“Small-time” is the story of the smaller operations of the mob. Not the big New York families we’ve all seen the documentaries for, but the smaller organizations in the little towns. Mostly centered on gambling operations as well. Sure, these arms of the mob would report back to the bigger organizations, but they ran things primarily on their own. It sounds really intriguing, right? To get that closer look at a side of the mob rarely talked about, and from an almost first-hand perspective from someone who lived it! What could be better? Except that this family memoir delivered more on the family drama, than the involvement with the mob.

I’ve never read a purely cozy fantasy before. I didn’t know that such a genre existed, but it was a nice departure from the high stakes “the hero has to save the world from destruction” narrative that most high fantasy stories adopt. “Legends & Lattes” follows Viv, an orc who has retired from the adventuring life in order to open a coffee shop in an area where coffee and lattes are foreign words and abstract concepts. Can she do it? Will her little café survive? Those are the stakes. They are low and endearing and, even though a good portion of the book is just Viv and her friends literally building and setting up her shop, it was never boring and surprisingly sweet and engaging.

“The Vassal of Falhara” is a whimsical “chosen one” story featuring a cast of characters all derived from different animals. You have the Purebreeds—humanoid animals that are just one type (racoon, bear etc.) and then you have the Chimera—humanoid animals that combine different breeds. To say the two races don’t like each other is a bit of an understatement, as the Purebreeds often raid the villages of the Chimera and turn them into slaves. That’s where this story starts: our MC, Morgan, has her village raided, her father killed, her mother taken as a slave, and she left to die. Determined to fulfill her father’s dying wish and save her mother, Morgan sets out to find where they have taken her, only to discover along the way that the dying goddess, Falhara, has made Morgan her Vassal. Thankfully saving her mother and bringing Falhara back are closely tied together. But despite the dire circumstances of Morgan’s quest and the danger she finds herself in as she crosses Purebreed territory, I never once really worried for her or questioned that she would succeed. So, if you are looking for low stakes, whimsical, very YA fantasy book, you may enjoy this one.

“Thrill Switch” is equal parts “Ready Player One” and “Silence of the Lambs” with a sprinkling of “Altered Carbon” for good measure. You have detective Ada Byron who has become an expert on Jazlin Switch, a notorious serial killer who managed to murder people in the real world by destroying their avatar in the virtual space known as the Holos. Ada has dedicated her life to studying Switch and becoming a cop all because Switch killed her father seven years ago. Now there’s a new killer out there copying Switch’s style, but are they really? Ada has to face her fears and stop more people from dying, but in order to do that she needs to team up with Holo “native” and FBI agent, Joon, and venture back into the Holos, a place she hasn’t been to since her father died. Worse yet, she may need Switch’s help in order to unravel the conspiracy this new killer is at the center of. Hawkin does an excellent job blending a virtual MMO style world with a real, vaguely dystopian Las Vegas in order to craft a violent and thrilling (heh) cat and mouse murder mystery. This was a fast-paced futuristic crime and mystery story, but was light on the procedural investigation aspect, so take that as you will.

I’m going to keep this review short because, with any non-fiction book, talking about the contents of history or someone’s life isn’t really the purpose of a book review, at least not to me. I will say that I have never watched shows like iCarly even though I knew what they were and the cultural phenomenon they were for early Nickelodeon. I didn’t know who this actor-turned-author was. However, her memoir was one that kept getting recommended and, let’s face it, the book’s title did overtime in terms of getting people interested in the contents (and the media to maybe over sensationalize it). In the memoir, McCurdy tells of her time not only as a child actor, but her… unique home life in a hoarder house with an abusive mom, though as a child, she didn’t see the abuse for what it was at the time.