SPR’s book reviews of new self-published books
Jimmy Clifford is sick of his life – sick of his friend Oswald’s card games, sick of the drugs that don’t seem to be fun anymore, and the anti-depressants have stopped working. When he finds out that his cherished local […]
My Daylight Monsters is the prequel novella to Sarah Dalton’s Young Adult Mary Hades series. Though the book is called a prequel, Dalton recommends in the beginning of the book to start with this short work, and it establishes Mary Hades as a riveting, exciting, and sensitive young adult heroine.
My Daylight Monsters finds 17-year-old Mary Hades being institutionalized after having “visions” of zombies and skull-headed monsters. As she’s in a mental institution, there’s always a nagging sense that Mary might actually be crazy – to the reader, and to Mary herself. Woven into this narrative are an interesting cast […]
A novel in verse could potentially get tedious, but Golden Gloves flows evenly. Another potential problem is that it could seem childlike, as rhyming verse is most commonly associated with children’s books. Because of the themes present, and the cadence of the prose, neither of these issues is an […]
Brighton Make-Believe by Michael Salita is a charming children’s book about using your imagination. Really, there cannot be enough books stressing kids to use make believe. In the neighborhood of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, three six-year-old boys are sick of playing sports all the time and want something else to do. They start making up stories about different animals in the neighborhood – dogs that run along rooftops and birds that live underground – and they travel around the neighborhood making up more and more outlandish stories about the neighborhood animals.
The main trouble with Brighton Make-Believe is it calls out […]
Thirty Days to Thirty is a fun and emotionally-charged novel about a woman who’s just approaching thirty who loses everything: In the space of a few hours she gets fired from her job and then finds her boyfriend of six years has been cheating on her. Just when she thought her whole life was coming together and she was on the right track, everything falls apart, and instead finds herself living again with her parents. And so she gets innovative: she finds an old list of things she hoped to accomplish before she turned thirty, and with a few friends […]
Poetic and supremely well-written, this is the type of self-published book there should be more of: literary, but also with a compelling high-concept idea at its core. At times, the narrative is a […]
Donald Trump: Zombie Hunter is the raucous and topical satire of the man of the moment, Donald Trump, as he wins the presidency, fixes everything overnight, and then is attacked by a hoard of zombies, all of which come in the form of his current opponents: Chris Christie and Rand Paul, among others. The story is filled with amusing references to moments from the campaign trail – such as Trump taking on John McCain’s heroism. If you’re a fan of the horror crossover genre, it’s a unique take that’s at once funny and revolting.
Though the short story may be […]
What makes The Country of Innocence unique, and effective, is that even with its absurd and surreal premise, the prose itself is straightforward, and the characters […]