mystery – BookBunnies

Marshmallow reviews The Fall of Iris Henley by Jennifer Graham

Today Marshmallow is writing about The Fall of Iris Henley, a 2026 book by Jennifer Graham.

Marshmallow’s Quick Take: If you like exciting mysteries about high schoolers with way more drama than average, then this is the book for you!

Marshmallow’s Summary (with Spoilers): Iris Henley perfectly fits the stereotype of a Texan cheerleader. Blond, pretty, and with a football-playing boyfriend (named Rocky), she seemed like a sure finalist for Homecoming Court. Unfortunately, things got seriously messed up when Rocky and Lynette (her ex-best friend) are found dead under circumstances that indicate Rocky was unfaithful. The police declare it to be an open-and-shut case: Rocky shot and killed Lynette and then committed suicide after with the same gun. This explanation is widely accepted until a couple of months later.

Iris is the top girl (meaning she is the flyer at the top of their pyramid structure) and cheer has taught her how to put on a smile and cover her feelings in order to stay on top. She’s been trying to come to terms with losing her best friend and her boyfriend to the hands of her boyfriend himself; how can she grieve for him when he is the reason why he and Lynette are both gone?

During a football game, an anonymous poster on the school’s gossip site Sekrit claims that Rocky wasn’t the murderer after all — Iris was. It would make sense from a certain perspective. Lynette had been struggling with a drug problem and Iris accidentally leaked this news to the cheer coach, leading to Lynette’s permanent suspension from the team. Though Iris had not intended for it to happen, she became the top girl, the coveted role Lynette had held before. Cheer had been one of the few things keeping Lynette from going completely off the rails, and her drug addiction worsened quickly, especially after Lynette isolated herself from Iris (Lynette believed Iris had wanted to steal her spot). Rocky — who wasn’t the greatest guy — began having an affair (and not his first) with her at some point, which would give Iris a huge motive for murder.

On top of all that, on the night of the murder, Iris was at a cheer sleepover and she wasn’t fully straight-headed the entire time. Past a certain point, she starts to wonder whether it is possible that she did commit the crime while drunk. Almost the entire school thinks she did it too. Her other two best friends (Hailey and Sophie) stick by her and so does the “cute” boy from sports camp she’s been texting. They figure the best way to clear her name is to find out who’s been posting lies on Sekrit; but while searching for the liar, new truths come to light and it becomes increasingly clear that no one is or was trustworthy to start with.

Marshmallow is reading The Fall of Iris Henley by Jennifer Graham. — Marshmallow is reading *The Fall of Iris Henley* by Jennifer Graham.

Marshmallow’s Review: The Fall of Iris Henley is a very good book! I only saw two plot twists coming, and there were far more I was completely unprepared for. The story is fascinating and exciting; I know it is cliche to say, but you cannot put this book down! The characters are all developed extremely well, but then the author changes everything you think, feel, or think you know about a person — and in a way that is still logical and believable.

Also, I found it very interesting to read about a mystery set in a community that is very different from my own. The rural football culture in Iris’ city of Varda was intriguing to read about, though I think the author does some subtle critiquing of that way of life. This was interesting from an outsider’s perspective, but I can also see how this location choice could also appeal especially to those who live in similar settings.

That said, certain things the characters do are undeniably deserving of criticism. Iris and her friends all drink regularly and occasionally take other types of drugs; her best friends are often vaping and they skip class at least once. They are not good role models. Also, the characters are almost all seniors in their last year of high school and they engage in sexual interactions so this is another reason why this book might not be very appropriate for some. Luckily, nothing is shown in detail (all of these things are mentioned vaguely in passing) but it might be too much for bunnies younger than thirteen or fourteen.

All that being said, The Fall of Iris Henley was very thought-provoking and the mystery was very hard to solve. The author did a very good job of resolving the mystery, giving a satisfying end to the main conflict while tying up character development in a nice bow. This was a very good book overall and I would highly recommend it to everyone who is old enough to read it!

Marshmallow’s Rating: 98%.

Marshmallow rates The Fall of Iris Henley by Jennifer Graham 98%. — Marshmallow rates *The Fall of Iris Henley* by Jennifer Graham 98%.

Caramel reviews Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman

Today Caramel is talking to Sprinkles about a book he has been reading for his English class: Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman, originally published in 2004.

Sprinkles: So Caramel, can you start us off by telling us a bit about the book?

Caramel: Okay, it’s about a kid named Blake, who’s going to college at 16, and he is sort of a scaredy cat, at least about roller coasters.

S: Well, roller coasters can be really terrifying.

C: True, but this kid seems to be scared of all of them, while his little brother Quinn is not afraid of anything.

S: Hmm, okay, I am sensing that you kind of liked Quinn more.

C: He sounds a lot more like a real kid, you know? But basically, he’s just not scared of many things. Anyways, the first thing that happens in the book is that Blake, Quinn, and Blake’s friends Russ and Maggie are at a theme park. Blake wins a game, and then he is given a teddy bear by a strange and mysterious girl named Cassandra. He takes the teddy bear home and inside is a ticket to another theme park.

S: That sounds curious. Then what happens?

C: When the two boys come home, they learn that their mom is engaged, and the two brothers get into a fight over the engagement. Quinn is not happy about the engagement but Blake is more accepting.

S: It is a tough issue of course.

C: Sure, I agree. Anyways, the brother then is found in a comatose state, and Blake sees carnival lights in Quinn’s open eyes.

S: That’s freaky! And kind of scary!

C: Yeah, Blake then takes his two friends and goes to the theme park that belonged to the ticket he had found in his teddy bear, and he finds a carnival.

S: This is getting weirder and scarier.

C: Yes. And did I mention that it is the middle of the night?

S: No wonder Wikipedia describes this book as a “psychological thriller” and a “fast paced horror thriller”! I am already getting all tense here, and I have not even read the book.

C: Yep, the book is kind of tense, but it’s a kind of tense that makes you wanna keep reading.

S: I guess that is a good kind of tense. Okay, go on.

C: At the carnival they witness some weird stuff. They have to go on some rides and each of them is weird. And real! I mean one can get really hurt.

S: Not like the holodeck on Star Trek?

C: Well, actually kind of exactly like the holodeck when the safety measures are offline.

S: I see. So the kids have to ride several rides and they are in real danger?

C: Yes. Actually they have to ride seven rides before dawn and finish them without failing. And to add to it, Blake sees his brother Quinn is there, too, riding these dangerous rides and is not taking things seriously at all.

S: And of course Blake is very worried, I can imagine.

C: Yeah, and he learns that Cassandra is in charge of the carnival, but I shouldn’t spoil it any more.

Caramel is reading Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman. — Caramel is reading *Full Tilt* by Neal Shusterman.

S: Okay, that makes sense. You have already gotten us deep into the book and all tensed up. So let us talk a bit about the book in another way. It was good at making you feel the tension, I understood that. But tell us also about the characters. You liked Quinn and kind of found Blake a bit too much of a scaredy cat, but did they feel like real people? How about Russ and Maggie?

C: Yeah, the story is told from Blake’s point of view, so you get a pretty good sense of him and his view of things. And the others are just his friends, and they all feel quite normal to me.

S: What about Cassandra? I mean it seems she is kind of a mysterious character. Is that how she felt to you as you were reading the book?

C: Cassandra never seemed normal, but Blake knows why now. And I do too, but I cannot tell. I don’t want to spoil the whole thing.

S: Okay, I won’t push then. All in all, this seems like a pretty neat book, and you got to read it for your English class. Did you have many discussions in class about it?

C: Yeah, it was neat!

S: Okay, cool. Would you then recommend this book to other bunnies?

C: Yes, but probably not the very young ones. It is really tense and younger bunnies can get scared.

S: The picture on the cover is scary too!

C: Yeah, it is kind of how you can picture the characters in that weird carnival. Maybe it is good that it is scary because younger bunnies won’t want to read it.

S: I agree. I found the cover picture quite scary myself. It makes sense a bit more now that you told me about the book. So okay, I think this is a good place to wrap up this review.

C: Sure. Let’s do that.

S: What do you wish to tell our readers then?

C: Stay tuned for more book bunny reviews!

.Caramel enjoyed reading Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman though he warns that it is probably not appropriate for the youngest bunnies. — .Caramel enjoyed reading *Full Tilt* by Neal Shusterman though he warns that it is probably not appropriate for the youngest bunnies.

Caramel reviews Spy School Blackout by Stuart Gibbs

Caramel has read and reviewed all books in the Spy School series by Stuart Gibbs, so he could not pass the opportunity to read and review the thirteenth book that just came out last week: Spy School Blackout. As usual, Sprinkles is taking notes and asking questions.

Sprinkles: I know you could not wait to talk about this book today!

Caramel: Yes! We got a new Spy School book! How cool is that?

S: Very. Okay so this is book thirteen, right?

C: Yes, in fact it is. And a very good thirteenth at that, most things are no longer good after the first ten books or movies, for example fast and furious.

S: Caramel, you have not even watched one of those movies! I did. Actually I did not think it was terrible. It definitely kept me paying attention.

C: Nope, I don’t know the movies, it is true, but I’ve heard it got bad after the first two.

S: Yes, I suppose critics did not like them. But the studio keeps making them so lots of people must be watching, don’t you think? Doesn’t mean we would like them of course. And anyways, I think your point was that this book is still very good even though it is number 13 in the series.

C: Yep, it is very very good

S: So tell us about it a bit. I am guessing it is still about Ben Ripley.

C: Yes. In this one, the group is in Indonesia to take a vacation, and then the power goes out.

S: Oh, that is interesting. I had read the quick summary which said “On their latest mission to save the world, Ben and his friends face a conniving villain, assassins, pirates, sharks, and very big lizards in the most remote—and deadly—location of any spy school yet!” And I was wondering where that most remote and deadly place was. So they are in Indonesia!

C: Yeah, but the power is not just out in Indonesia, but around the whole world, everywhere.

S: I guess that is why the book is titled “Blackout”.

C: Yep, you are pretty smart, Sprinkles!

S: I am humbled and honored. Anyways. So the power goes out everywhere. How could that happen? Who could have done such a thing? Power networks around the world are not all connected, are they?

C: Birthday cake.

S: What do you mean?

C: it’s apparently the code word for a precision attack on the power systems.

S: So someone simultaneously attacks all the networks. I am guessing it is a cyber-attack, like a virus or something.

C: Yep, pretty much.

S: Hmm, that sounds terrifying. Remember how a few days ago we were talking about how we get to stay up after sunset because we have electricity and can still read or do other things at home even when there is no natural light?

C: Yep, I do remember us talking about that.

Caramel is reading Spy School Blackout by Stuart Gibbs. — Caramel is reading *Spy School Blackout* by Stuart Gibbs.

S: I cannot imagine there not being any light at night. And the fridge would not work, either! Oh my goodness, that would be horrible too.

C: Yep, it would be almost world ending, or saving at the same time.

S: Wait, are you suggesting the person or group that does this has some environmental ideals and that is their reason?

C: No, not really, they are just evil. But I was thinking just that since humans rely on power so much, if it disappeared, the carbon emissions would decrease by a huge amount and then maybe forcing us to find a way around it, but would also cause all infrastructure to fail, and most likely make many people die from either hypothermia or too much heat. And all the machines in hospitals would stop working once the generators ran out and so on.

S: Yes, people could still probably use gas-based cars and generators, but so much of the world we know would collapse. That is a terrifying scenario, Caramel. Okay so that is the basic idea of the book, then. But I am guessing our hero Ben will figure things out?

C: I shouldn’t really give it away but I suppose it is no big secret. After twelve times when the world was about to end Ben saved it, you would expect he would do it again.

S: Phew! I wonder how he does it. But don’t tell me. We don’t want to spoil it for our readers.

C: Yeah, I guess we don’t. You and our readers, too, will just have to read the book!

S: Hmm, I also might ask you after we wrap this up?

C: Hmm, we will see how much I will tell.

S: Okay, we will see. But overall you really enjoyed reading this book, right? Compared to the other twelve, how do you think it would rank?

C: I think this might be my favorite so far!

S: Wow! That is impressive. Maybe I will read the book after all. Okay, I suppose it is time to wrap this up then. What would you like to tell our readers, Caramel?

C: Stay tuned for more book bunnies reviews!

Caramel was delighted to read Spy School Blackout by Stuart Gibbs, and is hopeful that there will soon be a fourteenth book, or at least maybe a graphic novelization of some of the earlier books. — Caramel was delighted to read *Spy School Blackout* by Stuart Gibbs, and is hopeful that there will soon be a fourteenth book, or at least maybe a graphic novelization of some of the earlier books.

Marshmallow reviews An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

The book bunnies household have learned a boatload of chemistry from Hank Green’s Crash Course Chemistry series on YouTube. So they all were excited to discover that Green had also published a couple of novels way back when. This summer, first Sprinkles, then Caramel, and finally Marshmallow got their paws on the first of these books, and once started, could not put it down until they were done. Today Marshmallow shares with our readers her thoughts on this book, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, first published in 2018.

[Starting this week, we are moving our weekend posts to Sundays. We hope you will continue to follow us with our new schedule.]

Marshmallow reviews An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green. — Marshmallow reviews *An Absolutely Remarkable Thing* by Hank Green.

Marshmallow’s Quick Take: If you like science fiction books that are fun, fascinating, and feel almost real, then this is the book for you!

Marshmallow’s Summary (with Spoilers): April May is an artist. Unfortunately, after going to a private art school, she is now in a lot of debt. Working at a start-up under a very bad contract, April is struggling to find time to make her own art. Her appreciation for true pieces of art is what draws her attention to Carl. While this may sound like the start of a romantic relationship, it is anything but. Carl is a giant, ten-foot-tall, metal sculpture that appears one day on a sidewalk in New York City. Late at night, April walks by it and—thinking that it must be the work of a fellow artist—coerces her friend Andy to record her in a video highlighting how wonderful the piece is, despite the lack of interest from the other passersby. They post this video on YouTube and go to sleep.

The next morning, April and Andy wake up amidst a maelstrom of news. It turns out that sculptures just like Carl (which is the name April used during the video to describe the sculpture in New York) suddenly showed up all over the world; there are sixty four of them in total, all standing perfectly still in plain view on sidewalks in major cities. The news and the Internet are reeling in confusion. Security checks and video surveillance cameras in each area where a Carl appeared went dark for five minutes before the sculptures showed up. The rather impossible, illogical arrival of the Carls leaves the world in need of an explanation.

Since April was the one who “discovered” New York Carl, she becomes somewhat of a celebrity. Soon, she and Andy start raking in thousands from their video and interviews. The attention, especially on social media, is overwhelming, but April’s sort-of girlfriend (Maya) helps her cope, advising her to slow down the speed at which April is exposing herself to the world. But the overwhelming attention is also addictive; to keep it coming, April and Andy hatch a scheme to keep themselves poised as the go-to experts on the Carls. April, Maya, and Andy all met at their art school and are all experts in designing brands. April decides that she will brand herself as the curious, yet calm human person in contrast to the other-worldliness of the Carls. And I mean that literally. Miranda, a material scientist at UC Berkeley, reaches out to April and they realize that the characteristics of the Carls cannot physically exist because there is no existent or create-able material that matches it. The Carls must have come from out of this world!

As April and Miranda work together, they start realizing that there are sequences, or puzzles, that seem to be left by the Carls for humanity to solve together. Many of them are in the Dream, a shared experience that almost every human on the planet starts to have during sleep. The Carls have yet to say a word, yet the world is holding its breath. Driven by ambition, curiosity, and a little bit of arrogance, April May plans to be the one who uncovers why the Carls are here and what they really are.

Marshmallow is reading An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green. — Marshmallow is reading *An Absolutely Remarkable Thing* by Hank Green.

Marshmallow’s Review: This was an absolutely remarkable book (see what I did there?) I would highly recommend An Absolutely Remarkable Thing to all readers to read at some point. However, it is not quite appropriate for young bunnies because it does use a lot of bad words and it does make a lot of references to sexual activity (though, luckily, none is shown!)

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is both intensely entertaining and fast paced, but it also is also very thought-provoking. At the beginning of the book, I did not enjoy Green’s style too much, but I became more accustomed to it later on. His writing is very smooth and the story never has a single lull. The plot is fascinating and literally keeps you hooked until the end. Green builds a world around you and it is very hard to disassociate from it while you are reading. Green makes the book feel so real that there were times I stopped reading and forgot that there are not, indeed, Carls in the real world.

I think Green exceeded all expectations for a first-time writer. He excels in all standard aspects of storytelling, but I think the thing that stood out to me the most was the philosophical part of this book. The main character is definitely not perfect. She is very dis-likable, which I think is a testament to Green’s prowess because one ends up on her side at the end anyways. Every person in this book is so real and flawed and truly human that this could actually take place right now. Part of what I think made this book so realistic was the consistent themes of social media, celebrity, and people’s need for attention. I kept thinking of how much of Green’s own personal experience in the virtual world was reflected in the book.

I was mildly annoyed that An Absolutely Remarkable Thing ends in a cliffhanger because I wanted to know how things really end. Though many of the mysteries were resolved in this volume, there are a lot more that were not. Green wrote this to be the first in a two-part series so I am probably going to have to read the next one too!

April May, the main narrator, is a very honest yet blunt person. But I really liked how, through April, Green managed to make a convincing argument for humanity. I loved how he showcased both the bad and the good of characters and of humanity as a whole. There are a lot of too-real moments that mimic what politics and some industries look like now. I think overall An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a work of art because it takes every broken, ugly part of humanity and glues it together with the beautiful parts to create something that is glaringly imperfect yet honest and meaningful.

Marshmallow’s Rating: 100%.