The second book from Reddit-sensation Kliewer and the first one of his I've read proves that he's got the writing chops to be more than an internet gimmick.
The novel has very strong Cabin at the End of the World vibes but puts its own spin on it. Kliewer's biggest strength, one he exercises a bit too freely, is details. While he writes them very well, at some point, it starts to feel like they are just there to bulk a novella-thin plot.

The plot involves a young woman (early 20s) hired to housesit a remote property for the weekend. The bulk of her chores are performance of complex Rites as instructed by the house's dead owner. If the Rites are not followed correctly, the world will end. Easy peasy, right?
Besides, if one was to try to prevent the end of the world, who would you hire by an angsty kid, who by her own and others' definition is basically a screw-up? But surely motivated by 9 grand, she can pull out all stops, no?

This was pretty much my biggest detractor with this book. The character wasn't just young in years, but in every other way. She read like an angsty teen. Her sister (the book's other major character) was in fact an angsty teen. And I'm not into YA, and don't understand adults who are.
Yes, the protagonist has had a rough life and struggles with depression, etc., but she's also just not that bright, driven solely by feelings over thoughts.
This might work better for younger readers.
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The horrific elements were handled pretty well, relying on psychological scares over gore and guts. And the ending provided a nice gut punch.
Overall, an entertaining quick read for genre fans. Thanks Netgalley.

I've read a bunch of Sager's books. really liked one, like another, and then it's been a steady progression of just okay. To be fair, this one is a bit better than that, but not quite enough to round it up to four stars.
But it is fun. Silly and overtwisted at times, but fun. No Agatha Christie, mind you, but Sager's express train is an entertaining ride.

It takes place in 1954, when one woman's elaborate revenge scheme lures on board a number of people she holds responsible for the downfall of her family. The (rather inane) idea behind is that she'll drive them (well, the train will) straight to Chicago and drop them off into the FBI's waiting arms, along with some handy evidence. She tells this to everyone right away ... and then, to no one's surprise, these people refuse to just sit there, placidly accepting their fate, and things go awry ... as in the bodies start to drop.
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Not to worry though, with a protagonist as plucky as this one, all will turn out just fine.
The book very much has the energy of a classic mystery movie, one of those olden productions with a rhyme and rhythm of their own, albeit updated for modern sensibilities.
All in all, a serviceable distraction with some nice twists and a very quick ride ... er ... read to pass the afternoon.

I loved Oliva's debut novel and liked her follow-up quite a lot too. So, this was an automatic click request from Netgalley for me, although I was concerned about the "women's fiction" tag on the book.
And sure enough ... yes, it is. Mind you, Oliva h's previous two novels also feature female protagonists.  In fact, one of her greatest strengths is that she can write compelling, non-clichéd women. But with this book, she has obviously slipped into the not-so-radiant dark side of "mommy fiction."
Which is to say that despite this book's beautiful writing, despite it's fascinating First Contact premise, despite how cleverly it speaks to the very nature of connection and communication between 
your own and other species, etc., at its base this is the story of mothers and daughters ... and a rather tedious one at that.
Maybe because it starts off with Carol, who isn't just a bad mother but a bad person and much too dumb to change her ways, maybe it's because it gives Carol so much page time, maybe it's because her own daughter, who is by contrast very smart, takes so long to realize and address the toxicity of their relationship. Maybe it's because the men of this book, although almost uniformly nicer and kinder, get permanently shifted into such secondary roles, as to say, "Screw equality, we know that it's mostly women who buy books, so this is for the ladies." Maybe it's because the book won't shut up about post-partum. Maybe because the message here is so tragically unoriginal: "Motherhood is tough, but it's so worth it." Maybe because the novel makes so many conscious choices to veer away from what's interesting (alien species sending signals to Earth!) and focus on what isn't: "diapers, etc." 
Maybe it's because of all these things, that I found this an annoyingly disappointing read, full of wasted potential.
Reading Oliva's biography, it's easy to see how this book might be deeply personal, and how much she might be like her scientist protagonist. But that isn't enough either.
For a writer who can clearly do so much more, this feels kind of like pandering. And yet, her writing is so freaking good that I can't help but uprate the book to four stars.
Thanks Netgalley.

It stands to mention that Binge's previous novel, Ascension, was one of my favorite books of that year. Absolutely brilliant. Understandably, I had high expectations of his follow-up, despite the utterly disappointing sci-fi novella he'd released with Tor in between.
Dissolution started off very promising but then derailed into the muddled waters of time travel it couldn't quite navigate with the same aplomb. Maybe it's me -a reading experience is a subjective thing - and I don't like time travel stories. But also, I just didn't find Maggie's plot line as dynamic as Stanley's.  And worse, when the two began to blend together, it seemed ... messy?
Time travel has, of course, been done to death, and writers try to put a unique spin on it. In that, Binge succeeded. His twist is original. It just didn't sing for me.

The other thing, perhaps the main thing, is that writers seldom do their best work when they go at it as odist. Take King and his ode to his wife, Lisey's Story - a melodramatic ramble that's far, far from his best work and its abominable snoozefest of a TV adaptation.
Dissolution, Binge's ode to his own wife (and his grandparents), comes across in much the same way of overwrought melodramatics and plot-straining sappiness. 
There's nothing wrong with a solid love story as a backbone of a novel. In fact, it's usually a great thing. But to use the entire novel as a fictional platform of said love story is as wrong as using pancakes as a platform for maple syrup. Which is to say the pancakes should be delicious on their own, with a light drizzle of syrup to punch up the flavor - not cardboard cutouts for the fructose addicts.
Again, a subjective opinion, but I stand by it.
And so, yes, I'm somewhat disappointed in this novel. Sure, it's trendy, it hits both dark academia and technothriller notes, which modern readers seem unable to get enough of. (And if you're that into technothrillers, try Blake Crouch. Dark Matter, for instance, manages perfectly well to be both a love story and a good story.)
Anyway, kind of a shame, because Binge is obviously a talented author, and hopefully he can find his way back to the Ascension-level quality. We shall see.

​Well, this was a depressing read. Albeit a very informative one. 
It was my fascination with linguistics that led me to pick up this book and find out what the future of language is supposed to look like. And ... yikes.
Turns out, social media --you know that awful thing that's supposed to bring people closer but instead creates new depths of alienation that allows lesser minds to indulge in their preoccupation with "finding themselves" and others like them through minor fast and passions, while being harvested for their data to optimize ways to sell inferior products to them -- has been not so slowly changing the way people think, speak and write. And has been doing so in distinctly grotesque ways.

The author of this book is a popular creator on TikTok, one of those people who actually makes money on there, so he knows what he's talking about. And what he's talking about is a deliberate dumbing down of ideas and concepts, narrowing them down to buzzwords, delivered at abnormal speaking speeds, and covered in trending memes, etc.

I use social media only professionally and strongly dislike nearly everything about it. This book has certainly reinforced my feelings on the matter. But it was fascinating to learn just how much work, strategy, and social psychology goes into creating successful social media feeds in these attention-and-intelligence-deficit-ridden times.
Content creation is, apparently, a science, albeit a useless kind. Because in a grand scheme of things, content is nothing.

The language is certainly changing, but not for the better. This book offers clear evidence of a particularly tragic devolution. I'm curious how many of the author's TikTok fans would have the attention span to get through it, despite its relative brevity.

A categorically educational read. Well written, albeit rather heavily repetitive, stating the same things over and over again. Lots of food for thought. Thanks Netgalley.

​I can't honestly tell if Chapman started off a better writer, or if I first read him as a less demanding reader. Either way, his recent work continues to steadily disappoint ... and yet it entertains enough to merit reading. So I read it, yeah, but ... it's an acquired taste.
The frustrating thing with Chapman is that he's actually a good writer who seems to have deliberately devolved his writing to better suit the low-hanging-fruit kind of an audience. It's a smart move strategically - the man has never been more popular that he is now, churning out the chopped up for immediacy, pre-chewed body horror tales. But it is somewhat disheartening to see someone who can turn out a sentence, deliberately crop sentences into short, almost stream-of-thought, gotcha bits for easy consumption.
Chapman is a natural born entertainer, as anyone who's ever interacted with him or saw him do alive reading can attest to. He's very animated, very fun - according to his social media, he likely doesn't sleep and appears to be everywhere all at once doing various promotional events. So yes, this style of writing likely suits him - not to mention it maximizes the page count for a lesser word count. 
But is it good?
Well, it isn't literary horror. It's the other kind -what do you call it ... pedestrian? If you're into gore and guts and wham-bam pacing, this will delight you. For fans of slower, more thoughtful horror, Chapman's work will leave something to be desired.
I think I have to stop expecting more of him. The man writes what sells. It's understandable. Practical. Not great. 
I don't read horror to be grossed out or disgusted, and that seems to be what most of these stories aim to do. So I've rated and reviewed it accordingly. User mileage may vary. Thanks Netgalley.

So, first off, is this even science fiction? The setting is so near-future, it's practically here already. And the plausibility of the plot makes it all the more exciting. 
AI is a popular subject of books lately. Feinstein has put his own twist on it. I liked it. This is very much my kind of sci-fi, which is to say Black Mirror-eque.
The concept is an innovative technology that produces ads uniquely customized to the viewer. Very clever. But how safe is it to make such clever technology?
The novel is told through dialogue/messages/etc. and observation - effective once you get used to it. 
I'm not sure if it's me or the book, but I was much more engaged with and interested in the AI characters than I was in the flesh bags around them.
The idea behind the novel was great. The ending punched it up, though I kind of wanted more for the AI.
Sure, the novel's structure is a bit gimmicky, and the moral is somewhat heavy-handed, but it was fun all the same and quite impressive for a debut.
Note to Netgalley readers: the formatting of this ARC isn't great, which is especially annoying considering how much this novel relies on specific format to work.
But it was read and enjoyed. Thanks Netgalley.