SPR’s book reviews of new self-published books
Dismantling Evan by Venessa Kimball
Dismantling Evan is a moving and harrowing novel about coping with bipolar disorder – not just the disease itself, but how everyone reacts to those who suffer from mental illness. Evan Phillips is moved to a small town in Texas after suffering a nervous breakdown. Her parents hope that a new setting in a calmer environment will help her recover. All does not go as planned, as Evan’s family moves next to Gavin Ferguson, a teenager who has mental illness problems of his own. A group of gifted, but troubled, teenagers bond together, but become vicious targets as the town […]
Lemat is living every writer’s nightmare: the starving artist, unknown and unheralded. He hits such rock bottom that he attempts suicide, splits up with a girlfriend and gets fired from his job. He then meets Guy, a talent agent who urges him to write something lurid and incendiary, which is more like doing a deal with the devil. Selling out his artistic soul works: he becomes famous and controversial, lands a 6-figure publishing contract, but comes to realize that compromising one’s integrity also comes at a great price.
The Button Chronicles by Juniko Moody is the highly inventive dystopian novel about the very nature of human evolution. Replete with its own inventive language, The Button Chronicles is about a dark 22nd century where mysterious buttons appear from out of nowhere. When pressed, a person disappears, and soon there are buttons for every person on earth, with millions of people disappearing. No one knows where they came from or how the devices work. A suspenseful and thought-provoking read, The Button Chronicles asks serious questions about the nature of reality and how mankind can survive on its current dystopian path.[…]