Tag Archives: book

Aug 26 2026
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DNF Q&A: The Unplugged Hours by Hannah Brencher

Title: The Unplugged Hours

Author: Hannah Brencher

Series: N/A

Genre: Non-Fiction

Rating: 1/5 stars

The Overview: No matter what you do for a living, how much time your apps save you, or how much entertainment your phone brings, it is possible to unplug–and find an even better life on the other side. In the spring of 2021, Hannah Brencher found herself depleted and exhausted–and she knew the culprit was her constantly plugged-in lifestyle. Like so many of us, Hannah had been turning to her phone to cope with life in a time of isolation and uncertainty. Those coping mechanisms had calcified into habits she didn’t know how to break. Sound familiar? That’s when the nudge happened. Turn off your phone and keep turning off your phone. And a challenge was 1,000 unplugged hours in one year. Soon after she shared her tracker sheet on her website, thousands of people downloaded it and signed up for their own 1,000-hour challenge. Now in The Unplugged Hours, Hannah demonstrates how the act of powering down changed her entire life. It’s a strikingly small thing to do and a surprisingly difficult habit to maintain, but turning off your phone has a substantial impact on your mental health, relationships, time management, and outlook on the world. A powerful weaving of memoir, cultural commentary, and spiritual insights, this life-changing book helps. Reclaim your ability to be present and engaged with the world around youSwap the hurried, constant pace of technology for a steadier, more rooted way of livingEstablish your own unplugged rituals and rhythms in daily lifeUncover the magic within the ordinary awaiting you just beyond the screenThe Unplugged Hours gives you the practical ideas and spiritual inspiration you need to stop scrolling and start living. –Goodreads

The Q&A:

Did you really give The Unplugged Hours a chance?

I think I read about 40% before throwing in the towel. That was more than enough time spent with the book to determine that it wasn’t working for me. I even kept reading several chapters past when I was ready to put it down, just to see if the experience improved.

Have you enjoyed other books in the same genre before?

Yes, I’ve made it a point to consume as many digital minimalism books as I can to help me along in my journey to stay off my phone. In most cases, simply immersing myself into a themed book like this is enough to inspire me to make changes. Unplugged Hours was odd in the sense that I didn’t even get a secondhand glow from reading it. Here are some of the ones I’ve enjoyed more lately:


By far my favorite book on the subject is Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism, which I’ve read half a dozen times. The some of the others are not necessarily about DM per se, but they had a radical effect on making me re-evaluate how I spend my time.

Did you have certain expectations before starting it?

As I mentioned, I expected to feel at least a little inspiration from the book. I also was thinking it would provide a few actionable tidbits, rather than just being a passive narrative. Even non-fiction that don’t work well for me almost always give me at least something to ponder on. Not the case here, for whatever reason.

What ultimately made you stop reading?

I put this down because I realized I wasn’t getting any sort of self improvement “payoff.” It was written in a very creative writing class personal narrative way where it kind of meandered from one experience to another (almost like reading someone’s journal or testimony). My biggest issue was that these reflections were never drawn back to what makes her story relevant to the reader. It could have majorly benefitted from some structure – where an experience was included to illustrated a specific point, which would then be expanded on and highlighted for the reader. As it was, it feels like it was only halfway to where it needed to be to be relevant to anyone but the writer. Maybe some people would’ve been just fine with the casual presentation of the idea (I could only find one) within the book, but because I’ve read so many of these I’ve come to expect a certain level of engagement, which I just didn’t get.

I experienced this on audio and have to say I really struggled with it. The text was delivered in a very choppy, systematic cadence that reminded me most of someone giving a graduation speech or a talk at church. It had planned variation, but very little personality or authentic inflection. It was a struggle to listen to and definitely contributed to my decision to DNF.

Was there anything you liked about The Unplugged Hours?

The author presented a challenge of intentionally choosing to be unplugged for 1000 hours per year (or 100 hours per month, if you prefer) and even provides free trackers on her website: https://hannahbrenchercreative.com/unplugged.

That was pretty cool. And although I didn’t resonate with her at all by how the book was written, the essence of being less connected and more present in one’s life is something I can completely appreciate.

Would you read anything else by this author?

Given that my objections to the book were about the basic writing style, I don’t think I’d favor other works by her over the many others on my TBR.

So you DNF’d the book – would you still recommend it?

Unfortunately, I don’t think so. For actionable inspiration in this subgenre, I’d recommend any of the books in my list above long before I’d suggest this one.

This DNF review format was borrowed with permission from Nikki @ There Were Books Involved (who doesn’t blog anymore, but she still gets all the credit).

Thank you to my Patrons: Dave, Katrin, Frank, Jen, Karen, Sonja, Staci, Kat, Betsy, Eliss, Mike, Elizabeth, Bee, Poochtee, Kinsey, Alysa, Derek, Kelly, Grace, Carmen, and Leticia! <3

by Niki Hawkes

Aug 25 2026
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Book Review: Inheritance by Ilona Andrews

Title: Inheritance

Author: Ilona Andrews

Series: Breach Wars #1

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

The Overview: We are at war. The interdimensional invasion brought us unimaginable suffering, but it also awoke talents slumbering deep within us, a means to repel and destroy our enemy. Every day new gates open, leading to breaches filled with monsters and valuable resources. If you are a Talent, your country needs you. The world needs you. Be the hero you were born to be. Adaline is a Talent. Ten years ago, she had a happy marriage and a job she loved. The invasion shattered both. Now she works for the government, searching the breaches for magic metals and medicine to help Earth repel an interdimensional enemy. Two kids, one cat, bills, benefits, mortgage and school tuition…Risking her life became routine. She had gone into the dimensional gates hundreds of times. She was always well protected. This time everything goes wrong. Now Ada is trapped in the labyrinth of alien caves unlike any other. Her only companion is a scared German Shepherd named Bear. Together they must uncover the breach’s secrets and escape, because Ada promised her children that she will come home. The future of humanity depends on it. –Goodreads

Niki’s Review:

Inheritance started out strong and for the most part remained a decent read the entire way through.

The beginning chapters of this surprised me in so many ways. I’ve come to expect certain things from these authors and the genre in general, so to have the story take a direction I wasn’t anticipating was particularly exciting. I suppose the stuff that happened wasn’t revolutionary, but it caught me off-guard enough that I rode the high of it through most of the book.

I can’t say that the entire thing knocked my socks off, though. It was fun – a typical IA read with interesting characters, great world-building, and an awesome animal companion. But I think I lost engagement because the book tried to do too many things. It contained an overwhelming amount of expansive world-building, with lots of very creative ideas packed into a small page count. There were a lot of “explain to the reader” passages as they conveyed the many cool things about this world and its magic systems. The story definitely needed to be longer to absorb that much detail. As it was, it got a little lost in the weeds for my tastes and left a lot less time for the actual plot progressing elements. The back half of the book felt even more crammed, which is no doubt why I finished it feeling a bit dissatisfied.

That said, everything they introduced was super interesting: cave-like portals, alien species, a monster-driven apocalypse, humans with a wide variety of special abilities, and did I mention the dog? It’s the kind of creativity that makes me love reading, and I’m definitely planning to pick up the concluding book when it comes out. As the series is planned as a duology, it might be a good place to taste test the authors if you’ve never tried them, as it’s a good approximation of what you can expect from their stories (if albeit a little compact).

IA are auto-buy, drop everything and read immediately authors for me, and this one definitely delivered on great atmosphere and a cool concept. If like me you thought the story was a bit too crammed in the back half but loved the world-building, I highly recommend their Hidden Legacy series as something more robust but with a lot of the same elements. Don’t let the covers scare you off. There is a love story in the books, but it’s not a full-blown romance. Think more along the lines of Mercy Thompson and Rachel Morgan.

Thank you to my Patrons: Dave, Katrin, Frank, Jen, Karen, Sonja, Staci, Kat, Betsy, Eliss, Mike, Elizabeth, Bee, Poochtee, Kinsey, Alysa, Derek, Kelly, Grace, Carmen, and Leticia! <3

Other books you might like:

by Niki Hawkes

Aug 23 2026
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Book Review: Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Title: Green City Wars

Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Series: N/A

Genre: Fantasy

The Overview: Philip Marlowe meets Redwall in this superior adult noir tale, where all the characters are animals, fighting for survival in the city underneath the humans. In the solar cities of the future, the humans relax in the sun and the animals work in the shadows. Genetically engineered Little Helpers, serving humanity—unseen, unheard. Meet Skotch. Racoon, P.I.—Yours for a few buttons as long as the job isn’t too illegal, whatever that means. A mouse has gone missing. Normally this wouldn’t raise any hackles, nor any alarms, but this mouse has something that everyone seems to want, though nobody appears particularly eager to say what that something is. The fee is good—perhaps too good. Certainly not something Skotch can easily turn down. If only Skotch can work out where the mouse is hiding, what he’s hiding, and why his secrets are upsetting a lot of animals caught up in the Green City wars. –Goodreads

Niki’s Review [2/5 stars]:

A mystery/crime noir Tchaikovsky fantasy novel that channels the Redwall series by Brian Jacques?! Freaking sign me up!

But alas, this is my second least favorite Tchaikovsky to date.

I had such high hopes for this book, but experienced a lot of issues with it. It was a very basic plot that relied on the main character meeting a series of creatures in his investigation to find this important mouse. I struggled with the repetitive nature (pun) of it as well as the slow pacing. And other than the fact that the creatures he met ranged from a loquacious pigeon to an anarchist toad (which sounds way more interesting than what was actually presented) the interactions all went the same and made up the vast majority of the book.

Additionally, Tchaikovsky withheld important information from the reader for far too long. I think it was meant to provide a motive to keep reading, extending the suspense of it all, but I found it frustrating to the point where I started to not care if I ever found out what the great big secret was. And actually, once it was finally revealed, I think knowing the secret the entire book could’ve gone a long way towards making it more engaging – because we’d know the stakes! We could get into the gritty politics of it all and actually know what all these different random animal players were hoping to achieve with their ambiguous actions. As it was, it kept me at a complete arms-distance the entire time, and I truly lost investment. Needless to say, I found it a major struggle to get through, and had it been anything other than a Tchaikovsky, I would’ve DNFed at about the halfway point.

Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t ALL bad. It is, after all, a Tchaikovsky and his baseline in storytelling is quite high. I thought the tone and the atmosphere of the story was particularly good. It delivered on the promise of a crime novel and had a very detective-y feel. The style of writing and voice also worked really well for the story, told in second-person, present-tense. The profiles of the characters, especially the MC, Skotch, were loads of fun, even if I wish more had been done them. The world-building and the concept for the story were unique – I always appreciate his take on futuristic, slightly dystopic narratives. And the entire premise for the story was wildly creative, which is something you can always count on from this author.

So overall, even though the book had a lot of really good components, I struggled with the execution. I consider myself a colossal Tchaikovsky fan, committed to reading everything he has written (I think I’m just about halfway through all of his works, but haven’t done an official count, so don’t quote me on that), so it pains me to review one of his books poorly. But this one just did not work for me. In general I’d say I’m struggling with his most recent releases, not having anything really knock my socks off in a few years. And I can’t help but wonder if the sheer number of projects he’s taking on is affecting his ability to make each one feel robust and cared for. I’m hoping to find another soon that hit those same amazing notes as his earlier works. I’ll be sure to share if I do. :)

I’d like to thank Adrian Tchaikovsky, Macmillan Audio, and Netgalley for the chance to listen to and review an early audiobook copy of this book!

Thank you to my Patrons: Dave, Katrin, Frank, Jen, Karen, Sonja, Staci, Kat, Betsy, Eliss, Mike, Elizabeth, Bee, Poochtee, Kinsey, Alysa, Derek, Kelly, Grace, Carmen, and Leticia! <3

Dave’s Review [2/5 stars]:

The concept behind Green City Wars immediately caught my attention. The combination of its unusual setting, strange characters, and distinctive style should make for an entertaining story, and there are definitely moments where Tchaikovsky’s imagination shines through. A noir detective story with uplifted anthropomorphic characters from a proven author? How could this not be a win? Unfortunately, I found the actual experience of reading it much less interesting than the premise suggested.

The biggest problem for me was the repetition. The story repeatedly returns to similar situations and ideas, and after a while, what should have been exciting began to feel tedious. There is plenty happening, but I often found myself bored despite the fact that, on paper, this should be a pretty entertaining story. The novel feels like it needed another round of editing and revision to tighten the narrative and eliminate some of the repetition. The material might even have been better suited for a novella rather than a full-length novel.

Skotch is the main protagonist of the story, a private investigator who is also a genetically modified raccoon. He is interesting, distinctive, and certainly my favorite character in the book. If not for the fact that he is a raccoon, I would probably imagine him as Humphrey Bogart. Unfortunately, most of the other characters failed to make nearly as much of an impression. I never became particularly invested in them, which made the more repetitive sections of the story even more of a slog at times.

I listened to the audiobook for this one, and the narrator does a strong job, particularly with bringing the various characters and the unusual world to life. Unfortunately, even a good performance could not redeem a story that I found increasingly tedious.

There is certainly a good book buried somewhere in Green City Wars. The concept and style are both interesting, and Skotch is a strong character, but the repetition and need for further editing ultimately made this a disappointing read.

Other books you might like:

Aug 16 2026
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Book Review: Forty Thousand in Gehenna by C.J. Cherryh

Title: Forty Thousand in Gehenna

Author: C.J. Cherryh

Series: The Alliance-Union Universe

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: 3/5 stars

The Overview: When forty thousand human colonists are abandoned on a planet called Gehenna for political reasons, and re-supply ships fail to arrive, collapse seems imminent. Yet over the next two centuries, the descendants of the original colonists survive despite all odds by entering a partnership with the planet’s native intelligence, the lizardlike burrowing calibans. –Goodreads

Dave’s Review:

Forty Thousand in Gehenna starts with a fascinating premise that hooked me. A group of humans is sent to establish a colony on an alien planet, only to find themselves increasingly isolated and forced to adapt to an environment that is very different from what they expected. Cherryh does a particularly good job of making the early portion of the story feel uncertain and compelling. There is a real sense of discovery as the colonists struggle to survive and understand their new home. There are many colonists who are named, but the few important characters to the narrative in the early chapters are simple enough to follow.

Unfortunately, my interest began to wane as the novel progressed. The story moves through multiple generations, and while I understand what Cherryh is trying to accomplish, the constant shifts in time and characters made it increasingly difficult to stay invested. The genealogy trees included with the book eventually become almost essential for keeping track of who is related to whom, but needing to consult them also highlights the problem. There are simply so many characters that it becomes difficult to form much of an attachment to any individual. Just as I began to become familiar with someone, the story would move on to another generation. As the story moves further away from the original colonists, that initial sense of discovery and interest begins to fade.

There is a lot to admire here, particularly the ambitious worldbuilding and the ideas about cultural evolution and adaptation. I have found Cherryh’s strengths to lie in creating vast worlds and universes with complex politics, sometimes at the expense of characters and narrative. Here I found the novel more interesting as a concept than as a story. The strong opening ultimately gave way to a book that I admired but left me just a little bit disappointed.

Aug 12 2026
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Novella Review: Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card

Title: Shadows in Flight

Author: Orson Scott Card

Series: The Shadows #5

Genre: Science Fiction

Rating: 3/5 stars

The Overview: PREVIOUS BOOK SPOILERS At the end of Shadow of the Giant, Bean flees to the stars with three of his children–the three who share the engineered genes that gave him both hyper-intelligence and a short, cruel physical life. The time dilation granted by the speed of their travel gives Earth’s scientists generations to seek a cure, to no avail. In time, they are forgotten–a fading ansible signal speaking of events lost to Earth’s history. But the Delphikis are about to make a discovery that will let them save themselves, and perhaps all of humanity in days to come. For there in space before them lies a derelict Formic colony ship. Aboard it, they will find both death and wonders–the life support that is failing on their own ship, room to grow, and labs in which to explore their own genetic anomaly and the mysterious disease that killed the ship’s colony. –Goodreads

The Review:

Shadows in Flight is a novella that’s worth reading for the sake of tying up loose ends, but didn’t really deliver a whole lot with the plot.

I’m totally into this series at the moment, liking it oodles more than I originally thought I would. And because of that, I’m willing to read ALL THE THINGS following an ultimate chronological reading order. Ender’s Shadow knocked my socks off, and ever since I find myself especially excited to pick up anything with “shadow” in the title. Even so, I wish this book had brought a slightly more robust plot. It felt more like a setup book, giving the reader a little more perspective on the overall series conflict before the dive into the next book (chronologically), Speaker for the Dead. I’m certain I know more about what the MC will face in that book because of some insights here. And I definitely understand the aliens a bit more.

It also felt like a setup for the characters in this book. Establishing their personalities and rivalries. I am definitely interested to see how they integrate into the narrative going forward. Given that these are younger kids, there was a bit more discussion about reproduction than I thought appropriate or strictly necessary given such a small overall page count (they were earnest discussions, also, which made it even more weird), but that was my only real complaint.

And that ending, though…

Yeah, after writing this out, I do think I’d recommend it for fans of the series. But for some reason it felt a little thin until the last 25% for reasons I just can’t pinpoint… still good though.

Thank you to my Patrons: Dave, Katrin, Frank, Jen, Karen, Sonja, Staci, Kat, Betsy, Eliss, Mike, Elizabeth, Bee, Poochtee, Kinsey, Alysa, Derek, Kelly, Grace, Carmen, and Leticia! <3

Other books you might like:

Aug 11 2026
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DNF Q&A: The Winged Game by Sophie Kim

Title: The Winged Game

Author: Sophie Kim

Series: N/A

Genre: Romantacy

Rating: 1/5 stars

The Overview: Fantasy meets sports romance in this sizzling slow-burn novel from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The God and the Gumiho, in which the disgraced star of a brutal magical sport must team up with the rival who destroyed her career. Carriwitchet, the violent, rugby-esque game played atop winged beasts, was once Taissa Cho’s whole life, and she was once the United Kingdom’s most promising player. Until her nemesis, rival player Kion Locke, destroyed her career in a single moment. Expelled from the sport in disgrace, Taissa has spent the last two years dreaming of nothing but revenge and relishing watching Kion’s team plummet to the bottom of the league.So when Taissa is offered the chance to redeem herself and her career, she can’t refuse—even if the offer is coming from the very man who ruined everything in the first place. It’s close to a dream come true . . . except for that pesky clause in her contract that demands she and Kion enter a fake relationship in order to garner some much-needed positive PR for the team. This could not be a worse match. Taissa and Kion only have two things in their love of the game, and their undying hatred for each other.Yet as a mysterious illness befalls the winged creatures of the entire league—putting both the beasts’ lives and the very sport itself at stake—the athletes find themselves partnering up in other ways, determined to crack the case of the eerie sickness. As their investigation takes them on a whirlwind adventure, Kion and Taissa are prepared for anything . . . Anything, that is, but their fake-for-the-cameras relationship to maybe, just maybe, become something real after all. –Goodreads

The Q&A:

Did you really give The Winged Game a chance?

I made it about 25% into the book before calling it quits, and actually read a good bit longer after I realized it wasn’t working for me. I held out hope, but it just kept getting worse…

Have you enjoyed other books in the same genre before?

The answer here is kind of. I love fantasy and I like romance, but not together. I’ve read the Fourth Wing series and love the dragons and the school settings, but could’ve done without all of the other things that qualified that book as a Romantacy. I definitely don’t think this genre is for me, but I was hoping the sports and competition aspect of this book would’ve been good enough for me to overlook the elements I don’t like. Here are the romances I actually like, by contrast (a few contemporaries and one fantasy with a great love story): 

Did you have certain expectations before starting it?

I was naive and hopeful. I knew going in that it was going to have a heavy romance component (which by the way I don’t always mind as long as it’s done well), so I was expecting that. But I didn’t expect it to take on almost all of the page count. Since the sports and competition angle was being pitched so hard, I thought that would take on a more prominent role that it did (up to where I read, anyway).

What ultimately made you stop reading?

I hated the relationship. And the characters, if I’m honest. I don’t throw around the word “hate” very often, but this book really got under my skin.

First of all, The relationship and the characters are incredibly immature. If their ages hadn’t been shared in the book (her 24, him 30), I would’ve said they read exactly like a 16 year old and a 19 year old, respectively. The entire basis behind the conflict is blaming someone else for your very poor decisions and then perpetuating the negativity with very poor behavior. 90% of what I read was the characters throwing venom back and forth to emphasize just how much they hate each other (but with a few awkward sexual attraction references thrown in, because let’s not make it too weird). Everything about this reads like high school drama, so other than aforementioned sexual references and an F-Bomb on every page, it was incredibly YA in tone and spirit.

I know we’re going for an enemies to lovers angle. That’s a trope I actually quite liked in Emily Henry’s Book Lovers. But the downright viciousness exhibited here, especially from the female lead, was excessive. But then immaturity compounds with this ridiculous farce of a plot where the characters have to pretend to date each other for the sake of a public image (some very loose reasoning about sports dynamics), but in reality it’s just a plot device to have the characters touch intimately as often as possible “for the sake of the cameras.” Gee, how romantic.

The book lost me entirely when they started jumping on the bed together and moaning to simulate an intimate moment.

Stupid. I thought the whole thing was stupid. I hated how vicious they were to each other. I hated how no one seemed to care about taking responsibility for their own actions. I hated the forced physical interactions (which didn’t do anything to build chemistry, it was just icky). And honestly the whole thing read to me a bit trashy. I really did not like this book.

Was there anything you liked about The Winged Game?

The sport was cool – kind of a Quidditch knock-off where they ride magical creatures (a specific one for each team, like giant birds. And dragons.) and compete to collect treasures from each other’s strongholds. If I got some of the details wrong, it’s because the book didn’t really spend much time on it up to where I stopped reading. It was 5% fun sports, 95% senseless drama.

Oh, yes, I liked the grumpy old mount. If I were to have continued reading, it would’ve been out of curiosity for that creature.

Would you read anything else by this author?

No, it’s clear that the genre and story isn’t my jam, and what the author finds “hot” will definitely not work for me. This is a case of going our separate ways. I’m sure the author would prefer I refrain from bashing her books in the future.

So you DNF’d the book – would you still recommend it?

Absolutely not, even as a “I didn’t like this, but you might still want to try it.” But here’s the thing, this book has SOO many positive reviews on Goodreads. To the point where I’m like… is this what women are finding romantic these days? And are we collectively okay with how much venom the female lead was allowed to spit at him without repercussion? Idk but the entire thing sits very uneasily with me. I’m glad to leave this book behind.

Thank you to my Patrons: Dave, Katrin, Frank, Jen, Karen, Sonja, Staci, Kat, Betsy, Eliss, Mike, Elizabeth, Bee, Poochtee, Kinsey, Alysa, Derek, Kelly, Grace, Carmen, and Leticia! <3

This DNF review format was borrowed with permission from Nikki @ There Were Books Involved (who doesn’t blog anymore, but she still gets all the credit).

by Niki Hawkes