Review: Solitary - Book #1 Solitary Tales - Travis Thrasher - August 2010 I picked this one up expecting a cozy, creepy little YA read to curl up with, and what I got instead was... something else entirely. Something I'm still turning over in my head, if I'm being honest. Chris Buckley moves to the small town of Solitary, North Carolina, right in the messy aftermath of his parents' divorce to a new school, new house, that particular kind of loneliness that comes from starting over somewhere nobody knows your name. It's a setup that feels instantly familiar and warm, like settling into a worn armchair. You root for Chris immediately. He's just a kid trying to find his footing. Then Jocelyn Evans walks in, and the book shifts into something stranger. She's beautiful, guarded, impossible to read ,  the kind of girl who pulls you in precisely because she keeps pushing you away. And Chris, sweet and a little lost, falls for her anyway. Underneath the small-town cha...

Review: Repeat - Book #1 Larsen Brothers - Kylie Scott - April 2019 There's something so special about reading a book that landed in your hands as a birthday gift and getting to curl up with Repeat, sent to me by one of my beautiful book birthday groups on bookstagram, made this reading experience feel even warmer and more meaningful. Books really do taste sweeter when they come wrapped in friendship. Kylie Scott has long held a special place on my shelf as one of my favourite Australian New Adult authors. It all started years ago when I fell hopelessly in love with Mal from the Stage Dive series, and ever since, her name on a cover is enough to make me clear my schedule. Repeat opens with Clementine walking into a tattoo parlour, innocently asking if the owner did her tattoo completely unaware of the storm she's about to walk into. Turns out, she used to date the tattoo artist, Ed. They broke up, she walked away, and it shattered him. But here's the gut-punch: Clem doesn...

Review: Chess for Babies - Levy Rozman - March 2026 I'll be honest with you: when this ARC landed in my hands, I laughed. Chess for Babies? My first thought was that it had to be a novelty gift , the kind of thing you buy for the chess-obsessed uncle who already has everything. But then I sat down with it, and I completely changed my tune. Levy Rozman  better known online as GothamChess, International Master and one of the most beloved chess educators on YouTube has done something genuinely clever here. He's taken a game that intimidates grown adults and distilled it into its purest, most joyful form. The board book walks tiny readers through the names of the pieces, the basics of how each one moves, and the concept of what it means to win. That's it. No openings, no tactics puzzles, no commentary about the Sicilian Defence. Just the beautiful bones of the game, served up in a format a baby can hold with both chubby fists. What makes this book work , really work  is the...

Review: Half His Age - Jeanette McCurdy - January 2026 Hello everyone, and welcome back to our little corner of the internet! It's your favourite book blogger, The Phantom Paragrapher, curling up on the sofa with a warm cuppa to chat about our latest read. I finally dove into Half His Age by Jeanette McCurdy. After seeing the initial buzz, I was practically vibrating with excitement. Given the provocative title, I went in expecting something gritty and transgressive perhaps something in the vein of Alissa Nutting's Tampa, which famously and chillingly echoed the Mary Kay Letourneau case. I was braced for a dark, psychological deep-dive into the power dynamics of a taboo relationship. Instead, I found something much closer to our teenage TV screens. The story felt less like a heavy literary scandal and far more like a Pretty Little Liars subplot specifically, major Ezra and Aria vibes. The novel follows Waldo as she pursues her Creative Writing teacher, Mr. Korgy, and that ...

Review: Lumberjanes: Volume Three - Various Contributors - February 2026 Oh friends, gather round because I have the most wonderful thing to share with you today, and I am barely containing my excitement as I type this! When the postie knocked on my door with a review copy from the absolute legends over at Boom Studios, I may have done a little happy dance in my hallway. Boom Studios honestly publishes some of the most joyful, imaginative, and downright brilliant comics and graphic novels out there, and being trusted with one of their titles for review genuinely made my day. But here's the thing  this wasn't just any title. This was Lumberjanes. My Lumberjanes. I fell in love with April, Jo, Mal, Molly, and Ripley over ten years ago when this gorgeous series first burst onto the scene, and that love has never once wavered. They feel like old friends at this point, the kind you'd want sitting round your kitchen table with a mug of tea and a warm biscuit. Book Three collect...

Review: Death of a Pop Star - Volume #1 - Violet Karim - September 2025 You know those seasons of life where work just swallows you whole? That was me these past few weeks , head down, to-do lists multiplying like gremlins, and by the time I'd finally collapse onto the sofa of an evening, I'd pick up a book and read the same paragraph four times without a single word landing. My concentration had practically packed its bags and left. So when this gorgeous physical ARC of Death of a Popstar Volume 1 arrived, I genuinely wasn't sure I'd be in the right headspace for it. Reader, it fixed me. The premise is wonderfully absurd in the best possible way. Sophie Lim is sitting pretty at number one on the pop charts ,  the whole world adores her  until she takes a tumble down the stairs which I believe she was pushed and, well, that's rather that. Except it isn't, because the Grim Reaper turns out to be her biggest fan. Eli strikes a deal with her: Sophie gets her life ...