There was a time back in the day when I couldn't get enough of space adventures. I remember being in college, going to the library with every intention of studying for a final, then promptly picking up a Mars exploration/first contact novel sitting right there in my line of sight. Needless to say, I got not a lick of studying done that day, but I did have a wildly entertaining time.

So picking up The Last Astronaut was a no-brainer for me. Here comes an unusual object, heading directly our way. Is it an asteroid? A comet? But no, lo and behold, it's alien technology. Our only course of action is to send up some astronauts to meet and greet this object and hopefully convince the aliens not to annihilate us.

This has all the bones of a rip-roaring space adventure. The premise is fascinating, the action nonstop, and the stakes could not be higher. David Wellington's plot-driven writing style pairs well with this sort of tale, and before long, I'm sucked into the narrative.

I loved all the developments in here, especially when it came to the aliens. Even being quite familiar with this genre going in, I still feel like there were a lot of surprises in store for me. Everything came together seamlessly and with so much satisfaction, I have to give kudos to the author for having thought it all up.

But story's pacing was quite uneven, and it almost did me in a few times. Yes, there were many exciting moments, but they were often sandwiched between many excruciatingly slow and plodding ones. Each of the "excursions," in particular, felt like thousands of pages long. There were moments when I thought I'd read a hundred pages, only for the page count to tell me it was more like ten.

I feel like this was a case where the story, in its effort to immerse the reader and convince us that everything was indeed real, spent too much time on every minutiae of detail and not enough time on the truly revelatory moments. As a result, the exciting bits passed by in the blink of an eye, while the tedious ones (of walking, climbing, crawling, running) seemed to go on and on.

With regards to the characters, I'll say this — if Earth were really under attack from aliens, I'm not sure this group of astronauts and government officials would be the ones I'd want to save us all. They were not the brightest bulbs in the shed, and a lot of the issues that arose came directly from their collective poor planning and inability to communicate.

Still, I can't deny that this story had its moments of fun and excitement. I would recommend it, but maybe only to a select audience. If you're an avid fan of first contact stories, this is well worth a spot on your TBR. If not, then you can probably safely skip this.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

Well, boo. This was not at all the story I thought I was signing up to read.

Looking at the blurb, it'd have you thinking this was some sort of romantic suspense. Here comes newlyweds Sam and Annie, moving to the suburbs, where Sam opens his own therapy practice with an almost exclusively female clientele. When one such patient turns out to want more than just doctor/patient privileges, that's when things start to go awry.

I'm all for a fun and sexy time, so I settled in and got ready to sink my teeth into this titillating tale. And initially, it was exactly what I wanted. Sam and Annie were both dynamic characters who leaped off the pages, and there were even some femme fatale vibes that added to the whole delicious atmosphere.

But then we reach a turning point early in the story, and it kind of went downhill from there. Without giving anything away, I'll say what started as one story quickly morphed into something completely different, and that different was exactly the sort of thing I don't enjoy. All the fun and all the sexy were sucked out of the story, and all that was left was the uncomfortable.

I pick up thrillers because I want to have a good time. Yes, I know there is murder and mayhem within, but I want to be entertained while reading whatever crazy shenanigans is going on. But if the story chooses to focus too much on the gore or the grit or the trauma, then it can become too unpleasant to still be enjoyable. And that's what happened here.

My other big issue is that all the reveals happened fairly early on. Then we are forced to sit through the entire latter half the book while it spells out in long form essentially what is already obvious to the reader. By that point, the story can only go one way, and I read through the last 150 pages just to be sure that indeed, it went that way.

Those two things put together made the second half of the book a complete snoozefest for me. My attention kept wandering, partly because I know nothing interesting will happen and partly because what's on the pages was just unpleasant to read.

I feel like this was such a bait and switch. I was promised fun and sexy, and instead I cringed my way through so much of it. I'm puzzled by all the love for this book, but it just goes to show that two readers can read the exact same thing and come away with completely different experiences. So don't let me dissuade you from giving it a try.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars

I'll say this—I never have cause to complain about the mystery components in Holly Jackson's stories. It's the other parts that has me feeling more iffy.

But first things first, I just can't get over the cleverness of this premise. Jet is attacked and left for dead, but she miraculously survives though she only has seven days left before her resulting brain aneurysm will rupture and kill her. She wants to use her last days to figure out who killed her. Along with her childhood best friend and sidekick, Billy, they go around sticking their noses where they don't belong, trying to suss out her killer before it's too late.

Holly Jackson's mysteries always feel a little retro à la Nancy Drew, and Not Quite Dead Yet falls right into that camp. There are clues, secrets, red herrings, and surprises galore, and of course I gobbled it all up. At a time when other authors of the genre can't be bothered to put any real clues into their mysteries and rely more on wacky twists to drive their stories along, reading Holly Jackson's is a breath of fresh air.

It was so much fun to armchair detect, mulling over all the clues, spotting the red herrings, and seeing what I could figure out all on my own. And Jet's childhood best friend/sidekick Billy makes for the perfect Bess/George to Jet's Nancy, and their smidgen of romance was minor enough so as to not distract. Of course if you're a mystery enthusiast, you'll probably see most of it coming from a mile away, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable.

But what does make it less enjoyable is the writing style. This is Jackson's adult debut (after a few YA books, including the famous A Good Girl's Guide to Murder), and well, it doesn't really feel any more adult than her previous books. Jet is supposedly 27 years old, yet if you took ten years off her age, you could conceivably have the exact same story. She and every single character in here reads either like a sullen teenager or is sketched through the eyes of one.

I've seen this happen before. Authors start out writing YA, then as they and their readers mature, they make the jump to adult fiction, with the hope that their fanbase will follow and grow with them. But the problem is that some authors have trouble making this jump. Either they've gotten so used to writing YA style that they don't quite know how to do adult, or they themselves are not yet mature enough to be able to pull off that voice. Either way, it's a clumsy first attempt, and that's what happened here.

The other issue could be the format. The A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series was mixed media, as if you're reading a dossier of an actual investigation, and it was superbly done. This here though is just regular prose, and it felt considerably less successful. Jackson's reliance on dialogues and extremely short paragraphs (sometimes as short as a sentence fragment) makes it chaotic and at times difficult to follow. It took me three separate tries just to get through the initial chapter, in which we are inexplicably introduced to every single character in the book, all in one go.

Back to the mystery for a second. I know I said I have nothing to complain about, but there is one thing that left me unsatisfied. The main mystery wrapped up just fine, but there were multiple side mysteries that popped up along the way (as is oft the case with books of this genre), some of them quite serious in their own right. And though we find out whodunit in each case, there was no real reckoning for the perpetrators of those crimes within the tale. I found the attitude to just shrug and move on decidedly odd.

Okay, one more thing since I'm laying it all out there. I always get a little weirded out if there is disdain towards animals or children in the pages of a book (and not as a way to forward the plot or the characters). And while the pet in this book was treated with reverence, the attitude towards the baby was such obvious scorn while serving no real purpose, I can only imagine it's the author's own leaking onto the pages. Every time this happened, I was jerked out of the story because it was so jarring and unnecessary, and I really wish editing had caught it.

So now I'm at this awkward spot where I'm not sure where I stand with Holly Jackson. I adored the first two books of her A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series and wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone in need of some modern day Nancy Drew. But it seems with her latest books, she's veering in a direction with her style that doesn't really jibe with my preferences. Time will tell, but for now, maybe I just need to contend myself with rereads of her old books rather than venture more into her new ones.

Readaroo Rating: 3 stars

Not that I would've expected any less from Ali Hazelwood, but Check & Mate was absolutely the adorable and delightful romcom I needed.

Mallory used to love playing chess, but she hasn't played a single game in four years. So when she accidentally faces the #1 ranked player in the world and completely annihilates him, she's rightfully shocked. But it's one thing to stumble into a one-time win, it's another thing altogether to actually commit to playing the game. So what if she can't get Nolan out of her head and he wants a rematch? Mallory has disavowed chess, and she has no intention of changing her mind.

What can I say here that I haven't said about Ali Hazelwood a thousand times before? I read her books for the banter, the snark, and the puns, and she delivers every single time. I feel like I always have a permanent smile affixed to my face, just grinning like an idiot, every time I pick up one of her stories. And let me tell you, I'm not above having a good time.

Instead of being the usual STEM representatives, this time our characters are chess players. Now I know next to nothing about the game, but that didn't stop me from fully connecting with the characters and clapping and cheering for their successes. In particular, Mallory was an easy heroine to root for, and I was so there for her.

In terms of conflicts, I was happy to see that Hazelwood didn't rely on her default miscommunication trope like usual. Instead, Mallory was knocking on the doors of martyrdom, and while that did cause my eyes to roll a few times, the story moved along speedily enough that I didn't end up suffering any permanent eye damage.

Since this is YA, my biggest concern going in was whether this would feel too young to me. But that totally ended up being a nonissue. The story reads just like any other Hazelwood, but with the spicy scenes removed. It even contained the obligatory main character who wasn't into sex until they met "the one," a staple of Hazelwood's at this point. But if your concern is coming from the other direction (i.e. should I let my teen read this?), well that's a different conversation altogether.

It's so nice to have an author you can rely on anytime you're slumping and in need of a frothy, fun, but never frivolous read. And so Ali Hazelwood delivers again, just when I need her the most.

Readaroo Rating: 4 stars

I've got to hand it to Liane Moriarty. Apples Never Fall has got to be one of the most scintillating family dramas I've ever read.

Joy Delaney, beloved wife and mother of four, has disappeared. Her adult children are rightfully aghast, but they're reluctant to report her missing. They know the prime suspect will be their father, and to be honest, they're not quite sure of his innocence. When the police starts asking questions, it quickly becomes clear everyone in the family has stories to tell and secrets to hide. But how long can they hold out before all is laid bare?

First and foremost, this is a story about dysfunctional families, and I just love me a good one of those. Every member of the Delaney family is distinct and compelling, and when you throw in the game of tennis, sibling rivalries, the mother's disappearance, and that decidedly strange interloper to their family home, the tale gets interesting real quick.

I can't get over the premise. It's such a fascinating dilemma, and I couldn't stop myself from chewing it over. What would I do in this situation—would I side with my father or against him if I suspected he murdered my mother? I love a good moral quandary, and this story perfectly captured the nuances that such a predicament would bring to a family.

What I've always adored about Moriarty's writing is her sharp and astute observations about people and their flaws. She has this ability to peel back the layers of family relationships and what it means to be human, and to expose everything beautiful and ugly within, all the while injecting just the right amount of humor. This book hit upon tender subjects familiar to everyone, yet instead of making me cry, it made me laugh.

Needless to say, I found the whole thing to be utterly riveting. The characters were memorable, the dialogue snappy, and the strife felt all too real. I devoured it in just a few days. And while the mystery wasn't the core of this book, there were still plenty of revelations along the way to keep me on my toes.

If I had one quibble, it would have to be the ending. I'm not a fan of when a story is clearly wrapped up, and then the author goes on to continue some more, often to its detriment. And that's kind of what happened here. The last few chapters really weren't necessary, and including them caused the story to veer off course and end on a slight odd note. But that's a minor complaint, and I could very well ignore that last bit in my head (which I've already done) in favor of the rest of the story.

If you're considering this, do keep one thing in mind—to properly enjoy it, you have to have the right mindset. This isn't a mystery/thriller and you would be sorely disappointed if you went in expecting that. In fact, this isn't even its milder domestic suspense cousin. This is straight up a dysfunctional family drama, and Joy's disappearance is simply a plot device used to drive the narrative forward.

I feel like when Liane Moriarty writes what she knows best, there's almost nothing better. And this tale of the dysfunctional Delaney family certainly turned out to be quite the startling and dazzling gem.

Readaroo Rating: 4.5 stars

But these were the Storms.

Yes, so you remind me every other paragraph. But I'm going to need a little more than that to sustain my interests.

DNF - What is happening to my summer reading? I feel like I keep picking up books, then DNFing them. This one had so much potential, and yet the pages are filled with, well, nothing but filler. The dialogue was bland, the plot seemed nonexistent, and the siblings can all be interchanged with one another.

The thing is, name dropping and bad storm analogies do not constitute a story. My bar isn't that high. Whatever is on the pages just has to be slightly more interesting than what I've conjured up in my mind from skimming the blurb. And this did not, sadly, pass that low bar.

It reads like I've accidentally eavesdropped on a boring conversation where all the interesting bits have been cut out and the most tedious and obvious parts dwelled and expanded upon.

Maybe it's my old age, but I'm running out of time and no longer have patience for books with basic dialogue and no plot. So, onto the next.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars

If Evelyn Hugo put Taylor Jenkins Reid on the map, then surely Daisy Jones is the one that cements her dominance over the expansive landscape of fictional memoirs.

When you think about, what is the difference between fiction and nonfiction? Well, that's an easy question. One is real and the other is made up. Okay, but how do you differentiate between them while you're actually in the midst of a story? Ah, and herein lies the crux of what makes TJR's stories so special.

Told via interview transcripts, Daisy Jones & The Six chronicles the rise of the eponymous band that came to define rock 'n' roll in the late 1970s, as well as the troubles that subsequently led to the band splitting up seemingly overnight and never playing together again. The thing is though, this band and their entire story is fictional, but it sure doesn't feel like it.

The narrative is raw and evocative, filled with sweet, complicated characters I can't help but cheer for. There's complexity and nuance in the way TJR captures the relationships between the band members, each flawed in their own way with their individual personalities, quirks, and baggage.

Every character in here, every interaction, every thought and emotion, even the lyrics and the technical factors that go into making a band, all come together to heighten the sensation that what we're reading is real. The amount of details in here is staggering, and I applaud the author for having done so much meticulous research to build out her fictional world. The result is as authentic and gripping as the real deal.

I was captivated. I fell head first into this band and this world, and I had trouble resurfacing. There's this reader's high that you only get in the most immersive of reads—where the real world fades out and the one on the pages sharpens until it takes over your mind—and I got it here. I absolutely inhaled this whole thing, and I didn't stop, couldn't stop, until it was all done.

Going in, a lot has been made of the story's interview format; some love it, some hate it. I wasn't sure where I would fall. But of course I needn't have worried. I was hooked right from the start. It reads like an intimate first person account, allowing us to see right into the hearts and minds of every character. We lived every moment with them, feeling every emotion as if it were our own.

I will say, rock and roll is not my preferred music genre, so I was definitely a bit taken aback by how deeply invested I was in this story. I wasn't alive during the 1970s, and it would be multiple decades after that that I even began to notice American music. But that's TJR for you. She has this way of making me care deeply about things which I know nothing about and quite frankly have never given a farthing of thought to before.

Perhaps my only small quibble is that this felt almost too real. And just like real life, not everything was wrapped up in a neat bow, not everyone got the happily ever after that they deserved. In fact, no one got everything, just like real life and maybe that left me feeling a bit wistful and yearning, but for what, I don't really know.

I think to say to an author, I loved your story so much I wish it were real and I'm sad it's not and I don't want it to end, is about the highest compliment I can give. So I pay that highest compliment to TJR here. This story really showcases the range of her skills and abilities. She isn't just a writer of generic women's fiction. She can take any topic and build out a convincing, technically rich world around it, and make us see it as real. That's so impressive, and I cannot wait to see what she tackles next.

Readaroo Rating: 5 stars!