The Strange Disappearance of Imogen Good - Kirsty Applebaum

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Fran doesn't want to stay with her aunt and uncle and her annoying cousin, Imogen. Imogen is rude and unfriendly and, it turns out, she's missing. Stranger still, no one seems to know where Imogen is, or even remember that she existed. Not even her own parents. 

It's up to Fran to convince Imogen's best friend, Bex, to help her find out what happened to the girl nobody, including Bex, can remember. All Fran knows is that it's got something to do with the hidden garden at Stillness Hall and the twelve statues that belong there..."

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Fran is on her way to stay with family while her mom goes on a business trip and dreading spending so much time with her awful cousin Imogen, so imagine her confusion when she asks her aunt and uncle where Imogen is and they don't seem to know who that is. At first, she thinks they're playing a prank on her, but after multiple other people in town seem equally confused she realizes that something strange is going on. But what?

After meeting the new owner of Stillness Hall, Fran is pretty sure she has something to do with it. But how would someone make an entire town forget that someone existed? And how is Fran supposed to undo whatever Stillness Hall's owner did to make that happen? As she pulls at the thread of what happened to Imogen, the story is interspersed with flashbacks from "The Storyteller," who shares the story of what happened to the original owners of Stillness Hall and gradually reveals what may have happened to Imogen.

The explanation is impossible, but when Imogen suddenly reappears and Bex vanishes, it's clear that it's true. Can Fran team up with her cousin to find a way to free Bex and thwart whatever magic is causing children in town to disappear from memory? They don't know, but they have to try. And whatever they do, they need to do it soon, because Bex's family is moving away, and if Bex isn't back by the time they do, they'll be leaving her behind.

I found the mystery of what happened and the gradual Storyteller reveals intriguing, and while I thought the ultimate solve was a little simple after the magic of the statues was made into such a complicated, impossible knot, I think the pace of the story was good and the overall storytelling was engaging and interesting. I'll be adding a copy to my school library when this comes out for sure!

February Read Harder

I tell you what, do you know what really makes a month fly by? Being sick a bunch. Feels like February just started, but it's already March! I think this is going to be the year of DNFs, because I got about three hours into Midnight's Children and decided I just didn't care and didn't want to force myself to keep listening. Maybe it would be different if I read the physical book instead of listening to the audio, but I just was like "what is even happening? What is this book about?" I DID finish The Secret History, and my thoughts on literary fiction are basically that they are books that make you ask "was this a good book, or was it just really, really weird?" Definitely applies to this book, it was very strange, but overall I think I enjoyed it, even though it all felt like a strange fever dream.

Know what else I started reading in February? One of my April challenge books! Oops. For the record, it's for challenge #7, read a sports book by someone who is not a cis man, and the book is Take the Lead by Sasha DiGiulian. It's an autobiography about a climber, and it was calling to me, so. Eh. Going out of order, baby! I do have two other books picked out for that challenge, so I think it's okay that I'm getting an early start.

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My March challenges will be #1, read a microhistory, and #13, read a non-fiction comic. I really am getting an early start to things, because I already read one of the comics, I Am Stan by Tom Scioli, about Stan Lee. It was...good? Interesting glimpse into his life, although I found the storytelling style a bit abrupt. I'll also be reading Guardian of Fukushimaby Fabien Grolleau for this challenge, but I had to buy it because none of my libraries had it, so I'm still waiting for it to get here.

For challenge one, I'm reading Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News by Kevin Young and Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World by Mark Pendergast. Bunk is waaay longer than I expected it to be, so we'll see how fast I get through it, but I'm looking forward to it. I also had to order The History of Coffee, but hopefully it gets here soon so I can get started on it!

February Mystery Book review - Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: n/a 

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview 86-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.

In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man at peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo's past - memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.

Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, Black and white, this work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture."

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February book reveal, baby! My book this month was one I've been waiting to read for a minute, and it was great to finally get into it. As far as ratings go, not sure how you rate a book that is literally a human being sharing their story...it always feels a little weird giving a biography or an autobiography a rating, but just not including anything also feels weird, so here we are.  

Anyhow, rating conundrum aside, I found the book very enlightening, and I really appreciated that Zora Neale Hurston kept the story the way that Cudjo shared it with her instead of trying to rearrange it or editorialize, beyond some minor clarifications. It was a relatively short book, and it was so human and so emotional. If life had a "required reading" list the way college classes and such do, this would be on it, for sure.

The Chismosas Only Book Club - Laekan Zea Kemp

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Cat, Sofia, Ana, and Mari are best friends. Nothing, nada, can break the special bond they share. And after Cat's mom chides the girls to quit their loud cackling at the bookstore as they carry on like a bunch of chismosas, the name sticks - Cat creates The Chismosas Only Book Club, so the girls can stay connected throughout their first year of high school, even when their class schedules and club activities rip them apart.

But ninth grade is harder than any of the girls predicted, and it seems that no amount of conchas y libros y riendo at Milagro's Books, founded generations ago by Cat's great-great-grandmother, can repair the ever-growing cracks in their friendship. But maybe the spirit of Milagro herself can."

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I'm working on getting back into reading and reviewing ARCs (advanced reader copies) from NetGalley so I better keep up with new releases for school, so here we are, the return of the ARC reviews!

For my first review, The Chismosas Only Book Club by Laekan Zea Kemp caught my eye. I've read some of her books before, have a bunch of them already in our school library, and this book seems like one that many of my older students would be drawn to. Preparing for a big change like high school and worrying about what will change is super relatable - it definitely called to me, and I know many of my sixth graders, preparing to go to a new school for middle school next year, will see themselves in Cat, Sofia, Ana, and Cat.

Outside of this initial appeal (and a huge bonus for my school population), I really appreciated that not only were the characters centered in the book all Latina, their culture also features pretty heavily in the story. I loved this inclusion of traditions big and small, and I know my students will be thrilled to see themselves and some of their own traditions reflected in the characters of this book. I thought the character development, particularly with some of the secondary characters, was one of the strongest parts of the story. I loved the interactions between the four Chismosas, and obviously the story revolves around them so it makes sense that they were featured most heavily, but I would have taken sooooo much more of Cat's sister, Sofia's dad, and Ana's grandma in particular.

My one big gripe with this book was the pace. This is a four-star review, so obviously I enjoyed the book, but I wish things had progressed more quickly so we could have had more of a sense of conclusion at the end. It's possible that this was intentional, but instead of your typical rising action, climax, resolution, the end structure, this story was rising action, more of the same drama, more of the same drama, more of the same drama, climaxtheend. The things that happened with each of the quartet in the last couple of chapters felt like things that should have been happening maybe three quarters of the way through the book so then we could see where those actions ultimately took them, but instead it was like "YES, Ana is finally standing up for herself and Sofia is speaking up about how her mom makes her feel! Good for h--oh, it's over?" Like I said, maybe this was a deliberate choice, but it was the one thing about this otherwise wonderful book that felt dissatisfying to me. Otherwise, love it, it's a 100% have to buy for my school's collection.

Now, what shall I pick for my NEXT ARC review?!

Oh my god, I'm out of puzzles

But this last one was a real doozy! Tell me, if you heard the words "all edge pieces" puzzle, what would your reaction be? Mine was "ooh, fun!"

And it was. Mostly.

It was also, believe it or not, incredibly difficult. The pieces were very unique shapes, and with all of them looking so similar you really had to scrutinize for the most minor differences. Shout out to Yetch, though, because the differences were there! This had so many unique little details, it was a blast spotting them all. Overall, this is a solid, time-consuming perfect ten for me. And now the question is...where do I go from here?

January Read Harder progress

Already time for the first Read Harder update of the year! I technically read my first challenge book in 2025 because I needed a book to read on December 31st, but I don't care, I'm counting it. I finished My Dear Henry (that was the 2025) book, which I thought was overall okay, although somewhat monotonous. Probably should have gotten to the Hyde reveal earlier and then had more of a wind-down after that, but still, it was a decent read. I also read The Year of the Witching for that challenge, which makes me feel better about counting the first book. That one was heavy, but oh so good. Very dark, upsettingly relevant to present day.

A Proper Young Lady and Trans Liberty Riot Brigade were my other two challenge books, and they have the very dubious honor of being my first two DNFs of the year! I try not to DNF books - I've got eight DNFs in my entire reading history, at least since I started using an online tracker - and I swear I tried with these two, but it got to a point where I was dreading reading them, and that's not what you want from a book. 

A Proper Young Lady was frankly poorly written with a very stilted writing style, and on top of that the story was terrible and weird, and I've never read a book by a queer author that was so openly queerphobic. It was bad. Trans Liberty Riot Brigade was an intriguing concept, and I really wanted to like it, but the author used a custom future-dystopian-world slang SO HEAVILY, from the very first sentence. It made for a jarring start to the book, it was hard to get into the narrative because of it, and it finally got exhausting enough trying to parse it that I gave up. If you can get past the slang, maybe it's a great story, but we're in the midst of a fascist takeover here and I only have so much brain power to devote to reading, I can't spend it trying to learn a weird invented slang, especially one that uses "faggin'" as their version of the f word. Didn't do it for me.

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For February, my two challenges are #8, read a classic from the Zero to Well-Read podcast and #16, read a queer picture book. 

For challenge eight, ignoring my feelings about this being a bummer of a prompt, there are only eighteen episodes of the podcast and I've already read a lot of them, so I ended up choosing Midnight's Children by Salmon Rushdie and The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I was able to get both of these from the library, and my hold for the audio of Midnight's Children came in way earlier than I expected it to, so hopefully I finish them both quickly.

For challenge sixteen, I got copies of Circle of Love by Monique Gray Smith and Chloe and the Fireflies by Chris Clarkson. Hooray for picture books, I already read them AND added them to my library collection. 💖 Both were lovely, and I teared up reading Chloe and the Fireflies. Picture books can be pure magic, I tell you what.

Greenwild - Pari Thomson

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆ 

Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆

Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Eleven-year-old Daisy Thistledown is on the run. Her mother has been keeping big, glittering secrets, and now she has vanished. Daisy knows it's up to her to find Ma - but someone is hunting her across London. Someone determined to stop her from discovering the truth.

So when Daisy flees to safety through a mysterious hidden doorway, she can barely believe her eyes - she has stepped out of the city and into another world.

This is the Greenwild. Bursting with magic and full of amazing natural wonders, it seems too astonishing to be true. But not only is this land of green magic real, it holds the key to finding Daisy's mother. 

And someone wants to destroy it.

Daisy must band together with a botanical genius, a boy who can talk with animals, and a spunky cat to uncover the truth about who she really is. Only then can she channel the power that will change her whole world...and save the Greenwild itself."

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First mystery book of 2026! God, I loved it. I will say that it clocks in at 364 pages and I think that could have been pared down a touch, but for the most part I found the entire thing very compelling and hard to put down, and I whizzed through it. The world of the Greenwild felt so vivid, I could see everything I was reading and wish there was a place like it that I could visit in real life. I thought the characters were well-developed, and the way they made an already lively world feel even more alive was glorious. And I thought the way they incorporated illustrations periodically throughout the book was a very nice touch. All around a delight.

Specifically, while I think there were certain characters that it was obvious from the beginning were bad news (sorry for maybe spoilers, but Craven? Come on, dude's name is CRAVEN, no one gives that name to a good guy, and it's SO clear immediately that he sucks), I think the mystery Thomson wove was a good one, and I thought there were some awesome reveals (some that I guessed and some that I didn't, and some that made me cry!). I thought the book took on a lot of complex stuff in a really nuanced way - not the whole climate change thing, it took that on well in a very not nuanced way, which I'm more than fine with, but OTHER things - and I feel like a lot of kids reading this would be able to see themselves in various characters. 

I was lowkey bummed when I realized before reading that this was part of a series, just because I have SO many things I want to read that every time I discover a new series, I'm like cool, even MORE! It's daunting. But in this case, I think it was very earned, and I've got a hold on the second book at the library. Very excited to find out what happens next!