Book reviews from The Diary of a Bookworm — YA fiction, fantasy, literary fiction, and crime.
The full review archive. Everything is organized chronologically — newest first, oldest at the bottom. Browse by genre using the tags, or scroll through and see what catches your eye.
The reviews here span more than a decade of reading, starting with the early days of the YA boom when authors like Cassandra Clare and Tamora Pierce were shaping a generation of readers. Newer reviews are added as books warrant them — which is to say, when a book does something worth writing about.
A year after The Safekeep took the 2025 Women's Prize, van der Wouden's debut has outlasted its prize cycle — because the novel's real subject is what a house …
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R.F. Kuang's debut trilogy opener takes military fantasy somewhere most of the genre refuses to go — into the machinery and atrocity of a war it can't look away …
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A re-read and retrospective review of The Atlas Six trilogy by Olivia Blake — three years on, what the dark academia fantasy series got right and what it …
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A review of InterWorld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves — a multiverse adventure about a boy who can walk between worlds, and what that ability costs him.
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A review of The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman — a small, perfect novel about childhood, memory, and the inexplicable cruelties that shape us.
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A review of The Lightning Thief graphic novel adaptation — Rick Riordan's world reimagined in sequential art, and why it makes the perfect companion to the …
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A review of The Secret History by Donna Tartt — the dark academia novel that invented the genre, revisited thirty years on with the same power to disturb and …
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Priya and Malini lead an army through an empire that imprisoned them both, and every step forward costs something they didn't know they could afford to lose.
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Bree's trilogy reaches its full reckoning as the true weight of the Legendborn inheritance — and what it costs to dismantle it — finally arrives.
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Mische and Raihn must survive vampire court politics long enough to break an ancient curse in this propulsive dark fantasy romance conclusion.
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Nesta Archeron and Cassian are the ACOTAR pairing readers wanted and the story is built on mutual antagonism, brutal healing, and a love that refuses to be …
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A young woman searches for her missing soldier brother along the Western Front in 1917, and the novel moves between timelines to uncover what happened to him.
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Set six years after A Conjuring of Light, Schwab returns to the Shades of Magic world with a new protagonist who can see the threads of magic — and a city that …
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Lore and Bastian must dismantle what the Sun Priest built before it destroys everything, in this propulsive conclusion to the Sundered Crown Saga.
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The Last Hours trilogy reaches its conclusion as James and Cordelia face Belial's final assault on London and the cost of every bargain made in the dark.
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The story of Haymitch Abernathy — District 12's only living victor — and what it cost him to survive the brutal Second Quarter Quell.
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El survives graduation and returns to a world of enclaves, only to find the real work — and the real horror — was waiting outside the school.
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Freya's blood fulfils an ancient Norse prophecy, and the jarl who claims her will use that power — unless she can learn to own what it means first.
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Violet and Xaden face the war beyond Basgiath's walls and truths about the dragon riders that change everything they thought they were fighting for.
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The first arc of the Stormlight Archive reaches its staggering conclusion as Dalinar faces the truth about the Recreance and confronts the Fused one final time.
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The origin stories of Laia and Elias reveal the family histories and early wounds that shaped who they were before the Ember in the Ashes series began.
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On a delayed flight, a woman begins announcing how and when each passenger will die — and the novel follows what people do with that terrible knowledge.
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Two brothers grieving their father fall into separate, unexpected love affairs in Rooney's most emotionally generous novel yet.
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A woman parks her car thirty minutes from home and stays for days, and what unfolds rewrites everything she thought she understood about desire, time, and self.
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