Reviewed by Jaylynn Korrell

Informational, sincere, and valuable—a book on how Reiki can be an asset in your journey to better health

Author M. Lori Torok was a skeptic at the beginning. How could Reiki really work? She writes with honesty and joins the interested reader where they are—a personal story from skeptic to Reiki master. Her mind opens up, and so will yours. Her honesty allows to get comfortable, to let your guard down, and be a better vessel for something life-changing.

Reiki in Integrative Medicine makes Reiki feel accessible and achievable to people from all walks of life. I don’t think I’m the only reader who will leave this book ready to book my own session.

Torok didn’t feel fulfilled as a college professor, so she did something about it. She trusted her gut and took a leap of faith into practicing Reiki, and it amplified her body and soul. Now, she bridges the gap for others to do the same, especially for people on the road to better health. As a Certified Medical Reiki Master (CMRM ) Torok provides insight into the true benefits of Reiki and how they can and should be used in medical facilities.

Torok’s impulsiveness and ability to listen to her inner voice is refreshing to read. Not many would consider giving up a job with such stability, but it’s part of what makes her story compelling. It is this intuitive faith and unique experience that makes her so inspiring. She makes Reiki feel less like an exclusive new-age experience and more of a way for everyone to receive the energy they could be missing. For her it was a higher calling, and it seems this informative book is too.

It’s also a valuable guide for those who are unsure about how to set up an appointment and receive the service. We are coached on how to find the right practicer, joining group settings, and what questions to ask when booking. She explains the process clearly and effectively.

Torok provides readers with a clear path to becoming a Reiki practitioner too, explaining the different levels you can reach and the timeframe and practice it’ll take to get there. Reiki could be a beneficial business path since many top medical facilities are looking to integrate the practice into their standard care options. Sometimes it feels this business aspect switches audiences—from recipients of the service to people seeking Reiki as business—but it always returns to its primary audience in the end.

See Reiki for what it really is: a way to amplify both physical and mental healing with Reiki in Integrative Medicine. This is a book that everyone can take something from.

Thank you for reading Jaylynn Korrell’s book review of Reiki in Integrative Medicine by M. Lori Torok! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Frankie Martinez

A powerful story of humanity, nature, and the fight for truth.

In a world where most of humanity has fled to live deep in Earth’s underground, Violet Murphy refuses to leave her family’s farm on the surface. Located in Fulminara, one of two habitable islands left on Earth, the Murphy estate is home to Violet, her horse Firestorm, and the relics of her family’s agricultural research.

Life is peaceful until one day, officers of the government’s Science Bureau arrive to conduct the annual census and invite Violet to visit their facility underground in the capital of Apricus. What is supposed to be a presentation on the Murphy family’s developments in food generation devolves into an unsettling interrogation—one which leaves Violet drugged and imagining the voices of what she believes are trapped animals in the stark hallways of the Bureau, pleading for help.

When Violet returns home and feels an unusually close sense of comfort from Firestorm, she is convinced that the voices she heard were real.

Meanwhile, there are others experiencing a strange connection with animals. Emily Steuben, an Earth preservationist, discovers ducklings at her home for the first time in three years after being led there by other animals’ insistence. Jack Collins, a retail director, is hunting a doe on the surface when he is suddenly struck with the deer’s fear, so much that he leaves and decides to swear off hunting for the rest of his life. Mason Agu, a computer programmer for the government’s Infrastructure Bureau, is spending a quiet evening at home in Apricus, until he gets a strong feeling from his cat that something has happened next door to his elderly, beloved neighbor.

The four strangers come together after responding to Violet’s vague online forum post about a “special connection to animals” and quickly become fast friends. As their bond grows, so do their questions about the government, especially after learning about Violet’s interrogation there.

The organization’s increasingly strange activities—starting with the census and leading to the announcement that they’d be evacuating Aprica permanently for an unknown, habitable land—lead the friends to start an investigation into the Bureau, one that leads them down a dangerous path to the truth.

Imber is about the light and dark in the world, highlighting both the comfort of the bonds between living things, as well as the strength to fight against overwhelming odds.

Mistina’s debut is filled with expansive, dynamic descriptions of nature and humanity. The novel’s quiet opening is moving and immersive—Violet walks through her family’s estate, remembering the day she found a dead hawk, only to find Firestorm peeking through the windows of the greenhouse in search of Violet’s mother after her untimely death.

Mistina is also playful with her portrayal of gestures and movement. Each character interacts with one another in unique ways: Jack can’t keep his eyes off of Violet’s freckles; Mason’s deep voice contains a childlike innocence when he’s around his cat or Firestorm.

Because descriptions are so detailed and plot details are so heavily focused on the government’s secret plans, the pacing of the story can be quite slow. There is something comforting about it, especially in the first parts of the novel that are more focused on worldbuilding and the friendship between Violet, Jack, Emily, and Mason, but it also does not quite match the content in the novel’s latter half with its somewhat shocking violence. A lot of information is jammed into the last half of the novel because of this. While Imber does reach a satisfactory, open-ended conclusion in the larger story about evacuating humanity from Earth, I longed for more important plot threads between the four friends.

But that’s also because I wanted to linger in Mistina’s world for just a little bit longer without the government’s evil plans. While lies, deceit, and the end of the world run underneath the surface of the novel, Imber is a gorgeous portrait of humanity, rich with the warmth between people and their chosen companions, whether they be family, friends, or animals.

Thank you for reading Frankie Martinez’s book review of Imber by Deborah Mistina! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Warren Maxwell

Melding poetic forms, candid conversations, and calls against injustice, these poems are confessional, communal, rage-filled, compassionate, and above all, kind.

Melding poetic forms, candid conversations, and calls against injustice, these poems are confessional, communal, rage-filled, compassionate, and above all, kind.

“Dustin’s instinct is to argue against the compliment—that’s life with a narcissist parent. He (begrudgingly ) writes thank you.”

Zooming into the experiences, frustrations, and joys of modern life with a magnifying glass, the slim volume of poetry, Repeat As Needed, offers validation, commiseration, and critique of the way we live our lives.

In a fingerprint-like poetic voice that captures the unique cadences and peculiarities of the author, poems like “Things That Definitely Suck” list the myriad awfulnesses that one encounters on a day-to-day basis, or once in a lifetime, in one foreboding block of text .

“Stuck on a Ferris wheel with a full bladder. Missing buttons. Chipping a tooth. A dust allergy. Misogyny.”

Elsewhere, poems are minimalistic haikus, elegant villanelles, literal conversations traded back and forth with other poets, and quixotic repartees against the cliched comments that heterosexual people make about homosexuality. The diversity of form is thrilling, but it’s the poetic voice winding through each piece that makes this an enthralling read.

“Sob.
Sob until God fears
you’ll one up His flood.”

Each poem in Repeat As Needed is accompanied by a subheading that name-checks an inspiration or literary jumping off point. This in itself creates a beautiful sense of poetic lineage and history—it is a collection very much in touch with contemporaries and forbearers.

When viewed in combination with the two explicit conversation poems (“Dustin Wants To Write A Poem With Caridad” and “Dustin Wants To Write A Poem With Nicole”) that trade block paragraphs between Brookshire and another poet—each poet writing about themselves in the third person—this collection takes on the aspect of a community. Many voices are drawn into contact with Brookshire’s. The lively chatter between poets and thinkers actively performs some of the values that become apparent in the collection’s denunciations of homophobia, misogyny, and discrimination of all stripes.

“When I was straight,
my father would say,
I’d rather one of my sons
blow my brains out
than tell me he’s gay.”

Among the real pleasures of reading these poems is discovering the way poetic form and the uses of concrete space inflect a voice. Brookshire’s voice doesn’t falter in navigating brutalist blocks of text, slim lines of repetition, and meandering, minor epic stories of being frightened by religious tales as a child. Yet, each new structure on the page brings out another aspect of Brookshire’s language. There is the heavy potency of a poem that can simply declare “All we had was lust” and let those lines resonate alone on the page. Then there’s the prolix excitement of a voice that loves speaking and free associating as we see in “Things That Definitely Suck” and the conversation poems. Through different forms, the different faces of the poet come into beautiful relief.

A passionate, richly articulated snapshot of life, poetic community, and the many identities that are wrapped up in a single individual, Repeat As Needed is a gorgeous poetry collection.

Thank you for reading Warren Maxwell’s book review of Repeat As Needed by Dustin Brookshire! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Addison Ciuchta

An honest & raw look at one man’s experience with schizophrenia and mental health stigma

Karl Lorenz Willett writes with honesty and hope. More like a glimpse into his mind rather than the filtered experiences you’d expect out of a memoir, this book covers a range of topics that include his financial struggles, his relationship with his wife, and his experience tapering off his schizophrenia medication.

Willett’s writing is vulnerable, sharing his deepest thoughts and real actions even if they show him in a less-than-perfect light. Which, it seems, is the whole point of the book. In his introductory chapter, Willett says he hopes to teach readers more about the condition of schizophrenia, including the lows like the stigma from society and the side-effects of anti-psychotic medications and the highs like his family, his healing, and his successes, like publishing this very book.

Chapters come with great variety. They document his experience off medication but also reach to his views on religion and the minutiae of daily life. His strength and his positivity radiate from the page. Dealing with the administrative burden that comes with mental health issues and coming to terms with some of the other low points of his life since 2016, like a one-sided romantic infatuation, only heightens his sense of purpose—which is, he says, “to spread peace, love and happiness, to encourage people to live life to the full and help others to do the same.”

At times, the writing can get repetitive with Willett explaining why he wants to taper his medication numerous times. Chapters circle back to the idea and his progress, but this repetition also helps illustrate the way his brain works without a filter. The way he keeps reassuring himself of his dedication to taper off, to the benefits he sees in doing it and the risks involved too. He is not advocating for everyone to do what he did but instead simply documenting the hows and whys of his own decision to do so.

Many chapters or parts of chapters document Willett’s deep fear of our current moment in the world: shootings, climate change, natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic. But still, he has hope. He writes. “I have plenty of concerns about the planet, but there are reasons to be hopeful about the world’s fate for the first time in a long time.” Despite the struggles, the stigma, and the side effects, Willett’s deep hope in himself and in the world shines through.

This book is an interesting plunge inside an interesting brain, an opportunity to experience feelings, anxiety, and mental illness out in the open. It is a touching and hopeful memoir that will give readers a deeper understanding of how mental health affects those around us.

Thank you for reading Addison Ciuchta’s book review of A Good Life by Karl Lorenz Willett! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

Thank you for reading Addison Ciuchta’s book review of A Good Life by Karl Lorenz Willett! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Nikolas Mavreas

An out-of-the-box murder mystery with some seriously intriguing twists

The Last Case is an unconventional but wholly satisfying specimen of the murder mystery form. Set in a coastal town in New England during the early 1980s, this novel opens with a body: a man in a Dungeons and Dragons costume found beheaded on the beach. This brings the lighthouse-dwelling detective Joseph Tey out of his isolation and back into the game. As he works at solving the case, Tey also works on himself, battling identity issues and a sense of mental deterioration.

Our protagonist’s inner conflict, his doubts about his past and his capabilities, are a constant presence in the book. This is accomplished with an ingeniously selected alternative to inner monologue: interjections of passages from Joseph Tey’s journal. In addition to fresh approaches to the genre, the plot is sprinkled with familiar mystery tropes as well, like annoying police colleagues, Cold War rhetoric, and a large corporation of unclear morality.

Every single character in this book, however minor, feels alive and breathing. Manners of speech, contents of speech, and little actions meticulously described all work toward the painting of people who feel vibrantly real, accentuated with sparse brushstrokes of the caricatural.

The attention to detail and resulting characterization is in every nook and cranny of this book, and it defines every aspect of the writing. Through particular, descriptive, and expressive detail, this novel is both fully excavated and polished like a jewel.

“The journal may tell him, if he dared read it. Something made him reluctant. Something made those memories unpleasant. He’d written them down as though putting them on paper removed them from his mind, making room for other things. His curiosity pulled and his apprehension pushed, so the diary remained on the coffee table.”

The novel rises to real thrills but also plunges to profound psychological depths. At its center, it is concerned with why people do what they do, the senselessness of bad actions, and redemption. It’s a thought-provoking thriller—and a strong one at that.

Some readers will notice that the protagonist’s name is taken from the pen name of an older mystery author. The reference doesn’t seem to carry more meaning than just being a simple homage to Josephine Tey, and it has no connection to another popular book series which has a fictional Josephine Tey. Delauder may have gone tongue-in-cheek with titling this novel, The Last Case: A Joseph Tey Mystery, but he also could be leveraging for a sequel or prequel to follow. DeLauder admits in the back matter of the book that this is his first foray into the murder mystery genre, but he writes with enough skill and expertise to make it feel like he couldn’t have done a better job. Until next time, I hope.

Thank you for reading Nikolas Mavreas’s book review of The Last Case by Sean DeLauder! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Haley Perry

A sexy story following an unbreakable bond formed in the most unlikely circumstances

High Prince Jarren Graf has been forced to flee his home planet, Lynta, after his father’s death leads to conflict over the ascent to rulership. He just wants to blend in among the Terrans and avoid his all-too-certain execution.

He didn’t expect to find his boss’s high-achieving assistant Lissa Reyes. From the moment Jarren first smelled her, he knew they were perfect biological mates. He must be careful exchanging scents though; marking her with his scent could make her vulnerable to the bounty hunters tracking him.

After dancing around one another all of Jarren’s first week in the office, Jarren reveals his full scent to Lissa, sparking the first of many steamy moments. However, Lissa’s prior traumatic experience with office romances leads her to run. Now carrying his unmasked scent, she is attacked and has to be saved by Jarren.

Realizing that he has now put her life in danger, Jarren takes Lissa and her daughter Jasmine on the next adventure on his journey to break the corrupt caste-system plaguing Lynta.

To Desire the Stars is a novel to read in a frenzy. The novel’s high-stakes, intriguing setting, emotional intensity, and immediate action give you what you asked for from the very beginning.

The worldbuilding is superb, from the creation of new alien species all the way down to human office politics. The characters are three-dimensional with clear motives, dynamic pasts, and humanizing details. Even the dual point of view is handled with great care and purpose as Jarren and Lissa engage with one another and their conflicts. Getting both of their perspectives allows readers to get a better grasp of the wider world, especially given their species’ different expectations.

And the romance! The book is infused with sexual chemistry, and as time passes, their passion takes root and extends beyond the concept of the biological mate. I loved the clever connection between smell and the lust-to-love storyline playing out.

The writing style is deliberate and makes the spicy scenes all the more intense. Campbell does a great job with galactic politics and the concept of fated mates as well. There’s a real emotional gravity to the mundane moments here.

If you couldn’t tell, I had a great time with To Desire the Stars and think you would too. Sci-fi romance readers: rejoice at the characters, the action, the spice, and the finely drawn world.

Thank you for reading Haley Perry’s book review of To Desire the Stars by Venus Campbell! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Josie Prado

An unpredictable story of the mysterious deaths of top Democratic candidates

Fast-paced and a real shock to the system, Mystery of the Poison Cups is rather self-explanatory. During a secret emergency meeting of the National Democratic Party’s Election Committee, Bertha Bagley, a top contributor to the party, drinks from a cup laced with cyanide and dies. This event sets the stage for the avalanche to come, focused mostly on Senator Mudbuttom, another member of the Committee, and his family.

Unbeknownst to many, Bertha and Senator Mudbuttom are planning a coup to have Mudbuttom replace the current top candidate, Nix, as the Democratic Presidential election pick. With Bertha’s murder and more deaths from cyanide poisoning happening during the campaign trail, Senator Mudbuttom may face a detour from the White House into a jail cell.

The investigation begins with local police, but as the number of cyanide-related deaths rises following a watch party at the hotel, the FBI steps in to take over. Agents Lewis and Shelton Ledbetter, along with their boss Bob Cummings and his daughter Phyllis, form a task force to identify those responsible and prevent any future attacks. For every rock they lift, though, nefarious political snakes slither out and complicate their case. They would gather evidence and come close to an arrest, only for their prime suspect to be killed. In a room with corrupt politicians, who is actually willing to be cutthroat in the literal sense?

Mystery of the Poison Cups is a compelling exploration of the ultra-wealthy and the political underbelly that prioritizes power over morality. The story is filled with affairs, backstabbing, and complicated family dynamics, all while the characters struggle to maintain a respectable image. Senator Mudbuttom, for example, has a mistress and is simultaneously searching for evidence of his wife’s infidelity to justify divorcing her. The text does not attempt to dulcify any character’s actions; rather, it portrays them naturally and unapologetically. The Mudbuttom family feels like a real, tense family that has learned to survive with one another as opposed to loving each other.

I enjoyed traveling down this winding road of twists and turns, but sometimes I did find myself wanting more of a foundation in the setting to make the plot clearer. The text is primarily in dialogue with limited exposition and description, which is great for the pacing, but leaves some to be desired when it comes to building the conflict. Since everything is happening so quickly with no time reference, it can be difficult to feel impacted by the deaths other than Bertha’s. The shifts between FBI agents to campaign events can also sometimes feel jarring.

For readers looking for a fun, novel approach to murder mystery and politics, Mystery of the Poison Cups would be a great choice. It’s a fast-paced whodunnit for a rainy day, a mystery to solve with the soundtrack of a storm.

Thank you for reading Josie Prado’s book review of Mystery of the Poison Cups by D.K. Caldwell! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Frankie Martinez

A compulsive story of how aimless travels can become a meaningful life journey

David LeBrun was twenty-four and working at a broccoli farm in Ontario, Canada in 2011. At the same time, he was working on a manuscript about his past part-time jobs, Curriculum Vitae, and getting ready to send it to the editor-in-chief of Edifice Books in Toronto.

In order to finish his manuscript, LeBrun heads to Costa Rica to stay with a childhood friend for some well-needed work and isolation. However, after his stay in Costa Rica comes to an abrupt, sudden end, Lebrun finds that he’s willing to go anywhere. With money slowly dwindling and the vague direction of his friend’s farm in Mexico guiding him, LeBrun finds himself on a wayward, knife-edge adventure, hopping from the bus to the backs of trucks, to befriending strangers, and to busking (badly).

Told in expressive detail, LeBrun’s memoir, Delirium Vitae is a compelling story about trying to find your way in a world that sometimes feels woefully meaningless and ordinary. With his father’s death from cancer and his mother’s disability from a stroke hanging over him, Lebrun is on a mission to make his mark, not only with his manuscript, but also in his travels: “It was at seventeen, after watching his cancer devour him, that I knew I wanted nothing in my life to be ordinary.”

In many ways, Delirium Vitae is a successful product of this mission. LeBrun’s journey through Central America and Mexico is evocative of a real-life Alice in Wonderland. It’s easy to see him: a young man drifting around the open road with a broken family and no agenda; who is French-Canadian with some knowledge of Spanish, has fifty pages of his precious manuscript shoved at the bottom of his bag, and uses a recorder to gather voice notes from people he meets. Though locations, names, and faces are fleeting, his descriptions of places and people are fond and sharp. Even if LeBrun doesn’t have particularly good memories of certain people, tidbits of their words seemed to hold an impact.

One memorable example is LeBrun’s recollections of his interactions with Antonio, an unscrupulous musician he meets right after entering Mexico, who can’t seem to keep a steady relationship or stay in one place. There are several times LeBrun is sure that Antonio has abandoned him, only for him to show up once again to travel together: “Fuck it, David. You know what? My old friends always ask me how I stay slim, why I look this young… And I tell them it’s because I keep moving. I keep rolling, you see?”

While Delirium Vitae succeeds in portraying the uncertainty of travel and the multitude of perspectives you encounter, it can be difficult to find footing in LeBrun’s emotional journey. There are hints of it throughout, particularly of how emotionally taxing it is to have his father die at an early age and to see his mother in a hospital bed, but there isn’t much introspection on the topic to make me feel like I knew exactly how it all connected.

Of course, not all stories, especially memoirs, should be expected to follow a linear path or project a direct meaning. It’s impossible to know the right thing to do in a certain time, or for people to do and say the right things to keep a story moving. However, Delirium Vitae shows that with time and space, perhaps meaning can be gleaned from the biggest of adventures across countries to the smallest of interactions over a beer.

Thank you for reading Frankie Martinez’s book review of Delirium Vitae by David LeBrun! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Toni Woodruff

A warmhearted picture book about healing through grief together

How do you explain loss to a child? Especially big loss. The biggest. Little Bear and the Big Hole has lost his Papa Bear, and there’s a hole where Papa used to stand. A real, literal hole. He sits at the edge of the hole and cries, looking into it and hating it day after day.

Nobody seems to see it other than him either, until Squirrel comes along. She walks carefully past it, sits down beside him, and glares into it. It turns out—she’s seen it before too, back when her sister died. Little Bear and the Big Hole by Jennifer Seal is the story of how Squirrel shows up for Little Bear, how Little Bear learns to accept the hole and pour love into it in order for life—new life—to emerge.

Children experience deep, complicated sadness even when we don’t think they’re ready for it. Life comes at everyone, unfortunately, and the possibility of death will greet them in stories, movies, and life early on. So how can we show them that there is hope and love beyond this sadness and grief?

If you’re going to read a book to your child about grief, make it this one. This is a powerful story with bighearted characters and concepts that demonstrate how grief isn’t the end of the road. It does hit you with the death of Papa Bear right away, so be ready to tackle it on page one.

The whole concept of the big hole is done to perfection. There’s something missing inside, and it’s almost impossible to avoid it. And yet, we look the same on the outside; no one can even tell you’re dealing with something so big.

But at least we have each other. This book is an important reminder that, even when it feels like we’re alone, we can still lean on other people. Squirrel is a terrifically loving character who doesn’t ask anything of Little Bear. She just sits with him, plays with him, talks with him, and tells him that what he’s doing is okay. She doesn’t say it’s going to get better. She lets time heal the big hole.

They create art and write letters and sing songs to the hole, filling it with the love\nthat’s missing now that Papa Bear is gone. There are real lessons to be learned in this moving story. Death and grief are big topics that will have to be broached at some point. If you or your little one feel ready, it’s important to read the right books and stories about it. Like this one.

The illustrations are colorful, creative, and clean, and they provide context to a story that depends on a metaphor to understand it on the deepest level. Jennifer Seal and illustrator Mirjam Siim have conjured up a special kind of magic with Little Bear and the Big Hole.

Thank you for reading Toni Woodruff’s book review of Little Bear and the Big Hole by Jennifer Seal! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Toni Woodruff | Content warnings: child sexual abuse

Heartbreaking and vulnerable—a story that should never exist

It takes power to tell this story. It takes bravery and strength and a machete—a way to chop through the tangled vines of trauma to forge a path ahead. Such a Pretty Picture is a powerful story that will break your heart and, hopefully, put it back together again.

Be ready for it though—the content warning is an important one. If you have experienced sexual abuse and are not up to experiencing someone else’s, this book will likely be triggering.

Andrea Leeb was four years old when her father first started molesting her. Her mom even saw it, but she went blind directly afterward. Her vision may have come back two weeks, but her figurative blindness remained. They didn’t speak of the molestation after the event, and her mother denied it when Andrea was finally old enough to confront her about it.

It wasn’t the only time either. Andrea was sexually molested by her father for more than ten years after that. He’d always follow up his actions with kindness and gifts, and he kept up an impeccable outward persona. He was a professor, a reader, and a confusingly kind dad.

We know, like Andrea knows, how bad her father is from the very beginning, but everyone else, including her mother, would have to wait years to find out that he’s been tricking people—completely separate from the abuse of Andrea. The perfect perception of him comes crumbling down even as he’s propped up by Andrea’s frustratingly forgiving mother.

Unfortunately, Such a Pretty Picture is a very real story. It’s a meaningful book for sexual abuse survivors to recognize that they are not alone. They’re likely going to have to confront their own pain to do it though. Scenes of sexual abuse are included, and while Andrea’s story lifts us up in the end, it’s only after our hearts are broken over and over again. She’s a smart, brave, and strong young girl who grows into a powerfully inspiring survivor.

This is also a story of sisterly love. Andrea and her younger sister Sarai are close and best friends. In their younger days, Andrea would stick up for Sarai and protect her with a glowing, angelic love. In a story of so much sadness, it’s a relief to get to experience this deep well of sibling love. You’re going to love their relationship.

The storytelling is spare and clean, yet packed with emotion. Such a Pretty Picture reads almost like it is made of stone—something you can drop but never break. A moving story with a heavy load to bear.

Thank you for reading Toni Woodruff’s book review of Such a Pretty Picture by Andrea Leeb! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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