Featured Review Archive

These reviews, which were promoted in CBR social media, on our homepage, and in Pajiba Love, appear below by review publication date, not by date featured.

Who’s Up For a Field Trip to the Murder Room?

The Murder Room by PD James

January 1, 2023 by elderberrywine 2 Comments

The Dupayne is a unique private (and fictional!) museum located on the Hempstead Heath that is dedicated to the interwar years in Britain. Located in a formerly stately house, most of it is dedicated to archives and is dreadfully scholarly, but there is one room upstairs set aside to highlight the most sensational murders of the period, AKA, the Murder Room. Needless to mention, it is especially a hit on local field trips. Who wants to check out the box that a murder victim got […]

Mary Shelley (1)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

January 1, 2023 by vel veeter 6 Comments

“You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.” In what is probably my 20th reading of the novel, I am beginning to wonder what more ideas and meaning I can squeeze from it. One of the nice things about teaching this novel is that students end up liking it in spite of themselves. There’s still some somewhat antiquated language and idiom, and there’s a set of references we need to […]

It’s hard trying to look at something unfiltered by the vast acclaim of its author

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

January 1, 2023 by ingres77 27 Comments

I think I’m a well-intentioned person. But we all do, I suppose. I try to read more books written by women. But I often don’t. Since I started reviewing books for CBR, I’ve reviewed 91 stories written by women, which is a hair over 20% of everything I’ve read. CBR07: 2 (7%) CBR08: 32 (29%) CBR09: 20 (26%) CBR10: 6 (11%) CBR11: 5 (18%) CBR12: 16 (26%) CBR13: 9 (18%) CBR14: 1 (8%) That’s abysmal. There’s no two ways about it. And that’s after some […]

A Very Special Christmas… or is it?

Tangled in Tinsel by Trilina Pucci

January 1, 2023 by katie71483 Leave a Comment

If you have read any of the reviews I’ve posted over the last year or two, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve mentioned BookTok a good bit. Honestly, I probably spend more time scrolling through the clock app than any other form of social media right now. All of this is to preface where I’m going next: SmutTok, the part of BookTok that is for the people that like a *serious* amount of spice in their romance. As in, more pages are dedicated to sex than […]

Featured Review Archive

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