We have more January books today! And oh yay, another very great bunch!

Seven Percent of Ro Devereux by Ellen O’Clover
Retro by Sofía Lapuente & Jarrod Shusterman
The Drift by C.J. Tudor
The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall
6 Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did) by Tess Sharpe
Vampire Weekend by Mike Chen

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Seven Percent of Ro Devereux by Ellen O'Clover
Published by HarperTeen on January 17, 2023
Pages: 320
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

A clever, charming, and poignant debut novel about a girl who must decide whether to pursue her dreams or preserve her relationships, including a budding romance with her ex-best friend, when an app she created goes viral.

Ro Devereux can predict your future. Or, at least, the app she built for her senior project can.

Working with her neighbor, a retired behavioral scientist, Ro created an app called MASH, designed around the classic game Mansion Apartment Shack House, that can predict a person’s future with 93% accuracy. The app will even match users with their soul mates. Though it was only supposed to be a class project, MASH quickly takes off and gains the attention of tech investors.

Ro’s dream is to work in Silicon Valley, and she’ll do anything to prove to her new backing company—and the world—that the app works. So it’s a huge shock when the app says her soul mate is Miller, her childhood best friend with whom she had a friendship-destroying fight three years ago. Now thrust into a fake dating scenario, Ro and Miller must address the years of pain between them if either of them will have any chance of achieving their dreams.

Fans of Emma Lord and Alex Light will love this stand-alone contemporary novel with a masterful slow-burn romance at its core.

First of all, I have no idea if the main character Ro was named after the incomparable Rose Nylund and Blanche Devereaux of Golden Girls fame, but… she has to be, yeah? Especially since the rest of the book slayed so hard, I have to imagine that the author is a GG fan.

I cannot even find the proper words to explain how hard I fell for this book, because in fact some of it is simply…. je ne sais quoi, frankly. It just is great, if that makes sense? It had that special “it factor” that some books, especially contemporary, seem to have that make you love it. But I’ll try to be more detailed, for the sake of you reading this immediately.

• I love Ro. Even if, by chance, she isn’t named after some Golden Girls, I still love her. She is struggling so much with what comes after high school for her. She doesn’t want to attend college, and her dad really wants her to. I have had a similar experience, and wow, did I feel seen. Seventeen year old me would have benefitted so much from this story, but forty year old me felt really validated too.
• This book is about MASH. Like, that was my jam for far, far too long. Heck, I’d probably still play it let’s be real. So the fact that an old favorite is modernized into an app? Yes please. It is a genius concept! Especially when you go down the rabbit hole of the potential pitfalls, which this book absolutely does. The whole plot point about the app, and the positives and the downsides was really entertaining. I also really loved how Ro got to see just how predatory companies can be, too. Talk about life lessons!
• Friends-To-Enemies-To-??? Yeah, here for that messiness too! I loved the relationship between Ro and Miller- especially considering that they used to be absolute besties until they both made some iffy choices and ended up having a major falling out. What will happen when they are forced back together for their own future benefit? 😈
• It is just utterly charming. There was just not a thing about this story I didn’t like, and a whole lot that I did. It made me feel happy, and that is worth five stars to me, yeah?

Bottom Line: Loved Ro, the story, the side characters… absolutely fabulous debut, I will be looking for the author’s next book!

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Retro by Sofía Lapuente, Jarrod Shusterman
on January 24, 2023
Pages: 400
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

What starts off as a light-hearted competition to live without modern technology for a year turns into a fight for survival in this unputdownable young adult thriller by New York Times bestselling author Jarrod Shusterman and debut author Sofía Lapuente.

To save her struggling family, Luna enters a competition offering reward money to anyone who can successfully live without modern technology for a year. But when this social experiment turns sinister and her classmates start disappearing, her family’s livelihood might not be the only thing she’s in danger of losing.

Could you live without modern technology for a year? Obviously, that is a question that I asked myself many a time during the course of this book. There is a lot of great commentary throughout the story, not only in terms of whether you can live without social media and technology, but whether social media and technology do more harm than good.

The whole thing starts off pretty devastatingly, when Luna goes a little too far to get revenge, the internet does its absolute worst to shame a young woman, and she nearly kills herself because of it all. That is a lot, but it’s also very much a real thing that can and sadly, does happen in today’s society. Obviously Luna never meant for it to go so far- in fact, she took down the video mere moments after posting it- but the vultures, they are swift.

The chapter titles are all of “old-school” (think 90s-00s) songs, which really brought me back, and also proved even more thought provoking. Because when I was listening to those songs in high school, the internet (and social media) was at the cusp of explosion. We had AIM, and email, and a few other sites to engage with each other. And even in that small, much smaller than now, space, there was drama. Frankly, I cannot imagine the struggle of growing up in this social media flooded landscape, but this book does a great job of illustrating the pitfalls.

So sure, it is in part a cautionary tale, but it ends up being more than that. There is a mystery/thriller aspect involved, though I won’t talk more about that since it doesn’t appear until a bit further into the story. My personal favorite part of the story was the character growth, which there is obviously a lot of. Not only does Luna undergo a ton of growth, many of the characters around her do as well.

Bottom Line: Equal parts timely,  relevant, and thought provoking, Retro provides a great look into the perils of social media in our society.

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The Drift by C.J. Tudor
Published by Ballantine Books on January 31, 2023
Pages: 352
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

Three ordinary people risk everything for a chance at redemption in this audacious, utterly gripping novel of catastrophe and survival at the end of the world, from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man

Hannah awakens to carnage, all mangled metal and shattered glass. During a hasty escape from a secluded boarding school, her coach careened over a hillside road during one of the year's heaviest snowstorms, trapping her inside with a handful of survivors, a brewing virus, and no way to call for help. If she and the remaining few want to make it out alive, with their sanity--and secrets--intact, they'll need to work together or they'll be buried alive with the rest of the dead.

A former detective, Meg awakens to a gentle rocking. She is in a cable car suspended far above a snowstorm and surrounded by strangers in the same uniform as her, with no memory of how they got there. They are heading to a mysterious place known to them only as "The Retreat," but when they discover a dead man among their ranks and Meg spies a familiar face, she realizes that there is something far more insidious going on.

Carter is gazing out the window of the abandoned ski chalet that he and his ragtag compatriots call home. Together, they manage a precarious survival, manufacturing vaccines against a deadly virus in exchange for life's essentials. But as their generator begins to waver, the threat of something lurking in the chalet's depths looms larger, and their fragile bonds will be tested when the power finally fails--for good.

The imminent dangers faced by Hannah, Meg, and Carter are each one part of the puzzle. Lurking in their shadows is an even greater threat--one that threatens to consume all of humanity.

Okay this book is wild. The twists. The turns. The incredibly bananas stuff that went down. I have no words. And frankly, I won’t be giving you many either, because I don’t want to spoil anything here. And I fear that if I tell you too much, I will.

We start with three separate stories/points of view. All are clearly taking place in a world where things have gone off the rails. Folks are getting sick, and other folks aren’t being the nicest while trying to survive. Obviously it all goes far deeper than that, but there’s a basic gist for you. It’s incredibly atmospheric and eerie from the very first page- you know this is a world you’d not do well in, and it really ups the ante for the rest of the book.

And like- there is not much more I can say, except that everything, everything has a point in this story and will weave into another part. The twists have twists basically, and if you’re like me and crave a creepyass apocalypse story, you will simply not be able to put this book down. It’s definitely a dark book, but also incredibly captivating. I won’t tell you anything more, so you should probably just read it.

Bottom Line: This book basically blew my mind, with its incredibly high stakes, eerie atmosphere, and tons of twists.

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The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
Published by Tor Books on January 31, 2023
Pages: 352
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

The Terraformers is an equally heart-warming and thought-provoking vision of the future for fans of Becky Chambers, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Martha Wells.

Destry is a top network analyst with the Environmental Rescue Team, an ancient organization devoted to preventing ecosystem collapse. On the planet Sask-E, her mission is to terraform an Earthlike world, with the help of her taciturn moose, Whistle. But then she discovers a city that isn't supposed to exist, hidden inside a massive volcano. Torn between loyalty to the ERT and the truth of the planet's history, Destry makes a decision that echoes down the generations.

Centuries later, Destry's protege, Misha, is building a planetwide transit system when his worldview is turned upside-down by Sulfur, a brilliant engineer from the volcano city. Together, they uncover a dark secret about the real estate company that's buying up huge swaths of the planet―a secret that could destroy the lives of everyone who isn't Homo sapiens. Working with a team of robots, naked mole rats, and a very angry cyborg cow, they quietly sow seeds of subversion. But when they're threatened with violent diaspora, Misha and Sulfur's very unusual child faces a stark choice: deploy a planet-altering weapon, or watch their people lose everything they've built on Sask-E.

It is me, back with The Mixed Feelings™. There were some definite positives, but also some stuff I struggled with. So let’s get to it!

What I Loved:

• The planet and the overarching universe were incredibly intriguing and well developed. I mean, the whole concept is pretty cool, right? These people are, quite literally, terraforming new planets. But then you get into all the political reasons behind that, and it becomes quite a bit more complicated than that. Add to it, you have many different species trying to live and work together, with different intentions, and that becomes complex as well.
• Obviously, diversity is a big narrative point. Not only among the various species (and the issues that inevitably creep up between them), but the world is very accepting of various gender identities and pretty much any and all orientations and relationship formations.
• I genuinely appreciated a lot of the ideas and concepts throughout the story. While the execution didn’t always wow me, I did really appreciate what the author was trying to do. I liked the characters, and I was certainly curious about the story enough to continue reading.

What I Struggled With:

• This was just longer than it needed to be. This is truly my biggest qualm, because I honestly got kind of bored at times? I feel bad saying that, but it’s true, I found myself zoning out and not being super excited to, you know, stop zoning out.
• In the same vein, just too many infodumps. Like I didn’t need to know the texture of the grass in a field or the exact red shade of every random hallway, you know? Plus, I wanted more of the “meatier” questions answered, yet I felt that the info-dumping was almost wasted on smaller details when I was looking for more of the “how did this whole society happen” stuff.
• For as much as some things were overly described, some aspects just weren’t fleshed out enough for me to suspend my disbelief. Like, okay, naked mole-rats and trains are sentient, cool. But… more details on how and why, mayhaps? And how are folks living for many centuries on end? Is the time the same as Earth time? These are just a fraction of the questions I had that I never had a real answer for.
• I felt like just as I was starting to become somewhat invested in a character, we moved onto the next. And this wasn’t like, a simple POV change, this was a time jump, upwards of close to a millennium in cases, so it wasn’t like we were going to catch up with the last POV on the regular.

Bottom Line: Loved the concept, enjoyed the world, struggled with the slower pace and extra descriptive bits.

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What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall
Published by Flatiron Books on January 17, 2023
Pages: 336
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

They were eleven when they sent a killer to prison . . .They were heroes . . . but they were liars.

Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. Twenty-two years ago, she and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. They called it the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls’ testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes.

And they were liars.

For decades, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really happened in the woods—no matter how dangerous the truth turns out to be.

Gah, this one was good. It’s exactly what I hope for in a mystery/thriller, but with the added bonus that I actually cared about the characters! I loved that it was a story that was woven into three women’s very long-term friendship. At first look, it seems like these three friends have undergone a pretty serious trauma, with Naomi being attacked and the others having borne witness at just eleven years old. That is a lot, right? Obviously, things in Naomi’s life have been pretty rocky since then, no one really bothered to get her any kind of real help, and now she’s just sort of slogging through her life.

But the attack and her friends (and by extension, her former life) are never far from her thoughts. When she finds out that the man she and her friends identified as her attacker has died in prison, there are many, many mixed feelings and old wounds brought to the surface. So Naomi heads home, to reconnect with her best friends, and maybe try to bury her trauma once and for all.

Only nothing is as it seems. A bad man died in prison, sure. Naomi absolutely was viciously attacked as a young girl. And her friends Olivia and Cassidy are certainly always still on her mind. But when she gets back to her small hometown, she’s reminded of more than just the one past trauma. And now she has to decide if she wants to figure out all the truths, or just live and let die.

The story itself is absolutely chock full of twists and kept me guessing. I kept thinking I knew who had done what, but the truth was that I had no idea. And a big chunk of the story involves the emotions and growth of Naomi, which I loved. Not only is this a mystery/thriller, but it really delved deep into Naomi’s psyche and her relationships- made them part of the story, really. Could not put this one down until I knew everything, basically.

Bottom Line: What Lies in the Woods is both thrilling and emotionally provocative, a rare (and much appreciated) find in a thriller novel.

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6 Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did) by Tess Sharpe
Published by Little Brown Books for Young Readers on January 24, 2023
Pages: 384
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

Six moments lead us to two girls, one kiss, and three little words that were maybe always true in this gorgeous novel perfect for fans of Nina LaCour and Jenny Han.

Penny and Tate have always clashed. Unfortunately, their mothers are lifelong best friends, so the girls’ bickering has carried them through playdates, tragedy, and more than one rom-com marathon with the Moms. When Penny’s mother decides to become a living donor to Tate’s mom, ending her wait for a liver transplant, things go from clashing to cataclysmic.

Because in order to help their families recover physically, emotionally, and financially, the Moms combine their households the summer before senior year. So Penny and Tate make a pact: They’ll play nice. Be the drama-free daughters their mothers need through this scary and hopeful time.

There’s only one little hitch in their plan: Penny and Tate keep almost kissing. It’s just this confusing thing that keeps happening. You know, from time to time. For basically their entire teenaged existence. They’ve never talked about it. They’ve always ignored it in the aftermath. But now they’re living across the hall from each other. And some things—like their kisses—can’t be almosts forever.

I find myself quite liking anything that Tess Sharpe writes. There is always a really emotive edge to her stories that make them feel so very real and relatable, and this one was definitely no different.

We’re introduced to Penny and Tate, whose mothers are lifelong besties with some complicated histories of their own. Tate’s mom is ill, and Penny’s mom decides to be a liver donor to hopefully return her to health, which means Penny and Tate are going to become a lot closer- in fact, they’ll be moving in together. This story is told in both present, and glimpses of the past, where we see how Penny and Tate get to the point where we meet them. Things are rocky, as they share a sort of love-hate relationship with each other.

While it’s clear that they’d do anything for each other, it is obvious from the start (and the book title, heh) that there is definitely some romantic chemistry and tension between them. And some bad blood, frankly. So they have to navigate their relationships with each other, their friends, and their mothers- and trust me, it is a lot– to make it through this very challenging time.

I love how many layers there are to this story. Obviously, we’re dealing with Penny and Tate’s story together, but there is a lot that they are dealing with as individuals as well. And they both have some pretty complicated relationships with their moms, too. I loved how realistic it seemed, that one relationship doesn’t take a character’s whole focus, it is just part of the bigger picture. There were times where the emotions were heavy and palpable, and also some lighter moments that were really great too. It was a perfect balance of sweet and real, and I adored the story wholly.

Bottom Line: Such a perfect blend of emotions makes this book feel so incredibly real and honest.

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Vampire Weekend by Mike Chen
Published by MIRA on January 31, 2023
Pages: 352
Format:eARC
Source:Copy provided by publisher for review, via Netgalley

Being a vampire is far from glamorous…but it can be pretty punk rock.

Everything you’ve heard about vampires is a lie. They can’t fly. No murders allowed (the community hates that). And turning into a bat? Completely ridiculous. In fact, vampire life is really just a lot of blood bags and night jobs. For Louise Chao, it’s also lonely, since she swore off family ages ago.

At least she’s gone to decades of punk rock shows. And if she can join a band of her own (while keeping her…situation under wraps), maybe she’ll finally feel like she belongs, too.

Then a long-lost teenage relative shows up at her door. Whether it’s Ian’s love of music or his bad attitude, for the first time in ages, Louise feels a connection.

But as Ian uncovers Louise’s true identity, things get dangerous—especially when he asks her for the ultimate favor. One that goes beyond just family…one that might just change everything vampires know about life and death forever.

I had no idea that I so desperately needed a heartwarming, family-centric vampire story. No idea. Then Mike Chen went ahead and wrote this, and now I know. I need it. And so do you.

We meet Louise, who is a vampire and an aspiring musician who works at a local hospital. Overnight shift, obviously, and she’s mostly in it to sneak a bit of blood out of the place. But otherwise? She’s incredibly relatable. Kind of lost and alone, still grieving the loss of her beloved aunt and her best friend, both of whom passed years ago. Because of these losses, she’s not really keen to let people get too close again.

But all that changes when some long-lost (mortal) family shows up at her/her aunt’s doorstep unannounced. It’s an older man and his grandson, whose daughter/mother lies in a hospital dying. Louise begins to warm up to them, especially young Ian, and the rest… well the rest is basically wonderful. Louise has such a great character journey. She has to decide what exactly she wants from her likely very long life, because as it stands now, she’s kind of floundering. Is she going to be able to open her home and her heart to her newfound family? Will she ever feel at home in the local vampire community? And will she ever be able to book an audition with a band, for goodness sake?

I truly loved this story, mostly for how full of heart it is. While music isn’t usually my favorite, I loved Louise’s passion for it. And I thoroughly enjoyed Chen’s spin on vampiric lore, one of my favorite takes yet, frankly.

Bottom Line: Wholesome Vampire Story™ has to be a new, fabulous genre, yeah?

Have you read any of these books? Plan to? Let us chat about them!