without that perfect beach read. And in order to qualify, it must meet certain criteria. It needs to be fun and frothy, but never superficial. It has to have that je ne sais quoi that grabs you from the first moment and keeps you glued to the pages. And most importantly, it must take place on a beach or in a beach town so you can live vicariously the sun-drenched lifestyle, wherever you may be. And this fulfills it all.

On the morning of Celeste Otis's extravagant Nantucket wedding to wealthy heir Benji Winbury, she wakes to find her maid of honor floating dead in the water. As the investigation heats up and the police carefully comb over every member of the wedding party, shocking secrets are slowly revealed. It seems everyone has something to hide.

The narrative alternates between the present-day investigation and the events leading up to it. Sometimes with a dual timeline, I'm only really there for one or the other, but not in this case. Here, both were equally riveting, and my attention never wavered, not even a blip. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough and utterly inhaled the whole thing.

I have to applaud the murder mystery in here. It was superbly done and has all the hallmarks of a classic whodunnit: a small cast of characters, red herrings galore, and delicious twists and turns everywhere. The ending even managed to surprise me, which is saying something coming from a mystery aficionado like myself.

One thing to note is that while this book is marked as #3 in a series, it's fine to be read as a standalone. In fact, I haven't read either of the first two books and didn't even know this was part of a series when I started. As far as I understand it, the books all share some characters around town and that's about it, so you won't miss anything by jumping straight in.

I've been wracking my brain, trying to figure out when was the last time I found a perfect beach read that also happens to be a clever whodunnit. Certainly there are plenty of beach reads out there, and many incorporate a mystery element or thriller vibes. But a true whodunnit à la Agatha Christie? I'm coming up empty. Even Elin Hilderbrand, the queen of the former, has only written this one of the latter. And that's why this book is so special.

Every year, I look forward to my summer beach reads with glee. I anticipate the moment when I finally get to sit out in the sun and crack open that perfect book, ready to soak up the vibes and be transported to all that is glorious about the season. If you're anything like me, this one is not to be missed.

Readaroo Rating: 5 stars!

If the world wasn't filled with so many incompetent people, Teddy would have so much more time to concentrate on the important things. Like teaching.

Teddy Crutcher has just been awarded Teacher of the Year, and it is well deserved. He always challenges his students to be the best they can be, even if he has to resort to unconventional methods. After all, isn't that why these students pay so much money to go to Belmont Academy?

Right off the bat, this feels like a compulsive read. It was easy to get sucked into the story and to keep turning the pages. With its short chapters, I felt like I could always read just a few more pages, and the outrageous happenings kept me constantly guessing and surprised.

However, this is definitely a book that prioritizes its shock factor above everything else. In particular, the characters are very thinly sketched, with everyone being some form of crazy, but that is their only real personality trait. As a result, they don't feel fully formed, and I had trouble caring about them. Their crazy actions started to feel random, as if you could swap them between characters and still have the story make the same amount of sense.

Reading this genre can sometimes feel like you're witnessing a race in which books compete to outdo one another in the sheer insanity of their characters and happenings. And because we've seen it all by this point, books have to be ever more outrageous to shock us. And this book definitely deserves to be at the top of that pile.

It's a good one to pick up if you're in the mood for a diversion, and I certainly had fun with it. But with its shallow characterizations and fairly superficial storylines, everything is already starting to blur together only hours after finishing it.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

I'd like to think I'm a rational being, but I also know that I'm prone to sporadic fits of irrationality, just like everyone else out there. So I when I came across this book, I knew I had to read it. I was hoping it would give me insight into myself, and also help me understand why it seems like a large portion of our population have lately given in to the irrational devils of our nature.

And this book did offer insight. In particular, the first and second to last chapters were riveting, approaching the discussion from psychological and sociological perspectives. The examples on how people end up making less than optimal choices are intriguing, and this book offers the most intuitive explanation of the Monty Hall problem I've ever come across. And the concluding discussion on personal knowledge being divided into two different zones, real and mythological, is absolutely fascinating as well as illuminating.

But that isn't the majority of this book. Rather, the focus of this book is how to use probability and statistics to understand numerical implications of different choices, including how to calculate their actual probabilities. I have nothing against the topics, but that isn't what I thought I signed up to read when I opened this book.

Because the topics covered are so technical, the majority of this book reads like a textbook. It doesn't help that they are often presented in a heavily pedantic style, with lots of terms and formulas, as well as philosophical musings. In fact, there is enough content in here to cover multiple university classes (I know because I had the joy of taking these exact ones back in college), so you can imagine trying to fit them into 300 pages makes the whole thing dense and dry.

When a book is so technical, it gets into a bit of a dilemma with its target audience. If you already know most of the topics covered, then you should have no trouble following along, but in that case, why are you reading this book? On the other hand, if you haven't seen the topics before and this is your first introduction, I think you'll have a lot of trouble understanding and retaining the information, especially as the later chapters build on concepts from the earlier ones.

Don't get me wrong, this is an interesting book, but I think it requires the reader to go in with the right expectations. The misleading title will have you think it's a psychological deep dive into rationality, but it isn't that. This is really a book on probability and statistics, and how to use them to make sense of our world. With that mindset, this book could offer a lot to the right audience.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

My heartfelt thanks for the copy that was provided for my honest and unbiased review.

What is the purpose of fiction? Could it be to pull the wool over our eyes so completely that we forget we are reading something made up and totally false?

Chasing the Boogeyman is a fictional account of the brutal killings that took place in the author's hometown of Edgewood during the late 1980s. Teenage girls would first go missing and then turn up mutilated and posed. Before long, the town is in a frenzy of fear and suspicion. While the police work feverishly to catch the serial killer, Richard Chizmar is drawn to the case and his firsthand account eventually becomes the book we're reading.

Yes, you read that correctly. The author wrote himself into a fictional story. I've only encountered that ploy in one other book series before, and I'm a big fan. It creates a feeling of authenticity that, along with the true crime narrative style used here, makes it hard to dispute or look away from. There are even crime scene photos included with every chapter, which further adds to the real and chilling atmosphere.

Needless to say, I found the whole thing to be absolutely riveting. I got through it in two days—but only because I started late the first day and had to take a break to sleep—and I was so into the story, I ended up with insomnia.

One thing to note: while I inhaled practically the whole book, I did almost abandon it in the beginning because I found the opening to be really dry. This was especially the case with "Chapter One: The Town," which provides a detailed history of the town going back to colonial days and also includes random tidbits from the author's childhood, such as his house, favorite hangout spots, and even how many cracks are in certain sidewalks. I know what the author was trying to do here, but it was all irrelevant and almost did me in.

However, I'm so glad I didn't give up on this book. It turned out to be well worth the effort of the first thirty-five pages. If you're giving this a try, I'm not above suggesting you skim liberally or even skip straight to Chapter Two if you're feeling bogged down with the earlier pages; you won't miss anything.

This is one of the those books where the story is just as important as the format, and both worked together to create that perfect narrative. The blurring of the lines between what is real and what is fiction happens frequently and enthusiastically here. If the goal of fiction is to immerse the reader into a tale so bold and true as to feel authentic, then surely this must be the perfect tale.

Readaroo Rating: 5 stars!