The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

4 stars A fantastic read with plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader guessing. This was especially fun to read having grown up in Wisconsin and currently living in Milwaukee. Always nice to see a Wisconsin author. I’ll admit, it took me a little bit to get into the style of this book….

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The Oracle Code by Marieke Nijkamp, Illustrated by Manuel Preitano

2 stars I really wanted to like this. I’m fascinated with the various iterations of Barbara Gordon. After absolutely hating that notorious scene in The Killing Joke, I was interested to see how a teenage Babs would become Oracle. The story omits the Joker plotline (thankfully) and instead gives a vague story about interrupting a…

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The Searcher (Audiobook) by Tana French, Read by Roger Clark

3 stars Listened to for my library’s book club. There were parts I liked and parts that weren’t for me. The pace of the book is quite leisurely. Things unfold in their own time and there is quite a bit of description and getting lost in the main character’s thoughts. None of this is necessarily…

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Strawberry Shortcake Murder (Hannah Swensen #2) by Joanne Fluke

2 stars Made it through another Hannah Swensen Mystery. When I started out listening to the second book, part of me was conflicted on why I was so disappointed in the first one. The writing is not by any means good and everything is irritatingly overly explained as though Joanne Fluke thinks her readers can’t…

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Archival Quality by Ivy Noelle Weir, Artwork by Steenz

2 stars Bit disappointed in this one. As someone who works in a library and lives with depression and anxiety, I thought I’d relate to this a lot more. I was really excited when I got it from the library and couldn’t wait to start reading. Unfortunately, much of it fell flat for me and…

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (Hannah Swenson #1) by Joanne Fluke

2 stars I currently work in a library and this series is quite popular among our patrons. Though I haven’t read many cozy mysteries, I wanted to see what it was all about. There were a lot of cringey moments with bad writing, overly detailed scenes, terrible police work, unethical vigilantism, talking down to the…

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