Review Policy



I Review Adult and YA Speculative Fiction

This means anything with speculative elements, and includes sci-fi, horror, fantasy, magical realism, and anything else you can think of! It does not include middle-grade. I am particularly keen on books with good LGBTQ+ and disability representation. If a book is a sausage fest, I'm highly likely to roll my eyes and put it down.

I will Review the following formats:

  • Any ebook that agrees to be downloaded onto my phone
  • Audiobooks (preferably alongside an e-book that I can use to pull quotes and names)
  • Print books if I find a copy for 20p in a charity shop

I make no guarantees about anything!

I reserve the right to DNF any book, or to not get to it for a while because I go where the reading winds take me. I will happily consider self-published works for review, but won't be any kinder than I would be to a trad published work!

I will always warn for the following things if I spot them (no guarantees that I will):

  • Sexual violence against a major character
  • Self harm (inc. suicide, self harm, eating disorder behaviour, and any kind of 'blood magic' that resembles self harm)
  • On-page sex
I will also warn for any other content that stands out as being potentially very difficult such as consistent themes of bigotry that are supported by the narrative and intense depictions of mental health issues. I will also pass on any content warnings the author has provided. I will not be warning for intense violence or bad language as these are commonplace in the kinds of books I read.  I also don't know how to spoiler tag on here, so if you'd like more details about a warning, feel free to email me at TheCrypticBookshelf@gmail.com and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can. 

My Rating System is:

  • 5 Stars = this book absolutely blew my mind, a perfect story perfectly told
  • 4 Stars = an incredible book, but it had a few weaknesses
  • 3 Stars = a good book, but there were either significant technical issues or I didn't emotionally connect to it
  • 2 Stars = an okay but seriously flawed book. Still readable but not recommended.
  • 1 Star = whatever this book did, I couldn't get to the end and I feel like I wasted my money.

Popular posts from this blog

The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore

  I’ll keep this as spoiler free as I can, but it’s a very character heavy book, so ideas about what constitutes a spoiler may vary. If the premise interests you, I highly recommend just diving in. Also upfront, this book (and thusly this review), has sexual assault as a major theme. I think I cover how it’s handled fairly well here, but if you need more details, please feel free to lmk.    I don't really know where to start with this book. I tried several times to come up with something, only to find myself flailing, partly because in general I find it easier to talk about books I didn’t like than ones I did lol. The Mirror Season is one of those books that you don't realise is making you feel things, then you get to the end and start contemplating your life choices. The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore is a YA magical realism book following Ciela, ‘La Bruja de los Pasteles’, a young woman with the ability to tell exactly what kind of pastry someone needs to make their li
Read more

Review of Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

  Published in 2005, with a film released in 2010, Kazuo Ishigro's science fiction masterpiece feels disturbingly relevant in the age of pandemics and quarantine. Following a young woman named Kathy as she recounts her time growing up, Never Let Me Go is a love story juxtaposed against a creeping, science fiction horror, juxtaposed against a deeply tragic parable about the power of subtle propaganda to perpetuate deep rooted systemic abuse. Ishiguro’s masterful grasp of restraint, perspective, and emotionality had me gripped from the start. At first, it was the mystery that kept me reading, then it was the overwhelming sense of horror as the truth behind our protagonist’s situation was revealed. From then on, the book is a breadcrumb trail, interspersing fragile glimmers of hope with the unrelenting tide of despair at a conclusion it was clear was coming from the start.  This book isn't going to be for everyone. It's slow, and many of its most interesting parts are sub text
Read more

Call Down The Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater

  So my intention was to review this prior to starting Mister Impossible, the second book in the series, because I find it difficult to review single books in a series if I’ve already read the whole thing. Evidently, that did not happen (idk why I bother planning anything, smh), but also I think more people need to read this series SO HERE WE ARE.   Call Down The Hawk is the first book in The Dreamer Trilogy, the adult follow up to Maggie Stiefvater’s YA hit ‘The Raven Cycle’. It focuses heavily on the ‘dreamers’ from TRC, people who are able to pull fantastical items out of their dreams. This is a book with lots and lots of characters, but I’ll outline the main POVs below. We have, in no particular order: The Lynch brothers, the brothers Lynch, ostensibly our protagonists, and the main carryovers from the previous books. Declan, Ronan, and Mathew are, respectively, a muggle, a dreamer, and a dream. Their plot primarily revolves around them becoming embroiled in the wider world of the
Read more