I love the idea of puzzles to promote mental fitness and daily brain training. As a concept, I'm into it - I love any book that promises a quick and enjoyable path to gain. Though the introduction tees up the idea of working a puzzle a day over 30 days, graduating to more advanced puzzles over time, I would have liked to see this more strongly in the title. Maybe it's just me, but I'm a sucker to a '30 days to better ( )' books or programs.. This is - or could be positioned to puzzle fans as puzzling with a purpose., or puzzles with brain benefit as it were.

I'd like to see inclusion of a simple way to self-assess ingoing brain fitness and post-puzzle solving improvements.

Perhaps there's a website that accompanies the book. If so, I missed that.

I also missed having a visual representation of a crossword - this was a list of across / down clues, but without a visual...I'm not sure it's a crossword puzzle. The ebook - or at least the Kindle version on my screen - had some spacing issues which made sorting the clues an unintentional puzzle unto itself.

May be a better experience in print, but was not a great one as an ebook at least in this advance preview.

I enjoy crossword puzzles, and this looks like a great, accessible book designed to keep one’s brain actively challenged. I like how it mentions that using a dictionary isn’t cheating, it’s learning. A very good point. I also appreciate how it’s set up as a 90-day challenge - a great way to fold it into your daily routine.


Thank you Aimee Lucido, Matthew Stock, Zeitgeist, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

I absolutely loved these crosswords, I do one a day and have a great time. They really get my mind going and I’m excited continue on.

Pros: I love puzzles, especially crosswords. I've purchased crossword puzzle books in the past, so I was interested to see how this one compares. I liked that this book features puzzles of different difficultly levels and that it's set out so that a person can do one puzzle a day for 90 days. I loved the focus on why puzzles are good for our brains and health! I also appreciated that this book gives puzzle solvers permission to use a dictionary because I always thought that was cheating!

Cons: The only con I can think of is that I don't think an ebook format works for this, but I understand that I reviewed an arc and not the actual book. I think this will be great in a printed form.

Thank you to NetGalley and Zeitgeist for the opportunity to read this book.