minimicropup's reviews
502 reviews

A Taste for Poison: Eleven Deadly Molecules and the Killers Who Used Them by Neil Bradbury

informative fast-paced

5.0

Did not finish book. Stopped at 25%.

Why I picked it: I like Alice Feeney's recent work. It sounded full of unreliable or unhinged characters, mysterious ominous plots, and a dark slow-burn.

Liked:

Cinematic, suspenseful writing style

DNF'ed beacuse:

Overly dramatic repetitive inner monologues that were so convoluted for no reason
Relies too much on ominous foreshadowing for every little thing
Trauma after trauma after trauma in this character's backstory but it kinda dulled the impact after awhile
Main character's whole personality became 'I need a biobaby'
Main character acting super sus then whining about how the police are asking her questions
Main character was giving Main Character...like "No one ever notices me...but soon they will", meanwhile her coworker is all "you're so beautiful you don't even know, everyone loves you"

📚 Format: Paperback

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Neighborhood Watch by Sarah Reida

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dark funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

*Overall, I liked this. It’s a multi-POV suburban drama with slasher-esque murders, more focused on character reactions and how different personalities cope than on sleuthing or cat-and-mouse games. But sometimes it felt cluttered, occasionally preachy, and left too many stories unfinished.

Energy: Admonishing. Neurotic. Playful.

🐺 Growls: The ending focuses on one of the least compelling characters and most of the subplots are unresolved.

🐕 Howls: The ending is a series of quick wrap-ups with a lot of questions unanswered. There’s a lot to keep track of so it’s easy to get lost if you take long reading breaks. Wish we got a map of the neighbourhood for who sees what from their respective houses (instead of writing that out every time). Occasionally dips into commentary that was giving tokenistic or problematic (I think it’s just the writing style paired with the different character opinions that felt too matter-of-fact sometimes). It does that thing where characters get happy endings because they decided to have children.

🐩 Tail Wags: The kills have a delightfully cheesy, slasher-film vibe. How the story is mostly about how each neighbor handles shock, secrets, and the gossip swirling around the cul-de-sac. The mix of characters, almost all unlikeable to insufferable in some way. Highly predictable but still intriguing, in that waiting for the characters to catch up way.

Scene: 🇺🇸 An affluent suburb in Alpharetta, Georgia, USA.

Perspectives (12): A has-been teen sitcom star who just married their older surgeon spouse. A married parent who came into money with their spouse after selling tech and security patents. A 19-year-old nanny and general helper in the neighbourhood. A married attorney no longer practicing. An older adult widow and former artist who lived in the neighbourhood long before it was developed. A spouse obsessed with looking young and taking others down to feel better about themselves. A parent running a cybersecurity firm with their spouse. An older adult widow using the HoA to punish neighbours they believe are ruining the neighbourhood by existing. The single HoA president who lives by double standards. A late twenties Instagram lifestyle influencer who returns to the neighbourhood to vlog the happenings. A married politician with secrets. A person who believes their spouse and kids are a total disappointment and make them look bad.

Timeline: Current (2020s). Linear.

🔥 Fuel: Who is killing people in the neighbourhood? Why? Is the accused person guilty or innocent? What will happen to the surviving community members? Who’s next?

📖 Cred: Suspended disbelief

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Bath bombs. Book club. Costco. Wine. Kitchen islands. Heated pool. Greenhouse. Instagram sponsors. Chickpea bites. Staircase.

Third person detached narration style
Fair play whodunnit (and whydunit)
Darwin award behaviours awarded
Cozy mystery camp with a sprinkling of sunshine noir
Quirky serial killings, characters dropping like flies
Suburban thriller tropes and characters
Little bits of tea spilled throughout
Plot driven with many perspectives
Vignette style hopping from house to house
Behind closed doors (and closed minds)
Short chapters
Mix of likeable, morally grey, and hateable characters
Rich entitled people behaving badly
Accusations and suspicions
Vigilante justice

Content Heads-Up: Abandonment (spousal, parental). Alcohol use. Bigotry. Car crash (fatal). Coronavirus (brief mention; remote work). Classism, elitism. Domestic abuse (physical, emotional). Fatphobia, body shaming (from parent). Homophobia (slurs, character opinions). Imprisonment. Infidelity. Jealously. Loss of family (as teen). Misogyny. Murder. Nazi sympathizer. Potential false accusation. Pregnancy. Prejudice, discrimination (lesbophobia, racism, ageism, transphobia). Transphobia (slurs, deadnaming, targeting, character and narration). Unemployment (fired). Vandalism, property damage, home invasion.

Rep: American. Black American. Second generation Columbian American. Second generation Korean American. Cis. Trans. Hetero. Lesbian. Dark, pale, and ambiguous skin tones.

📚 Format: Kobo Plus
*Did you know Kobo Plus automatically returns the book as soon as you flip to the last page, deleting all your highlights and annotations forever? I didn’t (also, why?)…anyways this review is entirely from memory because of that so I may have missed things.

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The Night They Vanished by Vanessa Savage

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I loved the first 70% or so. It was atmospheric, suspenseful, and fascinating to learn about the past and everyone’s secrets. But the rushed, high action ending was meh for me.

Energy: Engaging. Serious. Menacing.

🐕 Growls: The sudden high-stakes thriller style, rushed action, and frantic confrontations. The main character’s sudden questionable decision making and stupidity to make the end work, when they were so solid and discerning until then.

🐕 Howls: Withholding of key information felt excessively drawn out by the 50-60% mark (that, ‘omg just TELL us’ thing where characters keep eluding to some event that we STILL don’t know about).

🐩 Tail Wags: The dual timelines and perspectives. Sense of foreboding. The tension and mysteries.

Scene: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Cardiff Bay and Littledean, Wales

Perspectives (2): A 30-year-old estranged from their family, who is set up on a date by friends with a person who hosts a dark tourism website. Their 14-year-old sibling three months ago leading up to the disappearance of the family.

Timeline: 2018 to 2019 (September to February)

🔥 Fuel: Why is their father so strict? Why is the entire family estranged from Hanna? Is Sasha’ new friendship toxic, dangerous, or supportive? What did Hanna do that caused the entire town to turn on her? Where is the family now? Who is sending threats?

📖 Cred: Plausible-ish to suspended disbelief

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Christmas card. Dark tourism. Computer room. Facebook messages. Burner phone. Police station.

First person, overhearing the characters’ thoughts
Mostly in the dark, piecing together clues for what happened
Missing family mystery
Unsettling threats, unknown perpetrator
Small town drama and gossip, return to hometown moments
Innocent explanation or tragic outcome?
Family estrangement, secrets, dysfunction drama
Having a strict parent struggles
Coming of age loneliness and rebellion
Conflicted can-she-trust-him romance
Down the rabbit hole Then and Now
Psychological suspense

Content Heads-Up: Abduction. Adult/minor relationship (teen-young adult). Alcohol (recreational). Bullying (high school; gossip, rejection, teasing, threats). False accusations. Hit and run (very brief mention; off page). Home invasion. Infidelity. Loneliness (as teen). Loss of family (as child). Murder. Online threats. Parental abandonment (as baby; as child). Parental rejection (as teen, adult; estranged). Strict, overprotective parent. Suicide (off page). Toxic parent. Violence, physical attack.

Rep: Welsh. Cis. Hetero.

📚 Format: Paperback

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The Guests by Charlotte Stevenson

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

This is more of a reflective contemporary fiction with some dark happenings. The slow pacing and informative writing style were dull and I couldn’t get invested in the characters. I think this works better if you personally resonate with what the characters are going through or are learning about/looking for cathartic reflection of healing from emotional abuse and the benefits of therapy. Also, if you like Jennifer McMahon’s character-driven slightly supernatural vibe-this reminded me of her plots.

Energy: Quiet. Melancholic. Enervated.

🐺 Growls: The synopsis was a little misleading…the mystery of the visions/hallucinations is solved early on; this is a quiet, slow-paced contemporary fiction about personal healing and how different generations coped with trauma.

🐕 Howls: It’s heavy on symbolism for repressed childhood memories and how they impact adulthood, but it felt like over-explaining because the situation was obvious, then the symbolism around it was obvious, then the therapist’s explanation of it and character unpacking it was stating the obvious; it was just too much of an extended exploration of every little topic (but this approach could be healing/helpful for others). The plot was meandering too much during the reflective parts.

🐩 Tail Wags: Great audio narration. Writing is easy to follow.

Scene: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Manchester, England

Perspectives (2): A single parent of a teen who is seeing ghostly visitors in their home, but trying to hide that they are. The teen who is crushing on their bestie while managing concern for their parent’s mental state. We also get brief perspectives of the sister/aunt and mother/grandmother.

Timeline: Current (2010s or 2020s). Spring. Linear + Then & Now

🔥 Fuel: Are "the guests" visions or hallucinations? Will Tamsin be able to keep it together for her daughter? How will therapy & digging up the past affect her? How will Tamsin's healing journey unfold? Will Summer confess her crush?

📖 Cred: Paranormal realism

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Kitchen window. Tea and biscuits. Family gatherings. Wine. Cartoony socks. Therapist’s office.

First person deep in the characters’ minds
Repressed memories discovered
Living ghosts
Best friend sapphic crush
Ghost fiction
Contemporary fiction about recognizing and overcoming family trauma
Direct, reflective writing style
Mix of sympathetic, flawed, and troubled characters
How far would you go for family?
Legacy, loss, and regret
Low stakes, nothing really happens
Maturing parent-child bonds
Slow burn emotional and psychological symbolism

Content Heads-Up: Ableism (from parent). Alcohol (self-medicating blackouts). Classism (prejudice, hatred). Domestic abuse (parents fighting, violence, emotional abuse). Generalized anxiety disorder (medicated). Hallucinations. Loss of parent (distant relationship; as child). Mentally ill parent. Misogyny. Neonatal brain injury. Spousal, parental abandonment (as teen). Stigmas around mental illness. Toxic masculinity. Toxic relationship. Vomit.

Rep: British. Second generation Ghanian. Cis. Hetero. Lesbian. Pale and ambiguous skin tones. Cerebral palsy.

📚 Format: Kindle Unlimited

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The Boyfriend by Freida McFadden

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dark funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

I liked this! It was suspenseful, I didn’t see the twist, but even for the predictable parts I was interested in how things would turn out.

Energy: Entertaining. Shady. Energetic.

🐕 Howls: The twist was good, but I didn’t love how that situation turned out (seemed like a convenient set up for a sequel and it had a romanticizing tone the rest of the story didn’t have).

🐩 Tail Wags: The main character was dumb, but it didn’t feel contrived and her short-comings were woven into the plot in a believable way. How the characters had distinct personalities. Natural humour and dialogue. Show-not-tell writing style (and easily readable). The suspense from the dual timeline. Mix of predictable and unexpected twists.

Scene: 🇺🇸 Manhattan NYC and a tiny town in upstate NY, USA

Perspectives(2): The Before perspective follows a quiet, well behaved high school student struggling with a difficult home life while navigating attention from their crush. The After perspective follows a 34 year old whose dating history is filled with let’s-not-meet, when a handsome, mysterious stranger rescues them from another date-gone-very-wrong situation.

Timeline: August to December (2010s or 2020s). 1990s.

🔥 Fuel: Will Tom be able to control his impulses? What happened in his past and how has that turned out for him? Was he able to change or is he dangerous? Will Sydney clue in to some red flags? Can she trust her new boyfriend?

📖 Cred: Suspended disbelief

Mood Reading Match-Up:

First date rescue call. Google. Knife. Chinese food. Tiny apartment. Restaurants. Nose bleed.

Tagging along, peering over shoulders, characters speaking to us
Then and Now timelines that eventually connect
Knowing more than the main character (usually)
Casual, breezy writing style and short chapters
Mix of morally grey, sympathetic (maybe), troubled, and foolish characters
Coming of age first love, high school crush
Conflicted can-she-trust-him romantic interest
Let’s not meet dating fails and red flags
Dramedy elements
Lovers to enemies
Monsters among us popcorn thriller
Psychological romantic suspense
Serial killers and soulmates

Content Heads-Up: Blood. Body shaming (weight). Domestic abuse (violence, emotional, verbal, physical). Homicidal tendencies, intrusive thoughts. Loss of best friend. Misogyny. Murder (multilation, discovery of body). Nicotine (cigarettes). Pandemic, lockdowns (very brief mention). Sexual assault (verbal, physical advances). Sexual harassment (stalking, not taking no for an answer).

Rep: American. Cis. Hetero. Pale, freckled skin tones. Von Willebrand disease.

📚 Format: Kindle Unlimited

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You Belong To Me by Hayley Krischer

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emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

This sounded interesting but was disappointing (and frustrating). I didn’t like the forced plotting, stale dialogue, and heavy-handed moralizing. If the synopsis sounds good to you, try it out. If we don’t share pet peeves, you may like it more than me.

Energy: Faux. Shady. Sanctimonious.

🐺 Growls: Heavy-handed explanations and flat, cringey dialogue. The writing style isn’t bad, but the lines are. Everything felt forced and tell-not-show. It was hard to believe in the character interactions (especially the romance). The pacing drags for the first half, then glosses over a bunch of reveals in a rush near the end. The characters kept re-explaining the plot.

🐕 Howls: All the characters sounded alike with this dreamy, oddly formal way of talking (even those not involved in the wellness group). The main character was too much of a Poor Me, popular-but-doesn’t-realize-it caricature and kept randomly changing her beliefs and motivations to fit the needs of the plot. Awkward explanations and clunky moralizing (especially at the end…this read like a middle grade book with a moral message tying too hard to seem unintentional about it). The main character kept getting in the way of the story and she’s the only perspective – I wish we got the PoV of a friend or her girlfriend.

Scene: South Brent, New Jersey, USA

Perspective: A private high school student on scholarship with a group of misfit friends. They are crushing hard on the popular girl, whose mother owns is a semi-famous wellness influencer/CEO and are curious about attending her youth group.

Timeline: Current (2010s or 2020s).

🔥 Fuel: What are Julia's intentions in inviting a classmate to her mother’s wellness party? Is the wellness youth group toxic, dangerous, or helpful? Is Frances’ crush actually crushing back? Who can she trust in her girlfriend’s group and family?

📖 Cred: Plausible to suspended disbelief

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Victorian goth style. Dewey skin. White lace. Cushions. Parasol. Patchouli & lemon. Lymphatic drainage facials. Crystals.

Linear, single perspective timelines
Tagging along, peering over shoulders, theorizing
YA romantic suspense & drama
Falling for the popular girl
Plot-driven, reflective, simplistic writing style
Behind closed doors of sketchy wellness youth group
Blinded by love, I-can-change-for-them sapphic romance
Mentor-protégé toxicity
Red flags everywhere
Moral exploration defining victims and perpetrators

Content Heads-Up: Adult/minor relationship, grooming (20-something with teens). Alcohol addiction (family history, parent; recovery-relapse, death). Alcohol use (underage). Cannabis use (gummy; underage). Cult. Drugging. Drug use (psychedelics). Emotional abuse. Loss of parent (as teen). Murder.

Rep: American. Jewish heritage. Hindi and Black peripheral characters. Cis. Lesbian. Gay. Hetero. Ghostly, dark, and tanned skin tones.

📚 Format: Advance Reader’s Copy from Penguin Group-Penguin Young Readers Group | G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, and NetGalley.

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Content Warnings

Unfollow Me by Charlotte Duckworth

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

This is a character-driven mystery with lots of moral ambiguity, a hint of stalking, and an undercurrent of obsession. Good if you’re looking for slow-build tension and characters studies focused on motherhood. Took awhile to capture my interest but then I liked it until the ending.

Energy: Simmering. Cross. Dubious.

🐕 Howls: I was getting confused with the husbands/partners and who-was-who at first. It spends a lot of time hashing topics of motherhood, fertility, and how they tie in to womanhood, which at first was boring (but I don’t identify with maternal worries, so it might be a me thing); eventually I found it compelling to see what was motivating the mothers (and wannabe mothers). The ending was a little ‘that’s all?’ wrap up.

🐩 Tail Wags: Full of morally grey and unlikeable characters, decisions, secrets, and a low-key sense of unease. Characters making terrible choices (even when they have sympathetic motives).

Scene: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Set in London, England

Perspective: Two separate followers of a mommy influencer who suddenly removed all her blogs and stopped posting. One is a young single parent who escapes into the influencer’s posts given their frustrations with their own child. The other is in their 40s and really wants a baby but is facing fertility issues with their much younger partner. We also get snippets of perspective from the missing influencer’s spouse and comments/theorizing from online forums.

Timeline: 2017 leading up to the Christmas holidays 🎄

🔥 Fuel: Why has the mommy influencer stopped posting? Is she okay? Is the husband hiding something? How do the characters stories connect? What is one of them afraid of falling back into, and what secrets is the other hiding?

📖 Cred: Plausible

Mood Reading Match-Up:

YouTube. Sidewalk. Playground. Pregnancy tests. Online posts.

Unlikeable, morally grey, and self-destructive characters
Slow-burn inner lives mystery
Noirish exploration of mommy problems
Missing (or is she) momfluencer
Low key obsession and unravellings
Regretting parenthood feelings
Desperate for a child feelings
Parallel/interconnecting plots
Psychological domestic suspense
Relationship drama and scandal

Content Heads-Up: Postpartum depression. Alcohol (self-medicating, over-drinking). Male infertility. Fertility (IVF, ovulation tracking, stages of conception). Pregnancy (stages, experience). Infidelity. Paternity ambiguity. Sexual assault/rape (brief memory). Domestic abuse, intimate partner violence.

Rep: British. Cis. Hetero. Ambiguous skin tones.

📚 Format: Audible

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Content Warnings

What You Leave Behind by Wanda M. Morris

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 65%.

I just can’t get into this. It’s not bad and has an important message but it feels like that’s all it has. I feel like I’ve been listening to this for days and it’s the same story with a lot of telling.

25 Days by Per Jacobsen

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I loved this except for one huge thing – the way it turned out. This is a slow-burn, day-by-day winter thriller that’s immersive, scary…but so frustrating. I read one chapter a day as an advent read to start and I looked forward to seeing how the characters were doing every day. Then it got scary high stakes and I couldn’t help it, I read it all in a day.

Energy: Troubling. Instinctive. Ruthless.

🐺 Growls. Don’t expect any of your questions to be answered 🥺. I don’t know if it was to make a statement or for a sequel, but it felt more like written-into-a-corner unfinished.

🐕 Howls. The survival aspects make up most of the story and are so intense, every horrible thing that could happen is being thrown at them (I’m not a big survival trope person) so I kept overanalyzing how they’d even be alive still.

🐩 Tail Wags: How it started off cozy and creepy where something unsettling lurks in the background. Immersive and atmospheric. How if you read it as an advent read, it felt like these characters were out there living this story in real-time somewhere.

Scene: 🌎 Set in woods near the small community of Willowbend

Perspectives (4): A family of four. A spouse/parent hoping to reconnect with their spouse who has been distant lately. A spouse/parent not feeling anything for their spouse. A 15 year old. Their younger 9 year old sibling.

Timeline: Dec 1st to 25th. Each chapter is a full day.

🔥 Fuel: Will the holiday vacay help reconnect the spouses? Who is leaving ‘presents’ and what do they mean? Who keeps coming around the property? Is the family being stalked? Are they in danger? Will they survive?

📖 Cred: Plausible to suspended disbelief

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Dancing snowflakes. Biting cold. Photo slides. Stocking. Snowman. Bunnies. Valley. Snowy road. Snowmobile headlights.

Cozy, creepy, wintery atmosphere
Brutal survival thriller-suspense
Family battling against the odds
Stalking, mental and physical torture
Unknown assailant(s)
High stakes fight-for-life escape horror

Content Heads-Up: Animal cruelty, death (

chicken, rabbit

). Gun violence. Injuries, wounds, infection, fever. Kidnapping, confinement (unsanitary conditions). Stalking, threats. Torture.

Rep: American. Cis. Hetero. Pale, freckled and ambiguous skin tones.

📚 Format: Kindle Unlimited

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minimicropup's reviews 502 reviews

minimicropup's reviews
502 reviews