I have always loved to read. Some of my earliest memories are of reading the same books over and over and boring my family to death by telling them the entire plot at dinner multiple nights in a row. Once, my mom made me return a book to the library because I had read it five times already (it wasn’t due yet). I’ve outgrown that trauma, but it still shaped me to be the way I am today.

As any devoted reader does, I often find myself lacking a good book to read. That was especially a problem when I was in middle school – enduring its horrors only by escaping into the world of literature. But I had a problem beyond my lack of good books to read…I had an abundance of bad ones lurking in the shadows, waiting to lure me in.

Although I do look back on it and laugh, the fact remains that when I was in middle school, I didn’t have access to a good way to figure out of a book was going to be good for me. I picked up a lot of volumes containing content that I would rather have avoided simply because nobody warned me. The books weren’t marked, and I didn’t have any reliable reviews site to check.

My goal for this site is to provide a space where middle schoolers (or anyone) can find honest reviews of books. If you read a review on this website and then read the book it recommends, I want to to feel that I told you the truth. I also want you to feel that I’ve given you a good book to read that you won’t regret.

Finally, I just want to say that growing this website to include a lot of books will take time. After inputting all the ones I’ve already written, I hope to publish at least one review a week. It will probably take me some time to figure out if that goal is too big or too small, so I’ll keep you posted! If you don’t see your favorite books on here yet, or you’ve read everything on here (good job!), send me your suggestions! I too can always use more book recommendations. Also, if you have any questions, let me know! My contact information is linked on a page titled Contact. I’m not scary.

How my ratings work:

• ★★★★★: This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I didn’t just like it, I stayed up all night to finish or neglected my other tasks. Once I finished it, it stayed in my head for a really long time (book hangover). The characters felt like my best friends because they were so real and I experienced a lot of strong emotions and maybe my family got mad at me for yelling at the book (in both joy and anger). Only the very best books will receive five stars.
• ★★★★☆: This was a good book. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was still pretty good. There were maybe a few aspects that I didn’t like as much, but overall I was happy to read it and will probably read it again sometime. Most of my ratings will probably sit around four stars because I don’t give out five stars very often, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a worthwhile book to read.
• ★★★☆☆: While still an ok book, It was not my favorite. Maybe I was disappointed, maybe I got bored, or maybe I just didn’t like it. Usually, when I rate a book at three stars, I don’t feel like it had increased or decreased my general happiness at all. I may have had issues with either the plot or the writing style. It was just kind of…there. Nothing special, but it won’t really hurt you to read. (Of course, once again this is just my opinion – you might love it!)
• ★★☆☆☆: Why did I read this book? I don’t know. It wasn’t good. Usually books rated two stars have pretty serious issues with the either plot, the continuity, or the writing style.
• ★☆☆☆☆: This was a terrible book. Do not read this book. It was bad. My reasons for giving this review to a book can very greatly, from being something technical like poor writing style or plot holes to generally being boring/not interesting/sounds plagiarized to have included too much violence or swearing or spice. But, no matter what it was, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. I felt that my generally happiness/quality of life was not increased, did not stay the same, but rather was decreased. Life is now worse because of this book.

More about me!

I’m a junior attending a small private high school in the Seattle area of Washington. Besides reading books, I love running, writing, singing, playing games with my family, and spending way too much time on Pinterest. My favorite genre is fantasy and my favorite books are The Lord of the Rings, Pride and Prejudice, and The Maze Runner.

Note: In many of my reviews, I’ve linked my Goodreads review as well. They may be fun to read as I offer a slightly different perspective because I usually discuss the contents of the book in greater depth (spoilers!!). These reviews are less about why you should read the book and more about rejoicing and/or commiserating with fellow readers – one of my favorite endeavors! I have been very careful about blurring all potential spoilers, but a lot of my Goodreads reviews are full of them so I would recommend checking them out after reading the books for the full experience.