en-US Thu, 15 Feb 2024 07:13:59 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 5091 The Dark Tower saga is perhaps the most anticipated book in the author's long career. King began this epic tale about the last gunslinger in the world more than 20 years ago; now he draws its suspenseful story to a close, snapping together the last pieces of his action puzzle and drawing Roland Deschain ever closer to his ultimate goal.

Alternate cover edition for ISBN-10: 1416524525; ISBN-13: 9781416524526]]> 1050 Stephen King Lara 0 on-my-real-bookshelf, to-read 4.27 2004
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/15
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf, to-read
review:

]]> 51245 256 Edward Gorey 0156056720 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.40 1983
author: Edward Gorey
name: Lara
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/23
date added: 2023/06/23
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Edward Gorey is always a delight. My favorite in this collection is the Epiplectic Bicycle.
]]> 76776
The only god living in Green Town, Illinois, that Douglas Spaulding knew of.

The facts about John Huff, aged twelve, are simple and soon stated.

�� He could pathfind more trails than any Choctaw or Cherokee since time began.
�� Could leap from the sky like a chimpanzee from a vine.
�� Could live underwater two minutes and slide fifty yards downstream.
�� Could hit baseballs into apple trees, knocking down harvests.
�� Could jump six-foot orchard walls.
�� Ran laughing.
�� Sat easy.
�� Was not a bully.
�� Was kind.
�� Knew the words to all the cowboy songs and would teach you if you asked.
�� Knew the names of all the wild flowers and when the moon would rise or set and when the tides came in or out.

He was, in fact, the only god living in the whole of Green Town, Illinois, during the twentieth century that Douglas Spaulding knew of.

“[Ray] Bradbury is an authentic original.”�� Time]]> 239 Ray Bradbury 0553277537 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.13 1957
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Lara
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1957
rating: 5
read at: 2016/06/01
date added: 2023/06/14
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
In the summer of 1928, twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding discovers that he's alive, really alive. Then, he slowly realizes that means he must die one day. The magical, nostalgic vignettes captured and affected me. I was especially moved by the story of Colonel Freeleigh and the friendship of Bill Forrester and Helen Loomis. The book was a slow-starter for me, but as I allowed myself to sink into the warm and familiar world of Green Town I yearned to stay. However, books, like summer and life, must end. Thankfully, this one was satisfying and well-done.
]]> 58724626
What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.]]> 165 T. Kingfisher 1250830753 Lara 5 to-read, on-my-real-bookshelf 3.86 2022
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Lara
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/07/29
date added: 2023/06/05
shelves: to-read, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
As a teacher who reads "The Fall of the House of Usher" with my students yearly, I had high expectations for this reimagining. I love the language, description, and all around gothicness of the original and this version held up well on those fronts. The characterization in this version is more rounded out in many ways. I found the narrator particularly delightful with their dry wit. As the story advanced, the tension and creep factor built steadily, as they should, and some parts were straight horrifying. The conclusion was a little anticlimactic, but the rest was so good that I'll forgive it.
]]> 34076952 Love speaks in flowers. Truth requires thorns.

Travel to a world of dark bargains struck by moonlight, of haunted towns and hungry woods, of talking beasts and gingerbread golems, where a young mermaid's voice can summon deadly storms and where a river might do a lovestruck boy's bidding but only for a terrible price.

Inspired by myth, fairy tale, and folklore, #1 New York Times—bestselling author Leigh Bardugo has crafted a deliciously atmospheric collection of short stories filled with betrayals, revenge, sacrifice, and love.

Perfect for new readers and dedicated fans, these tales will transport you to lands both familiar and strange—to a fully realized world of dangerous magic that millions have visited through the novels of the Grishaverse.

This collection of six stories includes three brand-new tales, all of them lavishly illustrated with art that changes with each turn of the page, culminating in six stunning full-spread illustrations as rich in detail as the stories themselves.

Zemeni Ayama and the Thorn Wood --
Ravkan The too-clever fox --
The witch of Duva --
Little knife --
Kerch The soldier prince --
Fjerdan When water sang fire]]> 281 Leigh Bardugo 125012252X Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.30 2017
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Lara
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/13
date added: 2023/03/13
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
These twisted Grishaverse children's stories are delightful in that nightmare fairy tale way. You'll feel empathy for the villains, but you'll also feel a little glad for the bitterness that accompanies every victory.
]]> 55711617
That’s not the only thing that’s getting carved up, though �� this, Jade knows, is the start of a slasher. But what kind? Who’s wearing the mask? Jade’s got an encyclopedic recall of every horror movie on the shelf, but�� will that help her survive? Can she get a final girl trained enough to stop all this from happening? Does she even want to?

Isn’t a slasher exactly what her hometown deserves?

This new novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones, called “one of our most talented living writers�� by Tommy Orange, explores the changing landscape of the West through his distinct voice of sharp humor and prophetic violence.

Go up the mountain to Proofrock. See if you’ve got what it takes �� see if your heart, too, might be a chainsaw.]]> 405 Stephen Graham Jones 1982137630 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.52 2021
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Lara
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/05/28
date added: 2023/01/20
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Stephen Graham Jones is one of the best authors writing horror today. There are twists, but the plot doesn't rely on them. There are mysteries that don't seem contrived. There is depth to his characters and their culture. Plus, there is true visceral horror that is not gratuitous. He uses gore, but there's also the deep honest horror of life and the cruelties people inflict on one another. I've only read two of his books, but both are in my favorites. I'll definitely read more.
]]> 55858638 New York Times bestselling trilogy that began with A Deadly Education and The Last Graduate.

The one thing you never talk about while you're in the Scholomance is what you'll do when you get out. Not even the richest enclaver would tempt fate that way. But it's all we dream about, the hideously slim chance we'll survive to make it out the gates and improbably find ourselves with a life ahead of us, a life outside the Scholomance halls.

And now the impossible dream has come true. I'm out, we're all out--and I didn't even have to turn into a monstrous dark witch to make it happen. So much for my great-grandmother's prophecy of doom and destruction. I didn't kill enclavers, I saved them. Me, and Orion, and our allies. Our graduation plan worked to perfection: we saved everyone and made the world safe for all wizards and brought peace and harmony to all the enclaves of the world.

Ha, only joking! Actually it's gone all wrong. Someone else has picked up the project of destroying enclaves in my stead, and probably everyone we saved is about to get killed in the brewing enclave war on the horizon. And the first thing I've got to do now, having miraculously got out of the Scholomance, is turn straight around and find a way back in.]]> 407 Naomi Novik 0593158369 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.08 2022
author: Naomi Novik
name: Lara
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/19
date added: 2022/11/19
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
The first half of the book was super slow. At the end of the second book in the trilogy, I had all kinds of predictions about what might happen in the third and I wondered how they would fit it all in. Well, I was mostly wrong in my predictions, but things did finally start thing together and the pace picked up. Now that the trilogy is finished, I'm going to miss these characters.
]]> 43798107 Classic Ghost Stories is a treasure trove of tales of ghosts and hauntings with 36 stories published in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book's distinguished lineup of writers includes Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, M. R. James, William Hope Hodgson, Vernon Lee, Ambrose Bierce, Edith Wharton, H. G. Wells, and others. Its selections include some of the finest ghost stories ever published, among them the short novels "The Haunted Baronet" by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, "The Lost Stradivarius" by J. Meade Falkner, and "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James.]]> 806 Algernon Blackwood 1435167899 Lara 0 to-read, on-my-real-bookshelf 3.38
author: Algernon Blackwood
name: Lara
average rating: 3.38
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/04
shelves: to-read, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:

]]> 56179356
Her best friend Charm is intent on making Zinnia's last birthday special with a full sleeping beauty experience, complete with a tower and a spinning wheel. But when Zinnia pricks her finger, something strange and unexpected happens, and she finds herself falling through worlds, with another sleeping beauty, just as desperate to escape her fate.]]> 119 Alix E. Harrow 1250765358 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf A Spindle Splintered is a very English-major-y book. It's a fun, brief, feminist, LGBTQ-friendly, multi-verse type of update to the Sleeping Beauty story. It's also surprisingly hopeful despite highlighting the most grim and gruesome elements of fairy tales. Maybe we haven't advanced socially as far as we should have in centuries of time, but we're working on it.]]> 3.58 2021
author: Alix E. Harrow
name: Lara
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/29
date added: 2022/09/29
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
A Spindle Splintered is a very English-major-y book. It's a fun, brief, feminist, LGBTQ-friendly, multi-verse type of update to the Sleeping Beauty story. It's also surprisingly hopeful despite highlighting the most grim and gruesome elements of fairy tales. Maybe we haven't advanced socially as far as we should have in centuries of time, but we're working on it.
]]> 57693618 From the detective who found The Golden State Killer, a memoir of investigating America’s toughest cold cases and the rewards--and toll--of a life solving crime.

I order another bourbon, neat. This is the drink that will flip the switch. I don’t even know how I got here, to this place, to this point. Something is happening to me lately. I’m drinking too much. My sheets are soaking wet when I wake up from nightmares of decaying corpses. I order another drink and swig it, trying to forget about the latest case I can’t shake.

Crime-solving for me is more complex than the challenge of the hunt, or the process of piecing together a scientific puzzle. The thought of good people suffering drives me, for better or worse, to the point of obsession.

People always ask how I am able to detach from the horrors of my work. Part of it is an innate capacity to compartmentalize; the rest is experience and exposure, and I’ve had plenty of both. But I had always taken pride in the fact that I can keep my feelings locked up to get the job done. It’s only been recently that it feels like all that suppressed darkness is beginning to seep out.

When I look back at my long career, there is a lot I am proud of. I have caught some of the most notorious killers of the twenty-first century and brought justice and closure for their victims and families. I want to tell you about a lifetime solving these cold cases, from Laci Peterson to Jaycee Dugard to the Pittsburg homicides to, yes, my twenty-year-long hunt for the Golden State Killer.

But a deeper question eats at me as I ask myself, at what cost? I have sacrificed relationships, joy—even fatherhood—because the pursuit of evil always came first. Did I make the right choice? It’s something I grapple with every day. Yet as I stand in the spot where a young girl took her last breath, as I look into the eyes of her family, I know that, for me, there has never been a choice. “I don’t know if I can solve your case,�� I whisper. “But I promise I will do my best.��

It is a promise I know I can keep.]]> 288 Paul Holes 1250622794 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf Unmasked tips slightly more toward memoir than true crime, but that's okay with me. I've been a listener of Paul Holes's podcast from beginning to (apparent) end and I find him to be a sincere, dedicated investigator. Holes's struggle with work-life balance will be relatable to anyone who works in a helping profession. There's always a problem to be solved and more to be done. But we have to care for ourselves and our loved ones, too. I hope Paul finds his balance and happiness while still doing his valuable work.]]> 4.07 2022
author: Paul Holes
name: Lara
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/21
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Unmasked tips slightly more toward memoir than true crime, but that's okay with me. I've been a listener of Paul Holes's podcast from beginning to (apparent) end and I find him to be a sincere, dedicated investigator. Holes's struggle with work-life balance will be relatable to anyone who works in a helping profession. There's always a problem to be solved and more to be done. But we have to care for ourselves and our loved ones, too. I hope Paul finds his balance and happiness while still doing his valuable work.
]]> 3835 Don Quixote chronicles the adventures of the self-created knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain. You haven't experienced Don Quixote in English until you've read this masterful translation.]]> 940 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 0060934344 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.12 1615
author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
name: Lara
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1615
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/11
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:

]]> 45731382 "THE MALE ELENA FERRANTE" -- New York Post
In the acclaimed follow-up to the #1 international bestseller The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, everyone's favorite curmudgeon is back and as funny and charming as ever with the newest adventures of the Old-But-Not-Dead Club -- for fans of Frederik Backman and Graeme Simsion.
Everyone's favorite octogenarian is back and, together with his pals in the Old-But-Not-Dead Club, he is more determined than ever to wreak havoc and turn a twinkly eye on the brighter side of life.
After a year spent mourning the death of his beloved friend Eefje, Hendrik may be older and a little more wobbly, but his youthful appetite for mischief hasn't diminished. When fears arise that the home is set for demolition, it's up to Hendrik and the Old-But-Not-Dead Club to intervene.
]]> 450 Hendrik Groen 153874662X Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.22 2016
author: Hendrik Groen
name: Lara
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2021/01/30
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Another lovely visit with Henk. I love how he shows us that we never stop learning and to try not to stop living.
]]> 13129925
To unravel the mystery, three employees volunteer to work a nine-hour dusk-till-dawn shift. In the dead of the night, they’ll patrol the empty showroom floor, investigate strange sights and sounds, and encounter horrors that defy the imagination.

A traditional haunted house story in a thoroughly contemporary setting, ��ǰ����ǰ�����ö�� is designed to retain its luster and natural appearance for a lifetime of use. Pleasingly proportioned with generous French flaps and a softcover binding, ��ǰ����ǰ�����ö�� delivers the psychological terror you need in the elegant package you deserve.

Designed by Andie Reid, cover photography by Christine Ferrara.]]> 248 Grady Hendrix 1594745269 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf ��ǰ����ǰ�����ö�� entertains while it frightens and depresses. Grady Hendrix's gruesome imagery makes you recoil as you turn the pages faster. If you've ever thought a big box store would be creepy after hours, this book more than confirms the idea.]]> 3.64 2014
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Lara
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2020/05/26
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Both a spooky ghost/zombie horror story and a biting criticism of class divides in corporate capitalistic America, ��ǰ����ǰ�����ö�� entertains while it frightens and depresses. Grady Hendrix's gruesome imagery makes you recoil as you turn the pages faster. If you've ever thought a big box store would be creepy after hours, this book more than confirms the idea.
]]> 49455343 In this thrilling sequel to the New York Times bestselling novella by Stephen King and award-winning author Richard Chizmar, an adult Gwendy is summoned back to Castle Rock after the mysterious reappearance of the button box.

Something evil has swept into the small Maine town of Castle Rock on the heels of the latest winter storm. Sheriff Norris Ridgewick and his team are desperately searching for two missing girls, but time is running out.

In Washington, DC, thirty-seven-year-old Gwendy Peterson couldn’t be more different from the self-conscious teenaged girl who once spent a summer running up Castle Rock’s Suicide Stairs. That same summer, she had been entrusted—or some might say cursed—with the extraordinary button box by Richard Farris, the mysterious stranger in the black suit. The seductive and powerful box offered Gwendy small gifts in exchange for its care and feeding until Farris eventually returned, promising the young girl she’d never see the box again.

One day, though, the button box suddenly reappears but this time, without Richard Farris to explain why, or what she’s supposed to do with it. Between this and the troubling disappearances back in Castle Rock, Gwendy decides to return home. She just might be able to help rescue the missing girls and stop a dangerous madman before he does something ghastly.

With breathtaking and lyrical prose, Gwendy’s Magic Feather explores whether our lives are controlled by fate or the choices we make and what price we sometimes have to pay. Prepare to return again to Stephen King’s Castle Rock, the sleepy little town built on a bedrock of deep, dark secrets, just as it’s about to awaken from its quiet slumber once more.]]> 224 Richard Chizmar 1982139722 Lara 3 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.70 2019
author: Richard Chizmar
name: Lara
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2020/05/28
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Really 2.5 stars rounded up to 3. This story was messy, disjointed, and rather shallow. But it was nice going back to Castle Rock and seeing what Gwendy was up to as an adult. (Everything, as it turns out.) A nice diversion, but nothing special.
]]> 51934838 A story about a dangerously curious young undergraduate whose rebelliousness leads her to discover a shocking secret involving an exclusive circle of students . . . and the dark truth beneath her school’s promise of prestige.

You are in the house and the house is in the woods.
You are in the house and the house is in you . . .

Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world’s best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years—summers included—completely removed from the outside world. Family, friends, television, music, even their clothing must be left behind. In return, the school promises its graduates a future of sublime power and prestige, and that they can become anything or anyone they desire.

Among this year’s incoming class is Ines, who expects to trade blurry nights of parties, pills, cruel friends, and dangerous men for rigorous intellectual discipline—only to discover an environment of sanctioned revelry. The school’s enigmatic director, Viktória, encourages the students to explore, to expand their minds, to find themselves and their place within the formidable black iron gates of Catherine.

For Ines, Catherine is the closest thing to a home she’s ever had, and her serious, timid roommate, Baby, soon becomes an unlikely friend. Yet the House’s strange protocols make this refuge, with its worn velvet and weathered leather, feel increasingly like a gilded prison. And when Baby’s obsessive desire for acceptance ends in tragedy, Ines begins to suspect that the school—in all its shabby splendor, hallowed history, advanced theories, and controlled decadence—might be hiding a dangerous agenda that is connected to a secretive, tightly knit group of students selected to study its most promising and mysterious curriculum.]]> 311 Elisabeth Thomas 0062905651 Lara 4 We Are Okay, with the sad, even depressed, college girl wandering through life trying to find purpose. In other ways, it reminds me of The Catcher in the Rye with the clearly traumatized young person acting out in a vain attempt to feel something while also avoiding everything. There was something unsatisfying about it, but it's still beautiful and haunting. Nothing much happens, but still everything changes. I guess that's how life is sometimes.]]> 3.10 2020
author: Elisabeth Thomas
name: Lara
average rating: 3.10
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/06/07
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This is a weird little book. I'm not even sure what to say about it. In some ways, it reminds me of We Are Okay, with the sad, even depressed, college girl wandering through life trying to find purpose. In other ways, it reminds me of The Catcher in the Rye with the clearly traumatized young person acting out in a vain attempt to feel something while also avoiding everything. There was something unsatisfying about it, but it's still beautiful and haunting. Nothing much happens, but still everything changes. I guess that's how life is sometimes.
]]> 30753629
--back cover]]> 422 Stephen King 1501156748 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.29 1987
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1987
rating: 5
read at: 2020/06/28
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
That Stephen King guy really knows how to write a page-turner, huh? This one doesn't even have anything supernatural, just real human horror. People really can be worse than anything imagined.
]]> 52756723 And Then There Were None ��meets The Last Time I Lied in this dark and twisty psychological thriller.

In 1995, six university students moved into the house at 215 Caldwell Street.��Months later, one of them was found dead on the sofa the morning after their end-of-year party. His death was ruled an accident by the police. The remaining five all knew it wasn’t, and though they went on with their lives, the truth of what happened to their sixth housemate couldn’t stay buried forever.
��
Twenty years later, all five of them arrive—lured separately under various pretenses—at Wolfheather House, a crumbling, secluded mansion on the Scottish isle of Doon. Trapped inside with no way out and no signal to the outside world, the now forty-somethings fight each other—and the unknown mastermind behind their gathering—as they confront the role they played in their housemate’s death. They are given one choice: confess to their crimes or die.��

They Did Bad Things is a deviously clever psychological thriller about the banality of evil and the human capacity for committing horror.
��]]> 288 Lauren A. Forry 1950691446 Lara 2 3.40 2020
author: Lauren A. Forry
name: Lara
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2020/07/22
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I liked the modern Agatha Christie vibe at the beginning of this book, but it quickly fell apart. At least one of the characters was clearly there just to be a plot device. The others were so weak or so loathsome that I didn't really care who did anything and why. There are plenty of twists and turns, but without an interest in motivations, none of it really matters. I wish it had been better.
]]> 32301955
Abby's investigation leads her to some startling discoveries �� and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?

]]> 332 Grady Hendrix 1594749760 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.98 2016
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Lara
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2020/07/31
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I was thinking four stars through most of the book, but the end was so poignant and perfect and real that it must be five. I love the nostalgia and the sweetness of the best friend relationship. It makes me want to have a sleepover with my friends, hopefully without any exorcisms needed.
]]> 19972658 Stephen King
The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah with 10 full-color illustrations by Darrel Anderson
The next-to-last novel in Stephen King's seven-volume magnum opus, Song of Susannah is at once a book of revelation, a fascinating key to the unfolding mystery of the Dark Tower, and a fast-paced story of double-barreled suspense.
To give birth to her "chap," demon-mother Mia has usurped the body of Susannah Dean and used the power of Black Thirteen to transport to New York City in the summer of 1999. The city is strange to Susannah...and terrifying to the "daughter of none," who shares her body and mind.
Saving the Tower depends not only on rescuing Susannah but also on securing the vacant lot Calvin Tower owns before he loses it to the Sombra Corporation. Enlisting the aid of Manni senders, the remaining katet climbs to the Doorway Cave...and discovers that magic has its own mind. It falls to the boy, the billy-bumbler, and the fallen priest to find Susannah-Mia, who, in a struggle to cope -- with each other and with an alien environment -- "go todash" to Castle Discordia on the border of End-World. In that forsaken place, Mia reveals her origins, her purpose, and her fierce desire to mother whatever creature the two of them have carried to term.
Eddie and Roland, meanwhile, tumble into western Maine in the summer of 1977, a world that should be idyllic but isn't. For one thing, it is real, and the bullets are flying. For another, it is inhabited by the author of a novel called 'Salem's Lot, a writer who turns out to be as shocked by them as they are by him.
These are the simple vectors of a story rich in complexity and conflict. Its dual climaxes, one at the entrance to a deadly dining establishment and the other appended to the pages of a writer's journal, will leave readers gasping for the saga's final volume (which, Dear Reader, follows soon, say thank ya).]]> 450 Stephen King Lara 3 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.23 2004
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 2020/08/21
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Not my favorite of the series, but it's the sixth out of seven, so I had to read it to get to the end. It starts tying things together and gets us set up for the big finish, so it does the job. But it drags and feels a little clunky in the exposition. I saw that many reviewers did not like the meta author intrusions, but I thought they were fun reality benders. That's the sense of whimsy and magic that's been missing for a while in this series. When you have a story that's essentially an old west knight errant rounding up his gang to defeat Sauron, you need parts that admit it's a little absurd and invite you to wink and come (commala) along for the ride. This series is the masterwork that ties King's universe together and I could see myself rereading at least once or twice. It really sucks you in.
]]> 53152636
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.]]> 320 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0525620788 Lara 4 Mexican Gothic managed to surprise me even as I savored the tropes of haunted places and haunted people. I don't want to give too much away, but I just really liked it. The characters seem real and unique without being too tortured. The settings are vibrant and more than once I found myself thinking that I could hear or smell or taste something as I read. It was a fun ride that also makes you think about issues of class, race, and ethnicity. I was genuinely surprised by some of the reveals and at moments I didn't know whether Noemí was awake or dreaming. Moreno-Garcia draws you into the action and keeps you enthralled to the satisfying end.]]> 3.66 2020
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Lara
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/08/29
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Unpredictable and atmospheric, Mexican Gothic managed to surprise me even as I savored the tropes of haunted places and haunted people. I don't want to give too much away, but I just really liked it. The characters seem real and unique without being too tortured. The settings are vibrant and more than once I found myself thinking that I could hear or smell or taste something as I read. It was a fun ride that also makes you think about issues of class, race, and ethnicity. I was genuinely surprised by some of the reveals and at moments I didn't know whether Noemí was awake or dreaming. Moreno-Garcia draws you into the action and keeps you enthralled to the satisfying end.
]]> 29430665
“There are two prices for this. Half…and half. One half is cash. The other is a deed. Do you understand?��

The town of Castle Rock, Maine has seen its fair share of oddities over the years, but nothing is a peculiar as the little curio shop that’s just opened for business. Its mysterious proprietor, Leland Gaunt, seems to have something for everyone out on display at Needful Things…interesting items that run the gamut from worthless to priceless. Nothing has a price tag in this place, but everything is certainly for sale. The heart’s desire for any resident of Castle Rock can easily be found among the curiosities…in exchange for a little money and—at the specific request of Leland Gaunt—a whole lot of menace against their fellow neighbors. Everyone in town seems willing to make a deal at Needful Things, but the devil is in the details. And no one takes heed of the little sign hanging on the Caveat emptor . In other words, let the buyer beware…]]> 960 Stephen King 1501143786 Lara 3 on-my-real-bookshelf Needful Things is considered a Stephen King classic. Knowing it's his first book written after he kicked his drug habit, a reader can definitely see that jonesing was on his mind. And he's right that everyone has their one true heart's desire, whether it's that rare baseball card, an end to pain, or knowledge after tragedy. But "caveat emptor" has never been more true. I really knew where this was all going the moment Leland Gaunt made his first deal in Castle Rock. I had no idea how extreme, heartbreaking, and gruesome it would all be. Beware, constant readers, when you buy into this one.]]> 4.04 1991
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1991
rating: 3
read at: 2020/03/07
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Needful Things is considered a Stephen King classic. Knowing it's his first book written after he kicked his drug habit, a reader can definitely see that jonesing was on his mind. And he's right that everyone has their one true heart's desire, whether it's that rare baseball card, an end to pain, or knowledge after tragedy. But "caveat emptor" has never been more true. I really knew where this was all going the moment Leland Gaunt made his first deal in Castle Rock. I had no idea how extreme, heartbreaking, and gruesome it would all be. Beware, constant readers, when you buy into this one.
]]> 46263944
Berkeley, California, 1933. In a lab filled with curiosities--beakers, microscopes, Bunsen burners, and hundreds upon hundreds of books--sat an investigator who would go on to crack at least two thousand cases in his forty-year career. Known as the "American Sherlock Holmes," Edward Oscar Heinrich was one of America's greatest--and first--forensic scientists, with an uncanny knack for finding clues, establishing evidence, and deducing answers with a skill that seemed almost supernatural.

Heinrich was one of the nation's first expert witnesses, working in a time when the turmoil of Prohibition led to sensationalized crime reporting and only a small, systematic study of evidence. However with his brilliance, and commanding presence in both the courtroom and at crime scenes, Heinrich spearheaded the invention of a myriad of new forensic tools that police still use today, including blood spatter analysis, ballistics, lie-detector tests, and the use of fingerprints as courtroom evidence. His work, though not without its serious--some would say fatal--flaws, changed the course of American criminal investigation.

Based on years of research and thousands of never-before-published primary source materials, American Sherlock captures the life of the man who pioneered the science our legal system now relies upon--as well as the limits of those techniques and the very human experts who wield them.]]> 336 Kate Winkler Dawson 0525539557 Lara 3 3.64 2020
author: Kate Winkler Dawson
name: Lara
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2020/03/21
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
The best parts of this book are the explanations of how evidence was found and analyzed. The development of the forensic science, complete with techniques that have since been disproven, is intriguing. The worst parts are about Oscar himself. His anxiety and control issues made me feel anxious and irritated. I think his brilliance as a scientist is at least partially due to his mental condition, which was a bit of a double edged sword. I also believe that his frustration with the public's inability to understand science was justified and is an issue that has not been resolved in the intervening decades. Overall, this book shared some interesting science and history, but didn't make for compelling reading.
]]> 23746546 Named one of the best books of the year by NPR �� From the renowned author of “The Lottery�� and The Haunting of Hill House, a spectacular new volume of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, essays, and other writings.

Features “Family Treasures,�� nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Short Story

Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American writers of the last hundred years. Since her death in 1965, her place in the landscape of twentieth-century fiction has grown only more exalted.

As we approach the centenary of her birth comes this astonishing compilation of fifty-six pieces—more than forty of which have never been published before. Two of Jackson’s children co-edited this volume, culling through the vast archives of their mother’s papers at the Library of Congress, selecting only the very best for inclusion.

Let Me Tell You brings together the deliciously eerie short stories Jackson is best known for, along with frank, inspiring lectures on writing; comic essays about her large, boisterous family; and whimsical drawings. Jackson’s landscape here is most frequently domestic: dinner parties and bridge, household budgets and homeward-bound commutes, children’s games and neighborly gossip. But this familiar setting is also her most subversive: She wields humor, terror, and the uncanny to explore the real challenges of marriage, parenting, and community—the pressure of social norms, the veins of distrust in love, the constant lack of time and space.

For the first time, this collection showcases Shirley Jackson’s radically different modes of writing side by side. Together they show her to be a magnificent storyteller, a sharp, sly humorist, and a powerful feminist.

This volume includes a foreword by the celebrated literary critic and Jackson biographer Ruth Franklin.]]> 448 Shirley Jackson 0812997662 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.08 2015
author: Shirley Jackson
name: Lara
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2020/04/13
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I love Shirley Jackson. Like, unreasonably. So much. After reading this, I both love her and identify with her. She and I both have four children. We both have wacky internal monologues creating weird stories for everything. Even though she was raising her children 50+ years before I was raising mine, we had similar challenges, frustrations, and joys. Some of the family stories really hit too close to home and made me thankful my children are all (theoretically) adults. Well, adult in age, anyway. My favorite part of the book was the short stories at the beginning, but there were things to enjoy throughout. Reading this makes me want to write down more of the weird little stories I have in my head.
]]> 52263433
With the clues leading back to Holly’s close-knit group of friends, to their rival clique, and to the tangle of relationships that bound them all to the murdered boy, the private underworld of teenage girls turns out to be more mysterious and more dangerous than the detectives imagined.

An alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.]]> 541 Tana French 0143127519 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf The Secret Place wasn't my favorite of this series. I'd rank it second from the bottom, just above Broken Harbor. But even my second least favorite Dublin Murder Squad book is pretty dang good. The structure of this one is interesting and satisfying, but it also makes it feel way too long. The entire book is one day, with alternating chapters flashing back to events a year earlier. These flashbacks cover a period of six months, then fast-forward through to meet back up with the beginning of the long day. The chapters covering the long day feel like they're in real time, making it drag along. Plus, neither detective in this book is very likeable or relatable for me. The girls at the boarding school are accurately rendered, but as a high school teacher, I see enough of teenagers being teenagers. As always, the best parts of a Tana French book are her lyrical language and bittersweet reminiscences. We see that nothing lasts forever, yet memories and friendship are eternal. I'll be sad to see this series end. It has become a friend, as well.]]> 3.85 2014
author: Tana French
name: Lara
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2020/04/06
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
The Secret Place wasn't my favorite of this series. I'd rank it second from the bottom, just above Broken Harbor. But even my second least favorite Dublin Murder Squad book is pretty dang good. The structure of this one is interesting and satisfying, but it also makes it feel way too long. The entire book is one day, with alternating chapters flashing back to events a year earlier. These flashbacks cover a period of six months, then fast-forward through to meet back up with the beginning of the long day. The chapters covering the long day feel like they're in real time, making it drag along. Plus, neither detective in this book is very likeable or relatable for me. The girls at the boarding school are accurately rendered, but as a high school teacher, I see enough of teenagers being teenagers. As always, the best parts of a Tana French book are her lyrical language and bittersweet reminiscences. We see that nothing lasts forever, yet memories and friendship are eternal. I'll be sad to see this series end. It has become a friend, as well.
]]> 50215350 Set in the coastal town of Danvers, Massachusetts (which in 1692 was Salem Village, site of the origins of the Salem Witch Trials), the story follows the Danvers High field hockey team as they discover that the dark impulses of their Salem forebears may be the key to a winning season.

The 1989 Danvers Falcons are on an unaccountable winning streak. Quan Barry weaves together the individual and collective journeys of this enchanted team as they storm their way to the state championship. Helmed by good-girl captain Abby Putnam (a descendant of the infamous Salem accuser Ann Putnam) and her co-captain Jen Fiorenza, whose bleached blond "Claw" sees and knows all, the DHS Falcons prove to be as wily and original as their North of Boston ancestors, flaunting society's stale notions of femininity in order to find their glorious true selves through the crucible of team sport.]]> 367 Quan Barry 1524748099 Lara 3 We Ride Upon Sticks progresses, we learn about each player as an individual and explore their inner selves, complete with insecurities, confusion, growing confidence, and identity crises. It's a satisfying and funny ride, proving to be worth the effort.]]> 3.78 2020
author: Quan Barry
name: Lara
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2020/04/21
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I had a really hard time getting into this book. Fifty-four pages in, I took the step of asking my online book club (The Fantastic Strangelings) if it was going to get better, because I really really didn't care about field hockey or Jen's anthropomorphic claw bangs. They assured me thatit would pick up, and it definitely did. I'd say that by page 56 things were looking up. I was relieved, because the idea of a book about a 1980s field hockey team using witchcraft and Emilio Estevez to finally have a winning season not being fun was just unfathomable. As We Ride Upon Sticks progresses, we learn about each player as an individual and explore their inner selves, complete with insecurities, confusion, growing confidence, and identity crises. It's a satisfying and funny ride, proving to be worth the effort.
]]> 49960031
Irby is turning forty, and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin. She has left her job as a receptionist at a veterinary clinic, has published successful books and is courted by Hollywood, left Chicago, and moved into a house with a garden that requires repairs and know-how with her wife and two step-children in a small white, Republican town in Michigan where she now hosts book clubs. This is the bourgeois life of dreams. She goes on bad dates with new friends, spends weeks in Los Angeles taking meetings with "skinny, luminous peoples" while being a "cheese fry-eating slightly damp Midwest person," "with neck pain and no cartilage in [her] knees," and hides Entenmann's cookies under her bed and unopened bills under her pillow.

Into the gross --
Girls gone mild --
Hung up! --
Late-1900s time capsule --
Love and marriage --
Are you familiar with my work? --
Hysterical! --
Lesbian bed death --
Body negativity --
Country crock --
A guide to simple home repairs --
We almost got a fucking dog --
Detachment parenting --
Season 1, episode 1 --
Hollywood summer --
$$$ --
Hello, 911? --
An extremely specific guide to publishing a book]]> 319 Samantha Irby 0525563482 Lara 4 3.81 2020
author: Samantha Irby
name: Lara
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/05/03
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Funny, gross, relateable (especially if you've ever been poor), this is worth a read. Honestly, it's the distraction I needed in the midst of the insanity that is our world right now.
]]> 46015758 If it Bleeds is a collection of four new novellas ��Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, The Life of Chuck, Rat, and the title story If It Bleeds�� each pulling readers into intriguing and frightening places.

A collection of four uniquely wonderful long stories, including a stand-alone sequel to The Outsider.

News people have a saying: 'If it bleeds, it leads'. And a bomb at Albert Macready Middle School is guaranteed to lead any bulletin.

Holly Gibney of the Finders Keepers detective agency is working on the case of a missing dog - and on her own need to be more assertive - when she sees the footage on TV. But when she tunes in again, to the late-night report, she realizes there is something not quite right about the correspondent who was first on the scene. So begins 'If It Bleeds' , a stand-alone sequel to The Outsider featuring the incomparable Holly on her first solo case.

Dancing alongside are three more long stories - 'Mr Harrigan's Phone', 'The Life of Chuck' and 'Rat' .

The novella is a form King has returned to over and over again in the course of his amazing career, and many have been made into iconic films, If It Bleeds is a uniquely satisfying collection of longer short fiction by an incomparably gifted writer.]]> 438 Stephen King Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.99 2020
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/05/12
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I loved it all. In general, these stories seem rather gentle compared to many King tales, but that doesn't make them weak. King's mastery of character and the hidden places of the human soul shines here. Further, I will always love Holly Gibney and any story she inhabits. The title novella in this collection is Holly's first stand-alone, and she holds her own.
]]> 44077284 Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia's life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she—and her book club—are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.]]> 404 Grady Hendrix 1683691431 Lara 4 The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires is consistently an entertaining page-turner. With that campy title, you'd expect it to be silly and shallow, but it's not. The characters feel like real people with real doubts, hopes, fears, and relationships. You know how you yell at people in horror movies not to run up the stairs when the killer is chasing them? These characters might run up the stairs, but it makes sense in their social context. I'm impressed with how well the male writer inhabited the female characters and their relationships. If anything, the men came off as more like cardboard cutouts. They're not the focus anyway. Patricia and the original book club are the real MVPs. This was an enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to devouring more books by Grady Hendrix.]]> 3.84 2020
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Lara
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/05/16
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
By turns fun, gruesome, funny, frightening, and surreal, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires is consistently an entertaining page-turner. With that campy title, you'd expect it to be silly and shallow, but it's not. The characters feel like real people with real doubts, hopes, fears, and relationships. You know how you yell at people in horror movies not to run up the stairs when the killer is chasing them? These characters might run up the stairs, but it makes sense in their social context. I'm impressed with how well the male writer inhabited the female characters and their relationships. If anything, the men came off as more like cardboard cutouts. They're not the focus anyway. Patricia and the original book club are the real MVPs. This was an enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to devouring more books by Grady Hendrix.
]]> 35456182
Stephen King teams up with long-time friend and award-winning author Richard Chizmar for the first time in this original, chilling novella that revisits the mysterious town of Castle Rock.

There are three ways up to Castle View from the town of Castle Route 117, Pleasant Road, and the Suicide Stairs. Every day in the summer of 1974, twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson has taken the stairs, which are held by strong—if time-rusted—iron bolts and zig-zag up the precarious cliffside.

Then one day when Gwendy gets to the top of Castle View, after catching her breath and hearing the shouts of kids on the playground below, a stranger calls to her. There on a bench in the shade sits a man in black jeans, a black coat, and a white shirt unbuttoned at the top. On his head is a small, neat black hat. The time will come when Gwendy has nightmares about that hat��

The little town of Castle Rock, Maine has witnessed some strange events and unusual visitors over the years, but there is one story that has never been told—until now.]]> 171 Stephen King 1501188291 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.98 2017
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2020/05/17
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
A nice little story about what happens when a nice little girl is entrusted with limitless power and a fair amount of luck.
]]> 34267285
Their new case looks like yet another by-the-numbers lovers�� quarrel gone bad. Aislinn Murray is blond, pretty, groomed-to-a-shine, and dead in her catalog-perfect living room, next to a table set for a romantic dinner. There’s nothing unusual about her—except that Antoinette’s seen her somewhere before.

And that her death won’t stay in its neat by-numbers box. Other detectives are trying to push Antoinette and Steve into arresting Aislinn’s boyfriend, fast. There’s a shadowy figure at the end of Antoinetteʼs road. Aislinnʼs friend is hinting that she knew Aislinn was in danger. And everything they find out about Aislinn takes her further from the glossy, passive doll she seemed to be.

Antoinette knows the harassment has turned her paranoid, but she can’t tell just how far gone she is. Is this case another step in the campaign to force her off the squad, or are there darker currents flowing beneath its polished surface?]]> 464 Tana French 0143110381 Lara 3 on-my-real-bookshelf The Trespasser was disappointing. Antoinette Conway is not a fun or intriguing or exciting character. Her personal tragedies are predictable and somewhat inane. Her character growth is anticlimactic. Plus, the case in this one was also ho-hum and predictable. Throughout the book, I found myself thinking back to the earlier books in the series and reminiscing on the rich characterization and lyrical descriptions of setting. This one just doesn't hold up. That makes it easier to let go of the series, but it makes me sad it didn't get a more affecting end.]]> 3.97 2016
author: Tana French
name: Lara
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2020/05/24
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Overall, The Trespasser was disappointing. Antoinette Conway is not a fun or intriguing or exciting character. Her personal tragedies are predictable and somewhat inane. Her character growth is anticlimactic. Plus, the case in this one was also ho-hum and predictable. Throughout the book, I found myself thinking back to the earlier books in the series and reminiscing on the rich characterization and lyrical descriptions of setting. This one just doesn't hold up. That makes it easier to let go of the series, but it makes me sad it didn't get a more affecting end.
]]> 45053088 From Tana French—author of The Witch Elm and “the most important crime novelist to emerge in the past 10 years�� (The Washington Post)—the bestseller called “the most stunning of her books�� (The New York Times) and a finalist for the Edgar Award.

Back in 1985, Frank Mackey was a nineteen-year-old kid with a dream of escaping his familyʼs cramped flat on Faithful Place and running away to London with his girl, Rosie Daly. But on the night they were supposed to leave, Rosie didnʼt show. Frank took it for granted that sheʼd dumped him—probably because of his alcoholic father, nutcase mother, and generally dysfunctional family. He never went home again. Neither did Rosie. Then, twenty-two years later, Rosieʼs suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank, now a detective in the Dublin Undercover Squad, is going home whether he likes it or not.]]> 437 Tana French Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf The Likeness and then made me love him. Once again, in Faithful Place, she has broken my heart and mended it with melancholy. Dare I hope that after all the tragedy Frank has endured, he might have a happy life?]]> 4.22 2010
author: Tana French
name: Lara
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2020/01/13
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Tana French is some kind of magic. She took my least favorite character from The Likeness and then made me love him. Once again, in Faithful Place, she has broken my heart and mended it with melancholy. Dare I hope that after all the tragedy Frank has endured, he might have a happy life?
]]> 48753357
On one of the half-abandoned “luxuryˮ developments that litter Ireland, Patrick Spain and his two young children have been murdered. His wife, Jenny, is in intensive care. At first, Scorcher thinks itʼs going to be an easy solve, but too many small things canʼt be explained: the half-dozen baby monitors pointed at holes smashed in the Spainsʼ walls, the files erased from the familyʼs computer, the story Jenny told her sister about a shadowy intruder slipping past the houseʼs locks. And this neighborhood—once called Broken Harbor—holds memories for Scorcher and his troubled sister, Dina: childhood memories that Scorcher thought he had tightly under control.

From Tana French, author of The Witch Elm, a New York Times bestselling novel that “proves anew that [Tana French] is one of the most talented crime writers alive�� (The Washington Post). ]]> 450 Tana French 0143123300 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf
The mystery itself is well done. It's tragic and it makes you think. It's wrapped around the wider crisis of the global financial crash of 2008 and the ghost subdivisions (or estates) it left in its wake. The investigation relies heavily on interrogation and conversations with various technical experts, so it's not exactly action packed. But it is a puzzler. This book is my least favorite of the series, but in a series this good, my least favorite isn't all that bad.]]> 4.03 2012
author: Tana French
name: Lara
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2020/02/01
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This is more of a 3.5, but I'm rounding to four stars. As always, Tana French's prose is lyrical as haunting. Again, this is a family drama driven by character dressed up as a murder mystery. However, this time I wasn't won over by the main character. No matter how unsavory I found the character in a previous book, in the other episodes of this series I fell in love with them when they became the central character. This time, I feel like I came to understand Mick better, but I never grew to like him. He still seemed stiff and somewhat cruel (even to himself) by the end of the book. It just didn't move me the way the other books did.

The mystery itself is well done. It's tragic and it makes you think. It's wrapped around the wider crisis of the global financial crash of 2008 and the ghost subdivisions (or estates) it left in its wake. The investigation relies heavily on interrogation and conversations with various technical experts, so it's not exactly action packed. But it is a puzzler. This book is my least favorite of the series, but in a series this good, my least favorite isn't all that bad.
]]> 44423086
When Ada embarks on a relationship with a local Cure named Samson, and is forced to choose between her old life with her father, and a new one with her human lover. Her decision will uproot the town �� and the Ground itself �� for ever.

A poised and simmering tour-de-force, Follow Me to Ground is a sinister vision of desire and freewill, voiced in earthy prose and eviscerating detail by an astoundingly original new writer.]]> 266 Sue Rainsford 0857526774 Lara 5 3.57 2018
author: Sue Rainsford
name: Lara
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2020/02/03
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I'm not even sure what I just read. But I think I liked it. It was weird and often gross, but oddly thought-provoking. I'm going to have to consider this one for a while. And maybe read it again.
]]> 62225683 96 1547861002 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.56
author: The Editors of Entertainment Weekly
name: Lara
average rating: 4.56
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/06
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This was fun! The articles were informative, but sometimes they felt like they ended abruptly. It is an updated reprint, so you may have seen some parts of it before. I hadn't, so that was okay with me.
]]> 56827880

Letters / from Samantha Hunt, Shayna Conde, Kate Folk, and Afabwaje Kurian --
Pelican Paradise / Nicky Gonzalez --
When a man dies / Anna Akhmatova (trans. Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky) --
Dog lab / T.C. Boyle --
The world of interiors / Hernan Diaz --
Origin story / Corinna Vallianatos --
Soil Science / Teddy Goldenberg --
Willie the weirdo / Stephen King --
from Northern elegies, #4 / Anna Akhmatova (trans. Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky) --
Neighborhood dogs / Taisia Kitaiskaia --
Viperidae / Victor Ladis Schultz --
The little men / Carl Napolitano --
Wild honey has a scent of freedom / Anna Akhmatova (trans. Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky) --
The sorrows of others / Ada Zhang.]]> 202 Claire Boyle 1952119227 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.83 2022
author: Claire Boyle
name: Lara
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/09/03
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
These are odd stories, but also oddly compelling. A great collection.
]]> 10370093
INTRODUCTION (1)
DOLAN'S CADILLAC (9)
THE END OF THE WHOLE MESS (57)
SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN (81)
THE NIGHT FLIER (93)
POPSY (126)
IT GROWS ON YOU (139)
CHATTERY TEETH (155)
DEDICATION (186)
THE MOVING FINGER (226)
SNEAKERS (259)
YOU KNOW THEY GOT A HELL OF A BAND (284)
HOME DELIVERY (324)
RAINY SEASON (351)
MY PRETTY PONY (372)
SORRY, RIGHT NUMBER (396)
THE TEN O'CLOCK PEOPLE (427)
CROUCH END (476)
THE HOUSE ON MAPLE STREET (504)
THE FIFTH QUARTER (537)
THE DOCTOR'S CASE (551)
UMNEY'S LAST CASE (582)
HEAD DOWN (627)
BROOKLYN AUGUST (673)
NOTES (675)
THE BEGGAR AND THE DIAMOND (689)]]> 692 Stephen King 0451180232 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf voila! Super long collection to publish! They were mostly fun to read, though, so that's cool.]]> 3.63 1993
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 2022/08/30
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This is kind of a bizarre collection of short stories, etc. It feels like Uncle Stevie just dug around in some old files and unearthed some oddities, polished them up, and voila! Super long collection to publish! They were mostly fun to read, though, so that's cool.
]]> 58065031 A mythic love story set in Trinidad and Tobago, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo's radiant debut introduces two unforgettable outsiders brought together by their connection with the dead.

You were never the smartest child, but even you should know that when a dead woman offers you a cigarette, the polite thing to do would be to take it. Especially when that dead woman is your mother.

The St. Bernard women have lived in Morne Marie, the house on top of a hill outside Port Angeles, for generations. Built from the ashes of a plantation that enslaved their ancestors, it has come to shelter a lineage that is bonded by much more than blood. One woman in each generation of St. Bernards is responsible for the passage of the city's souls into the afterlife. But Yejide's relationship with her mother, Petronella, has always been contorted by anger and neglect, which Petronella stubbornly carries to her death bed, leaving Yejide unprepared to fulfill her destiny.

Raised in the countryside by a devout Rastafarian mother, Darwin has always abided by the religious commandment not to interact with death. He has never been to a funeral, much less seen a dead body. But when his ailing mother can no longer work and the only job he can find is grave digging, he must betray the life she built for him in order to provide for them both. Newly shorn of his dreadlocks and his past and determined to prove himself, Darwin finds himself adrift in a city electric with possibility and danger.

Yejide and Darwin will meet inside the gates of Fidelis, Port Angeles's largest and oldest cemetery, where the dead lie uneasy in their graves and a reckoning with fate beckons them both. A masterwork of lush imagination and immersive lyricism, When We Were Birds is a spellbinding novel about inheritance, loss, and love's seismic power to heal.]]> 292 Ayanna Lloyd Banwo 0385547269 Lara 4 3.77 2022
author: Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
name: Lara
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/21
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This was a slow burn, but Darwin and Yejide will stay with me for a long time. Lovely, magical, yet real.
]]> 50898150
In this follow-up to�� Ask Baba Otherworldly Advice for Everyday Troubles , award-winning writer Taisia Kitaiskaia once again embodies the legendary witch of Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga, to provide life advice to the questioning and the hurting. Answering real questions from readers, Baba Yaga provides responses in the form of short poems that are lyrical, surreal, sometimes funny, and always honest. During these difficult days, Poetic Remedies for Troubled Times provides literary self-help for readers who appreciate Baba Yaga's strange, surprising style and striking honesty.]]> 112 Taisia Kitaiskaia 1524855030 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.31
author: Taisia Kitaiskaia
name: Lara
average rating: 4.31
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2022/07/15
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I adore dear Baba Yaga's wisdom and the odd but pleasing artwork that accompanies her advice. So lovely to have a forest witch to help guide us through life.
]]> 91993
* Introduction - Douglas E. Winter
* The Reploids - Stephen King
* Sneakers - Stephen King
* Dedication - Stephen King
* Metastasis - Dan Simmons
* Vanni Fucci is Alive and Well and Living in Hell - Dan Simmons
* Iverson's Pits - Dan Simmons
* The Skin Trade - George R.R. Martin

[Some sources give Paul J. Mikol, the Dark Harvest publisher, as editor.]]]> 329 Douglas E. Winter 0425120031 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.80 1988
author: Douglas E. Winter
name: Lara
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/09
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
What a bunch of weird stories. They're mostly pretty good. Several of them suffer from a typical 1980s dudes writing women problem, but I'm willing to overlook it since they were written by dudes in the 1980s and the problem isn't pervasive. Creepy stories, bitchin' cover, no strong complaints.
]]> 54589790 The wolves are circling. And Ravka's time is running out.

The Demon King. As Fjerda's massive army prepares to invade, Nikolai Lantsov will summon every bit of his ingenuity and charm—and even the monster within—to win this fight. But a dark threat looms that cannot be defeated by a young king's gift for the impossible.

The Stormwitch. Zoya Nazyalensky has lost too much to war. She saw her mentor die and her worst enemy resurrected, and she refuses to bury another friend. Now duty demands she embrace her powers to become the weapon her country needs. No matter the cost.

The Queen of Mourning. Deep undercover, Nina Zenik risks discovery and death as she wages war on Fjerda from inside its capital. But her desire for revenge may cost her country its chance at freedom and Nina the chance to heal her grieving heart.

King. General. Spy. Together they must find a way to forge a future in the darkness. Or watch a nation fall.]]> 592 Leigh Bardugo 125014230X Lara 3 on-my-real-bookshelf Rule of Wolves, I was wondering why I got myself into this convoluted, slow, messy book. I loved the first five Grishaverse books and was fine with the sixth. But this one. Ugh. Soooooo unnecessarily drawn out. But, just like King of Scars, the second half really picked up. By the end, I was satisfied and even ready to jump into the next Grishaverse book set up in the last chapter, when Bardugo eventually decides to write it. I do think there were too many shoehorned cameos, too many villains, and too many political intrigues, plus not enough magic, not enough banter, and not enough hijinks. But it was still pretty good. (The second half, anyway.)]]> 4.36 2021
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Lara
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/06/23
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
For the first half of Rule of Wolves, I was wondering why I got myself into this convoluted, slow, messy book. I loved the first five Grishaverse books and was fine with the sixth. But this one. Ugh. Soooooo unnecessarily drawn out. But, just like King of Scars, the second half really picked up. By the end, I was satisfied and even ready to jump into the next Grishaverse book set up in the last chapter, when Bardugo eventually decides to write it. I do think there were too many shoehorned cameos, too many villains, and too many political intrigues, plus not enough magic, not enough banter, and not enough hijinks. But it was still pretty good. (The second half, anyway.)
]]> 58330567 Atlas of the Heart, Brown takes us on a journey through eighty-seven of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. As she maps the necessary skills and an actionable framework for meaningful connection, she gives us the language and tools to access a universe of new choices and second chances—a universe where we can share and steward the stories of our bravest and most heartbreaking moments with one another in a way that builds connection.

Over the past two decades, Brown's extensive research into the experiences that make us who we are has shaped the cultural conversation and helped define what it means to be courageous with our lives. Atlas of the Heart draws on this research, as well as on Brown's singular skills as a storyteller, to show us how accurately naming an experience doesn't give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding, meaning, and choice.

Brown shares, "I want this book to be an atlas for all of us, because I believe that, with an adventurous heart and the right maps, we can travel anywhere and never fear losing ourselves."]]> 301 Brené Brown 0399592555 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.33 2021
author: Brené Brown
name: Lara
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/09
date added: 2022/05/09
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
At times, this just seemed like a compilation of Brown's previous work without much new material. But it is beautifully published, with pull quotes galore and cartoons to illustrate key concepts. Even if it feels like a compilation, it's a good one with excellent updated information. This would be a good intro to her work, but it's also a good review.
]]> 56898223
Called "Pastoral," this reclusive community was founded in the 1970s by like-minded people searching for a simpler way of life. By all accounts, the commune shouldn’t exist anymore and soon after Travis stumbles upon it�� he disappears. Just like Maggie St. James.

Years later, Theo, a lifelong member of Pastoral, discovers Travis’s abandoned truck beyond the border of the community. No one is allowed in or out, not when there’s a risk of bringing a disease��rot—into Pastoral. Unraveling the mystery of what happened reveals secrets that Theo, his wife, Calla, and her sister, Bee, keep from one another. Secrets that prove their perfect, isolated world isn’t as safe as they believed—and that darkness takes many forms.

Hauntingly beautiful, hypnotic, and bewitching, A History of Wild Places is a story about fairy tales, our fear of the dark, and losing yourself within the wilderness of your mind.]]> 354 Shea Ernshaw 1982164808 Lara 3 3.92 2021
author: Shea Ernshaw
name: Lara
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/04/29
date added: 2022/04/29
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf, fantastic-strangelings
review:
The beginning and the end were great, but the middle ... OOF. I found the story of Travis and his ability to be a great hook, but once we got to Pastoral, the story dragged. I'll avoid spoilers, but the end did bring it together in a satisfying way (if not as surprising as I believe it was supposed to be). The message about choosing your life and your identity was ultimately uplifting. My heart was warmed by it all in the end.
]]> 26117888 Naomi Novik, author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed Temeraire novels, introduces a bold new world rooted in folk stories and legends, as elemental as a Grimm fairy tale.

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.��

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows �� everyone knows �� that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.]]> 464 Naomi Novik 0804179050 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf Uprooted tells her tale with action, intrigue, myth, magic, tragedy, twists, and a dash of romance. Once I started reading, I didn't want to stop, but I also didn't want it to end. The drama barreled forward and came to a satisfying conclusion (though I still want more).]]> 4.07 2015
author: Naomi Novik
name: Lara
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2020/11/14
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Oh, I just love Naomi Novik's vibe of fairy tale fantasy turned modern, but still once upon a time. This story follows a young woman named Agnieska (ag-NYESH-ka) as she is taken from her home and thrust into circumstances she could never have imagined. Uprooted tells her tale with action, intrigue, myth, magic, tragedy, twists, and a dash of romance. Once I started reading, I didn't want to stop, but I also didn't want it to end. The drama barreled forward and came to a satisfying conclusion (though I still want more).
]]> 30966001 National Bestseller

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography

A New York Times Notable Book

Winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books & Film Prize for Excellence in Science Books

Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, TIME.com, NPR, Slate, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Kirkus Reviews

Geobiologist Hope Jahren has spent her life studying trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Lab Girl is her revelatory treatise on plant life--but it is also a celebration of the lifelong curiosity, humility, and passion that drive every scientist. In these pages, Hope takes us back to her Minnesota childhood, where she spent hours in unfettered play in her father's college laboratory. She tells us how she found a sanctuary in science, learning to perform lab work "with both the heart and the hands." She introduces us to Bill, her brilliant, eccentric lab manager. And she extends the mantle of scientist to each one of her readers, inviting us to join her in observing and protecting our environment. Warm, luminous, compulsively readable, Lab Girl vividly demonstrates the mountains that we can move when love and work come together.

]]> 290 Hope Jahren 1101873728 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.13 2016
author: Hope Jahren
name: Lara
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2020/10/10
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This book is half memoir, half poetic rumination on the science of plants. I enjoyed both halves. Jahren's life lends itself to considerations of curiosity science, feminism, mental health, family, and identity. It's a rather quiet book that argues for the value of a quiet life.
]]> 13588356 Researcher and thought leader Dr. Brené Brown offers a powerful new vision that encourages us to dare greatly: to embrace vulnerability and imperfection, to live wholeheartedly, and to courageously engage in our lives.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.�� —Theodore Roosevelt

Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable, or to dare greatly. Whether the arena is a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation, we must find the courage to walk into vulnerability and engage with our whole hearts.

In Daring Greatly, Dr. Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability. Based on twelve years of research, she argues that vulnerability is not weakness, but rather our clearest path to courage, engagement, and meaningful connection. The book that Dr. Brown’s many fans have been waiting for, Daring Greatly will spark a new spirit of truth—and trust—in our organizations, families, schools, and communities.]]> 287 Brené Brown 1592407331 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.29 2012
author: Brené Brown
name: Lara
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2020/10/17
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I tabbed so many passages in this book to revisit. In many ways, it allowed me to see how far I've come in my quest to let my guard down. It also gave me some guidance on how to continue my growth. One of the best things it gave me was some perspective on why people act the way they do when they're putting up their vulnerability shields. I think just seeing that will help make me more understanding.
]]> 50542119 Now a Netflix original movie, this deeply scary and intensely unnerving novel follows a couple in the midst of a twisted unraveling of the darkest unease. You will be scared. But you won’t know why��

I’m thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It’s always there. Always.

Jake once said, “Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.��

And here’s what I’m thinking: I don’t want to be here.

In this smart and intense literary suspense novel, Iain Reid explores the depths of the human psyche, questioning consciousness, free will, the value of relationships, fear, and the limitations of solitude. Tense, gripping, and atmospheric, I’m Thinking of Ending Things pulls you in from the very first page…and never lets you go.]]> 256 Iain Reid Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.65 2016
author: Iain Reid
name: Lara
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2020/09/05
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This is a really odd book. Looking at reviews, it seems people love it or hate it. I'm in the love it camp. It's unsettling and puzzling and very well-done. It was a quick read, and I've already looped back to the start to read again with a different perspective.
]]> 52853922 here.

Content:
- An elderly lady has accommodation problems
- An elderly lady on her travels
- An elderly lady seeks peace at Christmas time
- The antique dealer's death
- An elderly lady is faced with a difficult dilemma

Maud is an irascible 88-year-old Swedish woman with no family, no friends, and…no qualms about a little murder. This funny, irreverent story collection by Helene Tursten, author of the Irene Huss investigations, features two-never-before translated stories that will keep you laughing all the way to the retirement home.

Ever since her darling father’s untimely death when she was only eighteen, Maud has lived in the family’s spacious apartment in downtown Gothenburg rent-free, thanks to a minor clause in a hastily negotiated contract. That was how Maud learned that good things can come from tragedy. Now in her late eighties, Maud contents herself with traveling the world and surfing the net from the comfort of her father’s ancient armchair. It’s a solitary existence, but she likes it that way.

Over the course of her adventures—or misadventures—this little bold lady will handle a crisis with a local celebrity who has her eyes on Maud’s apartment, foil the engagement of her long-ago lover, and dispose of some pesky neighbors. But when the local authorities are called to investigate a murder in her apartment complex, will Maud be able to avoid suspicion, or will Detective Inspector Irene Huss see through her charade?]]> 173 Helene Tursten 1641290110 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.95 2013
author: Helene Tursten
name: Lara
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2020/12/14
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Who knew that I needed a book about an old lady who kills people for petty reasons? Yes, I know killing people is bad, and Maud (the old lady) is probably some kind of sociopath, but this book was still fun. It contains several short stories that are chronologically jumbled. Maud is undeniably a bad person, between the murders and the occasional petty theft. That doesn't mean we can't like her anyway.
]]> 49003616 An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.

The Carls disappeared the same way they appeared, in an instant. While they were on Earth, they caused confusion and destruction without ever lifting a finger. Well, that’s not exactly true. Part of their maelstrom was the sudden viral fame and untimely death of April May: a young woman who stumbled into Carl’s path, giving them their name, becoming their advocate, and putting herself in the middle of an avalanche of conspiracy theories.

Months later, the world is as confused as ever. Andy has picked up April’s mantle of fame, speaking at conferences and online about the world post-Carl; Maya, ravaged by grief, begins to follow a string of mysteries that she is convinced will lead her to April; and Miranda infiltrates a new scientific operation . . . one that might have repercussions beyond anyone’s comprehension.

As they each get further down their own paths, a series of clues arrive—mysterious books that seem to predict the future and control the actions of their readers; unexplained internet outages; and more—which seem to suggest April may be very much alive. In the midst of the gang's possible reunion is a growing force, something that wants to capture our consciousness and even control our reality.

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is the bold and brilliant follow-up to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. It’s a fast-paced adventure that is also a biting social commentary, asking hard, urgent questions. How will we live online? What powers over our lives are we giving away for free? Who has the right to change the world forever? And how do we find comfort in an increasingly isolated world?]]> 452 Hank Green 152474347X Lara 3 on-my-real-bookshelf An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and even reread it before I read this one. One of the things I loved about it was April's voice. Yes, she was annoying and self-centered sometimes (or maybe most of the time), but she was genuine and she was learning. I loved her growth throughout the book. By necessity, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor rotates between character points-of-view. That's a device I generally don't mind. It's employed well in One of Us is Lying and masterfully in the classic (and one of my favorite books) As I Lay Dying. But in this case, the characters didn't have enough differentiation between their voices. Plus, some of them are boring. The book ended the way it needed to, and I don't know that I can criticize the action, but I was left feeling "meh" about the whole thing.]]> 4.22 2020
author: Hank Green
name: Lara
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2020/11/30
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I hate to admit that I was a little disappointed by this book. I loved An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and even reread it before I read this one. One of the things I loved about it was April's voice. Yes, she was annoying and self-centered sometimes (or maybe most of the time), but she was genuine and she was learning. I loved her growth throughout the book. By necessity, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor rotates between character points-of-view. That's a device I generally don't mind. It's employed well in One of Us is Lying and masterfully in the classic (and one of my favorite books) As I Lay Dying. But in this case, the characters didn't have enough differentiation between their voices. Plus, some of them are boring. The book ended the way it needed to, and I don't know that I can criticize the action, but I was left feeling "meh" about the whole thing.
]]> 50403464
In Dark Archives, Megan Rosenbloom seeks out the historic and scientific truths behind anthropodermic bibliopegy--the practice of binding books in this most intimate covering. Dozens of such books live on in the world's most famous libraries and museums. Dark Archives exhumes their origins and brings to life the doctors, murderers, innocents, and indigents whose lives are sewn together in this disquieting collection. Along the way, Rosenbloom tells the story of how her team of scientists, curators, and librarians test rumored anthropodermic books, untangling the myths around their creation and reckoning with the ethics of their custodianship.

A librarian and journalist, Rosenbloom is a member of The Order of the Good Death and a cofounder of their Death Salon, a community that encourages conversations, scholarship, and art about mortality and mourning. In Dark Archives--captivating and macabre in all the right ways--she has crafted a narrative that is equal parts detective work, academic intrigue, history, and medical curiosity: a book as rare and thrilling as its subject.]]> 275 Megan Rosenbloom 0374134707 Lara 5 4.01 2020
author: Megan Rosenbloom
name: Lara
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/12/30
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This is not a book I would have chosen myself. I mean, I like creepy things, but the idea of books bound in human skin is straight up disturbing. So, when it arrived as a Fantastic Strangelings book club pick, I was hesitant. Everyone, this book is so good. The author's voice is friendly and real. The chapters are incredibly well-organized. The content is honest, surprising, and informative. I learned a ton about the history of medical ethics globally and how human remains often fall into a weird legal gap because they are not owned by anyone and the person who had claim to them is dead. This book takes a considerate but unflinching look at the power some have been allowed to have over others in the past and how much (or how little) we have progressed since then.
]]> 50706646
Lin is the emperor's daughter and spends her days trapped in a palace of locked doors and dark secrets. When her father refuses to recognise her as heir to the throne, she vows to prove her worth by mastering the forbidden art of bone shard magic.

Yet such power carries a great cost, and when the revolution reaches the gates of the palace, Lin must decide how far she is willing to go to claim her birthright - and save her people.]]> 435 Andrea Stewart 0316541427 Lara 5 3.97 2020
author: Andrea Stewart
name: Lara
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/01/18
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Sometimes predictable, but still engaging and action packed. This is one of those books that ends each chapter with a cliffhanger and then switches you another character's POV, so you're left in suspense for a chapter or two. The world building is excellent. I was left wanting more. I'll seek out the next in the series when it comes out. I would also read prequel short stories of Jovis and his smuggling or the fall of the Alanga.
]]> 51152430 "Profound and delightful. . . . A strange and tender parable of two maddening obsessions; parenting and art-making." --Max Porter, author of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny

The ingenious storyteller Edward Carey returns to reimagine a time-honored fable: the story of an impatient father, a rebellious son, and a watery path to forgiveness for the young man known as Pinocchio

In the small Tuscan town of Collodi, a lonely woodcarver longs for the companionship of a son. One day, "as if the wood commanded me," Giuseppe--better known as Geppetto--carves for himself a pinewood boy, a marionette he hopes to take on tour worldwide. But when his handsome new creation comes magically to life, Geppetto screams . . . and the boy, Pinocchio, leaps from his arms and escapes into the night. Though he returns the next day, the wily boy torments his father, challenging his authority and making up stories--whereupon his nose, the very nose his father carved, grows before his eyes like an antler. When the boy disappears after one last fight, the father follows a rumor to the coast and out into the sea, where he is swallowed by a great fish--and consumed by guilt. He hunkers in the creature's belly awaiting the day when he will reconcile with the son he drove away.

With all the charm, atmosphere, and emotional depth for which Edward Carey is known--and featuring his trademark fantastical illustrations--The Swallowed Man is a parable of parenthood, loss, and letting go, from a creative mind on a par with Gregory Maguire, Neil Gaiman, and Tim Burton.]]> 192 Edward Carey 059318887X Lara 5 3.60 2020
author: Edward Carey
name: Lara
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/01/24
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This is a weird little book, but I loved it. There are small illustrations sprinkled throughout, detailing Joseph's experiences throughout his life, before and after he creates the little wooden boy. The reader is left wondering whether Pinocchio is a blessing or a monster, or whether he is even real. What is definitely real is the tragedy of Giuseppe's life and the certainty of his diminishing grasp of reality.
]]> 12926432 310 Fiona Carnarvon 0770435629 Lara 3 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.60 2011
author: Fiona Carnarvon
name: Lara
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2021/02/17
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I picked this up because I wanted a distraction from (gestures vaguely) everything. The beginning did the job, with plenty of descriptions of clothes and parties and castle decor. But then The Great War happened and dragged on for half the book. Not a good distraction. Plus, most of it wasn't even about Almina, the purported subject of the book. Once the war finally ended, we finally got some time in Egypt and the discovery of King Tut's tomb, which was interesting, but again, not about Almina. Almina was clearly an extremely generous, caring, and capable woman. I wanted more about her.
]]> 49086091 New York Times��bestselling author of��The Family Fang, a moving and uproarious novel about a woman who finds meaning in her life when she begins caring for two children with a remarkable ability.

Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. But then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help.

Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Lillian is convinced Madison is pulling her leg, but it’s the truth.

Thinking of her dead-end life at home, the life that has consistently disappointed her, Lillian figures she has nothing to lose. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other—and stay cool—while also staying out of the way of Madison’s buttoned-up politician husband. Surprised by her own ingenuity yet unused to the intense feelings of protectiveness she feels for them, Lillian ultimately begins to accept that she needs these strange children as much as they need her—urgently and fiercely. Couldn’t this be the start of the amazing life she’d always hoped for?

With white-hot wit and a big, tender heart, Kevin Wilson has written his best book yet—a most unusual story of parental love.]]> 288 Kevin Wilson 0062913492 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf Nothing to See Here is a tidbit of magical realism with surprising heart. This is one of those books I'll carry inside of me for a long time.]]> 4.04 2019
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Lara
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2021/02/22
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
What a weird, wonderful little book. Nothing to See Here is a tidbit of magical realism with surprising heart. This is one of those books I'll carry inside of me for a long time.
]]> 91884 276 Ray Bradbury Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf
Also, beware of the rampant sexism and racism. The mid-20th-century in America seems like a terrible place for anyone who isn't a white man. (Yeah, we're still working on that.)]]> 4.11 1955
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Lara
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1955
rating: 4
read at: 2021/02/27
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
The stories in this book tend to end with an implication rather than a conclusion. Read carefully and you'll be disturbed. Read casually and you'll be confused.

Also, beware of the rampant sexism and racism. The mid-20th-century in America seems like a terrible place for anyone who isn't a white man. (Yeah, we're still working on that.)
]]> 52764801
One night, he enters the abandoned community house and finds the tattered journal of a Syrian American artist named Laila Z, who dedicated her career to painting the birds of North America. She famously and mysteriously disappeared more than sixty years before, but her journal contains proof that both his mother and Laila Z encountered the same rare bird before their deaths. In fact, Laila Z’s past is intimately tied to his mother’s—and his grandmother’s—in ways he never could have expected. Even more surprising, Laila Z’s story reveals the histories of queer and transgender people within his own community that he never knew. Realizing that he isn’t and has never been alone, he has the courage to officially claim a new name: Nadir, an Arabic name meaning rare.

As unprecedented numbers of birds are mysteriously drawn to the New York City skies, Nadir enlists the help of his family and friends to unravel what happened to Laila Z and the rare bird his mother died trying to save. Following his mother’s ghost, he uncovers the silences kept in the name of survival by his own community, his own family, and within himself, and discovers the family that was there all along.

Featuring Zeyn Joukhadar’s signature storytelling, The Thirty Names of Night is a timely exploration of how we all search for and ultimately embrace who we are.]]> 291 Zeyn Joukhadar 1982121491 Lara 3 4.02 2020
author: Zeyn Joukhadar
name: Lara
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2021/03/28
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I had such a hard time with this book. It's just so sad. Every page is lined with heartbreak. I couldn't take it. I set it down for days at a time and read entire other books between chapters. I think that made it extra hard for me to keep track of who is who and what each person's personal tragedy is. The prose is beautiful and the way it inhabits the characters makes you feel their pain. But it's just too sad.
]]> 17571564
Pictures
Words
Stories about things that happened to me
Stories about things that happened to other people because of me
Eight billion dollars*
Stories about dogs
The secret to eternal happiness*

*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!]]> 371 Allie Brosh 1451666179 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.16 2013
author: Allie Brosh
name: Lara
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2021/04/29
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This book is fun and serious and funny and sad, all at once. Lots of you would probably like it.
]]> 51323365
Solutions and Other Problems includes humorous stories from Allie Brosh’s childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life.

This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features all-new material with more than 1,600 pieces of art.]]> 519 Allie Brosh 1982156945 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.21 2020
author: Allie Brosh
name: Lara
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/21
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Hilarious, sad, relatable, and still hilarious
]]> 53438195 When a banished witch falls in love with the legendary trickster Loki, she risks the wrath of the gods in this moving, subversive debut novel that reimagines Norse mythology.

Angrboda's story begins where most witches' tales end: with a burning. A punishment from Odin for refusing to provide him with knowledge of the future, the fire leaves Angrboda injured and powerless, and she flees into the farthest reaches of a remote forest. There she is found by a man who reveals himself to be Loki, and her initial distrust of him transforms into a deep and abiding love.

Their union produces three unusual children, each with a secret destiny, who Angrboda is keen to raise at the edge of the world, safely hidden from Odin's all-seeing eye. But as Angrboda slowly recovers her prophetic powers, she learns that her blissful life—and possibly all of existence—is in danger.

With help from the fierce huntress Skadi, with whom she shares a growing bond, Angrboda must choose whether she’ll accept the fate that she's foreseen for her beloved family…or rise to remake their future. From the most ancient of tales this novel forges a story of love, loss, and hope for the modern age.]]> 359 Genevieve Gornichec 059309994X Lara 4 The Witch's Heart is a swift, touching retelling of a rarely explored corner of Norse mythology. Part 1, which is about two thirds of the book, progresses quickly, allowing us to get acquainted with most of the major and minor players in the Ragnarok to come. Unfortunately, in Part 2, the pacing stalls out and we lose track of most of our characters. Part 3 redeems it, though, with Angrboda doing what she must and what she has been preparing for since the distant beginning. This book brings the familiar (and some unfamiliar) characters of Norse mythology to life, imbuing them with genuine emotion and motivation, even as fate does its part. It also has a fair bit of humor, remembering to lighten the mood between heartbreaks and tragedies. If you like mythology with a modern sensibility, this book may be for you.]]> 4.03 2021
author: Genevieve Gornichec
name: Lara
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/03/18
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf, fantastic-strangelings
review:
The Witch's Heart is a swift, touching retelling of a rarely explored corner of Norse mythology. Part 1, which is about two thirds of the book, progresses quickly, allowing us to get acquainted with most of the major and minor players in the Ragnarok to come. Unfortunately, in Part 2, the pacing stalls out and we lose track of most of our characters. Part 3 redeems it, though, with Angrboda doing what she must and what she has been preparing for since the distant beginning. This book brings the familiar (and some unfamiliar) characters of Norse mythology to life, imbuing them with genuine emotion and motivation, even as fate does its part. It also has a fair bit of humor, remembering to lighten the mood between heartbreaks and tragedies. If you like mythology with a modern sensibility, this book may be for you.
]]> 54798187
Later is Stephen King at his finest, a terrifying and touching story of innocence lost and the trials that test our sense of right and wrong. With echoes of King's classic novel IT, Later is a powerful, haunting, unforgettable exploration of what it takes to stand up to evil in all the faces it wears.]]> 264 Stephen King 1789096499 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf Later is what I would call King-Lite. It's told in first person by a somewhat naive narrator and I think that limiting the story to Jamie's perspective is a strength. It gives the story boundaries, which is what some of King's sprawling tales might need. And it's a good story! It throws in little references to IT, The Shining, Doctor Sleep, The Shawshank Redemption (movie), The Dark Tower series, and even On Writing, but not getting those references won't get in the way of the story. They're nice Easter eggs for King enthusiasts, though. I really like Jamie as a character. He's just a nice kid, but he also feels real. There's definitely horror here, but it doesn't get too bogged down in the mythology the way some King books can. Overall, a good quick read.]]> 3.98 2021
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/03/21
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Later is what I would call King-Lite. It's told in first person by a somewhat naive narrator and I think that limiting the story to Jamie's perspective is a strength. It gives the story boundaries, which is what some of King's sprawling tales might need. And it's a good story! It throws in little references to IT, The Shining, Doctor Sleep, The Shawshank Redemption (movie), The Dark Tower series, and even On Writing, but not getting those references won't get in the way of the story. They're nice Easter eggs for King enthusiasts, though. I really like Jamie as a character. He's just a nice kid, but he also feels real. There's definitely horror here, but it doesn't get too bogged down in the mythology the way some King books can. Overall, a good quick read.
]]> 53487148 This is the women’s war, just as much as it is the men’s. They have waited long enough for their turn . . .

This was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of them all . . .

In the middle of the night, a woman wakes to find her beloved city engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over. Troy has fallen.

From the Trojan women whose fates now lie in the hands of the Greeks, to the Amazon princess who fought Achilles on their behalf, to Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus, to the three goddesses whose feud started it all, these are the stories of the women whose lives, loves, and rivalries were forever altered by this long and tragic war.

A woman’s epic, powerfully imbued with new life, A Thousand Ships puts the women, girls and goddesses at the center of the Western world’s great tale ever told.]]> 368 Natalie Haynes 0063065398 Lara 3 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.05 2019
author: Natalie Haynes
name: Lara
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2021/04/06
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I admire the concept and storytelling in this book, but there's something about it that feels distant and cold. As I read, I was annoyed by how much of these women's stories revolved around the men. It was so much tragedy and mourning. The bright points were Penelope's chapters where she writes to and berates Odysseus for how long he's been away and for the absurd tales the bard keeps telling about him. I also appreciated Calliope's chapters giving us glimpses into how a muse inspires and influences her poet. Overall, a pretty good read, but another sad one.
]]> 50548197
A Deadly Education is set at Scholomance, a school for the magically gifted where failure means certain death (for real) �� until one girl, El, begins to unlock its many secrets.

There are no teachers, no holidays, and no friendships, save strategic ones. Survival is more important than any letter grade, for the school won’t allow its students to leave until they graduate�� or die! The rules are deceptively simple: Don’t walk the halls alone. And beware of the monsters who lurk everywhere.

El is uniquely prepared for the school’s dangers. She may be without allies, but she possesses a dark power strong enough to level mountains and wipe out millions. It would be easy enough for El to defeat the monsters that prowl the school. The problem? Her powerful dark magic might also kill all the other students.]]> 320 Naomi Novik 0593128486 Lara 5
Okay, not really. A Deadly Education is another great book by Novik. She is so good at getting into the heads of her protagonists and building worlds. The Scholomance feels like a real magical place, if that's a thing. I love how this book both stands alone and properly sets up the sequel to come. While this book has a YA vibe, with El being a junior in high school and with the coming of age storyline, it is definitely mature in the constant dangers everyone faces both magical and social. The tension rarely subsides. El is constantly having to consider every possible consequence to every action. It's exhausting. I wouldn't seriously consider handing this book to anyone under 15. But for anyone above that age who likes reading fantasy with dark magic, this is for you.]]> 3.93 2020
author: Naomi Novik
name: Lara
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/04/11
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I love Naomi Novik. That's all.

Okay, not really. A Deadly Education is another great book by Novik. She is so good at getting into the heads of her protagonists and building worlds. The Scholomance feels like a real magical place, if that's a thing. I love how this book both stands alone and properly sets up the sequel to come. While this book has a YA vibe, with El being a junior in high school and with the coming of age storyline, it is definitely mature in the constant dangers everyone faces both magical and social. The tension rarely subsides. El is constantly having to consider every possible consequence to every action. It's exhausting. I wouldn't seriously consider handing this book to anyone under 15. But for anyone above that age who likes reading fantasy with dark magic, this is for you.
]]> 54305363 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Furiously Happy and Let’s Pretend This Never Happened comes a deeply relatable book filled with humor and honesty about depression and anxiety.

As Jenny Lawson’s hundreds of thousands of fans know, she suffers from depression. In Broken, Jenny brings readers along on her mental and physical health journey, offering heartbreaking and hilarious anecdotes along the way.

With people experiencing anxiety and depression now more than ever, Jenny humanizes what we all face in an all-too-real way, reassuring us that we’re not alone and making us laugh while doing it. From the business ideas that she wants to pitch to Shark Tank to the reason why Jenny can never go back to the post office, Broken leaves nothing to the imagination in the most satisfying way. And of course, Jenny’s long-suffering husband Victor―the Ricky to Jenny’s Lucille Ball―is present throughout.

A treat for Jenny Lawson’s already existing fans, and destined to convert new ones, Broken is a beacon of hope and a wellspring of laughter when we all need it most.]]> 285 Jenny Lawson 1250077036 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.01 2021
author: Jenny Lawson
name: Lara
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/04/27
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I love Jenny and everything she writes. It's rare for me to laugh out loud at books, but she gets me every time. This one also has some serious stuff about mental illness, but that's beautiful, too. You have to have some cracks for the light to get in.
]]> 54701865 A young Puritan woman - faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soul - plots her escape from a violent marriage in this riveting and propulsive historical thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant.

Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is twenty-four-years-old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England she might have had many suitors. But here in The New World, amid this community of saints, Mary is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas, prone to drunken rage, drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary's hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life. But in a world where every neighbor is watching for signs of the devil, a woman like Mary--a woman who harbors secret desires and finds it difficult to tolerate the brazen hypocrisy of so many men in the colony--soon finds herself the object of suspicion and rumor. When tainted objects are discovered buried in Mary's garden, when a boy she has treated with herbs and simples dies, and when their servant girl runs screaming in fright from her home, Mary must fight not only to escape her marriage, but also the gallows. A twisting, tightly-plotted thriller from one of our greatest storytellers, Hour of the Witch is a timely and terrifying novel of socially sanctioned brutality and the original American witch hunt.]]> 406 Chris Bohjalian 0385542445 Lara 0 to-read, on-my-real-bookshelf 4.09 2021
author: Chris Bohjalian
name: Lara
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: to-read, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:

]]> 55829194 In horror movies, the final girls are the ones left standing��when the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives…but what happens after?

Like his bestselling novel The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix’s latest is a fast-paced, frightening, and wickedly humorous thriller. From��chain��saws to summer camp slayers, The Final Girl Support Group pays tribute to and slyly subverts our most popular horror films—movies like The Texas��Chainsaw Massacre, A��Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream.

Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.

But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.]]> 352 Grady Hendrix 059320123X Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf
The Final Girl Support Group started out feeling a little aimless, but when it came together it really ignited. As with all of Hendrix's books, it has a gimmick, with some kind of supplemental text between every chapter. We get movie reviews, police reports, interviews, etc., all of which help build this world where final girls are both survivors and commodities. The end of this book is an explosive page-turner with a satisfying, and yes, hopeful, conclusion.]]> 3.49 2021
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Lara
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/07/25
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Rounded up from 4 1/2 stars. I love how Grady Hendrix's books are not just entertaining and action-packed, but they also have a message. They always leave me feeling hopeful, despite (or maybe even because of) all the horror that has happened throughout. There's always a deeper message about friendship or kindness or persistence. He also notes the complexity of the horror. It's not just monsters coming to get you, it's people. And it's not just because they want to kill you, it's because of, for example, internalized misogyny and manipulation and the desire for fame.

The Final Girl Support Group started out feeling a little aimless, but when it came together it really ignited. As with all of Hendrix's books, it has a gimmick, with some kind of supplemental text between every chapter. We get movie reviews, police reports, interviews, etc., all of which help build this world where final girls are both survivors and commodities. The end of this book is an explosive page-turner with a satisfying, and yes, hopeful, conclusion.
]]> 40537101
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 the mortals she has come to love.

With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world.]]> 393 Madeline Miller 0316556327 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf Circe is both epic and intensely personal, relating the tale of an often-maligned figure from Greek mythology. Most of us know Circe from her part in The Odyssey, where she is depicted as a selfish and vengeful witch who is somewhat charmed by Odysseus. While that is a key event in this novel as well, there is so much more. We learn about Circe from her birth and through thousands of years, getting to know her history and her emotions. She feels very real and relatable. The writing is beautiful, also, leading us as readers to feel the sea spray and see the dark forest groves. I found myself feeling like Circe was someone I knew and would want to know in real life. In some ways, I felt like I myself have a bit of Circe in me and that that's not a bad thing after all.]]> 4.25 2018
author: Madeline Miller
name: Lara
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2021/05/05
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Circe is both epic and intensely personal, relating the tale of an often-maligned figure from Greek mythology. Most of us know Circe from her part in The Odyssey, where she is depicted as a selfish and vengeful witch who is somewhat charmed by Odysseus. While that is a key event in this novel as well, there is so much more. We learn about Circe from her birth and through thousands of years, getting to know her history and her emotions. She feels very real and relatable. The writing is beautiful, also, leading us as readers to feel the sea spray and see the dark forest groves. I found myself feeling like Circe was someone I knew and would want to know in real life. In some ways, I felt like I myself have a bit of Circe in me and that that's not a bad thing after all.
]]> 54847107 368 Kate Summerscale 052555792X Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf The Haunting of Alma Fielding isn't just about ghosts and poltergeists, it's about how we're all haunted by our pasts, our choices, and the remembrance of the people we once knew, as well as the people we once were.]]> 3.26 2020
author: Kate Summerscale
name: Lara
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/06/14
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
The investigation part of the book dragged on a little long for me, but once it got into the psychoanalysis, I found it fascinating. The author deftly ties together global political events, social norms, the rise of psychoanalysis, and the popularity of spiritualism and paranormal investigation. Some of the connections are Fodor's, but Summerscale enhances and clarifies them in the way she juxtaposes the rise of Hitler with the paranormal investigation. The Haunting of Alma Fielding isn't just about ghosts and poltergeists, it's about how we're all haunted by our pasts, our choices, and the remembrance of the people we once knew, as well as the people we once were.
]]> 40097999 160 Joe Stumpe 1467139106 Lara 3 on-my-real-bookshelf
A couple annoyances:
1. This book needed more thorough editing. There were multiple instances of incorrect word usage or missing words. Many of them seemed like the type of errors that come when you're editing for flow and don't remove all the remnants of the previous phrasing.
2. The scholarly referencing falls short of the standard I've become accustomed to in other historical true crime books. There is a list of sources at the end, but no real footnoting or precise references.

Overall, it was a fun read. Some of the stories had so many absurd elements that I couldn't help but laugh, then read the section aloud to my husband. If you're from (or live in) Wichita and enjoy local history and/or true crime, this book is worth a read.]]> 3.62 2018
author: Joe Stumpe
name: Lara
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2021/06/08
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This was a fun collection of tales about Wichita's early underworld. As the great-granddaughter of the bootleg king of Sedgwick County, I found it especially interesting that Kansas was supposedly a dry state from 1880 to 1948, but it most certainly was not. Bootleggers, gamblers, and sex workers paid monthly "fines" which sound more like bribes to the corrupt boodlers in the city and county government. It seems that criminals were pretty welcome in Wichita as long as their crimes were considered victimless or committed outside the city.

A couple annoyances:
1. This book needed more thorough editing. There were multiple instances of incorrect word usage or missing words. Many of them seemed like the type of errors that come when you're editing for flow and don't remove all the remnants of the previous phrasing.
2. The scholarly referencing falls short of the standard I've become accustomed to in other historical true crime books. There is a list of sources at the end, but no real footnoting or precise references.

Overall, it was a fun read. Some of the stories had so many absurd elements that I couldn't help but laugh, then read the section aloud to my husband. If you're from (or live in) Wichita and enjoy local history and/or true crime, this book is worth a read.
]]> 46007673 509 Tana French 0735224641 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf
One complaint I've heard about French's books is that readers don't like how unfinished the stories feel. I think French may have gone too far in the other direction here, carrying on until every loose end was tied up. We want a satisfying ending, but this one carried on a little too much for me.

I must repeat how much I love French's writing. There were several paragraphs I reread immediately after reading them, just to hear the language again in my head. At one point, I was nearly in tears from the heartbreak and tragedy she made me feel. (I'm not a crier, so this is a pretty big deal.)

I thought taking the kernel of a story from the true crime tale about "who put Bella in the wych elm" was clever. This clearly went an entirely different direction, but the inspiration was there. I still wonder what happened to poor "Bella" though.]]> 3.55 2018
author: Tana French
name: Lara
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2021/06/10
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
As always, I love the lyrical slow burn of a Tana French book. Her characters are never simplistic, which is definitely true of Toby and the rest of the Hennesy family. They are close and loyal, but far from simple, or perfect. I like how Toby starts out seeming like the golden boy, but little by little, his flaws are laid bare. I've known many guys like him, who don't see the ways life has been made easy for them or realize the damage their thoughtless actions can cause. Their casual cruelty is unintentional but hurtful all the same.

One complaint I've heard about French's books is that readers don't like how unfinished the stories feel. I think French may have gone too far in the other direction here, carrying on until every loose end was tied up. We want a satisfying ending, but this one carried on a little too much for me.

I must repeat how much I love French's writing. There were several paragraphs I reread immediately after reading them, just to hear the language again in my head. At one point, I was nearly in tears from the heartbreak and tragedy she made me feel. (I'm not a crier, so this is a pretty big deal.)

I thought taking the kernel of a story from the true crime tale about "who put Bella in the wych elm" was clever. This clearly went an entirely different direction, but the inspiration was there. I still wonder what happened to poor "Bella" though.
]]> 50159129
It’s no secret, but we are judged by our bookshelves. We learn to read at an early age, and as we grow older we shed our beloved books for new ones. But some of us surround ourselves with books. We collect them, decorate with them, are inspired by them, and treat our books as sacred objects. In this lighthearted collection of one- and two-page comics, writer-artist Grant Snider explores bookishness in all its forms, and the love of writing and reading, building on the beloved literary comics featured on his website, Incidental Comics. I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf is the perfect gift for bookworms of all ages.

“This playful, self-aware collection of strips and gags on the joys and frustrations of reading and writing is equal parts lighthearted and sincere . . . The panels range from gently clever to surprisingly profound to laugh-out-loud.�� �� Publishers Weekly

“A prescient book for these times.�� �� Newsarama]]> 128 Grant Snider 1419737112 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.73 2020
author: Grant Snider
name: Lara
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/06/13
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This book is so cute and fun and relatable. As a lifelong reader, the ones about book obsession were my favorites. Several of these comics will be useful to English teacher me, too.
]]> 51075501
Join Clara Parkes on a cross-country adventure and meet a cast of characters that includes the shepherds, dyers, and countless workers without whom our knitting needles would be empty, our mills idle, and our feet woefully cold. Travel the country with her as she meets a flock of Saxon Merino sheep in upstate New York, tours a scouring plant in Texas, visits a steamy Maine dyehouse, helps sort freshly shorn wool on a working farm, and learns how wool fleece is measured, baled, shipped, and turned into skeins.

In pursuit of the perfect yarn, Parkes describes a brush with the dangers of opening a bale (they can explode), and her adventures from Maine to Wisconsin (“the most knitterly state��) and back again; along the way, she presents a behind-the-scenes look at the spinners, scourers, genius inventors, and crazy-complex mill machines that populate the yarn-making industry. By the end of the book, you’ll be ready to set aside the backyard chickens and add a flock of sheep instead. Simply put, no other book exists that explores American culture through the lens of wool.

“While I laughed and loved Clara’s prose, I was left with so much more. It’s actually a lovely and melancholy look at an American industry that’s quickly changing, and a beautiful story of the people who are sacrificing to maintain it.�� —Judy Greer, actor, director, and author of I Don’t Know What You Know Me Confessions of a Co-Star]]> 192 Clara Parkes 1419735373 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.08 2019
author: Clara Parkes
name: Lara
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2021/06/19
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This was a sweet and informative journey through the process of commercial yarn production in the US. Plus, I have to love a book about yarn that repeatedly references Stephen King and his masterpiece story and film "Graveyard Shift."
]]> 35384793
Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha . . . and the secrets of her heart.

Shadow and Bone is the first installment in Leigh Bardugo's Grisha Trilogy.]]> 358 Leigh Bardugo 1250027438 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf Shadow and Bone is a rollicking start to what will likely be a dramatic fantasy trilogy. It's complex enough without being overwhelming. It was a super speedy read. The characters are well-drawn, but it doesn't get bogged down in backstory. It's pretty simple and straightforward without seeming juvenile. Anyway, I liked it.]]> 3.91 2012
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Lara
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2021/06/18
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Shadow and Bone is a rollicking start to what will likely be a dramatic fantasy trilogy. It's complex enough without being overwhelming. It was a super speedy read. The characters are well-drawn, but it doesn't get bogged down in backstory. It's pretty simple and straightforward without seeming juvenile. Anyway, I liked it.
]]> 35529904
The Darkling has emerged from the Shadow Fold with a terrifying new power and a dangerous plan that will test the very boundaries of the natural world. With the help of a notorious privateer, Alina returns to the country she abandoned, determined to fight the forces gathering against Ravka. But as her power grows, Alina slips deeper into the Darkling’s game of forbidden magic, and farther away from Mal. Somehow, she will have to choose between her country, her power, and the love she always thought would guide her--or risk losing everything to the oncoming storm.]]> 435 Leigh Bardugo 125004443X Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf Siege and Storm is a lot slower and less action-packed than Shadow and Bone, but it still did a good job of advancing the story. We get some interesting new characters and we get to see Alina grow in her power and agency. The relationship drama gets kind of annoying. I've had my limit of fragile male egos and the women who cater to them.]]> 3.76 2013
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Lara
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2021/06/28
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
3.5 stars rounded to 4. Siege and Storm is a lot slower and less action-packed than Shadow and Bone, but it still did a good job of advancing the story. We get some interesting new characters and we get to see Alina grow in her power and agency. The relationship drama gets kind of annoying. I've had my limit of fragile male egos and the women who cater to them.
]]> 55169019
Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She's also queer, Asian, adopted, and treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her.

But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.

Nghi Vo's debut novel The Chosen and the Beautiful reinvents this classic of the American canon as a coming-of-age story full of magic, mystery, and glittering excess, and introduces a major new literary voice.]]> 260 Nghi Vo 1250784786 Lara 3 The Great Gatsby. It's weird how the author tied scenes directly into Gatsby word for word, but then changed things in a way that was just wrong. It didn't always seem purposeful. She used some of the symbolism from Gatsby and even did it well, but it didn't expand the meaning or reveal anything new. Basically, her Jordan is interesting, but she's stymied by being tied to the story from Gatsby.

I love The Great Gatsby. I've read it probably 15 times. I'm a high school English teacher and have taught it as well. My favorite thing about teaching this book is the way students' eyes find fresh takes on the characters and the society of the time. They're also great about comparing it to our world 100 years later. People are people, no matter what the time frame. It's both reassuring and disappointing to think of how society has and hasn't changed. I appreciate how Nghi Vo has diversified the characters. But I think by enmeshing her Jordan with the original story so closely, she limits her possibilities and her experience.

Basically, I think this book would be better if it was its own thing. The magical realism is beautiful and mysterious. Jordan's personal growth is revelatory. She has her own charm and complications. I'd just rather she had them in her own story.]]> 3.53 2021
author: Nghi Vo
name: Lara
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2021/06/30
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I wanted to like this book and I loved parts of it, but I don't know ... I would have liked it much better if it had been a book about the Jordan character unrelated to The Great Gatsby. It's weird how the author tied scenes directly into Gatsby word for word, but then changed things in a way that was just wrong. It didn't always seem purposeful. She used some of the symbolism from Gatsby and even did it well, but it didn't expand the meaning or reveal anything new. Basically, her Jordan is interesting, but she's stymied by being tied to the story from Gatsby.

I love The Great Gatsby. I've read it probably 15 times. I'm a high school English teacher and have taught it as well. My favorite thing about teaching this book is the way students' eyes find fresh takes on the characters and the society of the time. They're also great about comparing it to our world 100 years later. People are people, no matter what the time frame. It's both reassuring and disappointing to think of how society has and hasn't changed. I appreciate how Nghi Vo has diversified the characters. But I think by enmeshing her Jordan with the original story so closely, she limits her possibilities and her experience.

Basically, I think this book would be better if it was its own thing. The magical realism is beautiful and mysterious. Jordan's personal growth is revelatory. She has her own charm and complications. I'd just rather she had them in her own story.
]]> 57534442
Eighty-eight-year-old Maud is never looking for trouble, but it always seems to find her. First, a woman in her building met an untimely end: tragic. Then, just recently, a dead body mysteriously appeared in her very own apartment, prompting an investigation by the local Gothenburg authorities. Such a strange coincidence. When it seems suspicion has fallen on her, little old lady that she is, Maud decides to skip town and splurges on a trip to South Africa for herself.

In these six interlocking stories, memories of unfortunate incidents from Maud’s past keep bubbling to the surface, each triggered by something in the present: an image, a word, even a taste. When she lands in Johannesburg at last, eager to move on from the bloody ordeal last summer, she finds certain problems seem to be following her. Luckily, Maud is no stranger to taking matters into her own hands . . . even if it means she has to get a little blood on them in the process.

Don’t let her age fool you. Maud may be nearly ninety, but this elderly lady still has a few tricks before she’s ready to call it quits.

*Includes cookie recipes*]]> 261 Helene Tursten 1641291672 Lara 3 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.84 2020
author: Helene Tursten
name: Lara
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2021/10/10
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Fun, but not as delightful as the first book. It became rather sentimental by the end, but I suppose that happens in life, too.
]]> 51170065 Crossings is an unforgettable and explosive genre-bending debut--a novel in three parts, designed to be read in two different directions, spanning a hundred and fifty years and seven lifetimes.

On the brink of the Nazi occupation of Paris, a German-Jewish bookbinder stumbles across a manuscript called Crossings. It has three narratives, each as unlikely as the next. And the narratives can be read one of two ways: either straight through or according to an alternate chapter sequence. The first story in Crossings is a never-before-seen ghost story by the poet Charles Baudelaire, penned for an illiterate girl. Next is a noir romance about an exiled man, modeled on Walter Benjamin, whose recurring nightmares are cured when he falls in love with a storyteller who draws him into a dangerous intrigue of rare manuscripts, police corruption, and literary societies. Finally, there are the fantastical memoirs of a woman-turned-monarch whose singular life has spanned seven generations. With each new chapter, the stunning connections between these seemingly disparate people grow clearer and more extraordinary. Crossings is an unforgettable adventure full of love, longing and empathy.]]> 384 Alex Landragin 1250259045 Lara 4 Crossings is a really odd book. I read it straight through and I think the baroness sequence would have been more compelling, but I'm not sure that it would have made sense or had the same impact in that order. I went back through and skimmed that alternate sequence when I was done, and there are some real gems of vengeance hidden throughout. Reading it in order, I think it really picked up at the moment it became clear that there was a villain in the tale.
I'm not really sure that I liked it overall. The scenes that highlighted misogyny and the mistreatment of enslaved people were particularly vexing, as well as the portions that detailed the destruction of native societies and their traditions. None of these things are really condemned and I'm conflicted about how a story of historical fiction could better handle that.
All of that aside, I'm tempted to reread in the baroness sequence. I might do that sometime, but not today.]]> 3.82 2020
author: Alex Landragin
name: Lara
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/10
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Rounding up from 3.5 stars. Crossings is a really odd book. I read it straight through and I think the baroness sequence would have been more compelling, but I'm not sure that it would have made sense or had the same impact in that order. I went back through and skimmed that alternate sequence when I was done, and there are some real gems of vengeance hidden throughout. Reading it in order, I think it really picked up at the moment it became clear that there was a villain in the tale.
I'm not really sure that I liked it overall. The scenes that highlighted misogyny and the mistreatment of enslaved people were particularly vexing, as well as the portions that detailed the destruction of native societies and their traditions. None of these things are really condemned and I'm conflicted about how a story of historical fiction could better handle that.
All of that aside, I'm tempted to reread in the baroness sequence. I might do that sometime, but not today.
]]> 40699498
Every morning, Kris Pulaski wakes up in hell. In the 1990s she was lead guitarist of Dürt Würk, a heavy-metal band on the brink of breakout success until lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom, leaving his bandmates to rot in obscurity.

Now Kris works as night manager of a Best Western; she’s tired, broke, and unhappy. Then one day everything changes—a shocking act of violence turns her life upside down, and she begins to suspect that Terry sabotaged more than just the band. Kris hits the road, hoping to reunite Dürt Würk and confront the man who ruined her life. Her journey will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a celebrity rehab center to a satanic music festival. A furious power ballad about never giving up, We Sold Our Souls is an epic journey into the heart of a conspiracy-crazed, pill-popping, paranoid country that seems to have lost its very soul.]]> 336 Grady Hendrix 1683691245 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.86 2018
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Lara
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/13
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Another fun but gory romp with Grady Hendrix. He pulls no punches. His latest book was just dropped on my doorstep, so I finished this just in time!
]]> 37834816 Alternative cover edition of ISBN13: 9780805094619.

The capital has fallen.

The Darkling rules Ravka from his shadow throne.

Now the nation's fate rests with a broken Sun Summoner, a disgraced tracker, and the shattered remnants of a once-great magical army.

Deep in an ancient network of tunnels and caverns, a weakened Alina must submit to the dubious protection of the Apparat and the zealots who worship her as a Saint. Yet her plans lie elsewhere, with the hunt for the elusive firebird and the hope that an outlaw prince still survives.

Alina will have to forge new alliances and put aside old rivalries as she and Mal race to find the last of Morozova's amplifiers. But as she begins to unravel the Darkling's secrets, she reveals a past that will forever alter her understanding of the bond they share and the power she wields. The firebird is the one thing that stands between Ravka and destruction—and claiming it could cost Alina the very future she’s fighting for.]]> 420 Leigh Bardugo 080509461X Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf Ruin and Rising had more action than the second book of the trilogy, but sadly, there was less Nicolai. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll keep it short and say that the ending was satisfying. That was tricky, because Bardugo still didn't shy away from the tough stuff. This was a good summer read, even if it was more YA-ish than I usually prefer.]]> 4.00 2014
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Lara
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/19
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Ruin and Rising had more action than the second book of the trilogy, but sadly, there was less Nicolai. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll keep it short and say that the ending was satisfying. That was tricky, because Bardugo still didn't shy away from the tough stuff. This was a good summer read, even if it was more YA-ish than I usually prefer.
]]> 48915089
But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes.

To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past, and more troublingly, the future - outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it.]]> 355 Rivers Solomon 0374266778 Lara 4 3.82 2021
author: Rivers Solomon
name: Lara
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/09
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I don't know how to describe this book. It's a disturbing slice of magical realism, with joy, grief, pain, and visceral love and hate.
]]> 55655062
After a childhood marked by neglect, poverty, and periods of homelessness, with a mother who believed herself to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, Carrot Quinn moved out on her own. She found a sense of belonging among straight-edge anarchists who taught her how to traverse the country by freight trains, sleep in fields under the stars, and feed herself by foraging in dumpsters. Her new life was one of thrilling adventure and freedom, but still she was haunted by the ghosts of her lonely and traumatic childhood.

The Sunset Route is a powerful and brazenly honest adventure memoir set in the unseen corners of the United States--in the Alaskan cold, on trains rattling through forests and deserts, as well as in low-income apartments and crowded punk houses--following a remarkable protagonist who has witnessed more tragedy than she thought she could ever endure and who must learn to heal her own heart. Ultimately, it is a meditation on the natural world as a spiritual anchor, and on the ways that forgiveness can set us free.]]> 304 Carrot Quinn 0593133285 Lara 5 The Sunset Route> often reminded me of Into the Wild. Both Carrot and Chris want to define their own lives separate from society and live as one with nature. Their paths aren't so different, even though Chris came from privilege that Carrot never knew. Thankfully, it seems that Carrot may have found a way to make her life work, where Chris ultimately lost his. I enjoyed reading this lyrical and reflective story and wish Carrot all good things in her journey.]]> 4.12 2021
author: Carrot Quinn
name: Lara
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/21
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Carrot's life is fascinating to me. She seems to have chosen an adulthood that mirrors her horrific childhood in many ways, yet she is making that choice consciously. I would never want to live in the unpredictable, uncertain, untethered way she does. Yet there is beauty in it. The Sunset Route> often reminded me of Into the Wild. Both Carrot and Chris want to define their own lives separate from society and live as one with nature. Their paths aren't so different, even though Chris came from privilege that Carrot never knew. Thankfully, it seems that Carrot may have found a way to make her life work, where Chris ultimately lost his. I enjoyed reading this lyrical and reflective story and wish Carrot all good things in her journey.
]]> 11573 The Dead Zone.

Johnny Smith, the small-town schoolteacher who spun the wheel of fortune and won a four-and-a-half-year trip into The Dead Zone.

John Smith, who awakened from an interminable coma with an accursed power—the power to see the future and the terrible fate awaiting mankind in The Dead Zone.

~]]> 402 Stephen King 0451155750 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.96 1979
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1979
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/28
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This is a sad one. It's really a tragic love story hidden in supernatural horror. As always, King creates characters who appear on the page immediately as genuine and human as anyone you'd meet in real life. It's nightmarish how many of the political predictions came true in recent years. Sometimes I think Stephen King has a bit of that precognition himself. But hey, quit sniffin' that wicked cocaine.
]]> 33245734 A #1 New York Times-bestseller

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone...

A convict with a thirst for revenge.

A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager.

A runaway with a privileged past.

A spy known as the Wraith.

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction if they don't kill each other first.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo returns to the breathtaking world of the Grishaverse in this unforgettable tale about the opportunity and the adventure of a lifetime.

There's conflict between morality and amorality and an appetite for sometimes grimace-inducing violence that recalls the Game of Thrones series. But for every bloody exchange there are pages of crackling dialogue and sumptuous description. Bardugo dives deep into this world, with full color and sound. If you're not careful, it'll steal all your time. The New York Times Book Review

"]]> 496 Leigh Bardugo 0606399445 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.48 2015
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Lara
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2021/09/06
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
A thrilling magical heist with great characters in the Grishaverse. This one has a different vibe from the Shadow and Bone trilogy. It's not any lighter, but it's more fun with all the banter and possible romance. I'd recommend reading the Shadow and Bone books first to get the real world building. Besides, they're really good, too!
]]> 3410932 242 Roald Dahl 0374251312 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf
Anyway ... the ghost stories collected here genuinely are good. There's a nice variety of types, all with their own spooky flavor.]]> 3.61 1983
author: Roald Dahl
name: Lara
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at: 2021/10/07
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
The introduction on this one is worth the price of admission, especially considering that Dahl is now dead and it's perfectly safe and easy to roll around laughing at his astonishment at women being able to *gasp* WRITE. Especially those children's stories. You know women are always better at things involving children.

Anyway ... the ghost stories collected here genuinely are good. There's a nice variety of types, all with their own spooky flavor.
]]> 11580
Contents:

· Father’s Day · gs *
· The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill [adapted from “Weeds��, Cavalier May ��76] · gs *
· The Crate [Gallery, Jul ��79] · gs *
· Something to Tide You Over · gs *
· They’re Creeping Up On You · gs *]]> 66 Stephen King 0452253802 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf Creepshow was an enjoyable evening diversion.]]> 4.08 1982
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1982
rating: 5
read at: 2021/09/02
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Fun, gruesome, great classic-style comic art: Creepshow was an enjoyable evening diversion.
]]> 1497074 TERROR BEGAN IN JANUARY--BY THE LIGHT OF THE FULL MOON...
The first scream came from the snowbound railwayman who felt the fangs ripping at his throat. The next month there was a scream of ecstatic agony from the woman attacked in her snug bedroom.

Now scenes of unbelieving horror come each time the full moon shines on the isolated Maine town of Tarker Mills. No one knows who will be attacked next. But one thing is sure.

When the moon grows fat, a paralyzing fear sweeps through Tarker Mills. For snarls that sound like human words can be heard whining through the wind. And all around are the footprints of a monster whose hunger cannot be sated...


Description from back cover]]> 128 Stephen King 0451821114 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 1. The monthly calendar illustrations in this book are beautiful.
2. Each month offers a short but satisfying vignette of werewolfiness.
3. The color illustrations relating to the story are gruesome, but also lovely to look at.
4. The movie Silver Bullet that is based on this book is amazing and terrible and fantastic. Gary Busey and child Corey Haim, how could it be better?
5. I docked a star for King's usual fat shaming, dismissiveness of a person with a disability, and casual racism to indicate that people are small-town hicks. I know it was 1983, but it's not okay.]]> 3.65 1983
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1983
rating: 4
read at: 2021/09/06
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
A disjointed review:
1. The monthly calendar illustrations in this book are beautiful.
2. Each month offers a short but satisfying vignette of werewolfiness.
3. The color illustrations relating to the story are gruesome, but also lovely to look at.
4. The movie Silver Bullet that is based on this book is amazing and terrible and fantastic. Gary Busey and child Corey Haim, how could it be better?
5. I docked a star for King's usual fat shaming, dismissiveness of a person with a disability, and casual racism to indicate that people are small-town hicks. I know it was 1983, but it's not okay.
]]> 22299763
Kaz Brekker and his crew of deadly outcasts have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn't think they'd survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they're right back to fighting for their lives.

Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz's cunning and test the team's fragile loyalties.

A war will be waged on the city's dark and twisting streets - a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of the Grisha world.]]> 561 Leigh Bardugo Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf Crooked Kingdom is another stunning tale of the Grishaverse. I love the character development, the action, the clever plans, and the witty quips. As usual, Bardugo pulls no punches, allowing tragic reality to infiltrate the fantasy in rotten Ketterdam and in the characters' backstories. We also get a visit from some familiar faces from the Shadow and Bone trilogy, which should lead into some great stories in King of Scars and Rule of Wolves. Bardugo has quickly become one of my favorite authors.]]> 4.58 2016
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Lara
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2021/09/25
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Crooked Kingdom is another stunning tale of the Grishaverse. I love the character development, the action, the clever plans, and the witty quips. As usual, Bardugo pulls no punches, allowing tragic reality to infiltrate the fantasy in rotten Ketterdam and in the characters' backstories. We also get a visit from some familiar faces from the Shadow and Bone trilogy, which should lead into some great stories in King of Scars and Rule of Wolves. Bardugo has quickly become one of my favorite authors.
]]> 58533118 His Bite Is Worse Than His Bark..

It happens innocently enough, but doesn't it happen always. A big, friendly dog chases a rabbit into a hidden underground cave - and stirs a sleeping evil crueler than death itself.

A terrified four-year-old boy sees his bedroom closet door swing open untouched by human hands, and screams at the unholy red eyes gleaming in the darkness.

The little Maine town of Castle Rock is about to be invaded by the most hideous menace ever to savage the flesh and devour the mind..]]> 304 Stephen King 0451161351 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.89 1981
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at: 2021/09/28
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This book isn't really about Cujo. It's about family and community and how to keep going when everything goes wrong. And, yes, it's really sad.
]]> 54916181 From the New York Times bestselling author of I'm Judging You, a hilarious and transformational book about how to tackle fear--that everlasting hater--and audaciously step into lives, careers, and legacies that go beyond even our wildest dreams.

Luvvie Ajayi Jones is known for her trademark wit, warmth, and perpetual truth-telling. But even she's been challenged by the enemy of progress known as fear. She was once afraid to call herself a writer, and nearly skipped out on doing a TED talk that changed her life because of imposter syndrome. As she shares in Professional Troublemaker, she's not alone.

We're all afraid. We're afraid of asking for what we want because we're afraid of hearing "no". We're afraid of being different, of being too much or not enough. We're afraid of leaving behind the known for the unknown. But in order to do the things that will truly, meaningfully change our lives, we have to become professional troublemakers: people who are committed to not letting fear talk them out of the things they need to do or say to live free.

With humor and honesty, and guided by the influence of her professional troublemaking Nigerian grandmother, Funmilayo Faloyin, Luvvie walks us through what we must get right within ourselves before we can do the things that scare us; how to use our voice for a greater good; and how to put movement to the voice we've been silencing--because truth-telling is a muscle.

The point is not to be fearless, but to know we are afraid and charge forward regardless. It is to recognize that the things we must do are more significant than our fears. This book is about how to live boldly in spite of all the reasons we have to cower. Let's go!]]> 304 Luvvie Ajayi Jones 1984881906 Lara 4
Addendum: There's too much Jesus for me in parts of this book. (Being an atheist will make that true of most things that rely on religion as a life philosophy.) But I still love Luvvie.]]> 4.09 2021
author: Luvvie Ajayi Jones
name: Lara
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/10/06
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf, fantastic-strangelings
review:
This book was chosen for the Fantastic Strangelings book club and I wasn't really sure if I walked to read it. I liked it WAY more than I thought I would. Luvvie is so funny and I love the stories about her grandmother. I had stalled starting this book because work has been exhausting (teaching through the covid times really really sucks) and this felt like it would be work, but it's not. It's hyping me up to do something about the absurdities that are making me angry at work, too. So, thanks to Luvvie for the pep talk. I needed it.

Addendum: There's too much Jesus for me in parts of this book. (Being an atheist will make that true of most things that rely on religion as a life philosophy.) But I still love Luvvie.
]]> 13500543
Apt Pupil--a golden California schoolboy and an old man whose hideous past he uncovers enter into a fateful and chilling mutual parasitism.

The Body--four rambunctious young boys venture into the Maine woods and in sunlight and thunder find life, death, and intimations of their own mortality.

The Breathing Method--a tale told in a strange club about a woman determined to give birth no matter what.
source: stephenking.com]]> 560 Stephen King 035608678X Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" -- ⭐⭐⭐⭐�� This is my five star read. The casual racism of several characters to show that they're redneck-types is pretty gross. Other than that, it's beautifully crafted, well-characterized, and the rare Stephen King story that gives you genuine hope.
"Apt Pupil" -- ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Truly chilling in every way.
"The Body" -- ⭐⭐�� Okay, so I was never a young boy and I certainly wasn't a young boy in 1960, but I found pretty much every character in this story completely repellant: racist, sexist, abusive bullies. I hear people talk about this story like it's some rosy nostalgic story about childhood. I disagree. I also disagree with the fundamental idea that you never have friends like the ones you had when you were twelve. I sincerely hope people don't quit having genuine open relationships as adults. What a sad life.
Gordie and Chris are the only characters who are worth any attention. The only reason my rating isn't lower is that it is very well-written structurally with some gorgeous passages from Gordie's reflective moments.
"The Breathing Method" -- ⭐⭐⭐⭐ I loved this one except for the rampant misogyny (the idea of determined Miss Stansfield as an exceptional woman, the pursed-lipped judgement of every other woman, the flat characterization of the wives and mothers, etc.). But ... the spooky stories, the frame story, and the fascinating club building at 249B East 35th: chef's kiss.]]> 4.43 1982
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2021/11/07
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
A great collection of novellas. My overall rating averages to four stars, but there's some five and three here, too.
"Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" -- ⭐⭐⭐⭐�� This is my five star read. The casual racism of several characters to show that they're redneck-types is pretty gross. Other than that, it's beautifully crafted, well-characterized, and the rare Stephen King story that gives you genuine hope.
"Apt Pupil" -- ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Truly chilling in every way.
"The Body" -- ⭐⭐�� Okay, so I was never a young boy and I certainly wasn't a young boy in 1960, but I found pretty much every character in this story completely repellant: racist, sexist, abusive bullies. I hear people talk about this story like it's some rosy nostalgic story about childhood. I disagree. I also disagree with the fundamental idea that you never have friends like the ones you had when you were twelve. I sincerely hope people don't quit having genuine open relationships as adults. What a sad life.
Gordie and Chris are the only characters who are worth any attention. The only reason my rating isn't lower is that it is very well-written structurally with some gorgeous passages from Gordie's reflective moments.
"The Breathing Method" -- ⭐⭐⭐⭐ I loved this one except for the rampant misogyny (the idea of determined Miss Stansfield as an exceptional woman, the pursed-lipped judgement of every other woman, the flat characterization of the wives and mothers, etc.). But ... the spooky stories, the frame story, and the fascinating club building at 249B East 35th: chef's kiss.
]]> 57405598 Thinking of a foray to a quaint English village? You'll think twice after reading this tongue-in-cheek illustrated guide to the countless murderous possibilities lurking behind these villages' bucolic façades—from bestselling author Maureen Johnson and illustrator Jay Cooper.

A weekend roaming narrow old lanes, touring the faded glories of a country manor, and quaffing pints in the pub. How charming. That is, unless you have the misfortune of finding yourself in an English Murder Village, where danger lurks around each picturesque cobblestone corner and every sip of tea may be your last. If you insist on your travels, do yourself a favor and bring a copy of this little book. It may just keep you alive.

Brought to life with dozens of Gorey-esque drawings by illustrator Jay Cooper and peppered with allusions to classic crime series and unmistakably British murder lore, Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village gives you the tools you need to avoid the same fate, should you find yourself in a suspiciously cozy English village (or simply dream of going). Good luck, and whatever you do, avoid the vicar.]]> 128 Maureen Johnson 1984859625 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.02 2021
author: Maureen Johnson
name: Lara
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/12/03
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Gorey-esque illustrations and wise advice such as, "Never trust anyone who has a favorite shovel," have me feeling like I'm ready to survive a visit to a quaint English Murder Village.
]]> 55559887 A budding dark sorceress determined not to use her formidable powers uncovers yet more secrets about the workings of her world in the stunning sequel to A Deadly Education, the start of Naomi Novik’s groundbreaking crossover series.

At the Scholomance, El, Orion, and the other students are faced with their final year—and the looming specter of graduation, a deadly ritual that leaves few students alive in its wake. El is determined that her chosen group will survive, but it is a prospect that is looking harder by the day as the savagery of the school ramps up. Until El realizes that sometimes winning the game means throwing out all the rules . . .]]> 388 Naomi Novik 0593128869 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.20 2021
author: Naomi Novik
name: Lara
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/10/24
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This book was much slower than the first, but it was still really good. And that ending! Blargh! Now I want to fight Naomi Novik! I'm ready for the third book anytime.
]]> 55298324 Who is Mrs. March?

A twenty-first-century Highsmith, Virginia Feito conjures the unforgettable Mrs. March, an Upper East Side housewife whose life is shattered by her husband’s latest novel.

In this astonishing debut, the venerable but gossipy New York literary scene is twisted into a claustrophobic fun house of paranoia, horror, and wickedly dark humor. George March’s latest novel is a smash. No one is prouder than Mrs. March, his doting wife. But one morning, the shopkeeper of her favorite patisserie suggests that his protagonist is based on Mrs. March herself: “But . . . ―isn't she . . .�� Mrs. March leaned in and in almost a whisper said, ‘a whore?�� Clutching her ostrich-leather pocketbook, she flees, that one casual remark destroying her belief that she knew everything about her husband―as well as herself. Suddenly, Mrs. March is hurled into a harrowing journey that builds to near psychosis, one that begins merely within the pages of a book but may uncover both a killer and the long-buried secrets of her past.]]> 304 Virginia Feito 1631498614 Lara 3 Mrs. March was an odd one, both the book and the person. At first, the book was kind of boring. Pretty soon, I was irritated because it seemed like Feito was trying to imitate Mrs. Dalloway, and what kind of overconfident author tries to imitate Virginia Woolf's most famous book in a debut novel? Then it became rather uncomfortable, then unsettling, then eventually completely disturbing. I don't know that I would recommend it, but it was an interesting experience to read it.]]> 3.23 2021
author: Virginia Feito
name: Lara
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2021/11/03
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Mrs. March was an odd one, both the book and the person. At first, the book was kind of boring. Pretty soon, I was irritated because it seemed like Feito was trying to imitate Mrs. Dalloway, and what kind of overconfident author tries to imitate Virginia Woolf's most famous book in a debut novel? Then it became rather uncomfortable, then unsettling, then eventually completely disturbing. I don't know that I would recommend it, but it was an interesting experience to read it.
]]> 42779834
Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed�� Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins.

A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period illustrations.]]> 623 Emily M. Danforth 0008347204 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.70 2020
author: Emily M. Danforth
name: Lara
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/11/24
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I loved this book. It's gothic, playful, spooky, grim, and bratty. And yes, it's long, but it didn't seem overly long. The way it weaves multiple stories together across a hundred-plus years requires a lot of pages to get it right. I liked how real and flawed the characters were and how the narrator felt like another character. Beware, don't read this if you have a debilitating fear of yellow jackets or other buzzing insects, black mold, or LGBTQ content. (Okay, if you have a debilitating fear of LGBTQ content, I think you should read it and get over yourself and/or get some therapy.) This one was fun and I could see myself rereading in the future.
]]> 11567
A supermarket becomes the place where humanity makes its last stand against destruction. A trip to the attic becomes a journey to hell. A woman driver finds a scary shortcut to paradise. An idyllic lake harbors a bottomless evil. And a desert island is the scene of the most terrifying struggle for survival ever waged.

Librarian's note: See the 1986 edition with this ISBN here.]]> 566 Stephen King 0451168615 Lara 3 on-my-real-bookshelf
High points:
Revisiting 249B East 35th (from "The Breathing Method") even though the story itself was pretty forgettable
Four stops in Castle Rock
Some good scares and horror imagery sprinkled throughout

Deep low points:
Consistent body (fat) shaming
Casual racism
Gross sexual references to women's bodies and women's experiences he knows nothing about (Want to talk about root vegetables or maidenheads, anyone?)

I'm not mad I read it, but I don't think this collection holds up with his best work. I'm glad he's grown since writing these stories.]]> 3.79 1985
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1985
rating: 3
read at: 2021/12/16
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
Not my favorite of his short story collections, but there were some bright spots. Most of the stories were longer than they needed to be. I started putting a post-it tab on the last page of the story so I would know how much longer it was going to drag on. I usually really like King's short stories because they are more tightly plotted than his full length books, but I didn't find that to be the case here.

High points:
Revisiting 249B East 35th (from "The Breathing Method") even though the story itself was pretty forgettable
Four stops in Castle Rock
Some good scares and horror imagery sprinkled throughout

Deep low points:
Consistent body (fat) shaming
Casual racism
Gross sexual references to women's bodies and women's experiences he knows nothing about (Want to talk about root vegetables or maidenheads, anyone?)

I'm not mad I read it, but I don't think this collection holds up with his best work. I'm glad he's grown since writing these stories.
]]> 54860614
When Theseus, the Prince of Athens, arrives to vanquish the beast, Ariadne sees in his green eyes not a threat but an escape. Defying the gods, betraying her family and country, and risking everything for love, Ariadne helps Theseus kill the Minotaur. But will Ariadne's decision ensure her happy ending? And what of Phaedra, the beloved younger sister she leaves behind?

Hypnotic, propulsive, and utterly transporting, Jennifer Saint's Ariadne forges a new epic, one that puts the forgotten women of Greek mythology back at the heart of the story, as they strive for a better world.]]> 308 Jennifer Saint 125077358X Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf Circe earlier this year, I thought, "I'd really like to hear more about Ariadne." And then this book appeared! It retains the episodic feel of Greek myth, but intertwines stories from both Ariadne and her sister Phaedra. Like Circe, Ariadne delves into the deeper thoughts and feelings of characters long known on a surface level, but it never feels overly dramatic or maudlin. It makes these characters from myth feel like real people in a way that makes the reader empathize and mourn along with them.]]> 3.77 2021
author: Jennifer Saint
name: Lara
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/12/21
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I'm really into these modern retellings of mythology, especially the ones focused on women. When I read Circe earlier this year, I thought, "I'd really like to hear more about Ariadne." And then this book appeared! It retains the episodic feel of Greek myth, but intertwines stories from both Ariadne and her sister Phaedra. Like Circe, Ariadne delves into the deeper thoughts and feelings of characters long known on a surface level, but it never feels overly dramatic or maudlin. It makes these characters from myth feel like real people in a way that makes the reader empathize and mourn along with them.
]]> 49504061
But when the Eastwood sisters--James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna--join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women's movement into the witch's movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote-and perhaps not even to live-the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.

There's no such thing as witches. But there will be.]]> 517 Alix E. Harrow 0316422045 Lara 0 to-read, on-my-real-bookshelf 4.01 2020
author: Alix E. Harrow
name: Lara
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: to-read, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:

]]> 2960858
But now Thad is feeling better. The father of infant twins, he's beginning to write for himself again. He no longer needs George Stark, and somehow relieved that the game is over, he announces that Stark will write no more. He even 'buries' him, with a specially made headstone, for a magazine photo-feature.

Which is all very funny and a happy ending to a lucrative but strange period in the life of Thad and Liz Beaumont. Except for one thing. George Stark doesn't want to die. Impossibly, terrifyingly, in an orgy of violence, he appears to have returned—a killing machine intent on destroying anything and everything that stands between him and the man who created him...

Here is The Dark Half, a tale of terror so real and fascinating that Stephen King's growing legion of fans will find themselves squirming in the master's heart-stopping, blood-curdling grip—and loving every minute of it.

Stephen King, and his wife, the novelist Tabitha King, live in Bangor, Maine. His pseudonym, Richard Bachman, is still at large.]]> 413 Stephen King 0340509112 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf
It's good, though. Could have been shorter, but it was a compelling story. The idea of duality and the different identities we carry within us is interesting.]]> 3.78 1989
author: Stephen King
name: Lara
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1989
rating: 4
read at: 2021/12/27
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This is a gruesome one. Don't make the mistake of eating creamy potato soup and reading this at the same time (like I did). So much pus.

It's good, though. Could have been shorter, but it was a compelling story. The idea of duality and the different identities we carry within us is interesting.
]]> 56898076
Seven years later, her gifts have manifested in different ways for Marimar, Rey, and Tatinelly’s daughter, Rhiannon, granting them unexpected blessings. But soon, a hidden figure begins to tear through their family tree, picking them off one by one as it seeks to destroy Orquídea’s line. Determined to save what’s left of their family and uncover the truth behind their inheritance, the four descendants travel to Ecuador—to the place where Orquídea buried her secrets and broken promises and never looked back.]]> 336 Zoraida Córdova 1982102543 Lara 5 3.91 2021
author: Zoraida Córdova
name: Lara
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/01/02
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: fantastic-strangelings, on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This book is strange and magical and it thoroughly engrossed me. The moment I started reading, I didn't want to let go of the Montoya family and their mysterious enchanted history.
]]> 50898148 Fangs chronicles the humor, sweetness, and awkwardness of meeting someone perfectly suited to you but also vastly different.]]> 100 Sarah Andersen 1524860670 Lara 5 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.27 2020
author: Sarah Andersen
name: Lara
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/01/02
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I love this book. This will be a good one to pull out and revisit anytime I need a little emotional boost. It's the sweetest story of a vampire and a werewolf in love.
]]> 55965390 Andrea Stewart returns with The Bone Shard Emperor, the second installment of this unmissable, action-packed, magic-laced fantasy epic.

The Emperor is Dead. Long live the Emperor.����
��
Lin Sukai finally sits on the throne she won at so much cost, but her struggles are only just beginning. Her people don’t trust her. Her political alliances are weak. And in the north-east of the Empire, a rebel army of constructs is gathering, its leader determined to take the throne by force.����
��
Yet an even greater threat is on the horizon, for the Alanga �� the powerful magicians of legend �� have returned to the Empire. They claim they come in peace, and Lin will need��their help in order to defeat the rebels and restore peace.����
��
But can she trust them?����]]> 560 Andrea Stewart 0356514994 Lara 4 on-my-real-bookshelf 4.05 2021
author: Andrea Stewart
name: Lara
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/22
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
This could have been about 150 pages shorter. It took a really long time to get anywhere, which is not a problem the first book had. But get somewhere it did, and it set up some good stuff for the last book. For real, authors, you've got to add some more excitement to middle books in trilogies or change to duologies or something. Oh, and Jovis and Mephi are still my favorite.
]]> 55648833 Nine years before the events of the #1 international bestseller The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 ¼ Years Old, Hendrik and his best friend Evert embark on a madcap adventure �� with an unexpected guest.

Hendrik Groen and Evert Duiker, faithful friends in good and bad times, are well over seventy and their lives have quieted down. They see each other once a week to play chess, have a drink, and grab a bite to eat while reflecting on life.

But one day, their peace is rudely disturbed when Evert shows up on Hendrik’s doorstep with a surprise in the form of an unexpected little guest. He had spotted a stroller with a baby in it �� unattended for just a minute �� and, in a moment of utter madness, decided to take it for a walk. Hilarious, right? Not to Hendrik, who can barely believe his friend’s stupidity.

After Evert regains recovers from his momentary lapse of sanity, the two seventy-year-olds resolve to return their charge to its parents �� hopefully without being noticed. But the quiet neighborhood is now swarmed by bumbling police officers, and they realize that getting rid of their accidental foster child will be more difficult than expected…]]> 275 Hendrik Groen 1538754568 Lara 3 on-my-real-bookshelf 3.50 2019
author: Hendrik Groen
name: Lara
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/13
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: on-my-real-bookshelf
review:
I really enjoyed the first two Hendrik Groen books and I was hoping this one would be a fun prequel romp. Unfortunately, it didn't quite land. It swung between cringey, frustrating, and mildly amusing. As much as I liked visiting Hendrik and Evert again, I wish they'd had something better to do. Thankfully, it did land on heartwarming, but it wasn't quite enough to redeem it completely. I guess kidnapping isn't really a topic that lends itself to frivolity with elderly men.
]]>