Skip to content

HOME
BOOK REVIEWS
HEARTLINES
BLOG
CONTACT

HOME
BOOK REVIEWS
HEARTLINES
BLOG
CONTACT

Contact Me

You can find me at

EMAIL

contact@dawnunchained.com

Let's get in touch

Contact Us Form

Name

Email Adress

Message

Privacy Note: By submitting this form, you agree to share your name and email address with Dawn Unchained. This information will only be used to respond to your message or deliver your requested content. You can request its removal at any time.

I agree to the privacy policy

Dawnunchained

You can also DM me on Instagram

dawnunchained

Diverse genres & stories that shape us 📚 | Reviews, bookish questions, & fun | Book blogger | Turn the page with me!
📚: High Society

Current read: High Society by Daniel Kalla 🇨🇦 📖 P

Current read: High Society by Daniel Kalla 🇨🇦

📖 Page 55/329. Here are my completely professional thoughts so far:

- Holly, the FMC, is a psychiatrist. Good. We're in a psychological thriller, so at least someone should know what's going on.

- She's been giving one weekly dose of a psychedelic drug to a group of seven patients struggling with addiction. It is working. They're no longer addicted. Yay!

- Naturally, she decided to try two psychedelic substances at the same time on the same group. I don't know why. Fame? A breakthrough? Pressure from the book deal? Curiosity? Poor decision-making? 🤷🏾‍♀️

- Six patients seemed fine. One had a deeply traumatic experience. I have no idea why. Neither does Holly.🤷🏾‍♀️

- That patient is threatening to sue for malpractice. Holly is panicking. I don’t know why. Like... if you truly believe you did everything right, why panic? 👀

- Holly's ex-husband is also a psychiatrist. He's still very involved in her life. He seems... toxic.
I like him.
I don't know why. 😂

- I also have a strong feeling one of the patients isn't as "cured" as everyone thinks.
Do I have 100% proof?
Absolutely not.

55 pages in, and I'm hooked. This story grabbed me from page one, and I'm really hoping it keeps this momentum.

📚 What's your current read? Is it already giving you all the good signs, or are you still waiting to be convinced?

📚 Bookish friends, we all have that one struggle,

📚 Bookish friends, we all have that one struggle, right?

⏰️Never having enough time to read.

💰Being unable to buy every book we want.

📱Having nobody to text at 2 a.m. after THAT plot twist.

The hardest part about being a reader for me is being interrupted right in the middle of the perfect cliffhanger. 😂

You know... the chapter ends with:

"He opened the door and froze."

And suddenly:

👦🏾 "Muuuum..."

👨🏾 "Honey, can you come here for a second?"

Sir... respectfully... this is a literary emergency. 😭

Or even worse... having to close the book because apparently "sleep is important."

Who decided that? Because I was one chapter away from solving the murder.

So now I need to know your thoughts...

📖 What's the hardest part about being a reader?

Let's complain together. 😂

#Bookstagram #ReadersOfInstagram #BookCommunity #ReadingLife #BookLovers

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ 4.5/5 I picked Ruins after reading @the

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ 4.5/5 I picked Ruins after reading @thefictionphysician's review about it. So here are my thoughts.

👩I both loved and hated Ember, the FMC.

She isn't easy to like. She's so consumed by archaeology that people often come second. It felt like archaeology eas her calling. Not just a job. Society expected her to fit into marriage and motherhood, yet she seemed most alive alone in the wilderness, chasing questions no one else believed were worth asking.

It made me wonder: how many women know exactly what they were put on this earth to do, but spend years trying to fit into a life that was never meant for them?

🗝Then came the twist that completely changed the way I read the book.

So it seems the book is set in a distant future, in a country/state called Commonwealth. People there confidently describe the Pre-Crisis civilization (which is... us 😅) as primitive, illiterate and technologically behind.

Excuse me... are you talking about me, a 21st-century woman? Illiterate? Naaah. 😂

They think hydroelectricity is the peak of innovation. Meanwhile, I'm over here thinking, "Wait until I tell you about nuclear energy, smartphones, drones... and AI." 🤣

📜Now, what if we do the exact same thing with the civilizations that came before us? What if they were far more advanced than we think, and time simply erased most of the evidence? (Seriously... what if the Egyptians are somewhere in space laughing at us for getting excited about nuclear energy? 😂)

More than anything, this book left me wondering if history doesn't just repeat itself...What if civilizations do?

A civilization rises, flourishes, collapses, survivors rebuild, history becomes myths... and generations later, archaeologists start asking the exact same questions all over again.

What if humanity doesn't simply repeat its mistakes? What if humanity itself repeats?

❓️Now question for you

📱If someone discovered just one object/structure from our civilization 3,000 years from now, what completely wrong conclusion do you think they would draw about us?

God of the Woods — 3.75⭐ This was… good. Not amazi

God of the Woods — 3.75⭐
This was… good. Not amazing, not bad. Just good.
I understand why so many people loved it, but it didn’t completely work for me.

What stood out to me the most wasn’t even the mystery itself—it was the women in this story.

🌟Barbara was probably the fiercest of them all: observant, sharp, unapologetic. The kind of girl who becomes a problem in a family obsessed with image and silence.
🌟I felt so much for Barbara’s mother. She felt deeply misunderstood—by others, but also by herself. She seemed lost in motherhood, lost in marriage, lost in grief… just lost in life.
What hurt me most is that the one person I thought would help her find herself—her sister, who was free-spirited, independent, and had a voice—ultimately betrayed her too.
🌟But TJ was my favorite character.
She had that quiet authority I always admire in women. Tough but deeply caring.
Her strength came from competence, knowledge, and silence.
She trained children to survive in the woods. That alone tells you everything.
She felt like the kind of woman who prepares you for life instead of shielding you from every difficulty.

Now… my issues with the book
💔The constant back-and-forth in timelines and perspectives confused me at times.
A chapter would end on a cliffhanger, then suddenly we switch to another POV, and by the time we return several chapters later I’m like:
Wait… what were we talking about again? 😭
💔I also think this book could have been shorter.
There were moments that felt unnecessarily stretched.
For example, a detective spends multiple chapters trying to find a witness, and when that witness is finally found, I expected major answers… but the payoff didn’t feel worth the buildup.
💔Some clues introduced earlier also didn’t feel fully resolved, so the ending didn’t feel like a neatly wrapped present to me.
💔And yes… the ending felt unrealistic to me.
I know, I know—it’s fiction. But still.

💭Final thoughts: this book confirmed two things about me:
1- I really don’t enjoy rich people in books.
2- Me and highly rated Goodreads books are often not on the same page. 🤷🏾‍♀️

❓️When lif

I asked one simple question: 📚 “What’s the most un

I asked one simple question:
📚 “What’s the most unhinged thing you’ve done because of a book?”

I was expecting the usual:

- stayed up too late
- ignored responsibilities
- cried over fictional people

You know… standard reader behavior.

Instead, this comment section gave me:

⚖️ reader fraud (fake sick days)
⚖️ public emotional breakdowns
⚖️ burnt food (guilty of thid myself!!)
⚖️ marital betrayal during movie night
⚖️ traffic offences
⚖️ interstate travel because a fictional character crossed a bridge
⚖️ and… someone returning a dog after it chewed their books 😭

After reviewing all evidence, Judge Plot-Twist has reached one conclusion:

📢 Book people are not okay at all.

And honestly? I love that for us 😂

Swipe through for some of the funniest confessions from the comments section. Trust me, you people did not disappoint.

Now I need to know…

👀 Which confession took you out the most?

#Bookstagram #ReadersOfInstagram #BookishHumor #ReadingCommunity #BookLovers

Have you ever had this kind of conversation with a

Have you ever had this kind of conversation with a non-reader? 😂📚
Who is that non-reader in your life?
Do you still try to explain every plot twist… or have you given up? 🤣

Btw, if you've read One of Us Knows by Alyssa Cole, let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Be honest... What's the most unhinged thing you've

Be honest...
What's the most unhinged thing you've done because of a book? 👀
Read during class?
Missed your bus stop?
Cried in public?
Trusted a morally grey man again?😂😂

I'll go first.

When I was younger, I was banned from entering the kitchen with a book. 🤣
Listen. Not banned from reading.
Not banned from cooking.
Just banned from combining the two.
Apparently, burning a pot of rice and, on a completely separate occasion, burning fried plantains, both while reading was unhinged enough for my mum to intervene.🤣

Her rule was simple:
"You. In. Book. Out."

Books have made me stay up way too late, ignore chores and procrastinate to a fault. But getting kicked out of the kitchen because of a novel might still be my most embarrassing reader moment. 😂

Now I need to know:
📚 What's the most unhinged thing you've done because of a book?
No judgment.
This is a safe space for reader confessions. 👀

📚 Honey & Spice + Sweet Heat by Bolu Babalola 3.5

📚 Honey & Spice + Sweet Heat by Bolu Babalola

3.5⭐️

I read these two books back to back and honestly? Good reads.

The first thing I absolutely loved was the banter between Kiki and Malakai. Their conversations were just so fun to read 😭. Smart, playful, funny… I really enjoyed reading them together. Sometimes I was smiling for no reason.

But can we talk about the Naija girls in these books for one second? 🤣🤣

The ROASTING???

Oh my goodness 😭😂.

I laughed out loud so many times because it reminded me so much of us Cameroonians. The kind of respectful roasting where somebody insults you with metaphors and similes and somehow it still sounds classy 🤣. Whether they were friends or enemies-turning-into-friends, those interactions were honestly one of my favorite things in the books.

Also, Bolu Babalola’s writing style is very different from the romance books I usually read. I don’t even know how to explain it properly 😅. It feels smart, funny, and very intentional. There is something very unique about her style.

One thing I really appreciated in Sweet Heat was the way grief was explored from the male side. It felt real to me.

Now… what I did not enjoy as much 👀

In Sweet Heat, Kiki frustrated me sometimes 😭. She actually seems like a good communicator, so the miscommunication between her and Malakai sometimes did not fully match the Kiki I knew from Honey & Spice.

And in Honey & Spice? The drama was a bit too much for me sometimes 😅. But I mean… university students. What did I expect? 😂

Overall, I preferred Sweet Heat. The characters felt more mature and the love also felt more mature. It still felt sometimes like they were the same people from university 😭… but maybe that is realistic too.

💭 Romance readers, tell me:

Do you prefer romance books with younger characters or more mature characters? And do you think young love can survive hard times?

Follow on Instagram

HOME
BOOK REVIEWS
HEARTLINES
BLOG
CONTACT

Everything bookish | Dawn