Welcome new subscribers! If you’re joining us from the world of TikTok, thanks so much for making the jump.

I know many of you can appreciate how difficult it can be to have a regular job while trying to write, edit, revise and place works of creative writing. While the goal is, of course, to be able to do the latter full-time someday, for now I’m looking to build a community where emerging writers and readers can connect, encourage and support each other.

I can’t say enough how much I appreciate you being among the first to get on board with that.

Before I get into this month’s book reviews, let me just break down how this newsletter is going to work.

Once a month (on the 15th), my book reviews will arrive in your inbox. My reading is eclectic, and the pace of it varies a lot. Some months it might be one book, while at other times I might have five or six books in various genres to recommend (or to warn against).

Also once a month (on the 30th), you’ll get another email from me with updates on my journey to place my first novel and/or a short blog about the writing life more generally.

I’m really looking forward to connecting with each of you. Please don’t ever hesitate to comment and engage, here and on TikTok.

Now the reviews.

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Death Takes Me by Cristina Rivera

Some of you already saw my thoughts about this on TikTok, so it will come as no surprise that I can’t recommend it very highly.

The pretension is almost as thick as the gimmick.

I’ll grant Rivera this: somewhere in here there was a gem of a great idea. But there were barely glimpses of it in the final product, which fails to sparkle at all despite throwing a lot of paint at the wall with fascinating characters, bold structural choices and a clever twist.

Only Here, Only Now by Tom Newlands

This is the kind of book I would have absolutely devoured at 17. I still loved it, don’t get me wrong, but hyper-realistic teenage characters get more difficult to like as I get older.

That being said, this book is a real gem for any age reader. It’s painfully real, humorous and steeped in a specific place and time, which is what I want from a novel.

The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei

I raved about this one on TikTok. In part because it followed closely my reading of Death Takes Me, I was delighted by Wei’s commitment to writing a gimmick-free family-saga novel.

This is a book that bets its whole basket of eggs on great characters and beautiful writing. And it works.

I read it mostly in one sitting, and the smart pacing of the writing itself kept the story moving even when there technically wasn’t a whole lot happening.

Wei’s use of mixed timelines and her dance with when to slow down and zoom in and when to let years fly by with a few words is something I really admired and which I am absolutely studying for my own writing.

This is a five-star recommendation.