A mystery where a tarot card reader investigates the mysterious murder of her best friend. I was expecting for this to pull me in a lot earlier/more than it did. It’s a decent mystery but I think it didn’t live up to its potential.

Gave this novel a fair shot, but couldn't get past 35%

While I liked the premise of the plot, I just could not get past the under achiever status of the main protagonist, Katie. Failing at just about everything she does, she is resigned to working at a dead end job retailing knick knacks. But she's pretty good at tarot card reading and uses that talent to swindle unsuspecting and gullible people. A grifter in my book.

Katie's friend Marley isn't the best role model either. and neither are her employers and acquaintances. A truly depressing scenario.

There wasn't much suspense and the novel was pretty lackluster in my opinion. At 35% I expected more excitement or a crescendo toward an epic finale. But, there wasn't anything there.

I wanted to like the book but had some reservations about it because of the cover. Flashy, yes. But content-wise, it was another story. Sadly, Play the Fool wasn't a novel for me. One star -- a DNF as I didn't care for it.

I received a digital ARC from Penguin Random House through NetGalley. The review herein is completely my own and contains my honest thoughts and opinions.

This was one of my favorite books in a long time! The writing was beautiful, and the characters were wonderful. I couldn’t put this one down!

Who doesn’t love a fun murder mystery novel?
The thing that I enjoyed most about this story is the use of tarot cards. Tarot cards (and readers) have always been a huge fascination of mine. I think the author did a fabulous job with that aspect. This book started out promising, however, it wasn’t the right choice for me. I found Katie annoying and parts of the story felt unrealistic and rushed. I finished the book and liked how I couldn’t guess the ending.

Even though this book wasn’t right for me, this would be a perfect read for someone who likes cozy reads that are more on the darker side.

Thanks NetGalley for this advanced copy I’m exchange for an honest review!

Play the Fool is an entertaining mystery debut novel featuring a fun, witty female protagonist. Katie, the main character, is somewhat unlikeable, and if you are a lover of a true cozy mystery (although I didn’t find this book necessarily “cozy”), she might disappoint. But I loved her. I loved how quirky she was, and that she was fairly clumsy in conducting her own personal investigation into her friend’s murder. I also really appreciated Katie’s sense of humor, and I found myself laughing out loud quite a few times while reading.
The ending is predictable, and I didn’t find the story twisty, but I still enjoyed this read. I would love to see this evolve into a series with Katie utilizing her psychic abilities more! I look forward to checking out this author’s next book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bantam/Random House for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a good story. I think it will be a book club pick for many. Highly recommend this one!

Rating: 3.75 Stars Rounded Up to 4

This debut mystery release will be perfect for fans of Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. Play the Fool follows Katie True as she seeks to solve her friend’s mysterious murder. It is a fast paced muder-mystery that is an easy, light-hearted and comedic read.

Katie is in her twenties and is feeling a little lost in life as she struggles to figure out who she is and find the courage to go after what she really wants in life. She has a knack for reading people but no real desire to do anything else. I honestly found Katie annoying because she was so rash in her decisions and continued to make outrageously dumb decisions. This combined with how unrealistic the plot made this book feel more young adult to me.

I enjoyed the references to tarot cards throughout the book and how the book delves into the art of reading tarot cards - I just wish they would include images of the tarot cards for those of us less familiar. I thought the theme of finding yourself and finding the courage to pick yourself out of the low points in life was inspiring and well done. However, I felt that the ending didn’t wow me. There were good plot twists, but I didn’t feel like the clues to the ending were spread out enough throughout the story.

I would recommend this to fans of YA mysteries or looking for a lighter thriller read. I would not recommend this to more seasoned thriller or mystery readers. I would also recommend this to fans of tarot cards as the book is filled with fun references.

I’d like to thank Netgalley and Penguin Random House’s Ballantine publishers for providing me with a digital ARC of this book for my honest review.

Katie is a tarot card reader who turns amateur detective after she sees a photo of her best friend Marley with a gunshot wound to the head. This one isn’t quite thrilling enough to be a thriller, but it’s a little darker than a cozy mystery. This book wasn’t quite sure what it wanted to be (Murder mystery? Romance?) and the plot gets kind of chaotic and unrealistic. The author deserves props for her well-done and sensitive representation of queer and neurodiverse characters, especially Owen.

This book would be great for someone who loves the tarot, but as a person who isn’t knowledgeable about tarot cards, this aspect didn’t do much for me. Readers who like a little edge to their cozy mysteries will likely enjoy this book too.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Ballantine Books for providing me an advance copy of this book.

Snarky and snappily-paced, this tarot-themed murder mystery will have you wondering what's a clue and what's magic. The cards look good for this debut author!

Play the Fool is a great character-driven mystery. Katie, Marley, Jamie, and Owen are so real, and even the secondary characters, like Larissa and Jessie, are three-dimensional. The device of having Katie see people in terms of tarot cards is effective and never over-the-top, and the way that both Katie and Owen navigate their lives as non-neurotypicals shows their struggles and triumphs in a believable and relatable way. Katie's friend and shopping mall co-worker Marley's disappearance and possible murder and Katie's determination to discover the truth about what happened to her friend drive the action along with a fair amount of suspense and some twists and turns that keep the reader guessing. The author deftly evokes the contrast between Chicago's wealthier enclaves and the dingier and more dangerous environments where Katie finds herself as she investigates those involved with Marley during the last days before she vanished. Readers who enjoy great characters and a mystery with a touch of the mystical will enjoy this unique novel.

This one really fell flat for me. It had all the elements of a great story but it just lacked the magic I was hoping for.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for the copy of Play The Fool by Lina Chern. This was a promising debut! It started out great, slowed down in the middle, and picked up again at the end. It wasn’t realistic how involved Katie got in working with Jamie to solve the murder and it would have been a better story if she had done it without him. I liked how Katie used Tarot cards throughout the story and how clever she was. I could see this being the first in a series because she was such a strong main character. If you love cozy mysteries you should check this one out.

Katie True is a somewhat aimless woman, working a dead end job at a Russian tchotchke shop in a failing mall. Her real passion is reading tarot cards. When a friend who also also works at the mall gets murdered, Katie gets tangled up in the investigation.
This is a fun whodunit, that is not altogether realistic, but I enjoyed it.
I really liked Katie's relationship with her brother, Owen- who is a great character in his own right. Jamie's background could have used a little more fleshing out, but he was a favorite of mine too.
This was a fun mystery and a fairly quick read.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for an early copy for review.

I thought this book was fun. Katie is a tarot card reader/down on her luck woman who suddenly is thrust into a murder mystery of her friend. I found the snarky humor and different dopey characters added a lot to the story and made it unique. I don’t think I expected hyper realism here so my expectations were set there. Definitely go in with a sense that this is a fun and unique mystery/.thriller with some quirky characters and I think you’ll have a good time.

The storyline for Play the Fool was ok, just not very realistic. The book is more of a cozy mystery than a thriller. It started out good but went downhill midway through. Cozy mystery fans would most likely enjoy this novel. Thanks to author Lina Chern, Random House Publishing Group, and NetGalley. I received a complimentary copy of this ebook. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

As a longtime fan of the show Psych, there is plenty about this book that I enjoyed: a lighter tone, a snarky but aimless protagonist, using tarot to find her way through an investigation, a classic dynamic with a straight man detective, a cast of quirky characters in an everyday setting. I found Katie True to be a fun, interesting amateur sleuth for a mystery novel, who also reminded me a bit of the new show Poker Face. However, though I think some of the clues were well-places and the twists there to keep you reading, I was never fully gripped by the mystery. I think this was due to the shifting tone and content of the book: going between serious crime and worry to a romantic interest and the journey of someone figuring out their life in a small town, only leaning into thrills briefly a couple of times. I would still read another book by Lina Chern as I still found this engaging and pretty entertaining.

Play The Fool by Lina Chern is a mystery novel that follows Katie True, a somewhat talented tarot card reader who finds out one of her friends has been murdered while snooping through the phone of a man she is doing a reading for. All this happens within the first few pages of the book so it instantly grips you.

Unfortunately I don’t think it maintained its momentum for me personally. The whole middle of the book was slow for me despite it being a murder mystery and I felt like the ending didn’t give me the payoff I wanted. I think this book wasn’t really sure what it wanted to be. It was a little gruesome for me to classify it as a cozy mystery but not high stakes enough to be a thriller. There are some parts that felt like it wanted to be romantic and also parts that felt like it wanted to be a journey of self discovery. I think if it would have just honed in on one or two things, the pace would have been much faster and an overall more enjoyable read.

I did like things about this book. I loved how much tarot was mentioned. I love tarot and always find it fascinating when it is in books but most books just focus on the big cards. How many books with a tarot reader have you read about the mention the fool and death and that’s about it? Probably all of them. I also really liked Katie’s brother. He was neurodivergent in a way that read very naturally. I liked how Katie never really called him out on any of his idiosyncrasies and just let him be himself. I also think the writing overall was really good but got bogged down with too many story elements.

I would definitely pick up another book by this author in the future even though this wasn’t my perfect mystery.

“The card was the Fool. ‘Great,’ I said. ‘This guy again.’”


I love a good mystery and Play the Fool delivered. I was initially drawn to this book because of the cover. I know, don’t judge a book by its cover, but this time it worked.

We meet our protagonist not at all living up to her potential and working a seemingly dead end job at the mall. Katie is a tarot card reader semi-professionally but also for comfort. When a man stumbles into her work with an injury and looking shaken up, she offers to read for him. What she discovers during this reading will completely change her life in many ways and propels her towards accidental self discovery as she works to uncover the mystery of who killed her best friend and why. Katie realizes she has more to offer than what she’s been made to believe and sometimes risks are necessary in life.

I have to be honest, this truly did throw me for a loop and I found myself racing to the end for the conclusion. I did not see the end coming and that is exactly how I want a book to be, especially a mystery. There was fun humor in this, particularly if you like snarky humor like I do. I felt like Katie was relatable and I found myself rooting for her as well as shaking my head at her.

Play the Fool is a great, fresh take on the classic mystery story. I would recommend this to anyone who likes mysteries with a big dash of humor.

Check out Play the Fool on March 28, 2023! Thanks to Netgalley, Lina Chern, and Random House Publishing for this wonderful arc.

#mystery #playthefool #linachern #randomhousepublishing

I really wanted to like this one but it just didn't catch my attention. I couldn't quite connect with the characters and struggled to finish.

Play the Fool by Lina Chem is a fast paced Mystery with a whimsical combination of mystery and magic.
What I Liked
1. As a tarot reader it was incredibly fun to read a story that had tarot and references to tarot reading in the plot.
2. The story was written in a way to allow for good hints as to its ending without giving everything away during the build up.
What didn't work as well for me
1. Dialogue felt stilted in several places.
2. The book felt like it could have been expanded into a longer narrative to give more space for character development.
Who I would recommend this book for
Lovers of urban fantasy or magical realism looking to dip their toes in the mystery genre will find themselves a comforting welcome in the pages of Play the Fool.