One of my unofficial 2026 goals is to review more of the books I read. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to do a full-length review for every book I read – and I don’t always have enough to say for a full length review either (in both good and bad ways).

Nevertheless, I want to share more about each of the books I’m reading every month than the star rating I give them. If you follow me on The Storygraph, you can usually get a 1-2 sentence summary of how I feel about most of the books I read, but that’s still not here on the blog.

When I used to blog before (2015-2020ish), I would give my brief thoughts about each book in my monthly wrap up, kind of how BookTubers do, but I’ve found that my monthly wrap up post is already kind of crowded, and I’m worried people will glaze over and not engage with them!

Instead, I’ve decided to take inspiration from some other bloggers and do a separate post with my thoughts on each of the books I’ve read recently – it might be monthly, or it might be more or less, depending on how many books I’m reading – I’m aiming for between 2-5 books per mini reviews post. This will be a chance to share my thoughts without needing to write a full blog post.

There were quite a few blogs that inspired me and I can’t remember all of them, but the two blogs that played the biggest role in my decision are Tasya @The Literary Huntress (who does mini review posts) and Gem @Gem’s Book Talk (who does bimonthly wrap ups consisting solely of mini book reviews).

Without further ado, let’s take a look at the reviews!

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Guide to buying these books

I am very passionate about supporting authors, libraries, independent bookshops and generally any bookshop that isn’t Amazon! Therefore, I will always try and make it as easy as possible to buy books from sources that aren’t Amazon by providing links. (Note: for indie authors, I will include Amazon UK and Amazon US links if they don’t offer direct purchase or sell through other channels.)

I attempt to provide links for both ebook and physical versions of all titles I mention. All links have international shipping available except Bookshop.org UK affiliate links. If you’re UK-based, please consider using Bookshop.org UK to support local indie shops. (You can find all the books from this post and my other reviews in this list.) In the US, you can also search for books using Bookshop.org US. Otherwise, please use one of the other links or support your own local bookshops!

All English-language books are linked to from UK-based bookshops. Books in other languages will have links to either UK-based shops or shops from their country of origin (with international shipping).

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This was a fun book to read, but I was much more interested in the plot than the romance, which would be fine except the romance is a significant portion of the book. I didn’t not like it, it just didn’t compel me enough to keep reading the next series. I will say that if you want to try something in the sci-fi romance genre that is fast-paced but has a plot beyond the romance, then this could be a good one to try.

Warning: Some of the non-romance stuff here is very heavy and dark, so please check trigger warnings before reading!

Blackwell’s | Amazon UK (KU/ebook) | Amazon US (KU/ebook)

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I bought this book having followed Buddy Gator on Instagram for a while, so I already knew I liked the art style and vibe of Chow’s comics. However, this doesn’t always translate well into a collected book form – especially seeing as I read this in two sittings rather than dipping in and out. The fact that I read this in two sittings might also indicate that this particular flaw (usually an issue with repetitiveness and lack of coherent structure) is not something this book struggles with. Although there is no overarching narrative, the comics are thematically consistent without being repetitive, thereby allowing me to thoroughly enjoy all of them even when read all at once.

If you want to feel happy about life (and I do think that maybe some of the people in charge of the world need to read this book – we could probably avoid some wars), then I highly, highly recommend – the sense of community, acceptance and empathy in this book is unmatched. Unfortunately, the English translation is out of stock and has been for a while. In the meantime, they offer the book in 11 other languages, you can get the bilingual English-Chinese version secondhand in the UK and they also post regularly on Instagram!

English Translation: Out of stock – look at the comics on their Instagram (or their website)
Korean Translation: Aladin
Other Languages: Check out the Buddy Gator website for links to buy their books in 11 different languages!

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This is the third book in the Imperial Radch series and the conclusion to the main trilogy, although there are still quite a few standalone books set in the same universe (and more coming). I am happy to report that this wasn’t a disappointing ending to the series, although it definitely didn’t tie up all of the plot points – it was made clear that this was intentional, though, so I’m fine with it. The characters in this story as well as some of the excellent worldbuilding elements really make the series for me and I’m very excited to read the standalones set in the same world now!

I have been reading this as part of a readalong, and each week had a set of questions to answer, so if you’re after more spoilery opinion ideas, you can check out my posts here: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 (coming soon)

Bookshop.org UK | Bookshop.org UK (ebook) | Blackwell’s

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DNFs

I have also DNF’d one book so far this year.

I started reading this book in August last year and got about 70 pages in before putting it down because uni started and I didn’t have the time or brain space to dedicate to it. However, I had planned on picking it back up to read in March, in time for the release of the English translation in mid-March (this is a Korean book, but I had been reading the German translation). In preparation for this I started looking at a couple of reviews…

There were a couple key complaints about this book: 1) that the plot was disjointed or didn’t flow well – I didn’t get far enough into the book to tell whether this was the case, as I have only had two perspectives or so thus far, and apparently later on this increases and not in a good way. So I can’t comment on this, and if this were the only complaint, I probably wouldn’t have DNF’d this book without reading more myself.

However, there were two other issues that made me decide not to invest the (significant amount of) time needed to finish this book. Firstly, reading in German for me is largely about exposing myself to the language and the grammar. I don’t have particularly high standards for this, but having actual grammatical errors enough for it to be a major theme of the reviews of the book is pretty bad. Secondly, early reviews of the English are reporting similarly poor translation/writing (or maybe the original is poorly written – I haven’t looked at it, so I don’t know), so there’s not a huge point in me reading it anyway to report on the plot for would-be readers of the English translation either.

That’s why I have decided to save my time, DNF it and move on to something else!

English Edition: Bookshop.org UK | Bookshop.org UK (ebook) | Blackwell’s
German Edition: Storygraph | Blackwell’s

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Have you read any of these books? What did you think?

BONUS: If you have any thoughts about how I can best share my thoughts on books on this blog, please feel free to share – I would love to hear all of your opinions and advice.

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Keira x

P.S. This was originally supposed to be up ages ago, but got delayed because reviews ending up becoming too long for a mini review – looks like writing mini reviews is a good pressure-free way for me to write more full-length reviews (or at least medium-length reviews that can get their own post) as well! Who would have known?!