Get The BookBrowse Anthology, our 880 page collection of our past decade of Best of Year reviews, now available in hardcover!

Reviews by Techeditor

Power Reviewer  Power Reviewer

If you'd like to be able to easily share your reviews with others, please join BookBrowse.
Order Reviews by:
The Witch Elm
by Tana French
Takes you places you don't expect (5/6/2021)
Don’t believe any fewer-than-four-star reviews of THE WITCH ELM by Tana French. It really deserves five stars for its many layers and thoughtfulness. Maybe they just don’t get it.

Toby has always been a lucky guy. Then two burglars break into his apartment, steal a fewmore
Dear Daughter
by Elizabeth Little
It left me hanging (5/6/2021)
You won’t understand the title of DEAR DAUGHTER until nearly the end, and in the end you’ll be left hanging. I haven’t decided how negative to feel about that. Maybe three stars isn’t enough. After all, I did enjoy it until the end.

Jane has been in jail for the past 10more
The Red Lotus
by Chris Bohjalian
Almost no one is who they seem (5/6/2021)
I can’t speak highly enough of THE RED LOTUS.

?If your preferred genre is thriller but so many books billed as "psychological thriller" don’t do much for you, if you want a literary thriller and one that is intelligent, THE RED LOTUS is for you. This book is a 5-star can’t-more
White Ivy
by Susie Yang
I came to detest Ivy. (5/6/2021)
WHITE IVY begins when Ivy is a child. She is Chinese but wants to be white and hang out with the white crowd at school. When she spends one summer in China, at first with rich relatives, she develops a high opinion of herself and a hankering for the rich life. Back in themore
The Family Upstairs
by Lisa Jewell
Absorbing Page Turner (5/6/2021)
Of the five Lisa Jewell novels I have read, I think THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS is probably my favorite. Not that it’s a nice story. You could definitely say it is sickening. But it is so absorbing and quite a page turner.

Libby learns that she has inherited a home worth severalmore
The Paris Library
by Janet Skeslien Charles
Not recommended for adults (5/6/2021)
I read THE PARIS LIBRARY because it is historical fiction, but I thought it would be written for an adult. It seemed, however, to be a lower reading level, closer to what I would have liked when I was in the eighth or ninth grade.

Some chapters of this book are about 1939more
The Plot
by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Boring, boring, boring (4/28/2021)
If you are a writer or work in the publishing industry, THE PLOT is for you. As far as I can tell, though, this book is not for anyone else. It bored me. I am sure it will bore most people, maybe even writers and those who work in the publishing industry.

Jake has written amore
The Exiles
by Christina Baker Kline
Such a nice, if somewhat predictable, story (10/29/2020)
While many people will feel THE EXILES is a five-star book and while I would have felt the same several years ago, my taste has evolved. I didn’t love it. I liked it, but I don’t have the heart to give it just three stars. It was such a nice, if somewhat predictable, story.

more
The Snow Child: A Novel
by Eowyn Ivey
retelling of a Russian fairy tale (1/10/2013)
THE SNOW CHILD by Eowyn Ivey is simply a retelling of a Russian fairy tale. It doesn’t live up to the many reviews of it that I read. The book is full of unanswered questions.
Gone Girl: A Novel
by Gillian Flynn
The end should be rewritten. (1/9/2013)
Right up to the second-from-last page GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn should be rated 5. Every page of the book builds more and more tension. It really is the best kind of book: unputdownable.

But the end: Other reviewers have said that it comes as a surprise. True. But I didn'tmore
When She Woke: A Novel
by Hillary Jordan
pleasant surprise (1/9/2013)
WHEN SHE WOKE by Hillary Jordan was a pleasant surprise for me. From what I had heard, I had expected a futuristic book about a world where abortion was a crime punishable by turning the criminal’s skin red. Yes, there’s that. But there’s so much more to it. And Jordan’smore
City of Women: A Novel
by David R. Gillham
a disappointment (1/9/2013)
CITY OF WOMEN was a disappointment. The dialog and many of the situations are just plain corny. The story is loaded with convenient coincidences. The woman who helps hide Jews in World War II Berlin is, at the same time, a tramp who can't get enough sex, then pretends to bemore

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris
    by Evie Woods
    From the million-copy bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Happy Land
    by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

    From the New York Times bestselling author, a novel about a family's secret ties to a vanished American Kingdom.

  • Book Jacket

    The Fairbanks Four
    by Brian Patrick O’Donoghue

    One murder, four guilty convictions, and a community determined to find justice.

  • Book Jacket

    The Seven O'Clock Club
    by Amelia Ireland

    Four strangers join an experimental treatment to heal broken hearts in Amelia Ireland's heartfelt debut novel.

  • Book Jacket

    One Death at a Time
    by Abbi Waxman

    A cranky ex-actress and her Gen Z sobriety sponsor team up to solve a murder that could send her back to prison in this dazzling mystery.

Who Said...

To make a library it takes two volumes and a fire. Two volumes and a fire, and interest. The interest alone will ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

J of A T, M of N

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.