Rachel's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 14 Mar 2025 17:25:17 -0700 60 Rachel's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1)]]> 256683
This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know...]]> 485 Cassandra Clare 1416914285 Rachel 0 to-read 4.08 2007 City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1)
author: Cassandra Clare
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> Salvage the Bones 10846336 Winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction

A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt, while brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting. As the twelve days that comprise the novel's framework yield to the final day and Hurricane Katrina, the unforgettable family at the novel's heart—motherless children sacrificing for each other as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce—pulls itself up to struggle for another day. A wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty, "Salvage the Bones" is muscled with poetry, revelatory, and real.]]> 261 Jesmyn Ward 1608195228 Rachel 4 3.95 2011 Salvage the Bones
author: Jesmyn Ward
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
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]]> Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Rachel 0 to-read 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)]]> 58957615
Then a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit. Her mission? Kill or be killed. Suddenly the cold case has become red hot.

While Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim chase down the clues with help from old friends and new. But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?

From an upmarket spa to a prison cell complete with espresso machine to a luxury penthouse high in the sky, this third adventure of the Thursday Murder Club is full of the cleverness, intrigue, and irresistible charm that readers have come to expect from Richard Osman's bestselling series.]]> 413 Richard Osman 0241512425 Rachel 5 4.32 2022 The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)
author: Richard Osman
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/01
date added: 2024/07/15
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club, #2)]]> 55457493
Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life.

As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus?

But this time they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can The Thursday Murder Club find the killer (and the diamonds) before the killer finds them?]]> 422 Richard Osman Rachel 5 4.36 2021 The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club, #2)
author: Richard Osman
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/15
date added: 2024/07/15
shelves:
review:

]]> The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1) 55196813
Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

But Molly's orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it's too late?

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.]]> 304 Nita Prose 0593356152 Rachel 4 3.71 2022 The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1)
author: Nita Prose
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/15
date added: 2024/07/15
shelves:
review:
Very fun book. I appreciate a book with a lot of character growth. I liked the formality of the main character's speech and cadence. I listened to the audio book and thought it was well done. Even riveting.
]]> <![CDATA[The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration]]> 8171378
Wilkerson tells this interwoven story through the lives of three unforgettable protagonists: Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper’s wife, who in 1937 fled Mississippi for Chicago; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, and Robert Foster, a surgeon who left Louisiana in 1953 in hopes of making it in California.

Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous cross-country journeys by car and train and their new lives in colonies in the New World. The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration� within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is a modern classic.]]> 622 Isabel Wilkerson 0679444327 Rachel 0 to-read 4.45 2010 The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> Normal People 41057294
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.]]> 273 Sally Rooney 1984822179 Rachel 5 3.81 2018 Normal People
author: Sally Rooney
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/01
date added: 2024/07/13
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]]> <![CDATA[The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)]]> 46000520
But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?

Alternate cover edition can be found here .]]> 382 Richard Osman Rachel 5 3.87 2020 The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)
author: Richard Osman
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/10
date added: 2024/06/10
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Last Devil to Die (Thursday Murder Club, #4)]]> 62226126
An old friend in the antiques business has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing.

As the gang springs into action they encounter art forgers, online fraudsters and drug dealers, as well as heartache close to home.

With the body count rising, the package still missing and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out? And who will be the last devil to die?]]> 421 Richard Osman 0241512441 Rachel 0 to-read 4.44 2023 The Last Devil to Die (Thursday Murder Club, #4)
author: Richard Osman
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[10 Things That Never Happened (Material World, #1)]]> 83137176 Fake amnesia. Real feelings? Real problems.

Sam Becker loves―or, okay, likes―his job. Sure, managing a bed and bath retailer isn't exactly glamorous, but it's good work and he gets on well with the band of misfits who keep the store running. He could see himself being content here for the long haul. Too bad, then, that the owner is an infuriating git.

Jonathan Forest should never have hired Sam. It was a sentimental decision, and Jonathan didn't get where he is by following his heart. Determined to set things right, Jonathan orders Sam down to London for a difficult talk…only for a panicking Sam to trip, bump his head, and maybe accidentally imply he doesn't remember anything?

Faking amnesia seemed like a good idea when Sam was afraid he was getting sacked, but now he has to deal with the reality of Jonathan's guilt―as well as the unsettling fact that his surly boss might have a softer side to him. There's an unexpected freedom in getting a second shot at a first impression…but as Sam and Jonathan grow closer, can Sam really bring himself to tell the truth, or will their future be built entirely on one impulsive lie?]]> 432 Alexis Hall 1728245109 Rachel 0 to-read 3.87 2023 10 Things That Never Happened (Material World, #1)
author: Alexis Hall
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Starless Sea 43575115 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Night Circus, a timeless love story set in a secret underground world—a place of pirates, painters, lovers, liars, and ships that sail upon a starless sea.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues—a bee, a key, and a sword—that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library hidden far below the surface of the earth. What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians—it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also of those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose—in both the mysterious book and in his own life.]]> 498 Erin Morgenstern 038554121X Rachel 5 3.82 2019 The Starless Sea
author: Erin Morgenstern
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/10
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves:
review:
As great as ever! Such a fun imaginative story.
]]> <![CDATA[The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT]]> 3250347
ĚýĚýĚý The techniques presented in The Happiness Trap will help readers to:

ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýReduce stress and worry
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýHandle painful feelings and thoughts more effectively
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýBreak self-defeating habits
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýOvercome insecurity and self-doubt
ĚýĚýĚý•ĚýCreate a rich, full, and meaningful life]]> 240 Russ Harris 1590305841 Rachel 0 to-read 4.09 2007 The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT
author: Russ Harris
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo]]> 32620332
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the �80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501139231 Rachel 3 4.39 2017 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/02
date added: 2024/02/02
shelves:
review:
I'd give it 3.5 stars if I could. I really liked it, enough to cry when it ended which is always an indication of my affection for the characters. However, there were parts that really drrrraaaaggeeeeddddd.
]]> The Love Hypothesis 56732449
That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor--and well-known ass. Which is why Olive is positively floored when Stanford's reigning lab tyrant agrees to keep her charade a secret and be her fake boyfriend. But when a big science conference goes haywire, putting Olive's career on the Bunsen burner, Adam surprises her again with his unyielding support and even more unyielding... six-pack abs.

Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion. And Olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis on love is putting her own heart under the microscope.]]> 356 Ali Hazelwood 0593336828 Rachel 4 4.11 2021 The Love Hypothesis
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/30
date added: 2023/11/30
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]]> Remarkably Bright Creatures 58733693 Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.]]> 368 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204150 Rachel 5 4.35 2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/28
date added: 2023/11/28
shelves:
review:
A lot of heart in this book. I couldn't put this book down. The characters were lovable and flawed. The author uses octupuses.. I prefer octupi.
]]> Piranesi 50202953
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.]]> 272 Susanna Clarke 163557563X Rachel 5 4.22 2020 Piranesi
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/24
date added: 2023/11/24
shelves:
review:
A fun, quick read. The story progressed as if following breadcrumbs; just enough hints that something was going to happen or be made clear to keep you moving down the path, regardless if it was 2am... oof. Very thought-provoking and entertaining.
]]> <![CDATA[The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches]]> 60018635 A warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family--and a new love--changes the course of her life.

As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don't mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she's used to being alone and she follows the rules...with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos pretending to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously.

But someone does. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic. It breaks all of the rules, but Mika goes anyway, and is immediately tangled up in the lives and secrets of not only her three charges, but also an absent archaeologist, a retired actor, two long-suffering caretakers, and...Jamie. The handsome and prickly librarian of Nowhere House would do anything to protect the children, and as far as he's concerned, a stranger like Mika is a threat. An irritatingly appealing threat.

As Mika begins to find her place at Nowhere House, the thought of belonging somewhere begins to feel like a real possibility. But magic isn't the only danger in the world, and when a threat comes knocking at their door, Mika will need to decide whether to risk everything to protect a found family she didn't know she was looking for....
]]> 318 Sangu Mandanna 059343935X Rachel 0 to-read 4.05 2022 The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches
author: Sangu Mandanna
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Dead Romantics 58885776 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593336489.

Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead.

When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.

For ten years, she’s run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it.

Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.

Romance is most certainly dead... but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.

A disillusioned millennial ghostwriter who, quite literally, has some ghosts of her own, has to find her way back home in this sparkling adult debut from national bestselling author Ashley Poston.]]> 368 Ashley Poston Rachel 0 to-read 3.90 2022 The Dead Romantics
author: Ashley Poston
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/22
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]]> The Impossible Us 58575269
***

Nick: Failed writer. Failed husband. Dog owner.

Bee: Serial dater. Dress maker. Pringles enthusiast.

One day, their paths cross over a misdirected email. The connection is instant, electric. They feel like they've known each other all their lives.

Nick buys a new suit, gets on a train. Bee steps away from her desk, sets off to meet him under the clock at Euston station.

Think you know how the rest of the story goes? They did too . . .

But this is a story with more twists than most. This is Impossible.]]> 483 Sarah Lotz 0593436776 Rachel 0 to-read 3.86 2022 The Impossible Us
author: Sarah Lotz
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2)]]> 50659468
Feyre has undergone more trials than one human woman can carry in her heart. Though she's now been granted the powers and lifespan of the High Fae, she is haunted by her time Under the Mountain and the terrible deeds she performed to save the lives of Tamlin and his people.

As her marriage to Tamlin approaches, Feyre's hollowness and nightmares consume her. She finds herself split into two different one who upholds her bargain with Rhysand, High Lord of the feared Night Court, and one who lives out her life in the Spring Court with Tamlin. While Feyre navigates a dark web of politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms. She might just be the key to stopping it, but only if she can harness her harrowing gifts, heal her fractured soul, and decide how she wishes to shape her future-and the future of a world in turmoil.

Bestselling author Sarah J. Maas's masterful storytelling brings this second book in her dazzling, sexy, action-packed series to new heights.]]> 626 Sarah J. Maas 1635575583 Rachel 0 4.65 2016 A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.65
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/22
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review:

]]> Check & Mate 60683957 done with chess. Every move counts nowadays. After the sport led to the destruction of her family four years earlier, Mallory's focus is on her mom, her sisters, and the dead-end job that keeps the lights on. That is, until she begrudgingly agrees to play in one last charity tournament and inadvertently wipes the board with notorious "Kingkiller" Nolan Sawyer: current world champion and reigning bad boy of chess.

Nolan's loss to an unknown rook-ie shocks everyone—especially Mallory. What's even more confusing? His desire to cross pawns again. What kind of gambit is Nolan playing? The smart move would be to walk away. Resign. Game over. But Mallory's victory opens the door to sorely needed cash prizes and, despite everything, she can't help feeling drawn to the enigmatic strategist....

As she rockets up the ranks, Mallory struggles to keep her family safely separated from the game that wrecked it in the first place. And as her love for the sport she so desperately wanted to hate begins to rekindle, Mallory quickly realizes that the games aren't only on the board, the spotlight is hotter than she imagined, and the competition can be fierce(-ly attractive. And intelligent...and infuriating...)]]> 347 Ali Hazelwood 0593619919 Rachel 0 to-read 3.93 2023 Check & Mate
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Portrait of a Lady 264
]]> 797 Henry James 0141439637 Rachel 0 to-read 3.79 1881 The Portrait of a Lady
author: Henry James
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1881
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver 0063251922 Rachel 0 currently-reading 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/21
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wyrd Sisters (Discworld, #6; Witches, #2)]]> 34504
Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders they didn't have.

But even she found that meddling in royal politics was a lot more difficult than certain playwrights would have you believe...]]> 265 Terry Pratchett 0061020664 Rachel 5 4.15 1988 Wyrd Sisters (Discworld, #6; Witches, #2)
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/18
date added: 2023/11/18
shelves:
review:
Love this book so much! Pratchett is so unbelievably witty.
]]> <![CDATA[When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress]]> 450534
When the Body Says No is an impressive contribution to research on the physiological connection between life's stresses and emotions and the body systems governing nerves, immune apparatus and hormones. With great compassion and erudition, Gabor Maté demystifies medical science and, as he did in Scattered Minds , invites us all to be our own health advocates.]]> 320 Gabor Maté 0676973124 Rachel 0 to-read 4.21 2003 When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress
author: Gabor Maté
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma]]> 18693771 A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing.

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world's foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers' capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain's natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk's own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.]]> 464 Bessel van der Kolk 0670785938 Rachel 0 to-read 4.36 2014 The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
author: Bessel van der Kolk
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Quietly Hostile: Essays 62052300
The success of Irby's career has taken her to new heights. She fields calls with job offers from Hollywood and walks the red carpet with the iconic ladies of Sex and the City. Finally, she has made it. But, behind all that new-found glam, Irby is just trying to keep her life together as she always had.

Her teeth are poisoning her from inside her mouth, and her diarrhea is back. She gets turned away from a restaurant for wearing ugly clothes, she goes to therapy and tries out Lexapro, gets healed with Reiki, explores the power of crystals, and becomes addicted to QVC. Making light of herself as she takes us on an outrageously funny tour of all the details that make up a true portrait of her life, Irby is once again the relatable, uproarious tonic we all need.]]> 290 Samantha Irby 0593315693 Rachel 0 currently-reading 3.67 2023 Quietly Hostile: Essays
author: Samantha Irby
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Part of Your World (Part of Your World, #1)]]> 58684524
While her ultra-wealthy parents want her to carry on the family legacy of world-renowned surgeons, Alexis doesn’t need glory or fame. She’s fine with being a “mere� ER doctor. And every minute she spends with Daniel and the tight-knit town where he lives, she’s discovering just what’s really important. Yet letting their relationship become anything more than a short-term fling would mean turning her back on her family and giving up the opportunity to help thousands of people.

Bringing Daniel into her world is impossible, and yet she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t just give up the joy she’s found with him either. With so many differences between them, how can Alexis possibly choose between her world and his?

The New York Times bestselling author of Life's Too Short delivers a refreshingly modern fairy tale perfect for fans of Casey McQuiston and Emily Henry.]]> 389 Abby Jimenez 1538704374 Rachel 5 4.26 2022 Part of Your World (Part of Your World, #1)
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/08
date added: 2023/11/08
shelves:
review:
So good. Very funny. Has some depth which is nice.
]]> <![CDATA[Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2)]]> 61918816 A novel of terrible first impressions, hilarious second chances, and the joy in finding your perfect match.

Dr. Briana Ortiz’s life is seriously flatlining. Her divorce is just about finalized, her brother’s running out of time to find a kidney donor, and that promotion she wants? Oh, that’s probably going to the new man-doctor who’s already registering eighty-friggin�-seven on Briana’s “pain in my ass� scale. But just when all systems are set to hate, Dr. Jacob Maddox completely flips the game . . . by sending Briana a letter.

And it’s a really good letter. Like the kind that proves that Jacob isn’t actually Satan. Worse, he might be this fantastically funny and subversively likeable guy who’s terrible at first impressions. Because suddenly he and Bri are exchanging letters, sharing lunch dates in her “sob closet,â€� and discussing the merits of freakishly tiny horses. But when Jacob decides to give Briana the best gift imaginable—a kidney for her brother—she wonders just how she can resist this quietly sexy new doctor . . . especially when he calls in a favor she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t refuse.]]> 416 Abby Jimenez 1538704390 Rachel 5 4.29 2023 Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2)
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/25
date added: 2023/10/25
shelves:
review:
Best of this genre I've ever read. The characters are flawed and watching them go through the journey and come out the other side was beautiful. "Colorful, dark, jagged, and beautiful" to quote the author. And, excellently narrated.
]]> Love on the Brain 59571699 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis comes a new STEMinist rom-com in which a scientist is forced to work on a project with her nemesis—with explosive results.

Bee Königswasser lives by a simple code: What would Marie Curie do? If NASA offered her the lead on a neuroengineering project - a literal dream come true - Marie would accept without hesitation. Duh. But the mother of modern physics never had to co-lead with Levi Ward.

Sure, Levi is attractive in a tall, dark, and piercing-eyes kind of way. But Levi made his feelings toward Bee very clear in grad school - archenemies work best employed in their own galaxies far, far away.

But when her equipment starts to go missing and the staff ignore her, Bee could swear she sees Levi softening into an ally, backing her plays, seconding her ideas... devouring her with those eyes. The possibilities have all her neurons firing.

But when it comes time to actually make a move and put her heart on the line, there's only one question that matters: What will Bee Königswasser do?]]> 368 Ali Hazelwood 1408725789 Rachel 3 3.88 2022 Love on the Brain
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/23
date added: 2023/10/23
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue]]> 50623864
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.]]> 448 Victoria E. Schwab 0765387565 Rachel 3 4.16 2020 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/10
date added: 2023/10/10
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1)]]> 2459785
Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a 12-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox (his partner and closest friend) find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.

A gorgeously written novel that marks the debut of an astonishing new voice in psychological suspense.]]> 448 Tana French Rachel 4 3.83 2007 In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1)
author: Tana French
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/05
date added: 2023/10/05
shelves:
review:
This book wasn't what I thought it would be. I love a good police procedural, a la Donna Leon or Tony Hillerman, but this book was a little darker and the protagonist was not the hero. I love Tana French's writing. It is funny and she creates beautiful, complicated, full characters. So, despite this not being what I thought it would be or maybe was looking for in this read, it was good.
]]> Honor 56271394 Ěý
IndianĚýAmerican journalistĚýSmita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena—a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man—Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past. While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita tries in every way she can to right the scales. She also finds herself increasingly drawn to Mohan, an Indian man she meets while on assignment. But the dual love stories of Honor are as different as the cultures of Meena and Smita themselves: Smita realizes she has the freedom to enter into a casual affair, knowing she can decide later how much it means to her.

In this tender and evocative novel about love, hope, familial devotion, betrayal, and sacrifice, Thrity Umrigar shows us two courageous women trying to navigate how to be true to their homelands and themselves at the same time.]]> 326 Thrity Umrigar 161620995X Rachel 5 4.32 2022 Honor
author: Thrity Umrigar
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/19
date added: 2023/09/20
shelves:
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]]> Love, Theoretically 61326735
Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, right between Elsie and her dream job.

Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?]]> 389 Ali Hazelwood 1408725797 Rachel 0 to-read 4.07 2023 Love, Theoretically
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Happy Place 61718053
They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.

Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t stand to break their friendsâ€� hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one weekâ€� in front of those who know you best?

A couple who broke up months ago make a pact to pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.]]> 400 Emily Henry 0593441273 Rachel 3 3.95 2023 Happy Place
author: Emily Henry
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/14
date added: 2023/09/18
shelves:
review:

]]> Layover 60904334 9 Emily Henry Rachel 0 to-read 4.51 2020 Layover
author: Emily Henry
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Funny Story 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé, Peter, told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it... right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned-up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Rachel 0 to-read 4.21 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Thorn Birds 3412
The central figures in this enthralling story are the indomitable Meggie, the only Cleary daughter, and the one man she truly loves, the stunningly handsome and ambitious priest Ralph de Bricassart. Ralph's course moves him a long way indeed, from a remote Outback parish to the halls of the Vatican; and Meggie's except for a brief and miserable marriage elsewhere, is fixed to the Drogheda that is part of her bones - but distance does not dim their feelings though it shapes their lives.

Wonderful characters people this book; strong and gentle, Paddy, hiding a private memory; dutiful Fiona, holding back love because it once betrayed her, violent, tormented Frank, and the other hardworking Cleary sons who give the boundless lands of Drogheda the energy and devotion most men save for women; Meggie; Ralph; and Meggie's children, Justine and Dane. And the land itself; stark, relentless in its demands, brilliant in its flowering, prey to gigantic cycles of drought and flood, rich when nature is bountiful, surreal like no other place on earth.

Alternate Cover Edition ISBN 0380018179 (ISBN13: 9780380018178)]]> 692 Colleen McCullough Rachel 0 to-read 4.24 1977 The Thorn Birds
author: Colleen McCullough
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Practice Makes Perfect (When in Rome, #2)]]> 61897968 A small-town sweetheart and an emotionally unavailable bad boy try to find some common ground in this chemistry-filled romance from the author of The Cheat Sheet and When in Rome.

Annie Walker is on a quest to find her perfect match—someone who complements her happy, quiet life running the local flower shop in Rome, Kentucky. But finding her dream man may be harder than Annie imagined. Everyone knows everyone in her hometown, and the dating prospects are getting fewer by the day. After she overhears her latest date say she is “so unbelievably boring,� Annie starts to think the problem might be her. Is it too late to become flirtatious and fun like the leading ladies in her favorite romance movies? Maybe she only needs a little practice . . . and Annie has the perfect person in mind to be her tutor: Will Griffin.

Will—the sexy, tattooed, and absolutely gorgeous bodyguard—is temporarily back in Rome, providing security for Amelia Rose as excitement builds for her upcoming marriage to Noah Walker, Annie’s brother. He has one personal objective while on the job: stay away from Annie Walker and any other possible attachments to this sleepy town. But no sooner than he gets settled, Will finds himself tasked with helping Annie find the love of her life by becoming the next leading lady of Rome, Kentucky. Will wants no part in changing the sweet and lovely Annie. He knows for a fact that some stuffy, straitlaced guy won’t make her happy, but he doesn’t have the heart to say no.

Amid steamy practice dates and strictly “educational� tutoring lessons, Annie discovers there are more layers to Will’s usual stoic attitude. As the lines of their friendship become dangerously blurred, Annie reconsiders her dream guy. Maybe her love life doesn’t need to be perfect—it just needs to be real.]]> 335 Sarah Adams 0593500806 Rachel 0 to-read 4.00 2023 Practice Makes Perfect (When in Rome, #2)
author: Sarah Adams
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Same Time Next Summer 62562931 Do take long walks on the sand.
Do put an umbrella in every cocktail.
Do NOT run into your first love.

Sam’s life is on track. She has the perfect doctor fiancé, Jack (his strict routines are a good thing, really), a great job in Manhattan (unless they fire her), and is about to tour a wedding venue near her family’s Long Island beach house. Everything should go to plan, yet the minute she arrives, Sam senses something is off. Wyatt is here. Her Wyatt. But there’s no reason for a thirty-year-old engaged woman to feel panicked around the guy who broke her heart when she was seventeen. Right?

Yet being back at this beach, hearing notes from Wyatt’s guitar float across the night air from next door as if no time has passed—Sam’s memories come flooding back: the feel of Wyatt’s skin on hers, their nights in the treehouse, and the truth behind their split. Sam remembers who she used to be, and as Wyatt reenters her life their connection is as undeniable as it always was. She will have to make a choice.]]> 320 Annabel Monaghan 059354496X Rachel 0 to-read 3.71 2023 Same Time Next Summer
author: Annabel Monaghan
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> Beach Read 52867387 A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no-one will fall in love. Really.]]> 400 Emily Henry 1984806734 Rachel 4 3.99 2020 Beach Read
author: Emily Henry
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/02
date added: 2023/09/02
shelves:
review:
Fun, quick audiobook read while I walk. Predictable but charming characters and setting.
]]> Untamed 52129515 Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability to bring her full self to the table. And it is the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become women who can finally look at ourselves and say: There She Is.]]> 333 Glennon Doyle 1984801252 Rachel 3 3.98 2020 Untamed
author: Glennon Doyle
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2021/09/29
date added: 2023/08/24
shelves:
review:
I really liked it at first and I appreciate her overall message and enjoy her Instagram. I just think I didn't need an entire book of it. After about getting halfway through, I felt it was enough and didn't finish.
]]> <![CDATA[Blood from a Stone (Commissario Brunetti, #14)]]> 71677
Donna Leon's international best-selling and award-winning Commissario Guido Brunetti novels have been praised for their ability to place their readers into the thick of contemporary Venetian life. Now Blood from a Stone brings Commissario Brunetti back on the scene: On a cold Venetian night shortly before Christmas, a street vendor is killed in a scuffle in Campo Santo Stefano. The closest witnesses to the event are the American tourists who had been browsing the man's wares—fake designer handbags—before his death. The dead man had been working as a vu cumpra, one of the many African immigrants peddling goods outside normal shop hours and trading without work permits.

Commissario Brunetti's response is that of everybody involved: Why would anyone kill an illegal immigrant? Because these workers have few social connections and little money, infighting seems to be the answer. And yet the killings have all the markings of a professional operation. Once Brunetti begins to investigate this unfamiliar Venetian underworld, he discovers that matters of great value are at stake within the secretive society.

While his wife, Paola, struggles to come to terms with their young daughter's prejudices about the immigrants, Brunetti finds that his own police force shares many of the same biases. Warned by Patta, his superior, to desist from further involvement in the case, Brunetti only becomes more determined to unearth the truth. How far will Brunetti be able to penetrate the murky subculture of Venice's illegal community? And how high does the corruption reach into the upper echelons of Brunetti's own world and the world at large?

By a confirmed master storyteller, Blood from a Stone is a pitch-perfect mystery, an alluring portrait of contemporary Venice, and an elucidating eye into the attitudes of a timeless place in the grip of change.]]> 355 Donna Leon 014303698X Rachel 4 3.84 2005 Blood from a Stone (Commissario Brunetti, #14)
author: Donna Leon
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/20
date added: 2023/08/20
shelves:
review:

]]> All My Puny Sorrows 18339630
You won’t forget Elf and Yoli, two smart and loving sisters. Elfrieda, a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, happily married: she wants to die. Yolandi, divorced, broke, sleeping with the wrong men as she tries to find true love: she desperately wants to keep her older sister alive. Yoli is a beguiling mess, wickedly funny even as she stumbles through life struggling to keep her teenage kids and mother happy, her exes from hating her, her sister from killing herself and her own heart from breaking.

But Elf’s latest suicide attempt is a shock: she is three weeks away from the opening of her highly anticipated international tour. Her long-time agent has been calling and neither Yoli nor Elf’s loving husband knows what to tell him. Can she be nursed back to “health� in time? Does it matter? As the situation becomes ever more complicated, Yoli faces the most terrifying decision of her life.

All My Puny Sorrows, at once tender and unquiet, offers a profound reflection on the limits of love, and the sometimes unimaginable challenges we experience when childhood becomes a new country of adult commitments and responsibilities. In her beautifully rendered new novel, Miriam Toews gives us a startling demonstration of how to carry on with hope and love and the business of living even when grief loads the heart.]]> 321 Miriam Toews 0345808002 Rachel 5 4.00 2014 All My Puny Sorrows
author: Miriam Toews
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/07/15
shelves:
review:
It's been a few years but I loved this book so much.
]]> <![CDATA[Bring Up the Bodies (Thomas Cromwell, #2)]]> 13507212 9780805090031)

Though he battled for years to marry her, Henry VIII has become disenchanted with the audacious Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son, and her sharp intelligence and strong will have alienated his old friends and the noble families of England.

When the discarded Katherine, Henry's first wife, dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice, setting in motion a dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason.

At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over a few terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally himself with his enemies. What price will he pay for Annie's head?]]> 412 Hilary Mantel Rachel 5
This book is so good. This is the 2nd book in the series about Thomas Cromwell and it is excellent. Since it is the 2nd book we are more familiar with all of the characters in King Henry VIII's court which makes it slightly easier to track and makes them each more vivid and complex.

The political maneuverings Cromwell performs to make his king happy while securing his own spot in history is better than any Housewives of NY scheming or plotting, but maybe with bigger words... I can't help but wonder how well-researched this book is and how much artistic license Ms Mantel took in writing it.

I know what happens in the next book and I'm not sure I can stomach to read it! Although a little disillusioned with Thomas in this book and the lengths he will go, I am still very much attached.]]> 4.26 2012 Bring Up the Bodies (Thomas Cromwell, #2)
author: Hilary Mantel
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/08
date added: 2023/07/08
shelves:
review:
Oh Lord. Thomas, what have you done!?

This book is so good. This is the 2nd book in the series about Thomas Cromwell and it is excellent. Since it is the 2nd book we are more familiar with all of the characters in King Henry VIII's court which makes it slightly easier to track and makes them each more vivid and complex.

The political maneuverings Cromwell performs to make his king happy while securing his own spot in history is better than any Housewives of NY scheming or plotting, but maybe with bigger words... I can't help but wonder how well-researched this book is and how much artistic license Ms Mantel took in writing it.

I know what happens in the next book and I'm not sure I can stomach to read it! Although a little disillusioned with Thomas in this book and the lengths he will go, I am still very much attached.
]]> Firekeeper’s Daughter 52346471
After Daunis witnesses a shocking murder that thrusts her into a criminal investigation, she agrees to go undercover. But the deceptions—and deaths—keep piling up and soon the threat strikes too close to home. How far will she go to protect her community if it means tearing apart the only world she’s ever known?]]> 496 Angeline Boulley Rachel 4 4.32 2021 Firekeeper’s Daughter
author: Angeline Boulley
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/03
date added: 2023/07/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Hello Beautiful 61771675
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters� unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?]]> 416 Ann Napolitano Rachel 0 to-read 4.14 2023 Hello Beautiful
author: Ann Napolitano
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Unsouled (Cradle, #1) 30558257
Lindon is Unsouled, forbidden to learn the sacred arts of his clan.

When faced with a looming fate he cannot ignore, he must defy his family's rules...and forge his own Path.]]> 294 Will Wight Rachel 0 to-read 4.16 2016 Unsouled (Cradle, #1)
author: Will Wight
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Joy Luck Club 7767 120 Amy Tan 0194230899 Rachel 5 4.41 1989 The Joy Luck Club
author: Amy Tan
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1989
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/05/04
shelves:
review:

]]> Home is a Made-Up Place 64626510
Set in NYC, the PNW, New England, the Southwest, and rural Alaska, a single mother fights to protect her son, a daughter tries to forget her missing mother, a couple struggles to keep a marriage together and their children safe, and a family must face the truth about their father.

Bracing and intimate, Home is a Made-Up Place is a collection of stories about fighting for personal power, recognizing the difference between what can and cannot be changed, and the pull of familial attachments despite the toll they might take.

Home is a Made-Up Place was named winner of Hidden River Arts' 2020 Eludia Award for short fiction. Stories in this collection earned awards, honors, andĚýspecial mentions in journals including The Iowa Review, Hunger Mountain, Narrative, Third Coast, and American Literary Review.]]> 150 Ronit Plank Rachel 5
Short stories can be hard because they are too short (duh!) and I always want to know what happened next or I want the story tied up with a "happy ending" bow, but there's also a magic in being able to decide for myself how their stories ended.]]> 4.63 Home is a Made-Up Place
author: Ronit Plank
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.63
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/05
date added: 2023/03/01
shelves:
review:
Home is a Made-Up Place is a well-written collection of short stories and I enjoyed reading it. In this short story collection, I am amazed at how Ronit can create so many different stories, characters, and plots and make them all feel equally real and compelling and full. Ronit's short story collection does this so well, making it easy to immerse myself into the lives of each of the protagonists. I felt everything (and maybe more than) they did. Her descriptions make you feel like you are in these places and I really felt transported --this might be my favorite thing about her writing, is how well she paints the scene.

Short stories can be hard because they are too short (duh!) and I always want to know what happened next or I want the story tied up with a "happy ending" bow, but there's also a magic in being able to decide for myself how their stories ended.
]]> <![CDATA[Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow]]> 58784475 In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 Rachel 3 4.12 2022 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/12
date added: 2023/02/18
shelves:
review:
I really liked aspects of this book. Overall, the characters weren't super likable, and the end was just... whatever.
]]> <![CDATA[Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI]]> 29496076 Ěý
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.

In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes such as Al Spencer, “the Phantom Terror,� roamed � virtually anyone who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. But the bureau was then notoriously corrupt and initially bungled the case. Eventually the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau. They infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest modern techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. The book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward Native Americans that allowed the murderers to operate with impunity for so long. Killers of the Flower Moon is utterly riveting, but also emotionally devastating.]]> 359 David Grann 0385534256 Rachel 5 4.12 2017 Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
author: David Grann
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life]]> 28257707 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062457738

In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people.

For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F**k positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected American society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up.

Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited�"not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault." Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek.

There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.]]> 212 Mark Manson Rachel 4 3.88 2016 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
author: Mark Manson
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/15
date added: 2023/01/18
shelves:
review:
I listened to the audiobook of this and the narration was great! I thought it provided a lot of great insights and served as a good reminder about a lot of common sense ideas for adjusting ones mindset to live a less discontented life.
]]> Pachinko 34051011
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters—strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis—survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.]]> 496 Min Jin Lee Rachel 0 currently-reading 4.35 2017 Pachinko
author: Min Jin Lee
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/05
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Don't Shoot the Dog! : The New Art of Teaching and Training]]> 31052
In her groundbreaking approach to improving behavior, behavioral biologist Karen Pryor says, “Whatever the task, whether keeping a four-year-old quiet in public, housebreaking a puppy, coaching a team, or memorizing a poem, it will go fast, and better, and be more fun, if you know how to use reinforcement.�

Now Pryor clearly explains the underlying principles of behavioral training and reveals how this art can be applied to virtually any common situation. And best of all, she tells how to do it without yelling threats, force, punishment, guilt trips—or shooting the dog. From the eight methods for putting an end to all kinds of undesirable behavior to the ten laws of “shaping� behavior, Pryor helps you combat your own addictions and deal with such difficult problems as a moody spouse, an impossible teen, or an aged parent. Plus, there’s also incredibly helpful information on house training the dog, improving your tennis game, keeping the cat off the table, and much more!

“In the course of becoming a renowned dolphin trainer, Karen Pryor learned that positive reinforcement…is even more potent that prior scientific work had suggested…Don’t Shoot the Dog looks like the very best on the subject—a full-scale mind-changer� (The Coevolution Quarterly). Learn why pet owners rave, “This book changed our lives!� and how these pioneering techniques can work for you, too.

Karen Pryor is a behavioral biologist with an international reputation in marine mammal biology and behavioral psychology. She is a founder and leading proponent of “clicker training,� a training system based on operant conditioning (isolate wanted behaviors and ignore the unwanted) and the all-positive methods developed by marine mammal trainers. Pryor is the CEO of KCPT/Sunshine Books, Inc., a publishing, training product, and online company. In addition to her bestselling Don’t Shoot the Dog, Pryor wrote Nursing Your Baby (more than 2 million copies in print) along with several other books and many scientific papers and popular articles on learning and behavior. She has three grown children and lives in Boston with two clicker-trained dogs and a clicker-trained cat.]]> 202 Karen Pryor 1860542387 Rachel 0 to-read 4.26 1984 Don't Shoot the Dog! : The New Art of Teaching and Training
author: Karen Pryor
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man]]> 7588 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel of sexual awakening, religious rebellion and the essential search for voice and meaning that every nascent artist must face in order to blossom fully into themselves.]]> 329 James Joyce 0142437344 Rachel 4
My favorite quote: To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life!

Wonderful.]]> 3.64 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
author: James Joyce
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1916
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/01/01
shelves:
review:
What a strange fu*#ing book. I took my time, reading many pages aloud. Beautifully written, confusing at times, 18 pages of hell and damnation, maybe I'm not smart enough for Joyce, ugh! Blah, blah, blah..Sounds like guys I hung out with in my twenties, lack of appreciation for his mother (sounds like my teen)... struggles with his faith, then forges his own path unafraid. Huzzah!

My favorite quote: To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life!

Wonderful.
]]> The Gold Persimmon 57205122
In a parallel reality, an inexplicable fog envelops the city, trapping a young, nonbinary writer named Jaime in a sex hotel with six other people. As the survivors begin to turn on one another, Jaime must navigate a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Haunted by specters of grief and familial shame, Jaime and Cly find themselves trapped in dual narratives in this gripping experimental novel that explores sexuality, surveillance, and the very nature of storytelling.]]> 274 Lindsay Merbaum Rachel 0 to-read 3.74 The Gold Persimmon
author: Lindsay Merbaum
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.74
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Book Lovers 58690308 One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming....

Nora Stephens� life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.

Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters� trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.

If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.]]> 377 Emily Henry 0593334833 Rachel 4 4.09 2022 Book Lovers
author: Emily Henry
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/28
date added: 2022/12/28
shelves:
review:

]]> Lessons in Chemistry 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus Rachel 0 to-read 4.23 2022 Lessons in Chemistry
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Night Watchman 43721059
Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new “emancipation� bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress. It is 1953 and he and the other council members know the bill isn’t about freedom; Congress is fed up with Indians. The bill is a “termination� that threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land and their very identity. How can the government abandon treaties made in good faith with Native Americans “for as long as the grasses shall grow, and the rivers run�?

Since graduating high school, Pixie Paranteau has insisted that everyone call her Patrice. Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Patrice, the class valedictorian, has no desire to wear herself down with a husband and kids. She makes jewel bearings at the plant, a job that barely pays her enough to support her mother and brother. Patrice’s shameful alcoholic father returns home sporadically to terrorize his wife and children and bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to follow her beloved older sister, Vera, who moved to the big city of Minneapolis. Vera may have disappeared; she hasn’t been in touch in months, and is rumored to have had a baby. Determined to find Vera and her child, Patrice makes a fateful trip to Minnesota that introduces her to unexpected forms of exploitation and violence, and endangers her life.

Thomas and Patrice live in this impoverished reservation community along with young Chippewa boxer Wood Mountain and his mother Juggie Blue, her niece and Patrice’s best friend Valentine, and Stack Barnes, the white high school math teacher and boxing coach who is hopelessly in love with Patrice.

In the Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich creates a fictional world populated with memorable characters who are forced to grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature. Illuminating the loves and lives, the desires and ambitions of these characters with compassion, wit, and intelligence, The Night Watchman is a majestic work of fiction from this revered cultural treasure.]]> 464 Louise Erdrich 0062671200 Rachel 5 4.05 2020 The Night Watchman
author: Louise Erdrich
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/27
date added: 2022/12/27
shelves:
review:
This book is phenomenal. Erdrich is an amazing story teller. This book tells the story of her grandfather fighting against tribal termination by the U.S. Government, weaving history and culture and community together. I love books that allow me to journey into a life foreign to my own and this book feels like we've been allowed a little peek into the Turtle Mountain Band's daily life -- and it's an honor.
]]> The Midnight Library 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]> 288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Rachel 3
I thought the character could have been developed more at the outset to make her more likable, because it would have had me rooting more for her overall. {SPOILER:Horrible to say, but she wasn't the only one who wanted her to die for the first half of the book.} Maybe the author wanted us to feel the same way about her as she did herself. The lessons she learned along her adventure weren't groundbreaking, but I got a sense that the author was trying to get through to someone, to serve as a reminder of what we all forget when we're lost in the deep dark woods of our minds.

Overall, the plot is an interesting idea and the ending was fine. I think I had really high expectations because many of the reviews were very good and I like books about libraries (lol), and the book didn't quite live up to them.


]]> 3.96 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2022/12/13
date added: 2022/12/13
shelves:
review:
I listened to the audiobook. It was a little monotonous at times. The narrator did a fine job.

I thought the character could have been developed more at the outset to make her more likable, because it would have had me rooting more for her overall. {SPOILER:Horrible to say, but she wasn't the only one who wanted her to die for the first half of the book.} Maybe the author wanted us to feel the same way about her as she did herself. The lessons she learned along her adventure weren't groundbreaking, but I got a sense that the author was trying to get through to someone, to serve as a reminder of what we all forget when we're lost in the deep dark woods of our minds.

Overall, the plot is an interesting idea and the ending was fine. I think I had really high expectations because many of the reviews were very good and I like books about libraries (lol), and the book didn't quite live up to them.



]]> <![CDATA[Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)]]> 9969571 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

IN THE YEAR 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.

But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.]]> 480 Ernest Cline 030788743X Rachel 5 4.21 2011 Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1)
author: Ernest Cline
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/04
date added: 2022/12/04
shelves:
review:

]]> Invisible Cities 9809 165 Italo Calvino 0156453800 Rachel 0 to-read 4.16 1972 Invisible Cities
author: Italo Calvino
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland]]> 56769525 Angela’s Ashes, Fintan O’Toole, one of the Anglophone world’s most consummate stylists, continues the narrative of modern Ireland into our own time. O’Toole was born in the year the revolution began. It was 1958, and the Irish government—in despair, because all the young people were leaving—opened the country to foreign investment. So began a decades-long, ongoing experiment with Irish national identity.


Weaving his own experiences into this account of Irish social, cultural, and economic change, O’Toole shows how Ireland, in just one lifetime, has gone from a Catholic “backwater� to an almost totally open society. A sympathetic-yet-exacting observer, O’Toole shrewdly weighs more than sixty years of globalization, delving into the violence of the Troubles and depicting, in biting detail, the astonishing collapse of the once-supreme Irish Catholic Church. The result is a stunning work of memoir and national history that reveals how the two modes are inextricable for all of us.]]> 616 Fintan O'Toole 1631496530 Rachel 0 to-read 4.31 2021 We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland
author: Fintan O'Toole
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us]]> 59575939 A grand tour through the hidden realms of animal senses that will transform the way you perceive the world --from the Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes.

The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world. This book welcomes us into a previously unfathomable dimension--the world as it is truly perceived by other animals.

We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth's magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and humans that wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile's scaly face is as sensitive as a lover's fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries which lie unsolved.

In An Immense World, author and acclaimed science journalist Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. Because in order to understand our world we don't need to travel to other places; we need to see through other eyes.]]> 464 Ed Yong Rachel 0 to-read 4.46 2022 An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
author: Ed Yong
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Trust 58210933 An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception

Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly boundless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.

Hernan Diaz's TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another—and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation.

At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.]]> 402 Hernan Diaz 0593420314 Rachel 0 to-read 3.77 2022 Trust
author: Hernan Diaz
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Checkout 19 58386758
In a working-class town in a county west of London, a schoolgirl scribbles stories in the back pages of her exercise book, intoxicated by the first sparks of her imagination. As she grows, everything and everyone she encounters become fuel for a burning talent. The large Russian man in the ancient maroon car who careens around the grocery store where she works as a checkout clerk, and slips her a copy of Beyond Good and Evil. The growing heaps of other books in which she loses-and finds-herself. Even the derailing of a friendship, in a devastating violation. The thrill of learning to conjure characters and scenarios in her head is matched by the exhilaration of forging her own way in the world, the two kinds of ingenuity kindling to a brilliant conflagration.

Exceeding the extraordinary promise of Bennett's mold-shattering debut, Checkout 19 is a radical affirmation of the power of the imagination and the magic escape those who master it open to us all.]]> 288 Claire-Louise Bennett 0593420497 Rachel 0 to-read 3.11 2021 Checkout 19
author: Claire-Louise Bennett
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.11
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next, #1)]]> 27003
Hades' real target is the beloved Jane Eyre, and it's not long before he plucks her from the pages of Bronte's novel. Enter Thursday Next. She's the Special Operative's renowned literary detective, and she drives a Porsche. With the help of her uncle Mycroft's Prose Portal, Thursday enters the novel to rescue Jane Eyre from this heinous act of literary homicide. It's tricky business, all these interlopers running about Thornfield, and deceptions run rampant as their paths cross with Jane, Rochester, and Miss Fairfax. Can Thursday save Jane Eyre and Bronte's masterpiece? And what of the Crimean War? Will it ever end? And what about those annoying black holes that pop up now and again, sucking things into time-space voids . . .

Suspenseful and outlandish, absorbing and fun, The Eyre Affair is a caper unlike any other and an introduction to the imagination of a most distinctive writer and his singular fictional universe.]]> 374 Jasper Fforde 0142001805 Rachel 0 to-read 3.89 2001 The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next, #1)
author: Jasper Fforde
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)]]> 45046567
Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light.

The House in the Cerulean Sea is an enchanting love story, masterfully told, about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 398 T.J. Klune 1250217288 Rachel 0 to-read 4.42 2020 The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present]]> 36620482 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE

A sweeping history—and counter-narrative—of Native American life from the Wounded Knee massacre to the present.

The received idea of Native American history—as promulgated by books like Dee Brown's mega-bestselling 1970 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee—has been that American Indian history essentially ended with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Not only did one hundred fifty Sioux die at the hands of the U. S. Cavalry, the sense was, but Native civilization did as well.

Growing up Ojibwe on a reservation in Minnesota, training as an anthropologist, and researching Native life past and present for his nonfiction and novels, David Treuer has uncovered a different narrative. Because they did not disappear—and not despite but rather because of their intense struggles to preserve their language, their traditions, their families, and their very existence—the story of American Indians since the end of the nineteenth century to the present is one of unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention.

In The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, Treuer melds history with reportage and memoir. Tracing the tribes' distinctive cultures from first contact, he explores how the depredations of each era spawned new modes of survival. The devastating seizures of land gave rise to increasingly sophisticated legal and political maneuvering that put the lie to the myth that Indians don't know or care about property. The forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools incubated a unifying Native identity. Conscription in the US military and the pull of urban life brought Indians into the mainstream and modern times, even as it steered the emerging shape of self-rule and spawned a new generation of resistance. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is the essential, intimate story of a resilient people in a transformative era.]]> 526 David Treuer Rachel 0 to-read 4.24 2019 The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present
author: David Treuer
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)]]> 6148028 Sparks are igniting.
Flames are spreading.
And the Capitol wants revenge.

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol—a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest that she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before . . . and surprising readers at every turn.]]> 391 Suzanne Collins 0439023491 Rachel 0 4.34 2009 Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/29
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Spanish Love Deception (Love Deception, #1)]]> 54189398
She only has four weeks to find someone willing to cross the Atlantic and aid in her deception. New York to Spain is no short flight and her raucous family won’t be easy to fool.

Enter Aaron Blackford—her tall, handsome, condescending colleague—who surprisingly offers to step in. She’d rather refuse; never has there been a more aggravating, blood-boiling, and insufferable man.

But Catalina is desperate, and as the wedding draws nearer, Aaron looks like her best option. And she begins to realize he might not be as terrible in the real world as he is at the office.]]> 487 Elena Armas 1668002531 Rachel 2
The descriptions of the guy's body were a little over the top and it was repeated a lot. Like, i get he was ripped and had a smokin' hot body, but can we move on? I don't know, maybe some folks are into that....

Also, some of the stuff he said, I felt dirty. Like I was reading middle-aged lady porn, which i guess it could be, but I don't like being confronted with it. Everything he said was like someone checking off a box on the checklist of "words every single woman wants to hear from a smoking hot guy they have the hots for". Like when I watch commercials that make me cry, I felt like i was being manipulated and not in a good way.

I guess what i'm saying is that it was all too much. ]]> 3.80 2021 The Spanish Love Deception (Love Deception, #1)
author: Elena Armas
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2022/11/28
date added: 2022/11/28
shelves:
review:
It was okay. It could have been 50 pages shorter. I listened to the audio book and sometimes the narrator was hit and miss for me.

The descriptions of the guy's body were a little over the top and it was repeated a lot. Like, i get he was ripped and had a smokin' hot body, but can we move on? I don't know, maybe some folks are into that....

Also, some of the stuff he said, I felt dirty. Like I was reading middle-aged lady porn, which i guess it could be, but I don't like being confronted with it. Everything he said was like someone checking off a box on the checklist of "words every single woman wants to hear from a smoking hot guy they have the hots for". Like when I watch commercials that make me cry, I felt like i was being manipulated and not in a good way.

I guess what i'm saying is that it was all too much.
]]> The Poet X 33294200 Fans of Jacqueline Woodson, Meg Medina, and Jason Reynolds will fall hard for this astonishing New York Times-bestselling novel-in-verse by an award-winning slam poet, about an Afro-Latina heroine who tells her story with blazing words and powerful truth.

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.

But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about.

With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out. But she still ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t stop thinking about performing her poems.

Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.]]> 368 Elizabeth Acevedo Rachel 5 4.37 2018 The Poet X
author: Elizabeth Acevedo
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2022/11/26
date added: 2022/11/28
shelves:
review:
So, so, so good. I loved this book. I loved how with so few words she could capture so many big feelings. I don't know what else to say. Apparently, I like poetry now.
]]> The Burgess Boys 15823461
With a rare combination of brilliant storytelling, exquisite prose, and remarkable insight into character, Elizabeth Strout has brought to life two deeply human protagonists whose struggles and triumphs will resonate with readers long after they turn the final page. Tender, tough-minded, loving, and deeply illuminating about the ties that bind us to family and home, The Burgess Boys is Elizabeth Strout's newest and perhaps most astonishing work of literary art.]]> 320 Elizabeth Strout 1400067685 Rachel 4 3.58 2013 The Burgess Boys
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/11/22
shelves:
review:

]]> Cloud Cuckoo Land 56783258 When everything is lost, it’s our stories that survive.

How do we weather the end of things? Cloud Cuckoo Land brings together an unforgettable cast of dreamers and outsiders from past, present and future to offer a vision of survival against all odds.

Constantinople, 1453:
An orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy with a love for animals risk everything on opposite sides of a city wall to protect the people they love.

Idaho, 2020:
An impoverished, idealistic kid seeks revenge on a world that’s crumbling around him. Can he go through with it when a gentle old man stands between him and his plans?

Unknown, Sometime in the Future:
With her tiny community in peril, Konstance is the last hope for the human race. To find a way forward, she must look to the oldest stories of all for guidance.

Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself. Like its predecessor All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr’s new novel is a tale of hope and of profound human connection.]]> 626 Anthony Doerr 1982168439 Rachel 5 4.24 2021 Cloud Cuckoo Land
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/11/20
date added: 2022/11/22
shelves:
review:
This book weaves several seemingly disparate storylines and slowly connects them. It's brilliant and fun and ultimately rewarding. There were moments where the harsh truths the book illuminates made me sad, but redemption and hope follow close behind.
]]> Red, White & Royal Blue 41150487
As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?]]> 448 Casey McQuiston 1250316774 Rachel 4 4.06 2019 Red, White & Royal Blue
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/14
date added: 2022/11/16
shelves:
review:
This romance actually made me laugh a few times which I appreciated. The story was sweet, if not a little predictable. A nice break from the other books I'm reading. I listened to this on audio book in the car and while I took walks and I thought the narrator did a fantastic job with the accents and the different voices.
]]> Walkaway 40604388
Hubert Vernon Rudolph Clayton Irving Wilson Alva Anton Jeff Harley Timothy Curtis Cleveland Cecil Ollie Edmund Eli Wiley Marvin Ellis Espinoza—known to his friends as Hubert, Etc—was too old to be at that Communist party.

But after watching the breakdown of modern society, he really has no where left to be—except amongst the dregs of disaffected youth who party all night and heap scorn on the sheep they see on the morning commute. After falling in with Natalie, an ultra-rich heiress trying to escape the clutches of her repressive father, the two decide to give up fully on formal society—and walk away.

After all, now that anyone can design and print the basic necessities of life—food, clothing, shelter—from a computer, there seems to be little reason to toil within the system.

It’s still a dangerous world out there, the empty lands wrecked by climate change, dead cities hollowed out by industrial flight, shadows hiding predators animal and human alike. Still, when the initial pioneer walkaways flourish, more people join them. Then the walkaways discover the one thing the ultra-rich have never been able to buy: how to beat death. Now it’s war � a war that will turn the world upside down.

Fascinating, moving, and darkly humorous, Walkaway is a multi-generation science fiction thriller about the wrenching changes of the next hundred years…and the very human people who will live their consequences.]]> 384 Cory Doctorow Rachel 0 3.76 2017 Walkaway
author: Cory Doctorow
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/19
date added: 2022/10/19
shelves:
review:

]]> Our Missing Hearts 60149573 A novel about a mother’s unbreakable love in a world consumed by fear.

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture� in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.

Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.]]> 335 Celeste Ng 0593492544 Rachel 0 to-read 3.74 2022 Our Missing Hearts
author: Celeste Ng
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Charm Offensive (The Charm Offensive, #1)]]> 56898248 Ever After. As the most successful producer in the franchise’s history, Dev always scripts the perfect love story for his contestants, even as his own love life crashes and burns. But then the show casts disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw as its star.

Charlie is far from the romantic Prince Charming Ever After expects. He doesn’t believe in true love, and only agreed to the show as a last-ditch effort to rehabilitate his image. In front of the cameras, he’s a stiff, anxious mess with no idea how to date twenty women on national television. Behind the scenes, he’s cold, awkward, and emotionally closed-off.

As Dev fights to get Charlie to connect with the contestants on a whirlwind, worldwide tour, they begin to open up to each other, and Charlie realizes he has better chemistry with Dev than with any of his female co-stars. But even reality TV has a script, and in order to find to happily ever after, they’ll have to reconsider whose love story gets told.

In this witty and heartwarming romantic comedy—reminiscent of Red, White & Royal Blue and One to Watch—an awkward tech wunderkind on a reality dating show goes off-script when sparks fly with his producer.]]> 354 Alison Cochrun 1982170719 Rachel 3 4.11 2021 The Charm Offensive (The Charm Offensive, #1)
author: Alison Cochrun
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/10/17
date added: 2022/10/17
shelves:
review:
This was a quick and fun read. A lovely distraction for some heavier and heartier books that require more attention and focus. The story could get repetitive at times and I found myself less sympathetic with the characters as time went on, but whenever that happens I remind myself that life is like that, people rarely do things the way I want them to and in the time I feel it should take...lol. Some of the obstacles felt contrived, but don't we all sometimes get in our own way? Overall, I really liked it.
]]> <![CDATA[The Angel of Rome and Other Stories]]> 59147716 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins and The Cold Millions comes a stunning collection about those moments when everything changes--for the better, for the worse, for the outrageous--as a diverse cast of characters bounces from Italy to Idaho, questioning their roles in life and finding inspiration in the unlikeliest places.

We all live like we're famous now, curating our social media presences, performing our identities, withholding those parts of ourselves we don't want others to see. In this riveting collection of stories from acclaimed author Jess Walter, a teenage girl tries to live up to the image of her beautiful, missing mother. An elderly couple confronts the fiction writer eavesdropping on their conversation. A son must repeatedly come out to his senile father while looking for a place to care for the old man. A famous actor in recovery has a one-night stand with the world's most surprising film critic. And in the romantic title story, a shy twenty-one-year-old studying Latin in Rome during "the year of my reinvention" finds himself face-to-face with the Italian actress of his adolescent dreams.

Funny, poignant, and redemptive, this collection of short fiction offers a dazzling range of voices, backdrops, and situations. With his signature wit and bighearted approach to the darkest parts of humanity, Walter tackles the modern condition with a timeless touch, once again "solidifying his place in the contemporary canon as one of our most gifted builders of fictional worlds" (Esquire).]]> 274 Jess Walter 006286811X Rachel 1 4.05 2022 The Angel of Rome and Other Stories
author: Jess Walter
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2022/09/12
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II]]> 40595446 The never-before-told story of one woman's heroism that changed the course of the Second World War

In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her."

This spy was Virginia Hall, a young American woman--rejected from the foreign service because of her gender and her prosthetic leg--who talked her way into the spy organization deemed Churchill's "ministry of ungentlemanly warfare," and, before the United States had even entered the war, became the first woman to deploy to occupied France.

Virginia Hall was one of the greatest spies in American history, yet her story remains untold. Just as she did in Clementine, Sonia Purnell uncovers the captivating story of a powerful, influential, yet shockingly overlooked heroine of the Second World War. At a time when sending female secret agents into enemy territory was still strictly forbidden, Virginia Hall came to be known as the "Madonna of the Resistance," coordinating a network of spies to blow up bridges, report on German troop movements, arrange equipment drops for Resistance agents, and recruit and train guerilla fighters. Even as her face covered WANTED posters throughout Europe, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped with her life in a grueling hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown, and her associates all imprisoned or executed. But, adamant that she had "more lives to save," she dove back in as soon as she could, organizing forces to sabotage enemy lines and back up Allied forces landing on Normandy beaches. Told with Purnell's signature insight and novelistic flare, A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war.]]> 352 Sonia Purnell 073522529X Rachel 0 to-read 4.08 2019 A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
author: Sonia Purnell
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle]]> 36337550
There are eight days, and eight witnesses for you to inhabit.

We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer.

Understood? Then let's begin . . .

Evelyn Hardcastle will die. Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others . . .

The most inventive debut of the year twists together a mystery of such unexpected creativity it will leave listeners guessing until the very last second.]]> 432 Stuart Turton Rachel 4 3.78 2018 The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
author: Stuart Turton
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/17
date added: 2022/07/17
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous]]> 41880609 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born � a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam � and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.]]> 246 Ocean Vuong 0525562028 Rachel 5 4.05 2019 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2022/07/04
date added: 2022/07/04
shelves:
review:
This book is beautiful. It captivated me and compelled me to keep reading even when my heart was breaking. I know I only skimmed the surface of this story. I could tell there were layers of meaning intended for people smarter than me, but it didn't matter because, what I did understand and the way he writes, is incredible. I could go on and on about the lived experience, the socio-political statements, the generational trauma that this book does such a stunning job of articulating, but for me, what was very interesting is the real, tangible ache I felt while I read it. I don't know if I've ever before read a book that made me physically hurt. And what my brain couldn't make sense of, my body felt very deeply.
]]> City of Girls 51918871
Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.

In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves - and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.

Now ninety-five years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life - and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. "At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time," she muses. "After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is." Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.]]> 470 Elizabeth Gilbert 1594634742 Rachel 0 to-read 4.01 2019 City of Girls
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Book of Cold Cases 58371432
Oregon, 2017. Shea Collins is a receptionist, but by night, she runs a true crime website, the Book of Cold Cases--a passion fueled by the attempted abduction she escaped as a child. When she meets Beth by chance, Shea asks her for an interview. To Shea's surprise, Beth says yes.

They meet regularly at Beth's mansion, though Shea is never comfortable there. Items move when she's not looking, and she could swear she's seen a girl outside the window. The allure of learning the truth about the case from the smart, charming Beth is too much to resist, but even as they grow closer, Shea senses something isn't right. Is she making friends with a manipulative murderer, or are there other dangers lurking in the darkness of the Greer house?

A true crime blogger gets more than she bargained for while interviewing the woman acquitted of two cold case slayings in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel.]]> 344 Simone St. James 0440000211 Rachel 0 to-read 3.76 2022 The Book of Cold Cases
author: Simone St. James
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Violeta 57933338 The epic story of Violeta del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century.

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life will be marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.

Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses all and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling. . . .

She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, times of both poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life will be shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and, ultimately, not one but two pandemics.

Told through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor will carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.]]> 322 Isabel Allende 0593496205 Rachel 0 to-read 3.97 2022 Violeta
author: Isabel Allende
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> One Italian Summer 58438583
But as soon as she steps foot on the Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother’s spirit. Buoyed by the stunning waters, beautiful cliffsides, delightful residents, and, of course, delectable food, Katy feels herself coming back to life.

And then Carol appears—in the flesh, healthy, sun-tanned, and thirty years old. Katy doesn’t understand what is happening, or how—all she can focus on is that she has somehow, impossibly, gotten her mother back. Over the course of one Italian summer, Katy gets to know Carol, not as her mother, but as the young woman before her. She is not exactly who Katy imagined she might be, however, and soon Katy must reconcile the mother who knew everything with the young woman who does not yet have a clue.]]> 255 Rebecca Serle 1982166797 Rachel 0 to-read 3.56 2022 One Italian Summer
author: Rebecca Serle
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Reading List 55276648 An unforgettable and heartwarming debut about how a chance encounter with a list of library books helps forge an unlikely friendship between two very different people in a London suburb.

Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life in the London Borough of Ealing after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries.

Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she’s facing at home.

When Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading listâ€� hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again.Ěý]]> 368 Sara Nisha Adams 0063025280 Rachel 0 to-read 4.02 2021 The Reading List
author: Sara Nisha Adams
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What Just Happened: Notes on a Long Year]]> 57005201
"This book is so funny and so true. Charles Finch unpacks a year of plague, fear, shameless venality, and dizzying stupidity with an irrepressible wit and surgically precise cultural observations. I didn't know how badly I needed exactly this. Maybe you do too?" —Joe Hill, author of Heart-Shaped Box
Ěý
In March 2020, at the request of the Los Angeles Times, Charles Finch became a reluctant diarist: As California sheltered in place, he began to write daily notes about the odd ambient changes in his own life and in the lives around him. The result is What Just Happened.
Ěý
In a warm, candid, welcoming voice, and in the tradition of Woolf and Orwell, Finch brings us into his own world: taking long evening walks near his home in L.A., listening to music, and keeping virtual connections with friends across the country as they each experience the crisis. And drawing on his remarkable acuity as a cultural critic, he chronicles one endless year with delightful commentary on current events, and the things that distract him from current events: Murakami’s novels, reality television, the Beatles.Ěý
Ěý
What Just Happened is a work of empathy and insight, at once of-the-moment and timeless—a gift from one of our culture's most original thinkers.]]> 288 Charles Finch 0593319079 Rachel 0 to-read 3.91 2021 What Just Happened: Notes on a Long Year
author: Charles Finch
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Night Circus 9361589
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.]]> 506 Erin Morgenstern Rachel 4 4.00 2011 The Night Circus
author: Erin Morgenstern
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2022/04/20
date added: 2022/04/20
shelves:
review:
Excellent story with a plot that moves at a nice pace. Ms Morgenstern is great at building magical worlds, communities, and characters.
]]> <![CDATA[Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine]]> 31434883 No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding unnecessary human contact, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen, the three rescue one another from the lives of isolation that they had been living. Ultimately, it is Raymond’s big heart that will help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one. If she does, she'll learn that she, too, is capable of finding friendship—and even love—after all.

Smart, warm, uplifting, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .

the only way to survive is to open your heart.]]> 336 Gail Honeyman 0735220689 Rachel 5
This book is sneaky. I had heard good things but didn't know much else about it. The author keeps many secrets, doling them out slowly to keep pace with Eleanor's own self-discovery. Beautifully done.

Lastly, I listened to Audiobook, and the reader was fantastic. She did all of the accents, and they were so so good. It brought richness and life to the characters. I will probably go back and read it now because I miss Eleanor.]]> 4.21 2017 Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
author: Gail Honeyman
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/24
date added: 2022/03/30
shelves:
review:
This book is excellent! Eleanor improved my vocabulary. She also made me a better person. I love her and will name all things after her, in her honor, moving forward in perpetuity. The pace of this book is perfect. I appreciate the perspective brought to this book through Raymond, the friend who forgives her foibles and supports her despite her obvious shortcomings. May we all have a Raymond willing to put up with our nonsense and still hold us accountable.

This book is sneaky. I had heard good things but didn't know much else about it. The author keeps many secrets, doling them out slowly to keep pace with Eleanor's own self-discovery. Beautifully done.

Lastly, I listened to Audiobook, and the reader was fantastic. She did all of the accents, and they were so so good. It brought richness and life to the characters. I will probably go back and read it now because I miss Eleanor.
]]> News of the World 25817493 Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.

In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.

In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows.

Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.� Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forming a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.

Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember—strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become—in the eyes of the law—a kidnapper himself.

]]> 209 Paulette Jiles 0062409204 Rachel 5 4.02 2016 News of the World
author: Paulette Jiles
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/29
date added: 2022/03/29
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dial A for Aunties (Aunties, #1)]]> 53310061 What happens when you mix 1 (accidental) murder with 2 thousand wedding guests, and then toss in a possible curse on 3 generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family?

You get 4 meddling Asian aunties coming to the rescue!

When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome mother calls for her even more meddlesome aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate, especially when it is inadvertently shipped in a cake cooler to the over-the-top billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working at an island resort on the California coastline. It's the biggest job yet for the family wedding business�"Don't leave your big day to chance, leave it to the Chans!"—and nothing, not even an unsavory corpse, will get in the way of her auntie's perfect buttercream flowers.

But things go from inconvenient to downright torturous when Meddy's great college love—and biggest heartbreak—makes a surprise appearance amid the wedding chaos. Is it possible to escape murder charges, charm her ex back into her life, and pull off a stunning wedding all in one weekend?]]> 299 Jesse Q. Sutanto 0593336739 Rachel 2
However, it felt like the book repeated itself A LOT. I do understand and reflected upon the fact that we, as people, often obsess and perseverate on situations in our lives, but it got old. I found the main character a bit annoying and the plot a little outrageous. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the script has already been sold because I couldn't help seeing this as a great movie. May I recommend Henry Golding as Nathan? That's definitely who I thought of as I read it.

I digress. The book definitely had some good qualities. I really enjoyed a glimpse into the life of this Indonesian/Chinese-American girl and her family. I love the loyalty and care the characters showed to each other, despite the bickering and verbal jabs, there was an underlying trust that allowed them to weather those disagreements and remain steadfast. I think this is something many families today lack. However, at some point the story kept getting more outrageous and it started to bore me.

I listened to the audiobook, otherwise I'm not sure I would have finished it. I am not an expert on Chinese/Indonesian/American accents but I thought the narrator did a fantastic job. She brought the characters to life and made each one unique and lovable.

]]> 3.68 2021 Dial A for Aunties (Aunties, #1)
author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2022/03/28
date added: 2022/03/29
shelves:
review:
I would give it 2.5 start if i could. I really wanted to love it. At times, this book had me laughing out loud. Medellin and her aunties were quite the team.

However, it felt like the book repeated itself A LOT. I do understand and reflected upon the fact that we, as people, often obsess and perseverate on situations in our lives, but it got old. I found the main character a bit annoying and the plot a little outrageous. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the script has already been sold because I couldn't help seeing this as a great movie. May I recommend Henry Golding as Nathan? That's definitely who I thought of as I read it.

I digress. The book definitely had some good qualities. I really enjoyed a glimpse into the life of this Indonesian/Chinese-American girl and her family. I love the loyalty and care the characters showed to each other, despite the bickering and verbal jabs, there was an underlying trust that allowed them to weather those disagreements and remain steadfast. I think this is something many families today lack. However, at some point the story kept getting more outrageous and it started to bore me.

I listened to the audiobook, otherwise I'm not sure I would have finished it. I am not an expert on Chinese/Indonesian/American accents but I thought the narrator did a fantastic job. She brought the characters to life and made each one unique and lovable.


]]> The Sentence 57576425 In this stunning and timely novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman's relentless errors.

Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading with murderous attention, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.

The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written.]]> 382 Louise Erdrich 0062671146 Rachel 0 to-read 4.09 2021 The Sentence
author: Louise Erdrich
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II]]> 55920278 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat, a gripping World War II saga of patriotism and courage: the special Japanese-American Army unit that overcame brutal odds in Europe; their families, incarcerated back home; and a young man who refused to surrender his constitutional rights, even if it meant imprisonment.

They came from across the continent and Hawaii. Their parents taught them to embrace both their Japanese heritage and the ways of their American homeland. They faced bigotry, yet they believed in their bright futures as American citizens. But within days of Pearl Harbor, the FBI was ransacking their houses and locking up their fathers. And within months many would themselves be living behind barbed wire.

Facing the Mountain is an unforgettable chronicle of war-time America and the battlefields of Europe. Based on Daniel James Brown's extensive interviews with the families of the protagonists as well as deep archival research, it portrays the kaleidoscopic journey of four Japanese-American families and their sons, who volunteered for 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, where they were asked to do the near impossible.

But this is more than a war story. Brown also tells the story of these soldiers' parents, immigrants who were forced to shutter the businesses, surrender their homes, and submit to life in concentration camps on U.S. soil. Woven throughout is the chronicle of a brave young man, one of a cadre of patriotic resisters who stood up against their government in defense of their own rights. Whether fighting on battlefields or in courtrooms, these were Americans under unprecedented strain, doing what Americans do best--striving, resisting, pushing back, rising up, standing on principle, laying down their lives, and enduring.]]> 560 Daniel James Brown 0525557407 Rachel 0 to-read 4.45 2021 Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II
author: Daniel James Brown
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Cloud Atlas 49628 A postmodern visionary who is also a master of styles of genres, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian lore of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K. Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction as profund as it is playful. Now in his new novel, David Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity.

Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. . . .
Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. . . . From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. . . . And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history.
But the story doesn’t end even there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.

As wild as a videogame, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.

]]> 509 David Mitchell 0375507256 Rachel 0 to-read 4.02 2004 Cloud Atlas
author: David Mitchell
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Native Son 15622 Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.

Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.]]> 504 Richard Wright Rachel 0 to-read 4.03 1940 Native Son
author: Richard Wright
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1940
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Something Wicked This Way Comes]]> 248596 Something Wicked This Way Comes, now featuring a new introduction and material about its longstanding influence on culture and genre.

For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes…and the stuff of nightmares.

Few novels have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury’s unparalleled literary masterpiece Something Wicked This Way Comes. Scary and suspenseful, it is a timeless classic in the American canon.]]> 293 Ray Bradbury 0380729407 Rachel 0 to-read 3.92 1962 Something Wicked This Way Comes
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Calvin and Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes, #1)]]> 77727 128 Bill Watterson 0836220889 Rachel 4 4.61 1987 Calvin and Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes, #1)
author: Bill Watterson
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.61
book published: 1987
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/03/11
shelves:
review:

]]>