The Ill-Fitting Skin by Shannon Robinson

The Ill-Fitting Skin by Shannon Robinson

The twelve stories in The Ill-Fitting Skin by Shannon Robinson feature women navigating everyday, often unsettling situations. This collection explores relationships through the lenses of surrealism and magical realism, presenting a series of tales that are as imaginative as they are reflective.

Read the full review here.

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

The Measure by Nikki Erlick

The Measure by Nikki Erlick is one of those books that really makes you stop and think. The premise is wild but fascinating—everyone in the world over the age of 22 gets a box with a string inside, and the length of that string tells them how long they have left to live. What would you do if you knew how much time you had left? Would you want to know?

The story follows different characters as they deal with the impact of this mystery, and I loved how their lives were all connected in some way, even if they didn’t know it. Some people open the box, others don’t, and the way each person handles the knowledge (or lack of it) is so interesting. The book dives into big ideas about fate, choice, and how we define our lives, but it also has this really human, emotional core that keeps it grounded.

For me, this book really got me thinking. It feels so relevant to everything going on in the world today, and I appreciated how it tackled society’s issues and those inevitable life events from so many different perspectives. And that ending—it felt so real and touching. It made me reflect on the story in a whole new way, just like how we can look at life and what’s happening in the world around us and see things differently with time. Honestly, it mirrors a lot of what’s going on in the country right now.

Save Me a Seat by Sarah Weeks and Gita Varadarajan

 Save Me a Seat by Sarah Weeks and Gita Varadarajan

My kid read this as a classroom read in 4th grade and said I would like it too. 

And I did! 

It’s pretty quick and surface-level in terms of characters, but I think that works for younger readers because they focus more on the differences between people initially, then the commonalities to learn the lesson of the book. 

I think it’s a great book to help kids remember to be kind to everyone. It's really relatable because it shows the two main characters both at home and at school, putting them in positions children will be able to relate to.

Charlotte Illes Is Not A Detective by Katie Siegel

Charlotte Illes Is Not A Detective by Katie Siegel

I started this book thinking it was by Katey Sagal for some reason?! It's not, but I still enjoyed it.

I was hooked with the initial premise of a child detective grown up. I loved Encyclopedia Brown and other detectives and spies when I was younger, so I thought this would give the same satisfaction.

While I did finish the book - and feel compelled to finish it based on the story - I don't think the case was enough to carry this long of a novel. Though I also thought the book was too long - lots of filler conversations between the friends and brother that felt either pointless or like an info dump. So maybe a shorter book to solve this case, or a different/more cases for a book this length? The second book is already in the works so it'll be interesting to see how that one is. Honestly, if the case as it was first presented (with the notes) carried throughout the book, I think it would have been a lot better. I understand why that clue was handled as it was, but think the author could have easily done something else to still make that same point.

I don't watch the author's TikToks so I'm not sure how this character comes off on screen, but I thought she was pretty believable on the page. Overall, I liked the book enough to see what happens next, thanks to a nice (yet low stakes) cliffhanger.