Amanda's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 10 Apr 2025 14:00:44 -0700 60 Amanda's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 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 Amanda 0 to-read 3.81 2018 Normal People
author: Sally Rooney
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> White Nights 1772910 82 Fyodor Dostoevsky Amanda 0 to-read 4.16 1848 White Nights
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1848
rating: 0
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]]> Circe 35959740
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts, and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from or with the mortals she has come to love.]]> 393 Madeline Miller 0316556343 Amanda 0 to-read 4.22 2018 Circe
author: Madeline Miller
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> Project Hail Mary 54493401
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]> 476 Andy Weir 0593135202 Amanda 0 to-read 4.49 2021 Project Hail Mary
author: Andy Weir
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Amanda 0 to-read 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> The Favorites 211399784 To the world, they were a scandal. To each other, an obsession.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER � An epic love story set in the sparkling, savage sphere of elite figure skating, starring a woman determined to carve her own path on and off the ice

“P˛ą°ůłŮ Wuthering Heights and part Daisy Jones & The Six, this novel is as brilliantly choreographed as a gold medal performance and will keep you guessing until its last page.”—Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of By Any Other Name

She might not have a famous name, funding, or her family’s support, but Katarina Shaw has always known that she was destined to become an Olympic skater. When she meets Heath Rocha, a lonely kid stuck in the foster care system, their instant connection makes them a formidable duo on the ice. Clinging to skating—and each other—to escape their turbulent lives, Kat and Heath go from childhood sweethearts to champion ice dancers, captivating the world with their scorching chemistry, rebellious style, and roller-coaster relationship.

Until a shocking incident at the Olympic Games brings their partnership to a sudden end.

As the ten-year anniversary of their final skate approaches, an unauthorized documentary reignites the public obsession with Shaw and Rocha, claiming to uncover the “real storyâ€� through interviews with their closest friends and fiercest rivals. Kat wants nothing to do with the documentary, but she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t stand the thought of someone else defining her legacy. So, after a decade of silence, she’s telling her story: from the childhood tragedies that created her all-consuming bond with Heath to the clash of desires that tore them apart. Sensational rumors have haunted their every step for years, but the truth may be even more shocking than the headlines.]]> 448 Layne Fargo 0593732049 Amanda 0 to-read 4.19 2025 The Favorites
author: Layne Fargo
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> Great Big Beautiful Life 218559595 Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]> 384 Emily Henry 059344129X Amanda 0 to-read 4.23 2025 Great Big Beautiful Life
author: Emily Henry
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/01
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]]> On the Same Page 195096868 Riley Beckett met Gianna Mäkinen � drop-dead gorgeous influencer, trilingual, daughter of world-famous models, yes, that Gianna Mäkinen � their first year at Boston University, and it changed everything for the both of them. After all, when you find the person who just gets you, nothing feels quite "the same" right?


And in the ten years since, Riley has come to depend on Gianna more than anyone else in her life. She knows Gianna just as well as she knows herself � maybe better, some days. She knows Gianna is incredibly sex-positive, she knows Gianna doesn't do romance or relationships, and she knows nothing could ever come between them.


This is what makes sense to her, all of this is status-quo. But when a holiday party mix-up sets in motion a domino effect of changes to these previously inalienable truths, Riley has to question everything she thought she knew about their relationship. What, exactly, does Gianna mean to her after all?

]]> 468 Haley Cass Amanda 0 to-read 4.36 2023 On the Same Page
author: Haley Cass
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/09
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]]> Do Me a Favor 156709253
Until she meets her new neighbor.

Hudson Daws, the handyman next door, lives on a farm with his parents and two adult children. He’s the opposite of everything she’s ever known. His happily chaotic life includes biker barbecues, an escape artist dog, and adorably menacing goats. He’s also got a sinfully sexy smile and a rumbling bass voice that makes her shiver. He inspires her.

From their first meeting, the two fall into an escalating cycle of favors, paybacks…and attraction, even though Willa’s trying to keep her distance.

They both have their own pasts to deal with. Now, they just have to figure out if they have a future.

A delectable rom-com about a widowed cookbook writer and a divorced handyman who find that it’s never too late for a fresh start.]]> 299 Cathy Yardley 1662517092 Amanda 0 to-read 3.74 2024 Do Me a Favor
author: Cathy Yardley
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Sorcery and Small Magics (The Wildersongs Trilogy, #1)]]> 199826249 Desperate to undo the curse binding them to each other, an impulsive sorcerer and his curmudgeonly rival venture deep into a magical forest in search of a counterspell—only to discover that magic might not be the only thing pulling them together.

Leovander Loveage is a master of small magics.

He can summon butterflies with a song, or turn someone’s hair pink by snapping his fingers. Such minor charms don’t earn him much admiration from other sorcerers (or his father), but anything more elaborate always blows up in his face. Which is why Leo vowed years ago to never again write powerful magic.

That is, until a mix-up involving a forbidden spell binds Leo to obey the commands of his longtime nemesis, Sebastian Grimm. Grimm is Leo’s complete opposite—respected, exceptionally talented, and an absolutely insufferable curmudgeon. The only thing they agree on is that getting caught using forbidden magic would mean the end of their careers. They need a counterspell, and fast. But Grimm casts spells, he doesn’t undo them, and Leo doesn’t mess with powerful magic.

Chasing rumors of a powerful sorcerer with a knack for undoing curses, Leo and Grimm enter the Unquiet Wood, a forest infested with murderous monsters and dangerous outlaws alike. To dissolve the curse, they’ll have to uncover the true depths of Leo’s magic, set aside their long-standing rivalry, and—much to their horror—work together.

Even as an odd spark of attraction flares between them.]]> 416 Maiga Doocy 0356523993 Amanda 0 to-read 4.32 2024 Sorcery and Small Magics (The Wildersongs Trilogy, #1)
author: Maiga Doocy
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lights Out (Into Darkness, #1)]]> 201017011 “I don’t need another kink.�

That thought pops into my head whenever I pull up my favorite social media app, but alas, every time I scroll, I learn something new about myself, and another one is born. And yes, I know I’m responsible for what the algorithm shows me, but I’m trying to ignore that fact.

Lately, my feed has been dominated by masked men. I’ve favorited videos with them dressed in full cosplay, decked out in futuristic military apparel, and wrapped up like ghouls.

But more than anything else, my FYP is filled with shirtless men wearing ghost masks. Bonus points if they’re heavily tattooed, wielding a knife, or covered in fake blood. At night, I dream about being chased by them, of them catching me and doing deliciously dark things to my more than willing body.

I never could have guessed that by sending one drunken text, those dreams would become my new reality.

Lights Out is a fast-paced dark romance with a morally grey male lead. Some themes and scenes may be disturbing to readers. Please check the TWs at the beginning of the book. ]]> 338 Navessa Allen Amanda 0 to-read 4.17 2024 Lights Out (Into Darkness, #1)
author: Navessa Allen
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stalked by the Kraken (Monstrous Matches, #1)]]> 58193892 A matchmaking witch, an ancient sea creature, and the sex contract they make.

Welcome to the Love Bathhouse where desire and acceptance are in the water.

The Witch

Celibacy is a bad look for a matchmaker.

Especially a matchmaker who works at the kind of paranormal bathhouse that would have grandmothers clutching their pearls.
A worse look is a matchmaker experiencing a crisis of confidence.
I am that matchmaker.

We need raw magic, desperately.

And now a mysterious man walks into my office, offering me the exact solution I need.
The problem is that he wants to be matched� with me.
Matching doesn’t work for me; I found that out the hard way.

The Kraken

I saw her and the creature inside me wanted.

She doesn’t want a relationship. She says that the most we can have are the three nights she promised me, but the dark part of myself isn’t going to let the woman who snared its attention go.

I found her. I hunted her. She’s mine.

**Stalked by the Kraken is a monster romance that features tentacles. This book is a standalone and takes place in the same world as, and prior to the events of, Three of Hearts with some character crossover.

Content Warning: Book includes breeding behavior and mentions infertility.]]> 252 Lillian Lark Amanda 0 to-read 3.95 2021 Stalked by the Kraken (Monstrous Matches, #1)
author: Lillian Lark
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All, Vol. 1 (The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All, #1)]]> 212294563 184 Sumiko Arai 1975399684 Amanda 0 to-read 4.54 2023 The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All, Vol. 1 (The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All, #1)
author: Sumiko Arai
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Deep End 223206615
Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, Scarlett prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. She has no time for relationships—at least, that’s what she tells herself.

Swim captain, world champion, all-around aquatics golden boy Lukas Blomqvist thrives on discipline. It’s how he wins gold medals and breaks records: complete focus, with every stroke. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing in common. Until a well-guarded secret slips out, and everything changes.

So they start an arrangement. And as the pressure leading to the Olympics heats up, so does their relationship. It was supposed to be just a temporary, mutually satisfying fling. But when staying away from Lukas becomes impossible, Scarlett realizes that her heart might be treading into dangerous water...]]> 14 Ali Hazelwood Amanda 0 to-read 3.88 2025 Deep End
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[First-Time Caller (Heartstrings, #1)]]> 213243908 A hopeless romantic meets a jaded radio host in this cozy, Sleepless in Seattle-inspired love story from beloved author B.K. Borison.

Aiden Valentine has a secret: he's fallen out of love with love. And as the host of Baltimore's romance hotline, that's a bit of a problem. But when a young girl calls in to the station asking for dating advice for her mom, the interview goes viral, thrusting Aiden and Heartstrings into the limelight.

Lucie Stone thought she was doing just fine. She has a good job; an incredible family; and a smart, slightly devious kid. But when all of Baltimore is suddenly scrutinizing her love life-or lack thereof—she begins to question if she's as happy as she thought. Maybe a little more romance wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Everyone wants Lucie to find her happy ending... even the handsome, temperamental man calling the shots. But when sparks start to fly behind the scenes, Lucie must make the final call between the radio-sponsored happily ever after or the man in the headphones next to her.]]> 448 B.K. Borison 0593641191 Amanda 0 to-read 4.08 2025 First-Time Caller (Heartstrings, #1)
author: B.K. Borison
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> The Fall Risk 223199392 Two good neighbors make the best of a bad Valentine’s Day in a funny and improbably romantic short story by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Just for the Summer.

It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and Charlotte and Seth are not looking for romance. Armed with emotional-support bear spray, Charlotte is in self-imposed isolation and on guard from men. Having a stalker can do that to a person’s nerves. Just across the hall and giving off woodsy vibes is Seth, a recently divorced arborist. As in today recently. Heights, he’s fine with. Trust? Not so much. But when disaster traps them one flight up and no way down, an outrageously precarious predicament forces a tree-loving guy and a rattled girl next door to embrace their captivity. Soon their defenses are breaking away. Considering how close they both are to the edge, Charlotte and Seth could be in danger of falling—in love.]]> 82 Abby Jimenez 1662529082 Amanda 0 to-read 4.12 2025 The Fall Risk
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/22
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]]> Say You'll Remember Me 216437557 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Just for the Summer comes a new playful yet deeply emotional contemporary romance.

There might be no such a thing as a perfect guy, but Xavier Rush comes disastrously close. A gorgeous veterinarian giving Greek god vibes—all while cuddling a tiny kitten? Immediately yes. That is until Xavier opens his mouth and proves that even sculpted gods can say the absolute wrong thing. Like, really wrong. Of course, there’s nothing Samantha loves more than proving an asshole wrong�

. . . unless, of course, he can admit he made a mistake. But after one incredible and seemingly endless date—possibly the best in living history—Samantha is forced to admit the truth, that her family is in crisis and any kind of relationship would be impossible. Samantha begs Xavier to forget her. To remember their night together as a perfect moment, as crushing as that may be.

Only no amount of distance or time is nearly enough to forget that something between them. And the only thing better than one single perfect memory is to make a life—and even a love—worth remembering.]]> 416 Abby Jimenez 0349442827 Amanda 0 to-read 4.21 2025 Say You'll Remember Me
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/22
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]]> His & Hers 45885495 There are two sides to every story: yours and mine, ours and theirs, His & Hers. Which means someone is always lying.

When a woman is murdered in Blackdown, a quintessentially British village, newsreader Anna Andrews is reluctant to cover the case. Detective Jack Harper is suspicious of her involvement, until he becomes a suspect in his own murder investigation. Someone isn’t telling the truth, and some secrets are worth killing to keep.

His & Hers is a twisty, smart, psychological thriller. A gripping tale of suspense, told by expertly-drawn narrators that will keep readers guessing until the very end.]]> 304 Alice Feeney 1250266076 Amanda 4 4.03 2020 His & Hers
author: Alice Feeney
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/20
date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> 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 Amanda 5 4.21 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/22
date added: 2024/10/22
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)]]> 58416952 At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

AUDI. VIDE. TACE.

The Catenan Republic � the Hierarchy � may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus � what they call Will � to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.]]> 639 James Islington 1982141190 Amanda 0 to-read 4.61 2023 The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)
author: James Islington
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/13
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]]> Graveyard Shift 203578770 Author of sales sensation If We Were Villains returns with a story about a ragtag group of night shift workers who meet in the local cemetery to unearth the secrets lurking in an open grave.

Every night, in the college’s ancient cemetery, five people cross paths as they work the late shift: a bartender, a rideshare driver, a hotel receptionist, the steward of the derelict church that looms over them, and the editor-in-chief of the college paper, always in search of a story.

One dark October evening in the defunct churchyard, they find a hole that wasn’t there before. A fresh, open grave where no grave should be. But who dug it, and for whom?

Before they go their separate ways, the gravedigger returns. As they trail him through the night, they realize he may be the key to a string of strange happenings around town that have made headlines for the last few weeks—and that they may be closer to the mystery than they thought.

Atmospheric and eerie, with the ensemble cast her fans love and a delightfully familiar academic backdrop, Graveyard Shift is a modern Gothic tale in If We Were Villains author M. L. Rio’s inimitable style.]]> 144 M.L. Rio 1250356792 Amanda 0 to-read 3.19 2024 Graveyard Shift
author: M.L. Rio
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.19
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/13
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[To Kill a Kingdom (Hundred Kingdoms, #1)]]> 34499221
The ocean is the only place Prince Elian calls home, even though he is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world. Hunting sirens is more than an unsavory hobby—it’s his calling. When he rescues a drowning woman in the ocean, she’s more than what she appears. She promises to help him find the key to destroying all of sirenkind for good—But can he trust her? And just how many deals will Elian have to barter to eliminate mankind’s greatest enemy?]]> 344 Alexandra Christo 1250112680 Amanda 0 to-read 3.72 2018 To Kill a Kingdom (Hundred Kingdoms, #1)
author: Alexandra Christo
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[One Dark Window (The Shepherd King, #1)]]> 58340706
Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to stay safe in the eerie, mist-locked kingdom of Blunder—she needs a monster. She calls him the Nightmare, an ancient, mercurial spirit trapped in her head. He protects her. He keeps her secrets.

But nothing comes for free, especially magic.

When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a drastic turn. Thrust into a world of shadow and deception, she joins a dangerous quest to cure Blunder from the dark magic infecting it. And the highwayman? He just so happens to be the King’s nephew, Captain of the most dangerous men in Blunder…and guilty of high treason.

Together they must gather twelve Providence Cards—the keys to the cure. But as the stakes heighten and their undeniable attraction intensifies, Elspeth is forced to face her darkest secret yet: the Nightmare is slowly taking over her mind. And she might not be able to stop him.]]> 399 Rachel Gillig 0316312487 Amanda 0 to-read 4.26 2022 One Dark Window (The Shepherd King, #1)
author: Rachel Gillig
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Count Your Lucky Stars (Written in the Stars, #3)]]> 58114499 ąó´Ç±ô±ô´Ç·Éľ±˛Ô˛µĚýWritten in the StarsĚý˛ą˛Ô»ĺĚýHang the Moon, national bestselling author Alexandria Bellefleur pens another steamy queer rom-com about former best friends who might be each other's second chance at loveâ€�

Margot Cooper doesn’t do relationships. She tried and it blew up in her face, so she’ll stick with casual hookups,Ěýthank you very much. But now her entire crew has foundĚý"the one"Ěýand she’s beginning toĚýfeel like a fifth wheel. And then fate (the heartless bitch) intervenes. While touring a wedding venue with her engaged friends, Margot comes face-to-face with Olivia Grant—her childhood friend, her first love, her firstâ€� well, everything. It’s been ten years, but the moment they lock eyes, Margot’s cold, dead heart thumps in her chest.

Olivia must be hallucinating. In the decade since she last saw Margot, her life hasn’t gone exactly as planned. At almost thirty, she’s been married... and divorced. However, a wedding planner job in Seattle means a fresh start and a chance to follow her dreams. Never in a million years did she expect her important new client’s Best Woman would be the one that got away.

When a series of unfortunate events leaves Olivia without a place to stay, Margot offers up her spare room because she’s a Very Good Person.ĚýObviously. It has nothing to do with the fact that Olivia is as beautiful as ever and the sparks between them still make Margot tingle. As they spend time in close quarters, Margot starts to question her no-strings stance. Olivia is everything she’s ever wanted, but Margot let her in once and it ended in disaster. Will history repeat itself or should she count her lucky stars that she gets a second chance with her first love?Ěý]]> 320 Alexandria Bellefleur 006300089X Amanda 0 to-read 4.05 2022 Count Your Lucky Stars (Written in the Stars, #3)
author: Alexandria Bellefleur
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/17
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]]> Tom Lake 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X Amanda 0 to-read 3.92 2023 Tom Lake
author: Ann Patchett
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2)]]> 61373532 Working as a nanny for the world’s grumpiest single dad should have been simple. Except I ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t keep my eyes off him. And he ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t keep his hands off of me.

Cade Eaton is thirteen years older than I am and barely looks my way. Until I get him into the hot tub one night for a game of truth or dare. Then all bets are off—and so are our clothes.

He’s gruff, a little rough around the edges. But broad-shouldered ranchers with calloused hands and filthy mouths are this city girl’s kryptonite. So who am I to resist?

But it’s in our quiet moments together that he softens. It’s when he takes care of me that I realize his hardened exterior is just a façade. It’s when I watch him go all sweet with his little boy that I really fall for him.

Someone convinced him once that his best wasn’t good enough. But I’ve never felt more cherished than I do in his arms.

My contract may say this arrangement is only for two months.

But my heart says this is forever.
]]> 476 Elsie Silver Amanda 5 4.39 2022 Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2)
author: Elsie Silver
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/26
date added: 2024/07/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Half a Soul (Regency Faerie Tales, #1)]]> 60717747 It's difficult to find a husband in Regency England when you're a young lady with only half a soul.

Ever since she was cursed by a faerie, Theodora Ettings has had no sense of fear or embarrassment - a condition which makes her prone to accidental scandal. Dora hopes to be a quiet, sensible wallflower during the London Season - but when the strange, handsome and utterly uncouth Lord Sorcier discovers her condition, she is instead drawn into dangerous and peculiar faerie affairs.

If Dora's reputation can survive both her curse and her sudden connection with the least-liked man in all of high society, then she may yet reclaim her normal place in the world. . . but the longer Dora spends with Elias Wilder, the more she begins to suspect that one may indeed fall in love, even with only half a soul.

Bridgerton meets Howl's Moving Castle in this enchanting historical fantasy, where the only thing more meddlesome than faeries is a marriage-minded mother.

Pick up HALF A SOUL, and be stolen away into Olivia Atwater's charming, magical version of Regency England!]]> 304 Olivia Atwater Amanda 0 to-read 4.04 2020 Half a Soul (Regency Faerie Tales, #1)
author: Olivia Atwater
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement]]> 25330108
Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.

Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and buildĚýthe movement for human liberation.ĚýAnd in doing so, she reminds us that "Freedom is a constant struggle."]]> 158 Angela Y. Davis 1608465640 Amanda 0 to-read 4.45 2015 Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement
author: Angela Y. Davis
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/05
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]]> <![CDATA[While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence]]> 61885057 From award-winning journalist Meg Kissinger, a searing memoir of a family besieged by mental illness, as well as an incisive exploration of the systems that failed them and a testament to the love that sustained them.

Growing up in the 1960s in the suburbs of Chicago, Meg Kissinger’s family seemed to live a charmed life. With eight kids and two loving parents, the Kissingers radiated a warm, boisterous energy. Whether they were spending summer days on the shores of Lake Michigan, barreling down the ski slopes, or navigating the trials of their Catholic school, the Kissingers always knew how to live large and play hard.

But behind closed doors, a harsher reality was unfolding—a heavily medicated mother hospitalized for anxiety and depression, a manic father prone to violence, and children in the throes of bipolar disorder and depression, two of whom would take their own lives. Through it all, the Kissingers faced the world with their signature dark humor and the unspoken family rule: never talk about it.

While You Were Out begins as the personal story of one family’s struggles then opens outward, as Kissinger details how childhood tragedy catalyzed a journalism career focused on exposing our country’s flawed mental health care. Combining the intimacy of memoir with the rigor of investigative reporting, the book explores the consequences of shame, the havoc of botched public policy, and the hope offered by new treatment strategies.

Powerful, candid and filled with surprising humor, this is the story of one family’s love and resilience in face of great loss.]]> 320 Meg Kissinger 1250793777 Amanda 0 to-read 4.26 2023 While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence
author: Meg Kissinger
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/05
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]]> <![CDATA[When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era]]> 63024187 Ěý
The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the least examined crisis in American history. Beginning with the myths inspired by Reagan’s war on drugs, journalist Donovan X. Ramsey’s exacting analysis traces the path from the last triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement to the devastating realities we live with a racist criminal justice system, continued mass incarceration and gentrification, and increased police brutality.
Ěý
When Crack Was King follows four individuals to give us a startling portrait of crack’s destruction and devastating Elgin Swift, an archetype of American industry and ambition and the son of a crack-addicted father who turned their home into a “crack house�; Lennie Woodley, a former crack addict and sex worker; Kurt Schmoke, the longtime mayor of Baltimore and an early advocate of decriminalization; and Shawn McCray, community activist, basketball prodigy, and a founding member of the Zoo Crew, Newark’s most legendary group of drug traffickers.
Ěý
Weaving together riveting research with the voices of survivors, When Crack Was King is a crucial reevaluation of the era and a powerful argument for providing historically violated communities with the resources they deserve.]]> 448 Donovan X. Ramsey 0525511806 Amanda 0 to-read 4.35 2023 When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era
author: Donovan X. Ramsey
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/05
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]]> Just Mercy 20342617
Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to defending the poor, the incarcerated, and the wrongly condemned.

Just Mercy tells the story of EJI, from the early days with a small staff facing the nation’s highest death sentencing and execution rates, through a successful campaign to challenge the cruel practice of sentencing children to die in prison, to revolutionary projects designed to confront Americans with our history of racial injustice.

One of EJI’s first clients was Walter McMillian, a young Black man who was sentenced to die for the murder of a young white woman that he didn’t commit. The case exemplifies how the death penalty in America is a direct descendant of lynching � a system that treats the rich and guilty better than the poor and innocent.]]> 336 Bryan Stevenson Amanda 0 to-read 4.62 2014 Just Mercy
author: Bryan Stevenson
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation]]> 53121662 A scholar of American Christianity presents a seventy-five-year history of evangelicalism that identifies the forces that have turned Donald Trump into a hero of the Religious Right.

How did a libertine who lacks even the most basic knowledge of the Christian faith win 81 percent of the white evangelical vote in 2016? And why have white evangelicals become a presidential reprobate’s staunchest supporters? These are among the questions acclaimed historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez asks in Jesus and John Wayne, which delves beyond facile headlines to explain how white evangelicals have brought us to our fractured political moment. Challenging the commonly held assumption that the “moral majority� backed Donald Trump for purely pragmatic reasons, Du Mez reveals that Donald Trump in fact represents the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of white evangelicals� most deeply held values.

Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping account of the last seventy-five years of white evangelicalism, showing how American evangelicals have worked for decades to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism, or in the words of one modern chaplain, with “a spiritual badass.� As Du Mez explains, the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the role of culture in modern American evangelicalism. Many of today’s evangelicals may not be theologically astute, but they know their VeggieTales, they’ve read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart, and they learned about purity before they learned about sex—and they have a silver ring to prove it. Evangelical books, films, music, clothing, and merchandise shape the beliefs of millions. And evangelical popular culture is teeming with muscular heroes—mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of “Christian America.� Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done.

Trump, in other words, is hardly the first flashy celebrity to capture evangelicals� hearts and minds, nor is he the first strongman to promise evangelicals protection and power. Indeed, the values and viewpoints at the heart of white evangelicalism today—patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive foreign policy, fear of Islam, ambivalence toward #MeToo, and opposition to Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community—are likely to persist long after Trump leaves office.

A much-needed reexamination, Jesus and John Wayne explains why evangelicals have rallied behind the least-Christian president in American history and how they have transformed their faith in the process, with enduring consequences for all of us.]]> 356 Kristin Kobes Du Mez 1631495739 Amanda 0 to-read 4.27 2020 Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
author: Kristin Kobes Du Mez
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot]]> 36687229 267 Mikki Kendall Amanda 0 to-read 4.37 2020 Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
author: Mikki Kendall
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City]]> 25852784 Evicted, Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of 21st-century America's most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.]]> 418 Matthew Desmond 0553447432 Amanda 0 to-read 4.47 2016 Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
author: Matthew Desmond
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/05
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]]> 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 Amanda 4 3.95 2023 Happy Place
author: Emily Henry
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/26
date added: 2024/06/26
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]]> The Yellow Wall-Paper 286957
In a private journal, the woman records her growing obsession with the “horrid� wallpaper. Its strange pattern mutates in the moonlight, revealing what appears to be a human figure in the design. With nothing else to occupy her mind, the woman resolves to unlock the mystery of the wallpaper. Her quest, however, leads not to the truth, but into the darkest depths of madness.

A condemnation of the patriarchy, The Yellow Wallpaper explores with terrifying economy the oppression, grave misunderstanding, and willful dismissal of women in late nineteenth-century society.

First published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine.

Excerpt:
Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try.]]> 62 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1558611584 Amanda 0 to-read 4.11 1892 The Yellow Wall-Paper
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1892
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1)]]> 15839976 "I live for the dream that my children will be born free," she says. "That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them."

"I live for you," I say sadly.

Eo kisses my cheek. "Then you must live for more."

Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations.

Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children.

But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class.

Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity's overlords struggle for power. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society's ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies... even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.]]> 382 Pierce Brown 0345539788 Amanda 0 to-read 4.26 2014 Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1)
author: Pierce Brown
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/16
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]]> Truly, Madly, Deeply 173957959 Sparks fly when a lovelorn romance novelist and a divorce lawyer who has sworn off relationships agree to cohost a podcast series offering dating advice to viewers, in Truly, Madly, Deeply, the next steamy queer rom-com from Lambda Literary Award winner and national bestselling author Alexandria Bellefleur.

As a bestselling romance novelist, everyone thinks Truly Livingston is an expert on happily-ever-afters. She’s even signed on to record a podcast sharing relationship advice. Little do they know she feels like an imposter—her parents just announced they’re separating, she caught her fiancé cheating, and her entire view on love has been shaken to the core. Truly hopes the podcast will distract her... until she meets her cohost.

Her first impression of Colin McCory is...hot. But then he opens his extremely kissable mouth. Colin’s view on love just pisses Truly off, even if he does have an annoyingly attractive face. Bickering with a cynical divorce lawyer is the last thing she needs—so she walks out, with no plans to return.

A few days later, Truly is surprised when Colin tracks her down, asking for a fresh start. Truly ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t deny the little thrill she gets from Colin begging, so she reluctantly agrees. As they go from enemies to friends to something else entirely, Truly discovers they have more in common than she ever imagined, including their shared queerness. He’s a genuinely good guy—charming, sweet, and equally as unlucky in love as herself—and there’s something about Colin that drives Truly a little wild. When their attraction reaches a fever pitch, Truly is happy for the first time in years. Yet she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t help but wonder... is Colin truly, madly, deeply in love with her? Or is it all too good to be true?]]> 336 Alexandria Bellefleur 0063258536 Amanda 0 to-read 3.73 2024 Truly, Madly, Deeply
author: Alexandria Bellefleur
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Just for the Summer (Part of Your World, #3)]]> 195820807
Emma hadn't planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too good of an opportunity to pass up, especially when they get to rent an adorable cottage on a private island on Lake Minnetonka.

It's supposed to be a quick fling, just for the summer. But when Emma's toxic mother shows up and Justin has to assume guardianship of his three siblings, they're suddenly navigating a lot more than they expected--including catching real feelings for each other. What if this time Fate has actually brought the perfect pair together?]]> 432 Abby Jimenez 1538704439 Amanda 5 4.35 2024 Just for the Summer (Part of Your World, #3)
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/07
date added: 2024/05/07
shelves:
review:
i just love abby jimenez, she’s my favorite contemporary romance author. i love the part of your world series and how each book can be read as a stand alone, but the characters are all interconnected. this book felt different from the previous two, though, where the focus is more on emma’s and justin’s respective struggles and how they navigate them. they find support in each other, but they both also have to do some work internally which is discussed in the book. i really appreciate the respect and nuance mental health struggles are given in this book, and abby always does an excellent job with this. it’s such a well-rounded story with interesting and fun side characters. the story felt very human and hopeful. 4.5/5 rounded up to 5 â­ď¸Ź
]]> <![CDATA[Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)]]> 60657589
Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world's first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party--or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, and the Fair Folk.

So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily's research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.

But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones--the most elusive of all faeries--lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she'll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all--her own heart.]]> 336 Heather Fawcett 059350013X Amanda 0 to-read 3.99 2023 Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)
author: Heather Fawcett
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/05
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]]> <![CDATA[A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present]]> 2767 Zinn portrays a side of American history that can largely be seen as the exploitation and manipulation of the majority by rigged systems that hugely favor a small aggregate of elite rulers from across the orthodox political parties.
A People's History has been assigned as reading in many high schools and colleges across the United States. It has also resulted in a change in the focus of historical work, which now includes stories that previously were ignored

Library Journal calls Howard Zinn’s book “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those…whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories.”]]> 729 Howard Zinn 0060838655 Amanda 0 to-read 4.07 1980 A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present
author: Howard Zinn
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1980
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso]]> 6656 This Everyman’s Library edition–containing in one volume all three cantos, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso–includes an introduction by Nobel Prize—winning poet Eugenio Montale, a chronology, notes, and a bibliography. Also included are forty-two drawings selected from Botticelli’s marvelous late-fifteenth-century series of illustrations.

Translated in this edition by Allen Mandelbaum, The Divine Comedy begins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in the year 1300. It proceeds on a journey that, in its intense recreation of the depths and the heights of human experience, has become the key with which Western civilization has sought to unlock the mystery of its own identity.

Mandelbaum’s astonishingly Dantean translation, which captures so much of the life of the original, renders whole for us the masterpiece of that genius whom our greatest poets have recognized as a central model for all poets.]]> 798 Dante Alighieri 0679433139 Amanda 0 to-read 4.08 1320 The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso
author: Dante Alighieri
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1320
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/25
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]]> <![CDATA[The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot]]> 54798488 An extraordinary friendship. A lifetime of stories.
Their last one begins here.

Life is short. No-one knows that better than seventeen year old Lenni living on the terminal ward. But as she is about to learn, it's not only what you make of life that matters, but who you share it with.

Dodging doctor's orders, she joins an art class where she bumps into fellow patient Margot, a rebel-hearted eighty three year old from the next ward. Their bond is instant as they realize that together they have lived an astonishing one hundred years.

To celebrate their shared century, they decide to paint their life stories: of growing old and staying young, of giving joy, of receiving kindness, of losing love, of finding the person who is everything.

As their extraordinary friendship deepens, it becomes vividly clear that life is not done with Lenni and Margot yet.

Fiercely alive, disarmingly funny and brimming with tenderness, THE ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF LENNI AND MARGOT unwraps the extraordinary gift of life even when it is about to be taken away, and revels in our infinite capacity for friendship and love when we need them most. ]]> 322 Marianne Cronin 0063017504 Amanda 0 to-read 4.26 2021 The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot
author: Marianne Cronin
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/08
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review:

]]> Conversations on Love 57028269 320 Natasha Lunn 0241448735 Amanda 0 to-read 4.23 2021 Conversations on Love
author: Natasha Lunn
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![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 Amanda 5 4.39 2017 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/03
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review:
this book is my roman empire. the audiobook is so engaging to listen to. i really believe this book lives up to the hype, and it’s such a rollercoaster of emotions. i just love TJR’s writing style so much. i easily connect with her main characters because they have depth and intrigue, and i always find myself relating to them in one way or another and learning from them. this book is really something special and one of my all time favorites
]]> You Deserve Each Other 50027029 When your nemesis also happens to be your fiancé, happily ever after becomes a lot more complicated in this wickedly funny, lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy debut.

Naomi Westfield has the perfect fiancé: Nicholas Rose holds doors open for her, remembers her restaurant orders, and comes from the kind of upstanding society family any bride would love to be a part of. They never fight. They're preparing for their lavish wedding that's three months away. And she is miserably and utterly sick of him.

Naomi wants out, but there's a catch: whoever ends the engagement will have to foot the nonrefundable wedding bill. When Naomi discovers that Nicholas, too, has been feigning contentment, the two of them go head-to-head in a battle of pranks, sabotage, and all-out emotional warfare.

But with the countdown looming to the wedding that may or may not come to pass, Naomi finds her resolve slipping. Because now that they have nothing to lose, they're finally being themselves--and having fun with the last person they expect: each other.]]> 368 Sarah Hogle Amanda 4 3.90 2020 You Deserve Each Other
author: Sarah Hogle
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> One Last Stop 54860443
But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.

Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.]]> 418 Casey McQuiston 1250244498 Amanda 4 3.90 2021 One Last Stop
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2021
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> If We Were Villains 30319086
As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.]]> 354 M.L. Rio 125009528X Amanda 5 4.11 2017 If We Were Villains
author: M.L. Rio
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2017
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> When Breath Becomes Air 25899336
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a naĂŻve medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life" into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. "I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything," he wrote. "Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: 'I can't go on. I'll go on.'" When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.]]> 208 Paul Kalanithi 0812988418 Amanda 5 4.41 2016 When Breath Becomes Air
author: Paul Kalanithi
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2016
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> 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 Amanda 4 4.09 2022 Book Lovers
author: Emily Henry
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> Love and Other Words 36206591 The story of the heart can never be unwritten.

Macy Sorensen is settling into an ambitious if emotionally tepid routine: work hard as a new pediatrics resident, plan her wedding to an older, financially secure man, keep her head down and heart tucked away.

But when she runs into Elliot Petropoulos—the first and only love of her life—the careful bubble she’s constructed begins to dissolve. Once upon a time, Elliot was Macy’s entire world—growing from her gangly bookish friend into the man who coaxed her heart open again after the loss of her mother...only to break it on the very night he declared his love for her.

Told in alternating timelines between Then and Now, teenage Elliot and Macy grow from friends to much more—spending weekends and lazy summers together in a house outside of San Francisco devouring books, sharing favorite words, and talking through their growing pains and triumphs. As adults, they have become strangers to one another until their chance reunion. Although their memories are obscured by the agony of what happened that night so many years ago, Elliot will come to understand the truth behind Macy’s decade-long silence, and will have to overcome the past and himself to revive her faith in the possibility of an all-consuming love.

Love, loss, friendship, and the betrayals of the past all collide in this first fiction novel from New York Times and #1 international bestselling author Christina Lauren (Autoboyography, Dating You / Hating You).]]> 432 Christina Lauren 1501190539 Amanda 4 4.23 2018 Love and Other Words
author: Christina Lauren
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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]]> Gone Girl 19288043 What have we done to each other?

These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren't made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone.

So what did happen to Nick's beautiful wife?]]> 415 Gillian Flynn 0307588378 Amanda 4 4.22 2012 Gone Girl
author: Gillian Flynn
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> Archer's Voice 32822135
Archer's Voice is the story of a woman chained to the memory of one horrifying night and the man whose love is the key to her freedom. It is the story of a silent man who lives with an excruciating wound and the woman who helps him find his voice. It is the story of suffering, fate, and the transformative power of love.]]> 377 Mia Sheridan 1538727374 Amanda 3 4.14 2014 Archer's Voice
author: Mia Sheridan
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> The Heart's Invisible Furies 33253215 real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from � and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.]]> 582 John Boyne Amanda 5 4.51 2017 The Heart's Invisible Furies
author: John Boyne
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2017
rating: 5
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]]> Twice Shy 54660653 Can you find real love when you've always got your head in the clouds?

Maybell Parish has always been a dreamer and a hopeless romantic. But living in her own world has long been preferable to dealing with the disappointments of real life. So when Maybell inherits a charming house in the Smokies from her Great-Aunt Violet, she seizes the opportunity to make a fresh start.

Yet when she arrives, it seems her troubles have only just begun. Not only is the house falling apart around her, but she isn't the only inheritor: she has to share everything with Wesley Koehler, the groundskeeper who's as grouchy as he is gorgeous—and it turns out he has very different vision for the property's future.

Convincing the taciturn Wesley to stop avoiding her and compromise is a task more formidable than the other dying wishes Great-Aunt Violet left behind. But when Maybell uncovers something unexpectedly sweet beneath Wesley's scowls, and as the two slowly begin to let their guard down, they might learn that sometimes the smallest steps outside one's comfort zone can lead to the greatest rewards.]]> 302 Sarah Hogle 0593085531 Amanda 4 3.65 2021 Twice Shy
author: Sarah Hogle
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2021
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> The Soulmate Equation 55692620
But then Jess hears about GeneticAlly, a buzzy new DNA-based matchmaking company that’s predicted to change dating forever. Finding a soulmate through DNA? The reliability of numbers: This Jess understands.

At least she thought she did, until her test shows an unheard-of 98 percent compatibility with another subject in the database: GeneticAlly’s founder, Dr. River Peña. This is one number she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t wrap her head around, because she already knows Dr. Peña. The stuck-up, stubborn man is without a doubt not her soulmate. But GeneticAlly has a proposition: Get to know him and we’ll pay you. Jess—who is barely making ends meet—is in no position to turn it down, despite her skepticism about the project and her dislike for River. As the pair are dragged from one event to the next as the “Diamondâ€� pairing that could launch GeneticAlly’s valuation sky-high, Jess begins to realize that there might be more to the scientist—and the science behind a soulmate—than she thought.

The Soulmate Equation proves that the delicate balance between fate and choice can never be calculated.]]> 360 Christina Lauren 1982123966 Amanda 3 4.00 2021 The Soulmate Equation
author: Christina Lauren
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 3
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]]> After I Do 18775359 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781476712840.

When Lauren and Ryan’s marriage reaches the breaking point, they come up with an unconventional plan. They decide to take a year off in the hopes of finding a way to fall in love again. One year apart, and only one rule: they cannot contact each other. Aside from that, anything goes.

Lauren embarks on a journey of self-discovery, quickly finding that her friends and family have their own ideas about the meaning of marriage. These influences, as well as her own healing process and the challenges of living apart from Ryan, begin to change Lauren’s ideas about monogamy and marriage. She starts to question: When you can have romance without loyalty and commitment without marriage, when love and lust are no longer tied together, what do you value? What are you willing to fight for?

This is a love story about what happens when the love fades. It’s about staying in love, seizing love, forsaking love, and committing to love with everything you’ve got. And above all, After I Do is the story of a couple caught up in an old game—and searching for a new road to happily ever after.]]> 352 Taylor Jenkins Reid Amanda 4 3.91 2014 After I Do
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/20
date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> <![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 Amanda 5 4.29 2023 Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2)
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/28
date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1)]]> 60755618 The rules were simple . . .
Keep my hands off his daughter and stay out of trouble.

But now I’m stuck with her . . . And there’s only one bed . . .
Oh well, rules are made -- to be broken . . . aren't they?

I’m the face of professional bull riding -- the golden boy.
Or at least I was, until it all blew up in my face.
Now my agent says I have to clean up my image, so I’m stuck with his ball-busting daughter for the rest of the season as my “full-time supervision.�

But I don’t need a goddamn babysitter --
especially one with skin-tight jeans, a sexy smirk,
and a mouth she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t stop running.

A mouth I just ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t stop thinking about . . .

Because Summer isn’t just another conquest.
She sees the man behind the mask, and she doesn’t run --
she pulls me closer, even when she shouldn’t.

She says this means nothing -- but I say this means everything.

She says there are boundaries we shouldn’t cross.
That my reputation ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t take any more hits -- and neither can her damaged heart.

I say I’m going to steal it anyway.
]]> 424 Elsie Silver Amanda 4 4.06 2022 Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1)
author: Elsie Silver
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/10
date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients]]> 21025 288 Irvin D. Yalom 0060938110 Amanda 4 4.31 2001 The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients
author: Irvin D. Yalom
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/07
date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> <![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 Amanda 4 4.00 2023 Practice Makes Perfect (When in Rome, #2)
author: Sarah Adams
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/14
date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> Every Last Secret 52347808 Welcome to the neighborhood. Watch your husband, watch your friends, and watch your back.

Cat Winthorpe has worked hard to get what she has: a gorgeous home; social standing; and William, her successful, handsome husband. Then a friendly new couple moves into the estate next door. While cautious, a good neighbor like Cat greets them with open arms and warm hospitality.

Neena Ryder isn’t a fellow lady of leisure. A life coach with off-the-rack dresses, personal issues, and a husband who hasn’t delivered, she’s anxious to move up in the world. This beautiful new town is a step in the right direction. It’s also making Neena aware of what she doesn’t have. Namely, William. When Neena’s infatuation escalates into obsession, it’s just a matter of eliminating a few obstacles to get the life she wants. The life next door.

As Neena’s secret fixation grows, so does her friendship with Cat. But beneath their cordial interactions is a wealth of temptations, secrets, and toxic jealousy. For both women, the desire for a perfect life can turn perfectly dangerous.]]> 291 A.R. Torre 1542020182 Amanda 4 3.95 2020 Every Last Secret
author: A.R. Torre
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/28
date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> <![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 Amanda 5 4.16 2020 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/01/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, #1)]]> 26032825 Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.

To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.

As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.]]> 370 Holly Black 0316310271 Amanda 0 to-read 4.01 2018 The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, #1)
author: Holly Black
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)]]> 61431922 Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders...

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile� humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die]]> 665 Rebecca Yarros 1649374046 Amanda 0 currently-reading 4.56 2023 Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom, #1)]]> 46008662 This is a previously-published edition - ASIN: B07SB6FRDN

What if you fell in love with the one person you'd sworn to destroy?

Lara has only one thought for her husband on their wedding day: I will bring your kingdom to its knees. A princess trained from childhood to be a lethal spy, Lara knows that the Bridge Kingdom represents both legendary evil - and legendary promise. The only route through a storm-ravaged world, the Bridge Kingdom controls all trade and travel between lands, allowing its ruler to enrich himself and deprive his enemies, including Lara's homeland. So when she is sent as a bride under the guise of fulfilling a treaty of peace, Lara is prepared to do whatever it takes to fracture the defenses of the impenetrable Bridge Kingdom.

But as she infiltrates her new home - a lush paradise surrounded by tempest seas - and comes to know her new husband, Aren, Lara begins to question where the true evil resides. Around her, she sees a kingdom fighting for survival, and in Aren, a man fiercely protective of his people. As her mission drives her to deeper understanding of the fight to possess the bridge, Lara finds the simmering attraction between her and Aren impossible to ignore. Her goal nearly within reach, Lara will have to decide her own fate: Will she be the destroyer of a king or the savior of her people?]]> 356 Danielle L. Jensen Amanda 0 to-read 4.06 2018 The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom, #1)
author: Danielle L. Jensen
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> In My Dreams I Hold a Knife 50485649 Six friends.
One college reunion.
One unsolved murder.

A college reunion turns dark and deadly in this chilling and propulsive suspense novel about six friends, one unsolved murder, and the dark secrets they’ve been hiding from each other—and themselves—for a decade.

Ten years after graduation, Jessica Miller has planned her triumphant return to southern, elite Duquette University, down to the envious whispers that are sure to follow in her wake. Everyone is going to see the girl she wants them to see—confident, beautiful, indifferent—not the girl she was when she left campus, back when Heather’s murder fractured everything, including the tight bond linking the six friends she’d been closest to since freshman year. Ten years ago, everything fell apart, including the dreams she worked for her whole life—and her relationship with the one person she wasn’t supposed to love.

But not everyone is ready to move on. Not everyone left Duquette ten years ago, and not everyone can let Heather’s murder go unsolved. Someone is determined to trap the real killer, to make the guilty pay. When the six friends are reunited, they will be forced to confront what happened that night—and the years� worth of secrets each of them would do anything to keep hidden.

Told in racing dual timelines, with a dark campus setting and a darker look at friendship, love, obsession, and ambition, In My Dreams I Hold A Knife is an addictive, propulsive read you won’t be able to put down.]]> 345 Ashley Winstead 172822988X Amanda 0 to-read 3.79 2021 In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
author: Ashley Winstead
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives]]> 104979 278 Michael Newton 1567184855 Amanda 0 to-read 4.32 2000 Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives
author: Michael Newton
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> My Husband 63017297 In this suspenseful and darkly funny debut novel, a sophisticated French woman spends her life obsessing over her perfect husband--but can their marriage survive her passionate love?

At forty years old, she has an enviable life: a successful career, stunning looks, a beautiful house in the suburbs, two healthy children, and most importantly, an ideal husband. After fifteen years together, she is still besotted with him. But she's never quite sure that her passion is reciprocated. After all, would a truly infatuated man ever let go of his wife's hand when they're sitting on the couch together?

Determined to keep their relationship perfect, she meticulously prepares for every encounter they have, always taking care to make her actions seem effortless. She watches him attentively, charting every mistake and punishing him accordingly to help him improve. And she tests him--setting traps to make sure that he still loves her just as much as he did when they first met.

Until one day she realizes she may have gone too far . . .

The winner of France's First Novel Prize in 2021, My Husband builds on the premise of hits like Gone Girl and Fates and Furies--how well can you really know your spouse?--and adds the tension and creepy obsession of You. The result is an irresistible read--compelling, tense, and engaging, infused with sly subversive humor, and told in an utterly original voice that makes it unforgettable.

Translated from the French by Emma Ramadan]]> 272 Maud Ventura 0063274825 Amanda 0 to-read 3.67 2021 My Husband
author: Maud Ventura
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Notes on an Execution 57773248
Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours. He knows what he’s done, and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls, years ago. But Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood. He hoped it wouldn’t end like this, not for him.

Through a kaleidoscope of women—a mother, a sister, a homicide detective—we learn the story of Ansel’s life. We meet his mother, Lavender, a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation; Hazel, twin sister to Ansel’s wife, inseparable since birth, forced to watch helplessly as her sister’s relationship threatens to devour them all; and finally, Saffy, the homicide detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy, exploring the rippling fissures that such destruction inevitably leaves in its wake.

Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes on an Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it simultaneously unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our system of justice and our cultural obsession with crime stories, asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the psyches of violent men.]]> 306 Danya Kukafka 0063052733 Amanda 0 to-read 4.04 2022 Notes on an Execution
author: Danya Kukafka
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Fragile Threads of Power (Threads of Power, #1)]]> 111673828 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, and set in the world of A Darker Shade of Magic, V. E. Schwab opens a new door into perilous adventure and tangled schemes with The Fragile Threads of Power.

Once, there were four worlds, nestled like pages in a book, each pulsing with fantastical power, and connected by a single city: London. Until the magic grew too fast, and forced the worlds to seal the doors between them in a desperate gamble to protect their own. The few magicians who could still open the doors grew more rare as time passed and now, only three Antari are known in recent memory―Kell Maresh of Red London, Delilah Bard of Grey London, and Holland Vosijk, of White London.

But barely a glimpse of them have been seen in the last seven years―and a new Antari named Kosika has appeared in White London, taking the throne in Holland's absence. The young queen is willing to feed her city with blood, including her own―but her growing religious fervor has the potential to drown them instead.

And back in Red London, King Rhy Maresh is threatened by a rising rebellion, one determined to correct the balance of power by razing the throne entirely.

Amidst this tapestry of old friends and new enemies, a girl with an unusual magical ability comes into possession of a device that could change the fate of all four worlds.

Her name is Tes, and she's the only one who can bring them together―or unravel it all.]]> 648 Victoria E. Schwab 0765387492 Amanda 0 to-read 4.26 2023 The Fragile Threads of Power (Threads of Power, #1)
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Song of Achilles 11250317
Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.]]> 352 Madeline Miller 1408816032 Amanda 5 4.38 2011 The Song of Achilles
author: Madeline Miller
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/11
date added: 2023/10/11
shelves:
review:
beautiful and devastating. the last line simultaneously pierced right through my heart and mended it back together. i sobbed which is rare for me (on prozac)
]]> <![CDATA[The Unbearable Lightness of Being]]> 9717 The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. This magnificent novel juxtaposes geographically distant places, brilliant and playful reflections, and a variety of styles, to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of one of the world’s truly great writers.]]> 314 Milan Kundera 0571224385 Amanda 0 to-read 4.12 1984 The Unbearable Lightness of Being
author: Milan Kundera
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> Girlhood 53138199 A gripping set of stories about the forces that shape girls and the adults they become. A wise and brilliant guide to transforming the self and our society.

In her powerful new book, critically acclaimed author Melissa Febos examines the narratives women are told about what it means to be female and what it takes to free oneself from them.

When her body began to change at eleven years old, Febos understood immediately that her meaning to other people had changed with it. By her teens, she defined herself based on these perceptions and by the romantic relationships she threw herself into headlong. Over time, Febos increasingly questioned the stories she’d been told about herself and the habits and defenses she’d developed over years of trying to meet others� expectations. The values she and so many other women had learned in girlhood did not prioritize their personal safety, happiness, or freedom, and she set out to reframe those values and beliefs.

Blending investigative reporting, memoir, and scholarship, Febos charts how she and others like her have reimagined relationships and made room for the anger, grief, power, and pleasure women have long been taught to deny.

Written with Febos� characteristic precision, lyricism, and insight, Girlhood is a philosophical treatise, an anthem for women, and a searing study of the transitions into and away from girlhood, toward a chosen self.]]> 320 Melissa Febos 1635572525 Amanda 0 to-read 4.23 2021 Girlhood
author: Melissa Febos
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Office of Historical Corrections]]> 51777605 The award-winning author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self brings her signature voice and insight to the subjects of race, grief, apology, and American history.

Danielle Evans is widely acclaimed for her blisteringly smart voice and x-ray insights into complex human relationships. With The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters' lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture, and history. She introduces us to Black and multiracial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief—all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively. Ultimately, she provokes us to think about the truths of American history—about who gets to tell them, and the cost of setting the record straight.

In "Boys Go to Jupiter," a white college student tries to reinvent herself after a photo of her in a Confederate-flag bikini goes viral. In "Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain," a photojournalist is forced to confront her own losses while attending an old friend's unexpectedly dramatic wedding. And in the eye-opening title novella, a black scholar from Washington, DC, is drawn into a complex historical mystery that spans generations and puts her job, her love life, and her oldest friendship at risk.]]> 269 Danielle Evans 1594487332 Amanda 0 to-read 4.15 2020 The Office of Historical Corrections
author: Danielle Evans
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Ocean at the End of the Lane]]> 18505792
A groundbreaking work as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out.

Includes bonus features: a meet with Neil Gaiman, a reading group guide, and an interview with Gaiman.]]> 195 Neil Gaiman 0062255665 Amanda 0 to-read 4.06 2013 The Ocean at the End of the Lane
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/01
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]]> We Do What We Do in the Dark 58735038 A novel about a young woman's life-altering affair with a much older, married woman.

Mallory is a freshman in college, reeling from her mother's recent death, when she encounters the woman. She sees her for the first time at the university's gym, immediately entranced. Soon, they meet, drawn by an electric tension and shared past wounds; before long, they begin sleeping together in secret. Self-possessed, successful, brilliant, and aloof--the woman is everything Mallory wants...and wants to be. Desiring not only the woman but also the idea of who she is when they're together, Mallory retreats from the rest of the world, solidifying a sense of aloneness that has both haunted and soothed her since childhood and will continue to do so for years even after the affair ends. As an adult, Mallory must decide whether to stay safely in isolation or step fully into the world, to confront what the woman meant to her and how their relationship shaped her, for better or worse.

Mallory's life is transformed by loss and by love and by discovering who she is while enduring both. In this enthralling debut novel, the complexities of influence, obsession, and admiration reveal how desire and its consequences can alter the trajectory of someone's life.
]]> 224 Michelle Hart 0593329678 Amanda 0 to-read 3.53 2022 We Do What We Do in the Dark
author: Michelle Hart
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/10/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Sorcery of Thorns (Sorcery of Thorns, #1)]]> 42201395
Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth’s desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.

As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught—about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.]]> 456 Margaret Rogerson 1481497618 Amanda 0 to-read 4.03 2019 Sorcery of Thorns (Sorcery of Thorns, #1)
author: Margaret Rogerson
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals]]> 54785515 The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.

Nobody needs to be told there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and ceaseless battle against distraction; we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient and life hacks to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.

Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern obsession with “getting everything done,� Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing that many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society—and that we could do things differently.]]> 271 Oliver Burkeman 0374159122 Amanda 0 to-read 4.20 2021 Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
author: Oliver Burkeman
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting]]> 59836844
Then one morning, the man she calls Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader chokes on a grape right in front of her. He’d have died were it not for the timely intervention of Sanjay, a nurse, who gives him the Heimlich maneuver.

This single event starts a chain reaction, and an eclectic group of people discovers that talking to strangers can teach you quite a bit about the world around you—and even more about yourself.]]> 342 Clare Pooley 1984878646 Amanda 0 to-read 4.16 2022 Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting
author: Clare Pooley
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> Boy Parts 49083140
Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina’s relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention�

Boy Parts is the incendiary debut novel from Eliza Clark, a pitch-black comedy both shocking and hilarious, fearlessly exploring the taboo regions of sexuality and gender roles in the twenty-first century.]]> 304 Eliza Clark 1910312649 Amanda 0 to-read 3.74 2020 Boy Parts
author: Eliza Clark
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/30
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]]> Vita Nostra (Vita Nostra, #1) 38633526
Our life is brief . . .

While vacationing at the beach with her mother, Sasha Samokhina meets the mysterious Farit Kozhennikov under the most peculiar circumstances. The teenage girl is powerless to refuse when this strange and unusual man with an air of the sinister directs her to perform a task with potentially scandalous consequences. He rewards her effort with a strange golden coin.

As the days progress, Sasha carries out other acts for which she receives more coins from Kozhennikov. As summer ends, her domineering mentor directs her to move to a remote village and use her gold to enter the Institute of Special Technologies. Though she does not want to go to this unknown town or school, she also feels it’s the only place she should be. Against her mother’s wishes, Sasha leaves behind all that is familiar and begins her education.

As she quickly discovers, the institute’s "special technologies" are unlike anything she has ever encountered. The books are impossible to read, the lessons obscure to the point of maddening, and the work refuses memorization. Using terror and coercion to keep the students in line, the school does not punish them for their transgressions and failures; instead, their families pay a terrible price. Yet despite her fear, Sasha undergoes changes that defy the dictates of matter and time; experiences which are nothing she has ever dreamed of . . . and suddenly all she could ever want.

A complex blend of adventure, magic, science, and philosophy that probes the mysteries of existence, filtered through a distinct Russian sensibility, this astonishing work of speculative fiction—brilliantly translated by Julia Meitov Hersey—is reminiscent of modern classics such as Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, Max Barry’s Lexicon, and Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale, but will transport them to a place far beyond those fantastical worlds.]]> 408 Marina Dyachenko 0062694596 Amanda 0 to-read 4.00 2007 Vita Nostra (Vita Nostra, #1)
author: Marina Dyachenko
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)]]> 35068705
When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.

But surprises aren’t always good.

Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .

Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.]]> 545 R.F. Kuang 0062662597 Amanda 0 to-read 4.16 2018 The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/24
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]]> These Violent Delights 49203397 The Secret History meets Call Me by Your Name in Micah Nemerever's compulsively enjoyable debut novel - a feverishly taut Hitchcockian story about two college students, each with his own troubled past, whose escalating obsession with one another leads to an act of unspeakable violence.

When Paul and Julian meet as university freshmen in early 1970s Pittsburgh, they are immediately drawn to one another. A talented artist, Paul is sensitive and agonizingly insecure, incomprehensible to his working-class family, and desolate with grief over his father's recent death. Paul sees his wealthy, effortlessly charming Julian as his sole intellectual equal - an ally against the conventional world he finds so suffocating. He idolizes his friend for his magnetic confidence. But as charismatic as he can choose to be, Julian also is volatile and capriciously cruel. An admiration isn't the same as trust.

As their friendship spirals into an all-consuming intimacy, Paul is desperate to protect their precarious bond, even as it becomes clear that pressures from the outside world are nothing compared with the brutality they are capable of inflicting on one another. Separation is out of the question. But as their orbit compresses and their grip on one another tightens, they are drawn to an act of irrevocable violence that will force the young men to confront a shattering truth at the core of their relationship.

Exquisitely plotted, unfolding with propulsive ferocity, These Violent Delights is a novel of escalating dread and an excavation of the unsettling depths of human desire.]]> 460 Micah Nemerever 0062963635 Amanda 0 to-read 3.96 2020 These Violent Delights
author: Micah Nemerever
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/24
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]]> Bunny (Bunny, #1) 53285047 We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?

Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other Bunny, and seem to move and speak as one.

But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled Smut Salon, and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus Workshop where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.

The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.

Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Vogue, Electric Literature, and The New York Public Library]]> 305 Mona Awad 0525559752 Amanda 0 to-read 3.43 2019 Bunny (Bunny, #1)
author: Mona Awad
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment, #1)]]> 60784546 After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again�

All eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow wants to do is hold her family together. With a brother on the frontline forced to fight on behalf of the Gods now missing from the frontline and a mother drowning her sorrows, Iris’s best bet is winning the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.

But when Iris’s letters to her brother fall into the wrong hands � that of the handsome but cold Roman Kitt, her rival at the paper � an unlikely magical connection forms.

Expelled into the middle of a mystical war, magical typewriters in tow, can their bond withstand the fight for the fate of mankind and, most importantly, love?

An epic enemies-to-lovers fantasy novel filled with hope and heartbreak, and the unparalleled power of love.]]> 357 Rebecca Ross 1250857430 Amanda 0 to-read 4.14 2023 Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment, #1)
author: Rebecca Ross
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/06
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]]> The Ghostwriter 30962267
I wasn't surprised. Telling stories is what made me famous. Fifteen bestsellers. Millions of fans. Fame and fortune.

Now, I have one last story to write. It'll be my best one yet, with a jaw-dropping twist that will leave them stunned and gasping for breath.

They say that sticks and stones will break your bones, but this story? It will be the one that kills me.


This book is not a romance. It is contemporary fiction, but very suspenseful in nature. It is about a famous romance author and a dark secret she keeps. ]]> 321 A.R. Torre Amanda 0 to-read 4.04 2017 The Ghostwriter
author: A.R. Torre
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/09/02
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]]> A Thousand Mornings: Poems 13588404 A Thousand Mornings, Mary Oliver returns to the imagery that has come to define her life’s work, transporting us to the marshland and coastline of her beloved home, Provincetown, Massachusetts. In these pages, Oliver shares the wonder of dawn, the grace of animals, and the transformative power of attention. Whether studying the leaves of a tree or mourning her adored dog, Percy, she is ever patient in her observations and open to the teachings contained in the smallest of moments.

Our most precious chronicler of physical landscape, Oliver opens our eyes to the nature within, to its wild and its quiet. With startling clarity, humor, and kindness, AĚýThousand Mornings explores the mysteries of our daily experience.]]> 82 Mary Oliver 1594204772 Amanda 0 to-read 4.20 2012 A Thousand Mornings: Poems
author: Mary Oliver
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver]]> 34272476
“No matter where one starts reading, Devotions offers much to love, from Oliver's exuberant dog poems to selections from the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Primitive, and Dream Work, one of her exceptional collections. Perhaps more important, the luminous writing provides respite from our crazy world and demonstrates how mindfulness can define and transform a life, moment by moment, poem by poem.� —The Washington Post

“It’s as if the poet herself has sidled beside the reader and pointed us to the poems she considers most worthy of deep consideration.� —Chicago Tribune

Throughout her celebrated career, Mary Oliver has touched countless readers with her brilliantly crafted verse, expounding on her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things. Identified as "far and away, this country's best selling poet" by Dwight Garner, she now returns with a stunning and definitive collection of her writing from the last fifty years.

Carefully curated, these 200 plus poems feature Oliver's work from her very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 at the age of 28, through her most recent collection, Felicity, published in 2015. This timeless volume, arranged by Oliver herself, showcases the beloved poet at her edifying best. Within these pages, she provides us with an extraordinary and invaluable collection of her passionate, perceptive, and much-treasured observations of the natural world.]]> 456 Mary Oliver 0399563245 Amanda 0 to-read 4.58 2017 Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
author: Mary Oliver
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/28
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]]> The Girl on the Train 22557272
An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.]]> 336 Paula Hawkins 1594633665 Amanda 0 to-read 3.97 2015 The Girl on the Train
author: Paula Hawkins
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Payback's a Witch (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #1)]]> 60228075 Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meets The L Word in this fresh, sizzling rom-com by Lana Harper.

Emmy Harlow is a witch but not a very powerful one—in part because she hasn't been home to the magical town of Thistle Grove in years. Her self-imposed exile has a lot to do with a complicated family history and a desire to forge her own way in the world, and only the very tiniest bit to do with Gareth Blackmoore, heir to the most powerful magical family in town and casual breaker of hearts and destroyer of dreams.

But when a spellcasting tournament that her family serves as arbiters for approaches, it turns out the pull of tradition (or the truly impressive parental guilt trip that comes with it) is strong enough to bring Emmy back. She's determined to do her familial duty; spend some quality time with her best friend, Linden Thorn; and get back to her real life in Chicago.

On her first night home, Emmy runs into Talia Avramov—an all-around badass adept in the darker magical arts—who is fresh off a bad breakup . . . with Gareth Blackmoore. Talia had let herself be charmed, only to discover that Gareth was also seeing Linden—unbeknownst to either of them. And now she and Linden want revenge. Only one question stands: Is Emmy in?

But most concerning of all: Why can't she stop thinking about the terrifyingly competent, devastatingly gorgeous, wickedly charming Talia Avramov?]]> 10 Lana Harper 059345670X Amanda 0 to-read 3.60 2021 Payback's a Witch (The Witches of Thistle Grove, #1)
author: Lana Harper
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Delilah Green Doesn't Care (Bright Falls, #1)]]> 54756850
Delilah Green swore she would never go back to Bright Falls—nothing is there for her but memories of a lonely childhood where she was little more than a burden to her cold and distant stepfamily. Her life is in New York, with her photography career finally gaining steam and her bed never empty. Sure, it’s a different woman every night, but that’s just fine with her.
Ěý
When Delilah’s estranged stepsister, Astrid, pressures her into photographing her wedding with a guilt trip and a five-figure check, Delilah finds herself back in the godforsaken town that she used to call home. She plans to breeze in and out, but then she sees Claire Sutherland, one of Astrid’s stuck-up besties, and decides that maybe there’s some fun (and a little retribution) to be had in Bright Falls, after all.
Ěý
Having raised her eleven-year-old daughter mostly on her own while dealing with her unreliable ex and running a bookstore, Claire Sutherland depends upon a life without surprises. And Delilah Green is an unwelcome surprise…at first. Though they’ve known each other for years, they don’t really know each other—so Claire is unsettled when Delilah figures out exactly what buttons to push. When they’re forced together during a gauntlet of wedding preparations—including a plot to save Astrid from her horrible fiancé—Claire isn’t sure she has the strength to resist Delilah’s charms. Even worse, she’s starting to think she doesn’t want to...]]> 375 Ashley Herring Blake 0593336402 Amanda 0 to-read 4.06 2022 Delilah Green Doesn't Care (Bright Falls, #1)
author: Ashley Herring Blake
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/04
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]]> Written in the Stars 52746452 In her debut with nods to Bridget Jones and Pride and Prejudice, Alexandria Bellefleur delivers a charming #ownvoices queer rom-com about a free-spirited social media astrologer who agrees to fake a relationship with an uptight actuary until New Year’s Eve—with results not even the stars could predict!

After a disastrous blind date, Darcy Lowell is desperate to stop her well-meaning brother from playing matchmaker ever again. Love—and the inevitable heartbreak—is the last thing she wants. So she fibs and says her latest set up was a success. Darcy doesn’t expect her lie to bite her in the ass.

Elle Jones, one of the astrologers behind the popular Twitter account, Oh My Stars, dreams of finding her soul mate. But she knows it is most assuredly not Darcy... a no-nonsense stick-in-the-mud, who is way too analytical, punctual, and skeptical for someone as free-spirited as Elle. When Darcy’s brother—and Elle's new business partner—expresses how happy he is that they hit it off, Elle is baffled. Was Darcy on the same date? Because... awkward.

When Darcy begs Elle to play along, she agrees to pretend they’re dating to save face. But with a few conditions: Darcy must help Elle navigate her own overbearing family over the holidays and their arrangement expires on New Year’s Eve. The last thing they expect is to develop real feelings during a fake relationship.

But maybe opposites can attract when true love is written in the stars?]]> 12 Alexandria Bellefleur Amanda 0 to-read 3.73 2020 Written in the Stars
author: Alexandria Bellefleur
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/04
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]]> A Room of One’s Own 18521 A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on the 24th of October, 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled Women and Fiction, and hence the essay, are considered nonfiction. The essay is seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.]]> 112 Virginia Woolf Amanda 0 to-read 4.21 1929 A Room of One’s Own
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1929
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger]]> 38532207 A transformative book urging twenty-first century-women to embrace their anger and harness it as a tool for lasting personal and societal change.

Women are angry, and it isn’t hard to figure out why.

We are underpaid and overworked. Too sensitive, or not sensitive enough. Too dowdy or too made-up. Too big or too thin. Sluts or prudes. We are harassed, told we are asking for it, and asked if it would kill us to smile. Yes, yes it would.

Contrary to the rhetoric of popular “self-help� and an entire lifetime of being told otherwise, our rage is one of the most important resources we have, our sharpest tool against both personal and political oppression. We’ve been told for so long to bottle up our anger, letting it corrode our bodies and minds in ways we don’t even realize. Yet our anger is a vital instrument, our radar for injustice and a catalyst for change. On the flip side, the societal and cultural belittlement of our anger is a cunning way of limiting and controlling our power.

We are so often told to resist our rage or punished for justifiably expressing it, yet how many remarkable achievements in this world would never have gotten off the ground without the kernel of anger that fueled them? Rage Becomes Her makes the case that anger is not what gets in our way, it is our way, sparking a new understanding of one of our core emotions that will give women a liberating sense of why their anger matters and connect them to an entire universe of women no longer interested in making nice at all costs.

Following in the footsteps of classic feminist manifestos like The Feminine Mystique and Our Bodies, Ourselves, Rage Becomes Her is an eye-opening book for the twenty-first century woman: an engaging, accessible credo offering us the tools to re-understand our anger and harness its power to create lasting positive change.]]> 364 Soraya Chemaly 1501189557 Amanda 0 to-read 4.36 2018 Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger
author: Soraya Chemaly
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/26
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]]> <![CDATA[No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model]]> 55384168 Discover an empowering new way of understanding your multifaceted mind—and healing the many parts that make you who you are.

Is there just one “youâ€�? We’ve been taught to believe we have a single identity, and to feel fear or shame when we ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t control the inner voices that don’t match the ideal of who we think we should be. Yet Dr. Richard Schwartz’s research now challenges this “mono-mindâ€� theory. “All of us are born with many sub-minds—or parts,â€� says Dr. Schwartz. “These parts are not imaginary or symbolic. They are individuals who exist as an internal family within us—and the key to health and happiness is to honor, understand, and love every part.â€�

Dr. Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems (IFS) model has been transforming psychology for decades. With No Bad Parts, you’ll learn why IFS has been so effective in areas such as trauma recovery, addiction therapy, and depression treatment—and how this new understanding of consciousness has the potential to radically change our lives. Here you’ll explore:

� The IFS revolution—how honoring and communicating with our parts changes our approach to mental wellness
� Overturning the cultural, scientific, and spiritual assumptions that reinforce an outdated mono-mind model
� The ego, the inner critic, the saboteur—making these often-maligned parts into powerful allies
� Burdens—why our parts become distorted and stuck in childhood traumas and cultural beliefs
� How IFS demonstrates human goodness by revealing that there are no bad parts
� The Self—discover your wise, compassionate essence of goodness that is the source of healing and harmony
� Exercises for mapping your parts, accessing the Self, working with a challenging protector, identifying each part’s triggers, and more

IFS is a paradigm-changing model because it gives us a powerful approach for healing ourselves, our culture, and our planet. As Dr. Schwartz teaches, “Our parts can sometimes be disruptive or harmful, but once they’re unburdened, they return to their essential goodness. When we learn to love all our parts, we can learn to love all people—and that will contribute to healing the world.�

]]> 216 Richard C. Schwartz 1683646681 Amanda 0 to-read 4.13 2021 No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model
author: Richard C. Schwartz
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/08
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]]> Little Fires Everywhere 51704136 Everything I Never Told You, a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives.

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned--from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren--an enigmatic artist and single mother--who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town--and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.

Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood--and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.

Named a Best Book of the Year by: People, The Washington Post, Bustle, Esquire, Southern Living, The Daily Beast, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Audible, Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ, Library Reads, Book of the Month, Paste, Kirkus Reviews, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and many more...

Perfect for book clubs! Visit celesteng.com for discussion guides and more. ]]> 368 Celeste Ng 0143135163 Amanda 4 4.06 2017 Little Fires Everywhere
author: Celeste Ng
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2017
rating: 4
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date added: 2023/07/06
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]]> One True Loves 27189194
On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing. Just like that, Jesse is gone forever.

Emma quits her job and moves home in an effort to put her life back together. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma’s second chance at happiness.

That is, until Jesse is found. He’s alive, and he’s been trying all these years to come home to her. With a husband and a fiancé, Emma has to now figure out who she is and what she wants, while trying to protect the ones she loves.

Who is her one true love? What does it mean to love truly?

Emma knows she has to listen to her heart. She’s just not sure what it’s saying.]]> 352 Taylor Jenkins Reid Amanda 5 4.03 2016 One True Loves
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2016
rating: 5
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date added: 2023/06/22
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i love the way taylor jenkins reid writes and how easy it is to connect emotionally with her characters. i will be listening to every single one of her audiobooks because julia whelan brings her characters to life so well. a good book to me is one where i can become completely immersed in the story and emotionally invested in the characters, even if i don’t agree with all their decisions, and TJR does that for me every time. beautiful writing as always and many quotes that will stick with me.
]]> Sidetracked (Mindf*ck, #2) 33271162 Or at least I was...until her.

****
LOGAN

I've had tunnel vision for one main goal for so long, that I forgot there was a whole other world just outside. Until Lana.

She's everything I never expected, and I love the fact I can never guess her every move or reaction. It's part of the reason I keep falling. But I also know she shuts me out, hides things from me she feels she can't share.

One day, I hope she trusts me enough to share.

It isn't until my job puts her at risk that I realize just how fierce she is, but it doesn't stop me from doing all I can to protect her. I should walk away to protect her better, but I can't. Instead, I'm forced to find other ways to keep her safe.

I just hope it's enough.

Though she is fierce, she's still fragile...

Right?]]> 115 S.T. Abby Amanda 0 to-read 4.37 2016 Sidetracked (Mindf*ck, #2)
author: S.T. Abby
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/22
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]]> <![CDATA[In a Jam (Friendship, Rhode Island #1)]]> 62597278
First, Shay has to move home to the small town of Friendship, Rhode Island. Second—and most problematic since her fiancé just called off the wedding—Shay must be married within one year.

Marriage is the last thing in the world Shay wants but she’ll do anything to save the only real home she’s ever known.

Noah Barden loved Shay Zucconi back in high school. Not that he ever told her. He was too shy, too awkward, too painfully uncool to ask out the beautiful, popular girl.

A lifetime later, Noah is a single dad to his niece and has his hands full running the family business. That old crush is the farthest thing from his mind.

Until Shay returns to their hometown.

CW/TW: absentee parent(s), brief mention of parent death, brief mention of parent chronic illness, mention of incarceration, mention of temporary foster care placement, reference to teenage teasing/bullying (not detailed, not explicit), brief incidence of fat-shaming, living with a neurodivergent child]]> 480 Kate Canterbary Amanda 0 to-read 3.85 2022 In a Jam (Friendship, Rhode Island #1)
author: Kate Canterbary
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/22
shelves: to-read
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