This book was pretty cute!! I was 100% drawn in by the tarot card theme and I stayed for the cozy mystery. I love a good underdog sleuth and really liked a lot of the mystery aspects of this story.

There was one thing that persistently bothered me and that was how the main character continued to have a dead phone or an unusable laptop and never a way to charge her phone or anything. I completely understand being too poor to get nice electronics but you can still get a cheaper simple tablet or a refurbished older model for like $100. Which of course is still not cheap but it just seemed ridiculous to me that the main character couldn't seem to just get SOMETHING in that realm. That's not even to mention that she didn't have a phone charger at work (which they explain away) but then she doesn't have one in her car either? And she can't even get a cheap $15 portable charger to charge her phone for work when she knows there's no where to plug it in? The craziest incident though was towards the end of the book she uses her phone and then a couple pages later she says she wished she could text someone but her phone was dead... I didn't notice any mentioning of it dying or having low battery that time but it also just became so annoying I kind of wish they just broke her phone at the beginning of the book and left her phoneless.

That being said, it was still a cute story and I'm definitely a sucker for cozy mysteries. I did also get invested in Katie's life - her family dynamics, love life, and professional aspects as well.

Overall it was a decent book!! I can understand and appreciate how hard it is to write a mystery in this day and age of cellphones etc, but I just feel the route that the author chose in regards to this wasn't the best.

3.5 but rounding up to 4 :)

Thank you to Lina Chern, NetGalley, and the publisher for the eARC.

Katie True is at another dead-end job when she meets Marley, a woman who also works in the mall and becomes Katie’s friend over lunches.

While Katie isn’t good at holding down jobs, she is good at reading tarot cards. When a man comes into the store she works at with a wound bleeding from his head, she tries to read his cards to give him guidance on what to do. When she takes a glimpse at his phone—because reading tarot is about reading people—she sees a picture of Marley dead. Now Katie is determined to figure out what happened.

NetGalley provided an advance reader copy of this cute mystery, which RELEASES MARCH 28, 2023.

This book was an absolute blast to read. The mystery and magical elements kept me glued to the pages. For fans of Stranger Things or Nothing to See Here.

Where was the "delicious blend of suspense and madcap humor" located? The "twisty and gripping investigation" throughout the book?

You got a main character that wasn't even fun, terrible at the niche job that gravitates you to the novel and frustratingly self-sabotages the whole time. A mix of cartoon side characters. Weird writing in some of the transitions between the past and present chapters that felt very jarring. No humor and what I guess is supposed to be a romance in the works but was grasping at invisible straws.

The plot had the potential to be really good but lacked in execution that left everything feeling flat.



Thanks to NetGalley and Bantam for providing a copy for an honest review.

The cover of this book is beautiful. But honestly it just didn’t do it for me and I did not finish it.

The cover is gorgeous, the plot is great, and the writing is good. Not much more to ask for in a book honestly. I truly loved the concept of the book, I’ve never read a book about a tarot card reader, but I’m glad I did. This book is great, I definitely recommend.

The cover drew me in and the description hooked me. I’ve been dabbling in tarot for a bit now, it intrigues me and helps me to see things from different perspectives. So I thought this would be a fun mystery. I liked it. I found Katie relatable, like the Fool, a free-spirit. Not exactly sure where she’s going, but she’s going to follow her heart and no matter how crazy the leap of faith may be. Sounds a lot like me. Take a chance and see what happens. Growth happens when you charge forward and learn lessons. It can be scary, but so rewarding.

Katie has dropped out of school and working in a store at the mall. There is not much foot traffic anymore so she mainly shuffles her tarot cards. Then one day a suspicious man comes in. He decides to have his cards read but has to go the bathroom. Hurrying off, he leaves his phone by accident. Katie wanting extra help when she reads his cards opens his phone and finds a picture of her friend Marley who appears to have just been murdered.
Cherm does a great job of keeping the story moving. There were a few places in the beginning that seem to drag but once most of the background was given it picked up. Katie’s relationship with her brother was meaningful and real. Great twist throughout the story.
Thank you Random House, Ballantine imprint, for the ARC of Play the Fool by Lina Chern.

I enjoyed this fun mystery. I guessed the outcome pretty early so I rated this as a three. I think this book would be perfect to read by the pool.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy of this book!

Play the Fool is a fun mystery full of twists that keep you guessing. Katie makes friends with fellow mall employee, Marley, who one day disappears. Marley's boyfriend the gets a text indicating Marley has been murdered and this sends Katie on a chase to find out what happened to her friend. Katie is good at reading tarot cards and people, which boosts her investigation skills. She ends up working Jamie, a (hot) cop, who has a mysterious past of his own.

This was a very entertaining mystery to try and solve along with Katie. Her dedication to finding her friend is admirable and heart warming. Unexpectedly, Katie's brother, Owen, became my favorite side character, even though the book is full of a unique cast of side characters. Katie may have been a little reckless, and I am honestly surprised nothing worse happened to her in the course of her search. I did guess the main plot twist quite early on, but it was still fun to read. I recommend this book for mystery lovers who are looking for an alternative to a cozy mystery.

3.5

This was a different kind of mystery/thriller book and I actually really enjoyed it. I actually really loved the physic/ tarot cards of this book. This book kept me hooked from the start. I was a little nervous to read this one because it sounded a little strange. But I would suggest this one.

I really enjoyed this cozy mystery. There were many twists and turns that I didn't see coming and the protagonist was easily likeable.

Katie is an early 20-something who is in a bit of a rut and the 1st person narration reflects that in the frequent use of self-deprecating humor. She finds herself in the unexpected role of detective when, after snooping into a customer's phone during a tarot card reading, she found a picture of her best (and arguably only) friend's body next to the dumpster outside the mall where they work.

Practitioners and fans of tarot will enjoy the frequent references in this book.

Katie's entire life is at a dead end. She's a tarot card reader in a run down mall, but instead of divining some stressed-out rando's future, she snoops through his phone and discovers a photo of her best (and only) friend dead behind a dumpster. But Katie soon discovers that almost nothing is what it seems. So begins her tangled quest to uncover exactly what happened, why, and what kind of dangerous characters she's dealing with.

This book takes place in a fictionalized rust belt city near my hometown in northern Chicagoland, and it was really cool to visit familiar landmarks. Our protagonist lives in the crappier part of town, where everything is rusty gray and weeds grow through cracks in the pavement. I appreciated that this grittier side of the midwest got some love.

And can we recognize how perfect Owen is? He's clearly neurodiverse, but it's not so much a "thing" as it is his character. He's loved. He's flawed. He's strong in his way. He's just... Owen. Pay attention other authors, because this is how you do it.

This book is extremely visual and fast paced. Strong characters in a unique -- if messy -- situation with lots of humor and heart along the way. If anything, I would've enjoyed even more tarot. This was a blast.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Katie True tried college and it didn't work out and is a working at a Russian tchotchke shop in a rundown mall, much to the dismay of her family. She carries a tarot deck she got from her Aunt Rosie in a velvet bag. Aunt Rosie taught her how to "read." the cards and people. She does readings from time to time for some extra cash. She has a new friend with the girl from the goth shop across from her, Marley. She feels Marley understands her.

One evening a man named Nico comes in looking like he has been in a fight and is agitated. She gets him to agree to pay her $20 to read the tarot cards. He excuses himself to the bathroom and while he is gone, she sneaks a peak at his phone and finds a picture of her friend Marley where it appears she has been murdered.

She can't let the sight of that picture of Marley go and feels she needs to find out what happened to her. Katie gets herself in the middle of a mystery with a lot of twists and turns. There are also some interesting characters she meets along the way. She gets some assistance from an interesting police detective, Jamie, recently relocated from LA and her brother Owen. Owen is my favorite!

Do yourself a favor and get this book! I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. I am hoping there is a follow-up book.

I would like to thank the publisher, Netgalley, and the author for the ARC of this book. I read an advanced copy of this book, so the final edition of the book might be slightly different. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going into this book, since I feel like mystery books are such a hit-or-miss for me. It almost feels like there has to be this perfect balance of elements for it to work for me, and so often either the mystery is too boring or the characters aren’t engaging enough, and I just end up not caring. Luckily, this one ended up working perfectly for me, even if I still have a hard time pinpointing exactly why! It was one of those books that seemed to do everything exactly right, and I honestly can’t think of a single reason to not just rate it 5 stars, even if it didn’t clearly feel like a 5-star book throughout. It was one of those books that you realize after finishing was actually really wonderful.

One of the best things about this book was how easy of a read it was. It was so easy to just keep flipping pages, and I found myself breezing through chapter after chapter. I think this was due to just a perfect blend of writing style and character personality, to where it almost felt as if I was just in the main character’s head, thinking her thoughts. It was a nice break in a way too, because it felt like I didn’t have to think too much if I didn’t want to, and I could just sink into the story.

I also really enjoyed how quietly diverse this was, with so many characters just being queer and neurodiverse without it feeling like a Thing or a point that was being made. It’s always comforting to read a book like this, where it feels like these things are just a fact of life and a way that people are. It just added to the comforting atmosphere of the book for me, especially since I could relate a lot with the main character.

In general, this book was a cozy, comfortable one, which is funny, considering the entire book is a murder mystery and there’s a decent level of danger and tension throughout. I think it’s just the way it was all balanced and written, and it never felt like this comfort hindered the actual tension of the story, either. It just happened to work hand in hand.

Lastly, I also just really liked the family dynamics and how it played out here. While the main character doesn’t have a great relationship with some of her family, they’re still a constant presence in the story, either physically or just in the main character’s thoughts. I just really liked how there didn’t have to be a villain or obvious horrible person in the family for there to be tension and conflict, and I really liked how this was explored throughout the story. There was never a point where you could truly pin all the blame on someone, and it added a lot of nuance to the story overall, beyond just the familial conflict.

Overall, I really enjoyed this, and I really hope more people give this one a shot when it releases in March!


Review will go up on my blog on February 6.

Katie True's life isn't too good to be true. The "mess up" from an otherwise perfect family, Katie's just trying to find her place in the world. For now, that includes working at an import shop in the mall, living on her own but still too close to her mom and dad. Katie ends up befriending fellow wanderer, Marley, and the two strike up a friendship. The girls get along well, and Katie loves the fact that Marley accepts her for who she is. Trying to figure out exactly what she wants to do with life, Marley encourages her to just be herself and to enjoy her gift; reading tarot cards. Running her tarot readings, Katie gets more than she bargains for when a bloody stranger comes into her shop. When he goes to clean up his cut, Katie goes onto his phone in search of more information for his reading. What she finds is a picture of Marley, dead, with a gunshot wound through the head. Terrified for her friend, Katie jumps into action, giving herself much more than she ever bargained for. A tale of following your own path, Katie learns to read the cards as she works to help solve the murder of her friend.

Well written, believable until the end, Lina Chern kept me interested and engaged throughout most of the book. I loved how Katie went on a journey to find Marley's killer; all while finding herself in the process. I also liked the True family. I would definitely enjoy a book written all about them. Overall, not bad read!

Love love and loved this book! Can't wait to read more from this author!
Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

2.5 out of 5 Stars.

The first 30-40% of this book was excellent. I enjoyed the introduction to Katie and Marley’s friendship, Katie’s mysterious past, and set up for the murder mystery. By the halfway point, everything was going downhill though. The plot just became too unrealistic and messy for my taste. So while I really did enjoy the beginning, it just didn’t stick the landing.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for a review.

From the publisher: A cynical tarot card reader seeks to uncover the truth about her friend’s mysterious death in this delightfully clever whodunit.

Play the Fool is a screwball comedy/mystery about a new adult trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life in the Chicago suburbs. Katie True has a mysterious and fascinating friend, a throwaway job at a Russian tchotchke shop at the mall, and a family with normal family issues. When she accidentally sees a photo of her friend, dead, and starts investigating, an attractive cop enters her life as well.

As a suburban Chicagoan myself, I enjoyed the setting. The main character even mentioned one of my favorite places, the Bristol Renaissance Faire on the Illinois/Wisconsin border! The library plays an important part in Katie's investigation, always happy to see props from authors. The narrator is most definitely too stupid to live at times, as she is careless with her safety as she tries to figure out who killed her friend. Her relationship with her autistic brother is sweet and her rocky relationship with her sister believable.

Katie reads tarot cards, taught by her Aunt Rosie as a child, and is constantly both dealing and consulting her tarot cards and comparing situations to them. I’m not familiar with a tarot deck, so this meant less to me than it might to some readers, but they are a winsome touch that help define Katie. The book cover is very eye-catching.

The mystery is not terribly mysterious, and there is never any real sense of danger, but the cast of characters is fun. I sense a sequel in the future. I read an advance reader copy of Play the Fool from Netgalley. It is scheduled to be released on March 28 and will be available at the Galesburg Public Library.

While the premise was very interesting, the execution just didn’t work for me. The mystery wasn’t really there, the characters didn’t interest me and the ending was a bit lackluster. Not a bad book, just not for me. I’m willing to give this author another try as I did enjoy the writing style.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bantam for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.