Everyone In This Bank Is a Thief

Everyone In This Bank Is a Thief by Benjamin Stevenson, 368 pages

Author-who-unexpectedly-solves-murders Ernest Cunningham has traveled to a tiny Australian town with his fiancée in a last-ditch effort to get a loan to kickstart his private detective business. But while they're there, a bank robbery ensues, and Ernest soon discovers that all ten hostages (himself included) are guilty of some sort of theft, whether it's gold or simply a pen, though he can't quite figure out why or how they've all come together. As Ernest recounts the tale from the small safe in which he's trapped, he lays out all the elements as a way of getting the reader to solve the mystery.

I've read a previous Ernest Cunningham book in the past, and found it incredibly annoying, in large part because of the footnotes scattered through that one (with very few exceptions, footnotes in fiction are the WORST). I picked this one up because I hoped that the heist of it would make it better. This one thankfully doesn't have the footnotes, but Ernest's "I'm smarter than you" vibes are still in full force. I stuck with it until the end because I really did want to know what the deal was, but that was in spite of, and not because of, the first-person narration. Don't think I'll be trying another one of these.

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (2018, 432 pages)

Aiden Bishop is set to wake up in a different body, in the same mansion, experiencing the same day over and over. And every night, he must watch the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle at exactly 11pm. The loop will continue until he can solve it. Within the other people of the castle, he'll find friends, enemies, and clues.

What I liked:
✨ True mystery, I couldn't see a lot of what was coming!

What I didn't like:
💤 The mechanics just don't really make sense 
💤 The world was too hard for me to buy, I feel like I couldn't overlook the setting
💤 Felt like it went on a little long

⭐⭐⭐ 

Sorcery and Small Magics

Sorcery and Small Magics (The Wildersongs Trilogy, #1) by Maiga Doocy (2024, 416 pages)

Grumpy/sunshine magicians, destined to embark on a quest to break a curse? Sign me up!

Leo and Sebastian find themselves closer than they ever wanted to be after a spell mix up. In order to conduct magic, you need a writer and a caster. Leo can change the color of someone's eyes, which seems grand to us, but is not impressive at the school. Sebastian is set to climb the ladder. He takes his magic casting seriously and doesn't want to bother with Leo's silliness and lackadaisical manner. They've thus gained a reputation as rivals at their magic school. Of course, when they're paired up randomly for an assignment, they must work together to then... undo the accident of the assignment.

What I liked:
✨ Charming (pun intended) story
✨ Always love a grumpy/sunshine pair. Well maybe more serious than grumpy but still
✨ Leo makes his own form of magic
✨ He's also hilarious!

What I didn't like:
💤 I do actually think it was well done, but some ambiguity in the end left me wanting more of an answer
💤Some scenes were a bit over the top for me
💤Would really like to see some parts of the world flushed out more in future books! But I don't think it took away from the story

Favorite quote: "After that, I decided to amuse myself by the only means available: the sound of my own voice." 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

All You Knead Is Love

 All You Knead Is Love by Tanya Guerrero, 384 pages.

Alba doesn't want to move to Barcelona with her estranged grandmother, and she feels deeply unwanted. But getting away from her abusive father and distant mother help her bloom in ways she never could have imagined. Alba makes new friends, gets close to her grandmother, and meets an old friend of her mom's, who describes a carefree version of her mother she's never met and ignites in her a passion for bread baking. But things don't stop changing when she gets to Barcelona. As the bakery she's come to love struggles against financial ruin, is this new life truly sturdy enough to build on?

This was a pretty solid middle grade coming-of-age novel. I'm not sure there's a lot here to recommend it to adults, but I do think I would definitely recommend it to middle schoolers. I really liked Alba, and I thought all of the characters were really interesting, even if this may not be the most nuanced book. 

The Vanishing Half

 The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, 343 pages.

Mallard, Louisiana is a black town obsessed with light skin. The Vignes twins feel crushed by the town, but after they run away from home the identical twins separate and begin leading lives that would be unrecognizable to each other. Desiree goes ends up in Washington DC, where she marries an abusive husband. She eventually runs back to Mallard with her extremely dark-skinned daughter, and learns to survive the life she once fled from. Stella takes a path that is simultaneously safer and more dangerous, passing as white to completely that her own husband and daughter don't know her secret. Many years later, the cousins come back together, and everyone has to reckon with the strange shapes their lives took. 

This book was very interesting, and I can see why it got so much attention when it came out a few years ago. The four perspectives across 40 years allows for a very nuanced examination of race in America. That being said, I do think the first half of this book is stronger than the second. It starts very strong, but then feels as if it just sort of fades out until the book ends. Still, I do think this is worth reading. 

Deep Cuts

Deep Cuts: Six Tales of Struggle, Hope, and Joy Through the History of Jazz, by Higgins, Clark and Perez. graphic novel, 312 pages, © 2024

A coworker introduced this to me. I don't read a lot of graphic novels anymore but I loved the concept for this one. Deep Cuts features six separate stories about jazz musicians at different eras, starting in New Orleans in the early 1900s following a Louis Armstrong-level talent with a clarinet and ending in the late 70s with jazz dwindling in the public imagination. At first, it seems like each story is a separate tale, but by the end you realize the thread connecting all of them is the music. Portrayed in this manner, I think it did a really neat job of highlighting different jazz eras, from ragtime to free jazz, as well as some of the struggles later jazz musicians had with the feeling of selling out. Each story also features different artists so you're getting new stylized visuals in each tale--it's a really cool effect and makes me want to seek out more music related graphic novels. 

The Best We Could Do

 The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui (2017) 329 pages

The graphic memoir is bookended with Thi Bui's pregnancy and pondering the challenges of motherhood. Her family, Vietnamese Americans, oral history makes up the bulk of the book. Digging into her father's boyhood and her mother's girlhood is fascinating. They had very different upbringing. Chapter six through to the end, dealing with the Vietnam war and the author's family becoming refugees, is highly thrilling and heartfelt. Once they've been living in America, Thi's concept of inheriting a Refugee Reflex is vividly conveyed. The art of this memoir is impressively dramatic.

Challenger

 Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higgenbotham (2024) 563 pages

A friend has planned a Jolabokaflod, or Yule Book Flood, book gift exchange for New Years for the past several years. This is the book that was gifted to me this year. It is very in-depth. I appreciated the brief biographies of ALL the major people involved. The engineering of the solid rocket boosters are covered in great detail since the joints where the sections stack together were the main flaw that led to the explosion. Also Higgenbotham spends a good deal of time examining the chain of command and decision-making process of NASA and their contractors. The decision to launch the shuttles through the 1980s often ignored engineers' advice about risky technological problems. The book goes back to the beginning of the space rocket program and shows a pattern that existed since the Apollo 1 disaster in 1967. Then the book covers the Congressional investigation into the 1986 disaster and loss of life. Hope and human achievement is balanced with scientific facts and figures.

Serial Killer Games

 Serial Killer Games by Kate Posey (2025), 384 pages

After reading Chani's review, I wanted to give this book a go. It seemed like a fun concept. It ended up not being what I expected, especially from the title. Chani mentions that it is a bit chaotic and unexpected and I completely agree.  The question is: what is this book actually about? Serial killers? Family? Temp jobs? Genetics? Blow-up dolls? It is all over the place, but, at its heart, it is a love story. Which is fine, but I was kind of expecting some actual serial killer drama. Weirdly, though, it keeps you interested and leaves you with the feeling of confusion of "what did I just read?". 

Delicious in Dungeon vols 9-14

 Delicious in Dungeon vols 9-14 by Ryoko Kui (trans. Taylor Engel), 1256 pages.

This final arc of Delicious in Dungeon follows the party as they finally reach the lowest levels of the dungeon, and find deeply hidden secrets about its basic nature. While previous volumes have dealt a lot with exploration and eating monsters, this gets more deeply into the meat of the plot (if you'll forgive the pun). Reaching the mad mage is only the beginning. 

 This was a very satisfying end to a series I was really enjoying. The twists felt well implemented, and I really liked the arcs for all of the characters. I want especially to shout out volume 14, which allowed the series one slow volume right at the end to wrap everything up in a way that felt very relaxed and complete. This, as much as anything else, really emphasizes what a character focused series this was. Highly recommended as a relatively short, approachable manga to enter the genre through.