REVIEW: All That We Burn by Marisa Billions (4.5-stars)

 All That We Burn — A  (Sapphic) Thriller for Readers Who Don’t Usually Read Thrillers

I don’t usually read thrillers. My default genre is science fiction, where suspension of disbelief comes easily because the world isn’t meant to resemble my own. When a story takes place on another planet, in a future society, or in a reality with different rules, I don’t expect the worldbuilding to match my lived experience. I’m willing to accept the unfamiliar as long as the internal logic holds. Contemporary thrillers, on the other hand, often ask me to believe that ordinary people behave in extraordinary ways without giving me the psychological scaffolding to buy into it. That’s usually where the genre loses me.

But Marisa Billions keeps pulling me in anyway. All That We Burn is the clearest example of why her work is growing on me. It’s marketed as a thriller, but what makes it compelling isn’t the danger or the twists. It’s the way she writes about people who are desperate to be seen and equally desperate to hide the parts of themselves they fear will be rejected. That emotional architecture is what makes the story believable, even when the plot takes sharp turns. She builds her world from the inside out, through psychology rather than geography, and that’s a kind of worldbuilding I can trust.

The three central women in this story are all performing versions of themselves. Parker, the hyper‑competent lawyer with the trademark pompadour and bespoke suits, projects absolute control. She wins every case, commands every room, and maintains a polished exterior that leaves no room for doubt. Underneath, though, she’s terrified of vulnerability. Her competence is a shield, and the moment someone threatens her emotional equilibrium, she collapses in ways she never would professionally.

Calypso, with her dark hair and distinct golden eyes, is a Katrina refugee who rebuilt her life into something curated and artistic. She owns a tattoo shop, lives in a loft that feels like an artist's sanctuary, and has created a world where she can finally breathe. But her stability is built on escape. She’s reinvented herself so thoroughly that the past feels like a ghost she can outrun, until it catches up with her in the form of Macy.

Macy is the redheaded cop who is always fumbling, always dropping the ball, always trying to be someone she isn’t. Off duty, she dresses in boho and hippie clothing, projecting a softness and free‑spirited ease that she can’t sustain. She’s petite, fiery, and emotionally volatile, and she’s been carrying a torch for Parker for years. That unrequited longing becomes the fuse that ignites the entire story. Macy’s jealousy, insecurity, and desperation drive her to fabricate a New Orleans case file accusing Calypso of crimes she never committed. It’s a lie built on Parker’s deepest fears, and Parker falls for it instantly. The woman who never loses a case doesn’t even fact‑check the file. Her emotional blind spots undo her in a way no opposing counsel ever could.

The unraveling that follows is messy and human. Calypso flees. Macy attacks her in a remote Washington cabin. No body is found. Parker spirals between guilt and denial. Javier, one of Calypso’s clients, steps in with a kind of ambiguous menace that Billions handles beautifully. Javier is always performing a version of himself too. Maybe he’s involved in sex trafficking. Maybe he’s killed someone. Maybe he hasn’t. The point is that he plays the role of the dangerous man so convincingly that when the moment comes, he delivers exactly the version of himself he’s been selling all along.

Around these three women orbit characters who add texture and grounding. Xander and Xochitl are the stable straight couple, the emotionally functional pair who quietly support Calypso without needing to perform anything. They’re the ballast in a story full of people who are constantly shape‑shifting to survive. Parker’s assistants, too, become crucial; they’re the ones who finally uncover Macy’s lies and force Parker to confront the truth she was too afraid to see.

What makes the book work isn’t just the plot, though the twists are well‑timed and satisfying. It’s the worldbuilding—not in the sci‑fi sense of constructing a new reality, but in the psychological sense of making the characters’ choices feel inevitable. Calypso’s tattoo shop feels lived‑in. Parker’s legal world is crisp and sterile, mirroring her emotional defenses. Macy’s police work is chaotic and full of self‑inflicted wounds. Even the intimacy scenes are handled with restraint and emotional intelligence. They’re sensual without being anatomical, grounded in tension and proximity rather than explicit detail. It’s adult without being clinical, which is rare in queer thrillers.

By the time I finished the book, I found myself wanting to Google “Calypso Boudreaux” to see if she had a backstory website. That’s how vivid she is. And that’s ultimately why Marisa Billions’ work is growing on me. She writes thrillers that feel like character studies with a pulse. Her stories are about the cost of vulnerability, the masks we wear, and the danger of being truly known. Even if thrillers aren’t your usual genre, All That We Burn has the depth, tension, and psychological nuance to pull you in.

REVIEW: All That We Burn by Marisa Billions

RATING: 4.5-stars

REVIEW: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh (3-stars)

 Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) is a sharp, bleak portrait of dissociation that reminded me at different moments of Less Than Zero, Slaves of New York, and even a very dark, sedated version of Bridget Jones’s Diary. It’s a novel about a young woman trying to chemically erase herself, and a city that barely notices.

The unnamed narrator moves through early‑2000s Manhattan with a kind of anesthetized privilege. She gets an art‑gallery job not because she cares about art, but because she looks like someone who should be standing behind a white desk in black clothes. The gallery’s instructions — don’t show the price sheet too quickly, memorize the artists’ faces, no sleeping on the job — tell you everything about the ecosystem she’s drifting through. She’s valued for the silhouette she cuts, not for anything she thinks or feels.

Trevor, the on‑again/off‑again boyfriend, is a perfect example of that dynamic. He behaves like an early social‑media influencer before the platforms existed — someone who curates a lifestyle instead of a personality (or boundaries, or morals). Everything about him is surface: the parties, the vacations, the women he cycles through for validation. When the narrator calls him repeatedly threatening suicide in graphic, bloody terms, he leaves his girlfriend Claudia to come over — not out of concern, but because it fits his pattern of using women as emotional and sexual pit stops. She takes a cocktail of drugs, gets into bed naked fully expecting him to show up (or not), and regains consciousness while she’s giving him oral sex. He then drops off a DVD player as if he’s doing her a favor, announcing that VCRs are “on the way out.” He’s not malicious; he’s just shallow in a way that feels almost archetypal for that era. And the narrator accepts this treatment because she’s already dissociated from her own worth.

Dr. Tuttle, her psychiatrist, feels like she wandered in from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas — the spiritual cousin of Hunter S. Thompson’s “as your lawyer/as your doctor” companion who encourages every bad idea. She dispenses pills with crackpot confidence, and half the medications seem invented. It’s funny, but also unsettling: the narrator’s entire self‑destruction is enabled by someone who should be helping her, and instead treats her like a walking prescription pad.

Ping Xi, the artist who uses her unconscious body for a project, is one of the strangest and most revealing figures in the book. He exploits her, yes, but he also treats her with a sideways politeness — apologizing via sticky note for leaving a burrito wrapper in her apartment, buying her a white fox‑fur coat that must have cost a fortune. He sees her exactly the way the art world sees her: a beautiful cipher with more cultural capital than selfhood. She eventually gives the coat away, along with almost everything else she owns, as if shedding the identities other people keep trying to hand her.

Reva, her best friend, is the emotional counterweight. Reva is striving, anxious, constantly performing competence and friendliness. Her abandoned food and exercise journal — discovered after her mother’s death — is the saddest artifact in the book. It’s the inverse of the narrator’s pill‑counting: one woman trying to control her life into submission, the other trying to erase hers entirely.

Reading this, I kept thinking about people I’ve known who used pills or alcohol to check out — friends who believed they had “earned” the right to disappear for a weekend, or who drank their free time away because it felt safer than being present. The novel captures the fear underneath that impulse: the fear of feeling anything, the fear of being seen, the fear of being unworthy of love. The narrator’s dissociation isn’t glamorous or rebellious; it’s a defense mechanism that’s calcified into a worldview.

Her relationship to her parents is one of the most telling threads. She never names them, just as she never names herself. She keeps their house because it represents, in her mind, the idea that she was once loved — even though her mother was critical, controlling, and emotionally distant. She clings to the house as a symbol of a love she doesn’t actually believe she deserved. That sense of unworthiness runs under everything she does.

By the end, she’s more adrift than when she started. Her fixation on the footage of a woman falling from the World Trade Center — possibly Reva, possibly not — is macabre and telling. She projects a fantasy of “freedom” onto a moment that was pure terror. It’s dissociation dressed up as interpretation, a new obsession replacing the old ones. The experiment didn’t give her clarity; it just hollowed her out further.

Moshfegh’s writing is sharp and often darkly funny, and the psychological detail is precise. But the emotional arc left me cold — intentionally, I think, but still cold. The book is compelling, unsettling, and smart, and it’s also a near‑perfect illustration of anomie in the classical sense: a person cut loose from any real social or emotional structure, drifting through a world where modern consumer capitalism offers only surfaces, transactions, and distractions. The narrator’s dissociation isn’t just personal; it’s structural. It’s what happens when nothing around you feels meaningful enough to hold you in place. For me, a solid 3‑star read: memorable, well‑crafted, and deeply bleak, but not something I connected with beyond the intellectual and observational level. 

REVIEW: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

RATING: 3-stars

REVIEW: "Platform Decay" by Martha Wells (5 stars)

Just over two years ago, I discovered — and promptly devoured — Martha Wells’ Murderbot Diaries. The series hooked me with its unusual protagonist: a part‑organic, part‑mechanical security construct who has hacked its governor module and claimed its own autonomy. Calling itself “Murderbot,” it’s a hyper‑competent multitasker who can monitor a dozen threats while binge‑watching future‑space telenovelas. As a relatively “new” human, Murderbot has a complicated relationship with emotions, and the series tracks its gradual, often funny, often touching evolution as it figures out what it means to be a person, make friends, and navigate feelings it never asked for. It’s no surprise that many readers see Murderbot as a stand‑in for teenagers, neurodivergent folks, or anyone who has ever felt out of sync with the world.

If you’re new to the series — or if you’ve only watched the Apple TV+ adaptation — there’s still time to catch up. At its core, Murderbot’s story is a sequence of adventures that double as a coming‑into‑personhood narrative. It has an intrinsic sense of fairness, a habit of pulling information from wildly diverse sources (especially pop culture), and a growing awareness of the political structures around it. One of the series’ ongoing themes is the tension between the hyper‑capitalist “Corporation Rim” and the more egalitarian societies struggling to exist outside its reach.

Platform Decay, the eighth installment, can absolutely stand alone. Wells gives new readers enough grounding to understand who Murderbot is, what it can do, and why its freedom is precarious.

This time, the action unfolds on a massive rotating space station shaped like a torus, orbiting a planet that has been strip‑mined into ruin. (If you’re not familiar with torus habitats, the Stanford Torus page on Wikipedia has great visuals.) The station itself is one of the book’s delights: Wells avoids the trap of “video‑game level design” by giving each subdivision its own history, socioeconomic profile, and architectural logic.

The plot centers on Murderbot and its fellow SecUnit, Three — a newer model who has been free for far less time — as they attempt to rescue their friends from Preservation. These friends, all brown and all from a non‑Rim world, have been illegally detained by Corporation operatives and are being processed for indentured servitude (or worse). The parallels to the past year of ICE overreach in the U.S. are unmistakable. Wells doesn’t soften the critique; she uses the sci‑fi frame to make the injustice sharper, not more distant.

While Murderbot can hack security systems, forge credentials, and erase itself from surveillance feeds without breaking a sweat, its real challenge is blending in. Much of the book’s humor comes from its attempts to navigate the crush of humanity on the torus, including installing movement‑assist modules so it can walk more like a natural‑born human. The resulting journey has a bit of Tintin energy — lots of transit systems, lots of motion, lots of chaotic detours — all described with Wells’ signature dry wit.

There’s plenty of action: rescuing friends, evading capture, investigating reports of a “rogue SecUnit” (which turns out to be Three making some questionable choices out of boredom), and dealing with wealthy, entitled kids who have turned piracy into a hobbyist “smash and grab.” Through it all, Murderbot remains Murderbot — trying to minimize harm when possible, but taking undeniable satisfaction in dealing decisively with people who insist on being terrible. At one point, it does all this with a kindergartener attached to it like a barnacle, which is exactly the kind of chaotic tenderness that makes this series work.

And ultimately, Platform Decay is less about whether Murderbot will succeed — long‑time readers know the mission will get done — and more about how it gets there. The pleasure of this installment is in the movement, the worldbuilding, the character beats, and the messy, funny, deeply human moments along the way. After so much fast‑paced action, the ending feels a bit anticlimactic, but that’s because the real payoff is the journey itself.

REVIEW: "Platform Decay" by Martha Wells

RATING: 5 stars

Thanks to TOR and NetGalley for the ARC. The book is due out in May 2026.

TIL: Anyone Can Vote in the Hugo Awards — Come Join Me in LA!

Every once in a while, you stumble across a piece of writing that completely changes how you see a community you’ve been part of for years. That happened to me this week when I read Molly Templeton’s fantastic Reactor column about the Hugo Awards and the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon).

Like a lot of lifelong SFF readers, I always assumed the Hugos were something distant—decided by insiders, professionals, or some mysterious academy. Molly’s piece made it crystal clear: anyone can nominate and vote in the Hugo Awards. All you have to do is become a supporting member of this year’s Worldcon. That’s it. No secret handshake. No gatekeeping. Just a $50 supporting membership and a love of science fiction and fantasy.

And honestly? I’m thrilled.

I immediately signed up for LACon V, this year’s Worldcon in Los Angeles, and that means I’m officially a Hugo Awards voter and nominator for 2026. I can’t wait to dive into the nomination process, explore new works, and participate in shaping the conversation around the genre I love.

If you’ve ever wanted a more direct way to support the books, stories, creators, and ideas that matter to you, this is it. The deadline to register as a supporting member is January 31, and Molly’s article walks through the whole process clearly and encouragingly.

Read Molly Templeton’s article here: https://reactormag.com/anyone-can-vote-in-the-hugo-awards-and-heres-how/

Register for LACon V (in person or supporting): https://www.lacon.org/register/

If you decide to join, let me know—I’d love to have more friends and fellow readers along for the ride (and not just literally - I'll be driving there from the SF Bay Area if you want to carpool). Whether you’re nominating novels, short fiction, podcasts, art, or dramatic presentations, your voice genuinely matters. A single nomination can make a difference.

See you (hopefully!) in LA—and in the Hugo voter packet.

REVIEW: "Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves" by Sophie Gilbert 2025 (3 stars)

What Girl on Girl Misses — and Why the Context Matters

Sophie Gilbert’s Girl on Girl raises compelling questions about comparison, competition, and the ways women learn to see themselves through the eyes of others. Her cultural analysis is sharp and, at times, painfully resonant—especially in her exploration of homogenized beauty standards, the commodification of empowerment, and the pressures amplified by visual media. These examples matter; they’re part of the lived reality of contemporary womanhood in the U.S.

But Girl on Girl is also a very specific slice of culture—rooted squarely in U.S. mainstream pop culture and overwhelmingly centered on white, middle-class, millennial experience. And without deeper grounding in the systems that produce these pressures, its arguments risk confusing the medium for the message, attributing cultural shifts to the platforms that broadcast them rather than the forces that shape them.

This isn’t a failure of observation. It’s a failure of context. And that’s the heart of my frustration with the book.

Gilbert details how today’s visual culture—Instagram, reality TV, celebrity aesthetics—encourages women to benchmark themselves against a narrow, commodified ideal of femininity. She’s right that beauty “is for sale,” referencing industries in the U.S. and Brazil that promise transformation through consumption: hair, lashes, cosmetics, cosmetic surgery, luxury wellness, and endless self-optimization.

But this phenomenon didn’t begin with millennials, nor with digital culture.

Long before ring lights and filters, beauty in the U.S. functioned as a market-regulated system of value—something women were expected to invest in as a form of social and economic capital. Gilbert herself quotes Tressie McMillan Cottom’s insight at the beginning of Chapter 5: “Beauty isn’t what you actually look like; beauty is the preferences that reproduce the existing social order.”

This line—framed in Girl on Girl but underexplored—points directly to larger structures.  These aren’t just cultural quirks—they’re baked into bigger systems. White supremacy sets the rules, capitalism cashes in, perfectionism keeps us striving, and American exceptionalism tells us it’s all our fault if we don’t measure up.

In this context, beauty is not merely cultural. It is political and economic.

Marshall McLuhan famously said, “the medium is the message.” Gilbert, however, often flips this—treating the medium (porn, Instagram, reality TV) as if it were the cause of women’s suffering, rather than the conduit for ideologies that long predate those technologies.

• Porn did not invent sexualized expectations of women.

• Reality television did not invent beauty hierarchies.

• Instagram did not invent comparison.

These platforms amplify, accelerate, and intensify what the culture already demands. By attributing relational difficulties, sexual scripts, and self-worth issues primarily to media exposure, Girl on Girl risks implying that the problem lies in women’s “overconsumption” of harmful images rather than in the systems generating those images in the first place.

Media are mirrors, not architects.

Much of Girl on Girl reads like a chronological catalogue of pop culture, weaving together celebrity moments, viral trends, and reality-TV storylines. A significant portion of the book is also devoted to detailed descriptions of sexualized imagery and violations against women, which, while illustrating cultural pressures, can feel sensationalized and at times overshadow attempts at systemic analysis.

While Gilbert’s examples of beauty, comparison, and commodified empowerment are compelling, they are also largely drawn from a very specific cultural context. Much of her analysis centers on U.S. reality television, celebrity culture, corporate feminism (#Girlboss, Lean In), Instagram aesthetics, and narratives about ambition and beauty. This narrow focus highlights the pressures experienced by a particular slice of society, but it can make the patterns she identifies feel culturally specific rather than reflective of broader, systemic dynamics.

This matters because it makes the analysis feel culturally specific rather than structurally universal. The pressures she describes—competition, comparison, and self-surveillance—exist globally, but the forms they take vary widely across class, race, nationality, and culture.

By treating these pressures as if they are primarily millennial phenomena shaped by social media and pornography, the book overlooks deeper continuities across generations and histories of patriarchal control. These tensions are not new. They are simply newly branded, turbo charged and monetized.

Gilbert references racial disparities but doesn’t fully integrate intersectionality into her argument. The experience of beauty and comparison is profoundly shaped by race, class, disability, and nationality—but Girl on Girl remains focused on the dominant narrative of white, U.S.-based feminine insecurity.

And while the book centers women, a broader sociological view reveals that men and boys are also being shaped—and harmed—by these systems.

And it’s not just women.  In her book Men Who Hate Women, Laura Bates shows how boys and men are also trapped in these systems—though their pain often gets weaponized instead of commodified. These forces flow from the same systems of patriarchy and capitalism. The pressure to perform masculinity, to dominate rather than connect, to seek status through appearance or achievement—these are also forms of gendered control.

Girl on Girl is thought-provoking and at times emotionally powerful. Gilbert is deeply attuned to the lived experiences of comparison, aspiration, and insecurity among contemporary women. Her observations ring true—because the cultural patterns she highlights absolutely shape the world we live in.

But the story she tells is only one layer of a much larger structure.

Beauty standards, competitive femininity, curated empowerment, and the commodification of selfhood are not new problems created by digital media. They are expressions of systems that long preceded the technologies that now broadcast them.

When we focus on the images, we risk missing the architecture. The question is not simply why women compare themselves, but who benefits from a society in which women (and increasingly men) are: perfectible, self-surveilling, relentlessly optimizing, and continuously investing in their own inadequacy. The problem is not women looking at the “wrong screens.” The problem is the systems that built the screens—and profit when women lose themselves in the reflection. That’s why, for me, Girl on Girl is powerful but incomplete. It captures the feeling of living inside the mirror—but doesn’t fully explain who built it, nor what a better world would look like.

REVIEW:  "Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves" by Sophie Gilbert  2025 

RATING: 3 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang (2-stars)

I keep trying to read popular fiction and often end up disappointed—How to End a Love Story was no exception. While I finished the book, it felt like a messy blend of unresolved trauma, repetitive storytelling devices, and a plot stretched thin to accommodate a few steamy scenes.

Helen, our protagonist, doesn’t seem to form meaningful connections. Her friendships are shallow, and she rarely makes an effort at anything until late in the book when she begins writing about her sister. Even then, the emotional payoff is minimal. The subplot about her sister’s death—possibly suicide by running into traffic?—is left frustratingly unresolved, making the third-person narration feel unreliable and the emotional stakes muddled.

Also, the sex scenes felt idealized to the point of distraction. Does Helen ever not have an orgasm? It’s not exactly representative of most heterosexual experiences, and it detracts from the realism the book seems to aim for.

Honestly, this story might have worked better as a lighter adult romance: “He was the hot homecoming king, we were years apart, and now we’re hooking up as adults.” That premise alone could’ve been fun and engaging without the weight of underdeveloped trauma and distant parents.

This book needed a stronger editorial hand. I wanted more emotional clarity, more believable relationships, and less reliance on drama that never fully lands.

REVIEW: How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang 

RATING: 2-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Smitten: Romantic Obsession, the Neuroscience of Limerence, and How to Make Love Last by Tom Bellamy (2.5 stars)

I came to Smitten curious about the psychology of limerence — that intense, euphoric, often obsessive state that masquerades as love. While I don’t doubt limerence exists, this book offers more breadth than depth. It’s readable and occasionally insightful, but lacks original research and leans heavily on secondary sources. For a book that claims to explore the neuroscience of love, it feels more like pop psychology than rigorous analysis.

One of the book’s core issues is that it tries to do too much for too many audiences. Is it a basic primer on limerence? A neuroscience explainer? A self-help guide for people suffering from limerent obsession? It’s unclear. These goals could have been better served by splitting the material into separate books or at least distinct sections with more focus. As it stands, Smitten reads more like a collection of long blog posts than a cohesive, well-structured work.

Bellamy is clear that limerence is not a mental illness:

“Experiencing limerence is not a symptom of mental illness, a psychological wound or an emotional failing. For most limerents it is a normal part of the process of falling in love, albeit with a force that has a fierce and alarming power.” (Chapter 5)

He also addresses attachment theory, noting that while limerence is often associated with anxious attachment, it’s not exclusive to it:

“More than half of the population who do not have an anxious attachment style are limerents. But—and it is a big but!—eight out of ten people who have anxious attachments are limerents.” (Chapter 6)

Bellamy introduces a taxonomy of archetypes who supposedly attract limerent individuals — the damsel in distress, tortured soul, agent of chaos, bad boy/girl, the rock, the leader, the guru, the free spirit, the mysterious stranger. These are interesting sketches, but the framing implies intentional manipulation. In reality, these people may just be living out their own unresolved narratives. As I wrote in my notes: “Maybe they just have their own movie going.”

One of the few moments that rang true for me was in Chapter 14, where Bellamy writes:

“Limerence fades. Regardless of how spectacular the thrills are at the beginning of a relationship, expecting that euphoric connection to last more than a few months is unrealistic. Quite apart from how exhausting it would become, it doesn't make sense from an evolutionary perspective. Limerence is the drive to form a pair bond tight enough to result in conception; it has no real role in making it last.”

This echoed something I told an ex who broke up with me after more than two years together because “we get along too well, you’re too nice to me.” We were compatible intellectually, physically, emotionally — but they said, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you.” When I asked what being in love meant to him, they described a pattern of unreciprocated obsession that lasted “until they blocked my number/stopped speaking to me.” That’s not romance — that’s limerence as compulsion.

Chapter 15 is even titled “I love you but I’m not in love with you,” but instead of exploring the emotional fallout of that statement, it focuses on infidelity and the vulnerability of limerent individuals to extramarital obsession. It’s a missed opportunity to unpack how limerence can sabotage healthy relationships — not because the partner is lacking, but because the limerent person is chasing a feeling that’s unsustainable.

In Chapter 16, Bellamy suggests channeling limerent energy into self-improvement. This reminded me of my ex’s cycles of intense infatuation — not just with people, but with hobbies. He would dive deep into culinary knives and sharpening techniques, then Afro-Cuban drumming, then pottery. These weren’t casual interests; they were full-blown obsessions. I can’t help but see a connection between limerence and adult ADHD — especially the dopamine-driven novelty-seeking, emotional impulsivity, and hyperfocus that characterize both.

Chapter 17 introduces a “recovery mindset,” reminding readers that “limerence is happening in your head” — that it’s the limerent person who makes the object seem special. Bellamy advises readers to “check your instincts,” avoid self-medication, and accept that you can’t “just be friends” with a limerent object. He encourages building a life of purpose, listing traits like honesty, self-awareness, openness to renewal, courage to face discomfort, an internal locus of control, decisiveness, and action orientation.

“Creating a life without limerence... may not be as flashy and exciting as the thrills of limerence, but it is a deeper, more profound contentment. Finding a purpose, a goal you care about, a vision of what your life could be like if you took control of your destiny, shifts you from a state of passive dependency to one of active motivation. Living with purpose means you stop depending on the LO for comfort, stop following their lead, stop letting their behavior dictate your mood.”

This is solid advice — and probably the book’s strongest section — but it comes late and without much psychological depth. Bellamy doesn’t explore how neurodivergence, trauma, or attachment styles might shape limerent behavior. Nor does he offer tools for people who are in relationships with limerents — those of us who are “too nice,” too stable, too real to compete with the fantasy.

In the end, Smitten is readable and occasionally insightful, but it left me wanting more. More research, more nuance, more empathy for the people caught in the wake of limerent obsession. It made me want to revisit Dorothy Tennov’s original work — and to seek out more rigorous writing on the psychology of love, obsession, and neurodivergence.

REVIEW: Smitten by Tom Bellamy

RATING: 2.5-3 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (2 stars)

I just finished The Ministry for the Future, and I have mixed feelings. It’s an ambitious book — sprawling, complex, and clearly the product of deep research and imagination. I applaud Robinson for tackling such a monumental subject: climate collapse and humanity’s response. But despite being lauded as one of the greatest living sci-fi authors, this book didn’t feel like science fiction to me. It’s more speculative policy fiction, with a dash of spy thriller and philosophical musing thrown in.

One of my biggest issues was the structure. The book felt like several overlapping novels crammed into one:

• A climate disaster narrative
• A geopolitical and economic reform manifesto
• A techno-utopian think piece
• A covert ops thriller with black organizations and assassination attempts

Each of these could have been its own compelling story, and I honestly think this would have worked better as a trilogy. The Children of Kali subplot, for example, was fascinating — a morally ambiguous look at eco-terrorism — but it felt underdeveloped in the context of everything else going on.

The short chapters that read like technology riddles or philosophical interludes were, frankly, useless to me. They broke the flow and didn’t add much. I found myself skimming them, wondering why they were included at all.

Then there’s the language. Robinson occasionally uses made-up or obscure terms like “stocktake” instead of “inventory.” Who says “stocktake”? Nobody. That kind of jargon pulled me out of the narrative and made the book feel unnecessarily academic or bureaucratic.

That said, some of the proposed solutions were genuinely intriguing and thought-provoking:

• Seeding clouds for rain or solar cover
• Deploying biological agents to disrupt animal agriculture
• Sabotaging fossil fuel-intensive industries like air travel
• Heavily taxing cement production
• Dismantling dying small towns and converting the land into wildlife preserves
• Reclaiming highways and turning pavement into gravel for use elsewhere

These ideas were bold and imaginative, and I appreciated the effort to think outside the box. But many transitions — like the shift from jet travel to hot air balloons — were glossed over. What were the trade-offs? How did that become viable? Similarly, the book hints at a global population decline but never quantifies it, which weakens the impact of the societal changes Robinson describes.

The Ministry itself is a compelling concept — a UN-adjacent body with moral authority but limited power. But its evolution, and the shadowy black ops subplot, felt like they belonged in a different genre. The espionage elements were gripping but disconnected from the rest of the book’s tone.

Ultimately, The Ministry for the Future is a book I respect more than I enjoyed. It’s full of ideas — some brilliant, some half-baked — and it’s clearly written with urgency and passion. But as a novel, it’s uneven, fragmented, and often frustrating. I’d recommend it to readers deeply interested in climate policy, geoengineering, and speculative futures — but not necessarily to fans of traditional sci-fi or character-driven storytelling.

REVIEW: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

RATING: 2 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Till Death Do You Part: A dark LGBTQ romantic thriller by Marisa Billions (3-stars)

 Another page-turner from Marisa Billions, opening with a gripping scene before diving into flashbacks. This suspenseful thriller is rich in detail about middle-class Southern California life and romance. I especially enjoyed the New Orleans references, which added depth to the setting, and appreciated that the romantic scenes were subtle rather than explicit.

I would’ve liked more insight into the protagonist’s emotional journey—particularly her sense of being underappreciated and losing her identity. Some of the marital arguments felt a bit stilted, while the chemistry with the new love interest was compelling, though it made me reflect on the line between genuine attraction and limerence.

After reading four of Billions’ books, I have to ask: where can I find a successful lesbian who’s emotionally available and not prone to jealous rage?

REVIEW: Till Death Do You Part: A dark LGBTQ romantic thriller  by Marisa Billions 

RATING: 3-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender (3 stars)

 I enjoyed this book as an audio book - and it did a fair job of covering the risks of falling for the "AI is inevitable" nonsense.  The authors do a great job of pointing out the real issues of using LLMs as a "one size fits all" in law, medicine, health management, journalism, art, academia, scientific research and other areas.  LLMs need to have better transparency and more "human in the middle" (a term I was waiting for them to use).  They authors do a good job explaining the topics but miss an opportunity to describe things like "Value Sensitive Design" and "Human Centered-AI." 

They mention that about 16 oz of water is used for every LLM prompt - but fail to dig deeper into the real impact on people in areas where data centers are demanding use priority over limited aquifer resources.  There is a quote about how some tech billionaire mentions that AI will be used to analyze x-rays and images.  While the authors mention that studies show medical imaging jobs are predicted to be one of the faster growing fields, they fail to tie together the two thoughts:  the tech bros WANT that business.  They want to take over that field and push people out.  The reality is that we need the "human in the middle" to ensure quality.  Recent studies of doctors lose the skills of reading imaging when they become dependent on AI, just like humans miss out on critical thinking tasks required in generating meeting notes or writing their own assignments.

The recommendations provided by the authors are not novel - and they are covered in other works on the topic I have read.  They also mention Cory Doctorow a lot, and it seems he supports an idea I have been trying to float whenever I talk about AI:  more task or topic specific small language models are needed. 

AI is hurting a lot of people's jobs and churning out garbage that nobody wants to read or look at.  Demand better from your employers, schools and companies that provide you software that you use for your day-to-day.  The authors tell people to opt out when they can - from using AI (even facial recognition at airports) - and mercilessly mock and call out bad AI generated content.

Not included in this book is my recommendation:  demand that businesses do better and provide transparency about the amount of natural resources consumed for every session, whether it is your search on Google, or using Co-Pilot to polish some copy in your memo.  This should be transparent and visible to end users, system managers (ie, in enterprise or academic settings) and aggregate impact should be visible to the entire world.  Companies all got on the green bandwagon over the last several decades and promised to improve their greenouse gas emissions and energy consumption but AI is leading them all in the opposite direction. 

People over profits, always!

REVIEW: The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender

RATING: 3 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds by Jennifer Ackerman (4 stars)

Jennifer Ackerman’s "What an Owl Knows" is a compelling exploration of owl biology, behavior, and conservation. I’m so glad I switched from print to audiobook—Ackerman narrates it herself and does her level best to imitate the owl calls she describes throughout the book. It adds a layer of charm and immersion that print couldn’t offer.

The book focuses heavily on conservation efforts like banding, census tracking, and public education. Ackerman emphasizes the ecological value of owls and how dispelling harmful superstitions can protect them. In Serbia, for example, urban owl colonies are now protected by the community after extensive education campaigns. She also discusses the legal and practical challenges of caring for owls. In the U.S., people can get licenses to care for owls for educational or raptor use, but the government wildlife agency still “owns” and can “recall” the owl at any time. In England, it’s legal to sell bred owls, and after the Harry Potter films, demand surged. Many people adopted owls and later abandoned them, leading to the creation of owl-specific rescues for these human-habituated birds.

Ackerman touches on owl territoriality, migration, nesting, and mating habits. She mentions cannibalism among owl chicks—stronger siblings eating weaker ones, or a parent feeding a dead owlet to its siblings—but doesn’t go into survival odds. My bird expert friend, who has two owls, told me that the chances of a baby owl surviving its first year are incredibly low. For red-tailed hawks, it’s even worse: only one in five make it to their second year.

She also talks about training owls, including their use in the Harry Potter films, and compares their trainability to cats. My owl expert friend describes owls as “cat software, bird hardware,” which feels exactly right.

While listening to the book, I learned that in the jungles of Indonesia, people use owl hoots to communicate across distances. That night, I heard owl hooting outside my window, along with a strange whistle. Half-asleep, I thought it was human ne’er-do-wells using owl calls as code. I shouted out the window, “NICE TRY! There are no owls in this neighborhood!” As I did so, I woke up fully and realized—those were actual owls. I recorded the sounds and sent them to my owl expert friend, who confirmed it was a Great Horned Owl parent and baby, probably out hunting together.

Ackerman also weaves in folklore, like Athena’s association with owls and the Egyptian hieroglyph for the letter “M” being an owl. Throughout the book, she’s clear about what it means to rescue and care for owls, and how little we truly understand about how birds think. It’s a fascinating read that whets my appetite for more information about birds. 

REVIEW: What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds by Jennifer Ackerman 

RATING: 4 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: We'll Prescribe You Another Cat (We'll Prescribe You a Cat, #2) by Syou Ishida (3 stars)

 I loved the first book, We’ll Prescribe You a Cat, for its whimsical yet emotionally resonant storytelling. Unfortunately, the sequel didn’t quite live up to that promise. While the concept remains charming—a mysterious cat named Dr. Nikké prescribing feline companions to help humans navigate emotional challenges—the execution this time felt uneven and occasionally tone-deaf.

Much of the book’s attention is oddly focused on documenting cat poop and butt-sniffing, which detracts from the emotional depth of the stories. One quote from Dr. Nikké stood out for the wrong reasons:

“It’s no bad thing to be choosey about your cat, whether it be about its appearance or breed...”

This framing misses a valuable opportunity to promote fostering and rescue. Instead, it implies cats are interchangeable based on aesthetics or breed preference, which felt unsettling.

The first story arc had potential—a young woman with a distant, emotionally unavailable boyfriend is prescribed three purebred cats with distinct personalities. I expected a message about choosing companions (human or feline) based on emotional compatibility rather than looks, but the theme was never fully developed.

The second story, about an elderly man and his grandchild, was confusing but seemed to culminate in a shared mission to help neighbors find lost cats. The third story, featuring a jealous younger sister and a disconnected household, was more compelling. The prescribed munchkin cat helped bridge emotional gaps and reinvigorate family bonds.

The final story, centered on the older brother (a shelter worker), introduces a strange twist: Dr. Nikké appears in human form, borrowing the brother’s appearance. This creates confusion for the sister, but oddly, the brother doesn’t notice the resemblance. The mechanics of Dr. Nikké’s magical transformation are murky—he’s lethargic and locked in a pen, yet somehow projecting himself into the clinic. Is he dying? Exhausted? The ambiguity feels less magical and more inconsistent.

Overall, the book has moments of charm and insight, but it lacks the emotional clarity and thematic cohesion of the first volume. I’d love to see future installments embrace the realities of animal rescue and deepen the emotional arcs of the human characters.

REVIEW: We'll Prescribe You Another Cat (We'll Prescribe You a Cat, #2) by Syou Ishida 

RATING: 3 stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Powerfully Likeable: A Woman's Guide to Effective Communication by Kate Mason (3-stars)

 Kate Mason’s Powerfully Likeable offers a timely and compassionate message: women can—and should—embrace both power and likeability without compromise. While the book’s tone is warm and conversational, it often reads like a podcast transcript or a series of blog posts, with personal anecdotes that sometimes illuminate but frequently overwhelm the core message.

One of the strongest chapters focuses on self-advocacy, particularly Mason’s story about working with a new manager during a promotion cycle. Her decision to create a one-page factual document listing her accomplishments—complete with metrics—was not only strategic but empowering. It’s a concrete example of how women can make their work visible and advocate for themselves effectively.

Mason also addresses the reluctance many women feel in claiming expertise, highlighting how hedging language (“I’m not an expert, but…”) and ritual apologies can undermine authority. Her advice on clear, confident communication—like using “Sushi Train Logic” to structure arguments—is practical and memorable, though often buried under layers of repetition.

The chapter on rest and overpreparation feels underdeveloped. While Mason introduces a useful four-step rubric for strategic preparation, her treatment of rest is cursory. She misses an opportunity to explore transitions, boundaries, and the mechanics of unplugging—topics that deserve more than a passing mention.

Ultimately, Powerfully Likeable is a book with heart and good intentions. It’s best suited for readers who enjoy coaching-style storytelling and are looking for encouragement rather than a tightly structured guide. For those seeking a more concise, research-driven toolkit, this may feel like a 1,400-pound tuna when a few well-cut fillets would do.

REVIEW: Powerfully Likeable: A Woman's Guide to Effective Communication by Kate Mason 

RATING: 3-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley (4-stars)

 <B>A quiet, contemplative memoir that lingers like a painting after you've left the gallery.</B>

I really appreciated All the Beauty in the World—not just for its premise, but for Patrick Bringley's intentionality. After the loss of his brother, he chose to leave behind 40 empty hours a week in an office and instead take a job as a guard at the Met—a role many would dismiss as idle, but which he embraced as a way to grieve, observe, and heal.

Bringley’s reflections are gentle and observant. He doesn’t dramatize his pain, but lets it echo through his descriptions of art, routine, and human connection. Some reviewers have wished for more vulnerability, but I found his restraint to be part of the book’s quiet power. He listens, watches, and learns—not just about the art, but about the people around him and the eras that shaped the works he guards.

The book occasionally rambles, and I did find myself wishing for accompanying photos to match the artwork he describes. I listened to the audiobook at 2x speed—its pacing felt slow, though that may be more a production issue than a fault of the writing.

Still, there’s so much to admire. Bringley stayed in this role for ten years. He grew older than his brother had been, started a family, and built a circle of friends in what sounds like a surprisingly wholesome and supportive environment. His observations about artists—like Michelangelo’s early missteps or the practical struggles of funding art—add texture and humility to the grandeur of the Met.

The final chapter, on the quilts of Gee’s Bend, was especially moving. One quilter, born in 1942, told Bringley she didn’t even like sewing—she made quilts because no one else could supply enough to keep her family warm. That honesty, that necessity, reminded me that art isn’t always about inspiration. Sometimes it’s about survival.

I’m currently procrastinating on assembling blocks into a quilt top myself—and somehow, this book made me feel okay about that. It reminded me that beauty lives in the quiet moments, in the routines, and in the spaces we choose to inhabit with care.

REVIEW: All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley 

RATING: 4-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: A Door Into Ocean (Elysium Cycle, #1) by Joan Slonczewski (4-stars)

 A Door Into Ocean is a dense but thought-provoking exploration of nonviolent resistance, ecological ethics, and the politics of identity. The Sharers of Shora represent a kind of “best case scenario” for a society built on consent, cooperation, and harmony with nature. Their refusal to engage in violence isn’t passive—it’s strategic, deeply philosophical, and rooted in a radically different understanding of life and death.

One of the most compelling aspects of the book is the subtle role of propaganda and bidirectional “othering.” The Valans arrive on Shora with rigid beliefs shaped by The Patriarch’s rule—beliefs about gender, reproduction, and social hierarchy (like the “stone sign” system). They question whether the Sharers are even human, while the Sharers grapple with the same question about the Valans. This mutual alienation underscores how deeply political systems shape perceptions of humanity.

Slonczewski also introduces fascinating technological metaphors: the Sharers’ gene-editing capabilities challenge conventional ideas of scientific authority, and the “Click Flies” and “webs” eerily anticipate modern social media and peer-to-peer activism—reminding me of movements like the Arab Spring.

While the themes are rich, the prose can be overwhelming. I often felt the book could have benefited from tighter editing. Still, the glimpses into the larger galactic strategy—like The Patriarch’s manipulation of planetary conflicts and his threat to destroy any planet that initiates genocide—add a layer of tension and scale that’s both chilling and intriguing.

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2-stars)

This is it—I'm done.

I don’t care how many rave reviews Taylor Jenkins Reid racks up; clearly, her style is not for me. Even the scene set in a New Orleans titty bar was decidedly un-titillating.

The science-y and queer angle initially piqued my interest, but the characters felt flat and emotionally hollow. Tropes were recycled as stand-ins for actual character development, and the writing leaned heavily on familiar sentiments dressed up as profundity.

Take this quote, for example, presented as “original”:

“To look up at the nighttime sky is to become a part of a long line of people throughout human history who looked above at that same set of stars. It is to witness time unfolding.”

Compare that to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s far more evocative line:

“If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years, how man would marvel and stare.”

Reid’s popularity, I suspect, isn’t rooted in the depth of her characters or the originality of her world-building. It’s more about repackaging familiar ingredients in a palatable, market-friendly way—like “new and improved” Fruity Pebbles. Still too sweet, still fake, still unsatisfying.

Edith Wharton and Jane Austen, she ain't.

REVIEW: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid 

RATING: 2-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Mutual Interest by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith (2-stars)

This story is all telling with no showing.  It's almost like there's a germ of a screen play - all costume and no passion.  It's hard to tell whether anyone has feelings in this entire story -- the chemistry between Oscar and Squire is ambiguous.  The next steps are clearly telegraphed - as the first time Rebecca visits the C&S office - it's clear Elias is going to end up with her.  Does Vivian even exist?  Why create a survivor like Vivian only to blow her off like smoke or fog?

Not romantic. Not sexy. Not even emotionally engaging.  So much anachronism (ie modern business marketing etc).

REVIEW: Mutual Interest by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith 

RATING: 2-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain by Rebecca Solnit (2-stars)

 I have really enjoyed the author's writing in the past and this one was painfully uneven. It is more like a collection of blog posts -- including a bit of a soapbox rant about why non-linear non-fiction is misunderstood (in reference to "Orwell's Roses" criticisms). 

Some of the essay had lukewarm points but mostly forgettable this time around.

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Uncultured: A Memoir by Daniella Mestyanek Young (2-stars)

 <i>Uncultured</i> is a memoir that spans an extraordinary life — from growing up in the Children of God cult to serving in the U.S. Army. Daniella Mestyanek Young’s story is undeniably compelling, but the book’s uneven tone, narrative gaps, and ethical ambiguities make it a challenging read.

The memoir feels like three different books stitched together. The childhood section is written with novelistic flair — vivid and emotionally intense. The high school and college years are more fragmented, while the Army section shifts into a procedural tone. This inconsistency makes it hard to stay immersed in the story.

Young’s portrayal of her first husband, Jeff, is particularly troubling. She admits to illegally recording a phone call in which he allegedly planned to accuse her of adultery — a serious claim, complicated by her own retaliatory accusation that he was gay. She also describes how he would tear her down when she looked “too pretty,” painting a picture of emotional manipulation, but the narrative feels one-sided and unresolved.

The memoir is saturated with references to body image — from her constant hunger to her fixation on achieving a “condom full of bones” physique, a phrase she repeats to describe the ideal Army runner’s body. These moments are raw and revealing, likely rooted in her childhood experiences of abuse and perfectionism, but they’re also jarring and sometimes feel unprocessed.

Young’s repeated efforts to avoid being perceived as queer in the Army — including her use of slurs — have drawn criticism. While the language is uncomfortable, it reflects the real fear and pressure of serving under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Still, the book doesn’t fully grapple with the implications of these choices, leaving readers to fill in the moral gaps.

Young briefly acknowledges the pervasive rape culture in the Army — including a chilling moment when her superior advises her to “not get raped” before deployment. But rather than exploring this systemic misogyny in depth, she seems to accept it as the cost of being a woman in uniform — until she doesn’t. Her own choices, including engaging in physical relationships with coworkers while trying to maintain a facade of professionalism, are presented without much reflection. These contradictions are never fully unpacked, and the memoir misses an opportunity to critically examine how women navigate — and sometimes internalize — the very systems that oppress them.

While Young’s courage in telling her story is undeniable, she often positions herself as an authority — not just on her own life, but on leadership, cults, and trauma psychology. By the end of the book, she claims “35 years of study of leaders and cults,” a statement that strains credibility given her upbringing in an environment that actively suppressed access to education and outside information. This kind of overreach contributes to a sense that she’s not just telling her story — she’s trying to control its interpretation, which can make her feel like an unreliable narrator.

In so many of the cases of her adult trials -- the threats from Jeff, alleged rape by the man she was dating while on deployment, the missing cell phone of her subordinate, the brain tumor symptoms (after she said she spent months researching right in the text) -- the corroborating evidence is missing, making many of these things one sided.

Uncultured is a story of survival, but it’s also a story that raises as many questions as it answers. The memoir’s uneven tone, ethical gray areas, and lack of introspective depth make it a frustrating read at times. Still, it offers a rare window into the psychological aftermath of cult life and the institutional trauma of the military — even if it doesn’t always do so with clarity or grace.

REVIEW: Uncultured: A Memoir by Daniella Mestyanek Young 

RATING: 2-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid (1-star or less)

I made it about 13% into Malibu Rising before deciding to put it down. This one just isn’t for me.

The writing is clunky and, at times, just plain bad. Phrases like “naked except for a pair of bikini underwear” and “went and did” (a thing) feel lazy and grammatically off. The prose lacks rhythm or depth, and the dialogue feels like it’s trying too hard to be cinematic — probably because it’s angling for a screen adaptation (which, yes, Hulu picked up).

Character development is paper-thin. The women are described in terms of their “lean, taut, suntanned” bodies — like a casting call for Baywatch — and there’s a constant undercurrent of objectification that feels dated and shallow. Once again, Taylor Jenkins Reid seems more interested in glamorizing the wealthy and beautiful than in exploring anything emotionally real or grounded.

The plot (if there is one) barely moves, and the sex scenes are as dull as the characters. It reads like a glossy soap opera without the fun or the stakes.

What really sealed it for me was the stilted scenes and internal monologues around surfing and the ocean. I looked into the author’s research process and found that she had no prior knowledge of surfing — she reportedly prepared by watching surf movies. And it shows. There’s no real sense of connection to the ocean or surf culture — just a reliance on clichés and stereotypes. It’s hard to take a story seriously when the setting feels like a backdrop borrowed from a postcard.

After struggling through Forever Interrupted, I hoped this would be a step up. Instead, it’s more of the same — just with more bikinis and beachfront property.

REVIEW: Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid 

RATING: 1-star or less

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.