In The Woman in the Park, Sarah meets a handsome and mysterious man in the park. She is immediately drawn to him, and his presence adds a flame of excitement to her otherwise mundane life as a housewife to a cheating husband and children who are growing up and pulling away. But soon a woman from the park goes missing, and police come knocking on her door. And as the truth unravels, we realize nothing is as it seems.

This was a super fun and easy read. Once I started, I was hooked and I couldn't put it down. I've been in a reading slump lately where it has taken me many days to get through a book, but I bombed through this one in two days. It was fast-paced, and there were lots of twists and turns along the way to keep me entertained. I also liked the shorter length, and how the narration didn't get bogged down in the main character's internal ruminations (a pet peeve of mine in reading this genre of modern psychological thrillers).

But you guys, I called it, almost from the very beginning! Without giving anything away, I'll say that it reminded me of something I've seen before, and it pretty much had the same clues. For me, this is the problem with most books of this genre: there are only so many possibilities, so once you've seen some, you've seen them all. And my overactive brain refuses to shut off and let me enjoy it unspoiled. But that's my problem, and not the book's.

What an enjoyable and riveting story this was. I only wish I hadn't figured things out so early and instead had been surprised at every turn, the way many other readers were by this story. But I'm happy to overlook this because it's fairly rare for me to have a positive experience with this genre. This is a very promising start for this author duo, and I look forward to more from them.

Readaroo Rating: 4 stars

What if an asteroid were on a collision course with Earth? Would we have what it takes to defend ourselves, or would we be powerless in the face of this cosmic blip?

Fire in the Sky takes a look into the history and science of asteroids and comets, distilling down all that we know of these celestial bodies across millions of years. It also dives into their capacity to cause catastrophic damage should they strike Earth (goodbye, dinosaurs!), and our effort and ability to defend ourselves against them.

I found this book to be utterly fascinating. As you guys know, I'm a huge space buff, so this book is right up my alley. Because I've read so many books about space over the years and it's inevitable that some of it ends up being repetitive, I now approach the genre with more caution. So I was thrilled when this book turned out to be almost all new information for me.

The writing style kept me riveted. It's tightly paced even though it's nonfiction science. The author really captured all that is interesting and informative about this subject without getting bogged down in the technical details or repeating himself. Usually with nonfiction, there are some chapters more interesting than others, but this book feels consistent throughout, keeping my interest without a single chapter feeling superfluous or boring.

For me, one of the most insightful topics covered in here is how prepared we are if a decent-sized asteroid were to hit Earth. It really highlights how far we still have to go to be able to affect—even a little—the outcome, should one set its sights on us.

The war games scenario played out in the book made a particularly interesting point about certainty versus action. The earlier we act, the less it would take to knock the object off of its collision course with Earth, though we would also be less certain it would've hit us in the first place. But the longer we wait to see if we need to act at all, the less options we'll end up having, until we have waited so long to establish certainty that there is little remedy left.

If you're interested in asteroids and comets (or you just enjoyed the movies Deep Impact and Armageddon), I highly recommend this book. It's entertaining and insightful, and I guarantee it'll change the way you see our planet and its seemingly cozy and safe nook in the universe.

Readaroo Rating: 5 stars!

The Department of Sensitive Crimes introduces us to detective Ulf Varg and his team, who are called upon to handle cases that are deemed too unusual or strange for the regular police force. This book contains three of those cases: a man stabbed in the back of the knee, the missing imaginary boyfriend, and a werewolf frightening guests at a spa. In between, we are treated to details about Varg and his teammates, and also his dog Martin.

At first, I found the storytelling style to be a bit disjointed and unusual, but I soon got used to it, and it won me over. I wouldn't say the three mysteries fit the mold of traditional mysteries. They are more like strange happenings that had reasonable explanations, which the detectives sussed out. Of the three cases, the missing imaginary boyfriend was definitely my favorite for how curious and surprising the whole thing was.

Interspersed among the cases were are lots of humorous and sometimes irreverent observations and tidbits, which just added to the quirky atmosphere. Going in, I wasn't sure if this would be my type of book, but I definitely enjoyed it. If you're looking for something a bit off the beaten path of mysteries, I think this would be a fun one to try.

Readaroo Rating: 4 stars

In Friends and Strangers, we follow two women: Elizabeth as she moves from the city to the suburbs after having a baby, and her babysitter Sam, a student at the local university. Each is trying to figure out her own path. Elizabeth is adjusting to post-baby life while keeping a secret from her husband. And Sam is trying to balance college life with her much-older boyfriend while making post-graduation plans.

This book started off with a bang for me. For the first 100 pages, I was riveted and couldn't put it down. I found Sullivan's writing to be clear-eyed and perceptive, her sketch of each women to be nuanced and insightful. It's a character-driven novel, so not much was happening in terms of action, but that didn't stop my enjoyment of it, at least initially.

But then this book started to bother me. For one, it has one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to tropes: all conflict comes from things unspoken. But the egregiousness of these unspoken things are not all the same. Some are actually good things (giving money, help with finding a job), while others are severe betrayals (fertility fraud, publishing grievances told in confidence), but the book treats them as if they are all on the same level. In each case, the receiver freaks out and refuses to try to understand the other side. It's all very exhausting, especially because some of the issues are quite petty.

Every character in here is fairly selfish and obtuse, but no one more so than Elizabeth. Nothing she does makes any sense to me. She looks down on others while thinking she is above them. She tries to control others with money while refusing to let her father control her in the same way. She lies to her husband repeatedly, on two major issues. She obsesses over other people's problems while sticking her head in the sand and refusing to deal with her own.

One thing in particular that made me uncomfortable is the way the book deals with the topic of having children. As someone who doesn't have kids, I found the way Elizabeth talks about new motherhood and the way she acts after having her child to be extremely off-putting. But then the book does a 180 at the very end, as if to indicate that a woman cannot be content unless she has as many kids as her husband wants? I honestly don't know.

Another thing that really bothered me was how Elizabeth tried so hard to convince Sam's friend that embryo donation was wrong and that she will regret it for the rest of her life. Never mind that she was helping a couple that could not have kids on their own, and by first agreeing and then bowing out, she took away that chance for the couple. The book's lack of addressing this made it seem as if it agrees with that stance, and that's rather troubling.

This book is also very heavy-handed in the topics it's exploring. There is a focus on privilege, that it exists in many different ways (not just rich versus poor). But that is spelled out for the reader many, many times. I was also surprised at how in-depth the book went into to talk about the corrupt system that is keeping the little guy down. The thing is, I agree with all that, but I just prefer books that make me think, not ones that do the thinking for me and then spoon-feed it to me.

For me, a great character-driven book has to show character growth. (Otherwise, what I am reading for?) But that just didn't happen in this book. The two main characters remained exactly the same from beginning to end. Sam was extremely angry with Elizabeth for helping, without which she wouldn't have the life she has. But she seems not to realize this. And Elizabeth continues to lie to her husband without any consequences.

In the end, I enjoyed Sullivan's writing, and I will continue to read it. But this time, I found too much that was troubling for me. And the parts that weren't, I didn't really grasp the point or mesh with the delivery. There was so much heavy-handedness in here, to the point where all the characters feel like caricatures of the points the author is trying to make, and it was just too much.

Readaroo Rating: 2 stars