20 reviews 13 YES · 3 DEPENDS · 3 NO · 1 DNF Who this is

• LITERARY FICTION Roundtable Blindness José Saramago · 1995 Even with those problems, Blindness earned its length. The Part About Seeing Is Not the Same as Looking YES
• LITERARY FICTION Roundtable Demon Copperhead Barbara Kingsolver · 2022 Demon’s voice is the main reason this novel works. A Whole Life Built Out of Other People’s Rescue Plans YES
• NONFICTION Roundtable Into Thin Air Jon Krakauer · 1997 I liked this book more than I expected to, but “liked” is not quite the correct word for the experience. The Mountain Is Not the Only System That Fails YES
• CRIME & THRILLER Roundtable Mad Mabel Sally Hepworth · 2025 I finished the book because I cared about Mabel, Persephone, Roxanne and the small group of neighbours who gradually stopped treating care as an embarrassing accident. The Murder Mystery Is Fine. The Friendship Is the Point. YES
• CLASSICS Roundtable Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen · 1813 I liked Elizabeth and Darcy most once the novel stopped treating their first impressions as entertainingly inevitable and made them do the less glamorous work of changing. Everyone in the Room Has Bad Information YES
• LITERARY FICTION Roundtable Set This House in Order Matt Ruff · 2003 I liked this book more than I expected to, but I did not find it easy. A House Built from Damage YES
• LITERARY FICTION Roundtable The Covenant of Water Abraham Verghese · 2023 It is also generous, intelligent, funny, informed, and genuinely interested in the work of caring for people whose bodies and circumstances cannot be fixed. A Family Novel That Knows Every Detail and Refuses to Leave Any of Them Out YES
• HISTORICAL FICTION Roundtable The Nightingale Kristin Hannah · 2015 But I cannot dismiss the novel as manipulative just because it made me cry. A War Novel About What People Do When There Is No Good Choice YES
• SCIENCE FICTION Roundtable The Spare Man Mary Robinette Kowal · 2022 The mystery is sturdy, the setting is memorable, and Tesla's disability is handled with unusual attention to daily consequences. A Murder Mystery With Excellent Logistics and Too Many Cocktail Menus YES
• LITERARY FICTION Roundtable Theo of Golden Allen Levi · 2023 It will probably be most satisfying to readers who want fiction to affirm the possibility of grace and do not mind being reminded of that possibility in nearly every chapter. A Kind Man, a Very Long Way Around DEPENDS
• POETRY Roundtable Where the Sidewalk Ends Shel Silverstein · 1974 It contains enough usable material to keep, enough broken pieces to inspect, and enough nonsense to make the inspection worth doing. A Useful Amount of Nonsense YES
• CRIME & THRILLER Roundtable Bits and Pieces Nichole Severn · 2021 But the book rarely trusts a reaction to stand by itself. Too Many Problems, All Explained Twice NO
• CRIME & THRILLER Roundtable Unspoken Truths Liz Mistry · 2019 Her hair is growing back, her face is hollow, and she still finds the breath to tell him he looks like shit. The book that doesn't stop at the verdict YES
• ROMANCE Roundtable Kingdom of Thorns Katherine Macdonald · 2020 The author describes his exhaustion, his bleeding hands, and his failing lungs, but it never feels grounded in actual physical reality. Agency without responsibility is just an administrative disaster NO
• ROMANCE Roundtable Not Your Average Earl Eliza Lloyd · 2019 I'm leaving it on the shelf at work with a sticky note that says the Whitby scene is worth the wait. The kind of paperback that lives on the break room swap shelf, and I mean that as a compliment YES
• CRIME & THRILLER Roundtable Perfect Remains Helen Fields · 2017 It is a deeply dark, grisly crime novel that actually respects the mechanism of how things work, and that mechanical grounding is what ultimately sold me on it. The grim, heavy logistics of moving human weight YES
• ROMANCE Roundtable Shadow Assassin Elle James · 2021 But almost every mechanism that matters gets waved through instead of built. If You're Going to Point a Gun at Someone, Point the Gun DEPENDS
• SCIENCE FICTION Roundtable Station Eternity Mur Lafferty · 2022 But if you lose patience with characters who deliberately withhold crucial information to artificially extend the runtime, this is going to be a frustrating read. A Logistical Nightmare Wrapped in Interpersonal Fog DEPENDS
• CLASSICS Roundtable The Magician's Nephew C. S. Lewis · 1955 Those positions can coexist, but the distinction rests almost entirely on Aslan being right. The lesson arrives before the argument NO
• ROMANCE Roundtable Wyoming Cowboy Marine Nicole Helm · 2019 Walking blindly into an enemy camp and willingly splitting your two-person team because a man in a camouflage hat told you to is not a tactical decision. Tactical Failures and the Single Tent Protocol DNF

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