Mariel's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 21 Apr 2025 16:50:32 -0700 60 Mariel's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki]]> 49228706
PSYCHIATRIST: So how can I help you?

ME: I don't know, I'm � what's the word � depressed? Do I have to go into detail?

Baek Sehee is a successful young social media director at a publishing house when she begins seeing a psychiatrist about her - what to call it? - depression? She feels persistently low, anxious, endlessly self-doubting, but also highly judgmental of others. She hides her feelings well at work and with friends, performing the calmness her lifestyle demands. The effort is exhausting, overwhelming, and keeps her from forming deep relationships. This can't be normal. But if she's so hopeless, why can she always summon a yen for her favorite street food: the hot, spicy rice cake, tteokbokki? Is this just what life is like?

Recording her dialogues with her psychiatrist over a twelve-week period, and expanding on each session with her own reflective micro-essays, Baek begins to disentangle the feedback loops, knee-jerk reactions, and harmful behaviors that keep her locked in a cycle of self-abuse. Part memoir, part self-help book, I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki is a book to keep close and to reach for in times of darkness. It will appeal to anyone who has ever felt alone or unjustified in their everyday despair.


—ĔĔĔĔ�


Aku: Bagaimana caranya agar bisa mengubah pikiran bahwa saya ini standar dan biasa saja?

Psikiater: Memangnya hal itu merupakan masalah yang harus diperbaiki?

Aku: Iya, karena saya ingin mencintai diri saya sendiri.

-----

I Want To Die But I Want To Eat Tteokpokki adalah esai yang berisi tentang pertanyaan, penilaian, saran, nasihat, dan evaluasi diri yang bertujuan agar pembaca bisa menerima dan mencintai dirinya.

Buku self improvement ini mendapatkan sambutan baik karena pembaca meraskan hal yang sama dengan kisah Baek Se Hee sehingga buku ini mendapatkan predikat bestseller di Korea Selatan.]]> 232 Baek Se-hee 6237351035 Mariel 0 currently-reading 3.26 2018 I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki
author: Baek Se-hee
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/21
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]]> Letters to Milena 88340 Letters to Milena, which begin essentially as a business correspondence but soon develop into a passionate "letter love." Milena Jesenská was a gifted and charismatic woman of twenty-three. Kafka's Czech translator, she was uniquely able to recognize his complex genius and his even more complex character. For the thirty-six-year-old Kafka, she was "a living fire, such as I have never seen." It was to her that he revealed his most intimate self. It was to her that, after the end of the affair, he entrusted the safekeeping of his diaries.

Newly translated, revised, and expanded, this edition contains material previously omitted because of its extreme sensitivity. Also included for the first time are letters and essays by Milena Jesenská, herself a talented writer as well as the recipient of these documents of Kafka's love, anxiety, and despair.]]> 298 Franz Kafka 0805208852 Mariel 0 to-read 4.10 1952 Letters to Milena
author: Franz Kafka
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1952
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> Min kamp 1 (Min kamp, #1) 7147831
I en borende prosa som oppsøker det sårbare, det pinlige og det eksistensielt betydningsbærende, blir dette en dypt personlig roman, selvutprøvende og kontroversiell. Et eksistensielt omdreiningspunkt er farens død, et annet er kanskje hovedpersonens debut som forfatter.]]> 435 Karl Ove Knausgård 8252574580 Mariel 0 to-read 4.15 2009 Min kamp 1 (Min kamp, #1)
author: Karl Ove Knausgård
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> A Room of One’s Own 18521 A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on the 24th of October, 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled Women and Fiction, and hence the essay, are considered nonfiction. The essay is seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.]]> 112 Virginia Woolf Mariel 0 to-read 4.22 1929 A Room of One’s Own
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1929
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> My Life on the Road 15451058 My Life on the Road.]]> 276 Gloria Steinem 0679456201 Mariel 0 to-read 4.05 2015 My Life on the Road
author: Gloria Steinem
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: An Introvert's Year of Living Dangerously]]> 41577600 An introvert spends a year trying to live like an extrovert with hilarious results and advice for readers along the way.

What would happen if a shy introvert lived like a gregarious extrovert for one year? If she knowingly and willingly put herself in perilous social situations that she’d normally avoid at all costs? Writer Jessica Pan intends to find out. With the help of various extrovert mentors, Pan sets up a series of personal challenges (talk to strangers, perform stand-up comedy, host a dinner party, travel alone, make friends on the road, and much worse) to explore whether living like an extrovert can teach her lessons that might improve the quality of her life. Chronicling the author’s hilarious and painful year of misadventures, this book explores what happens when one introvert fights her natural tendencies, takes the plunge, and tries (and sometimes fails) to be a little bit braver.]]> 368 Jessica Pan 0857526154 Mariel 0 to-read 3.86 2019 Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: An Introvert's Year of Living Dangerously
author: Jessica Pan
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking]]> 8520610 The book that started the Quiet Revolution

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society.

In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts—from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.

Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content.]]> 333 Susan Cain 0307352145 Mariel 0 to-read 4.07 2012 Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
author: Susan Cain
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> The Secret (The Secret, #1) 52529 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781582701707.

The worldwide bestselling phenomenon that has helped millions tap the power of the law that governs all our lives to create—intentionally and effortlessly—a joyful life.

In 2006, a groundbreaking feature-length film revealed the great mystery of the universe�The Secret—and, later that year, Rhonda Byrne followed with a book that became a worldwide bestseller.

Fragments of a Great Secret have been found in the oral traditions, in literature, in religions, and philosophies throughout the centuries. For the first time, all the pieces of The Secret come together in an incredible revelation that will be life-transforming for all who experience it.

In this book, you’ll learn how to use The Secret in every aspect of your life—money, health, relationships, happiness, and in every interaction you have in the world. You’ll begin to understand the hidden, untapped power that’s within you, and this revelation can bring joy to every aspect of your life.

The Secret contains wisdom from modern-day teachers—men and women who have used it to achieve health, wealth, and happiness. By applying the knowledge of The Secret, they bring to light compelling stories of eradicating disease, acquiring massive wealth, overcoming obstacles, and achieving what many would regard as impossible.]]> 199 Rhonda Byrne Mariel 0 to-read 3.74 2006 The Secret (The Secret, #1)
author: Rhonda Byrne
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> I See You Like I See a Flower 60331429 by � 태주 (Na Tae-joo)

Copyright � 2015 Tae-joo Na
All rights reserved.

English language copyright in the Philippines � 2022 Adarna House, Inc. through Eric Yang Agency, Inc.

Printed in the Philippines
Published by Adarna House, Inc.

First printing of the first (Philippine) edition, 2022

ISBN 978-971-508-905-0

book "Foreword":

This book is a collection of poems I've shared on social media. In other words, even though I was the one who wrote this book, it also reflects my readers' thoughts. . . I feel sorry for the trees and sun for publishing another book with the paper produced by our terminally-ill Mother Earth, but for now, I wish for everyone's peace.


Summer, 2015
Tae-joo Na]]> 176 Tae-joo Na Mariel 0 to-read 3.55 2015 I See You Like I See a Flower
author: Tae-joo Na
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #1)]]> 62047992 The moving international sensation about new beginnings, human connection, and the joy of reading.

Hidden in Jimbocho, Tokyo, is a booklover's paradise. On a quiet corner in an old wooden building lies a shop filled with hundreds of second-hand books.

Twenty-five-year-old Takako has never liked reading, although the Morisaki bookshop has been in her family for three generations. It is the pride and joy of her uncle Satoru, who has devoted his life to the bookshop since his wife Momoko left him five years earlier.

When Takako's boyfriend reveals he's marrying someone else, she reluctantly accepts her eccentric uncle's offer to live rent-free in the tiny room above the shop. Hoping to nurse her broken heart in peace, Takako is surprised to encounter new worlds within the stacks of books lining the Morisaki bookshop.

As summer fades to autumn, Satoru and Takako discover they have more in common than they first thought. The Morisaki bookshop has something to teach them both about life, love, and the healing power of books.]]> 150 Satoshi Yagisawa 0063278677 Mariel 0 to-read 3.66 2010 Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #1)
author: Satoshi Yagisawa
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/01
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]]> Strange Weather in Tokyo 18283207 176 Hiromi Kawakami 1846275083 Mariel 0 currently-reading 3.63 2001 Strange Weather in Tokyo
author: Hiromi Kawakami
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Crying in H Mart 54814676
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band � and meeting the man who would become her husband � her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.

It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.]]> 243 Michelle Zauner 0525657746 Mariel 4 4.25 2021 Crying in H Mart
author: Michelle Zauner
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
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review:
Encapsulates grief in such a tragically beautiful way. Had to take many breaks to cry.
]]> <![CDATA[Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop]]> 133938826 should feel successful—but all she feels is drained. Haunted by an abandoned dream, she takes a leap of faith and leaves her old life behind. Quitting her job and divorcing her husband, Yeongju moves to a quiet residential neighborhood outside the city and opens the Hyunam-dong Bookshop.

The transition isn’t easy. For months, all Yeongju can do is cry. But as the long hours in the shop stretch on, she begins to reflect on what makes a good bookseller and a meaningful store. She throws herself into reading voraciously, hosting author events, and crafting her own philosophy on bookselling. Gradually, Yeongju finds her footing in her new surroundings.

Surrounded by friends, writers, and the books that bind them, Yeongju begins to write a new chapter in her life. The Hyunam-dong Bookshop evolves into a warm, welcoming haven for lost souls—a place to rest, heal, and remember that it’s never too late to scrap the plot and start over.]]> 307 Hwang Bo-Reum Mariel 4 3.93 2022 Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop
author: Hwang Bo-Reum
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves:
review:
This book found me when I needed it the most. Chose this book blindly without knowing much about it just based on the cozy vibes it gave me - turned out to be the message that I’ve been searching for at this point in my life. Is the happiness of chasing a (seemingly unattainable) dream worth it? Or can the relief of quitting such a task bring you more happiness than you could have imagined?
]]> Love & Misadventure 18003300
Beautifully illustrated and thoughtfully conceived, Love and Misadventure will take you on a roller-coaster ride through an ill-fated love affair—from the initial butterflies to the soaring heights—through to the devastating plunge. Lang Leav has an unnerving ability to see inside the hearts and minds of her readers. Her talent for translating complex emotions with astonishing simplicity has won her a cult following of devoted fans from all over the world.]]> 176 Lang Leav 0473235501 Mariel 0 to-read 3.94 2013 Love & Misadventure
author: Lang Leav
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/11
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]]> Madonna in a Fur Coat 27793819 The bestselling Turkish classic of love and longing in a changing world, available in English for the first time.



'It is, perhaps, easier to dismiss a man whose face gives no indication of an inner life. And what a pity that is: a dash of curiosity is all it takes to stumble upon treasures we never expected.'

A shy young man leaves his home in rural Turkey to learn a trade in 1920s Berlin. The city's crowded streets, thriving arts scene, passionate politics and seedy cabarets provide the backdrop for a chance meeting with a woman, which will haunt him for the rest of his life. Emotionally powerful, intensely atmospheric and touchingly profound, Madonna in a Fur Coat is an unforgettable novel about new beginnings and the unfathomable nature of the human soul.



'Passionate but clear . . . Ali's success [is in ] his ability to describe the emergence of a feeling, seemingly straightforward from the outside but swinging back and forth between opposite extremes at its core, revealing the tensions that accompanies such rise and fall.' Atilla Özkirimli, writer and literary historian]]> 168 Sabahattin Ali 014198127X Mariel 0 to-read 4.19 1943 Madonna in a Fur Coat
author: Sabahattin Ali
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1943
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/08
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]]> Mexican Gothic 57800389
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.]]> 301 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 052562080X Mariel 0 to-read 3.71 2020 Mexican Gothic
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/18
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]]> The Lantern of Lost Memories 204593511 From acclaimed Japanese authorSanaka Hiigari comes aheartwarming, life-affirming novel about amagical photo studio, where people go after they die to view key moments from their life—and relive one precious memory before they pass into the afterlife.

The hands and pendulum of the old wooden clock on the wall were motionless. Hirasakacocked his head to listen, but the silence inside the photo studio was almost deafening. Hisleather shoes sank softly into the aging red carpet as he strode over to the arrangement offlowers on the counter and carefully adjusted the angle of the petals...

This is the story of the peculiar and magical photo studio owned by Mr. Hirasaki, a collector of antique cameras. In the dimly lit interior, a paper background is pulled down in front of a wall, and in front of it stands a single, luxurious chair with an armrest on one side. On a stand is a large bellows camera. On the left is the main studio; photos can also be taken in the courtyard.

Beyond its straightforward interior, however, is a secret. The studio is, in fact, the door to the afterlife, the place between life and deathwhere those who have departed have a chance—one last time—to see their entire life flash before their eyes viaMr. Hirasaki's "spinning lantern ofmemories."

We meetHatsue, a ninety-two year old woman who worked as a nursery teacher,the rowdy Waniguchi, a yakuza overseer in his life who is also capable of great compassion, and finallyMitsuru, a young girl who has died tragically young at the hands of abusive parents.

Sorting through the many photos of their lives,Mr. Hirasaki also offers guests one guests a second achance to travel back in time to take a photo of oneparticular moment in their lives that they wish to cherish in a special way.

Full of charm and whimsy, The Lantern of Lost Memories will sweep you away to a world of nostalgia,laughter, and love.]]> 208 Sanaka Hiiragi 1538757435 Mariel 0 to-read 4.12 2019 The Lantern of Lost Memories
author: Sanaka Hiiragi
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Message 210943364
The first of the book’s three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the “steampunk� city of “old traditions and new machinery,� but everywhere he goes he feels as if he’s in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.

He takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he meets an educator whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates’s own books. There he discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed by the “racial reckoning� of 2020. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.

And in Palestine, Coates discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we’ve accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians—the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young, who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him—and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.]]> 232 Ta-Nehisi Coates 0593230388 Mariel 0 to-read 4.51 2024 The Message
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Lykke / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living]]> 40534545 3 Books Collection Set:

Ikigai: The Japanese secret to a long and happy life

The people of Japan believe that everyone has an ikigai � a reason to jump out of bed each morning. And according to the residents of the Japanese island of Okinawa � the world’s longest-living people � finding it is the key to a longer and more fulfilled life. Inspiring and comforting, this book will give you the life-changing tools to uncover your personal ikigai. It will show you how to leave urgency behind, find your purpose, nurture friendships and throw yourself into your passions.

The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well

The Danish word hygge is one of those beautiful words that doesn't directly translate into English, but it more or less means comfort, warmth or togetherness. Hygge is the feeling you get when you are cuddled up on a sofa with a loved one, in warm knitted socks, in front of the fire, when it is dark, cold and stormy outside. It that feeling when you are sharing good, comfort food with your closest friends, by candle light and exchanging easy conversation. It is those cold, crisp blue sky mornings when the light through your window is just right.

Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

Step aside Hygge. Lagom is the new Scandi lifestyle trend taking the world by storm. This delightfully illustrated book gives you the lowdown on this transformative approach to life and examines how the lagom ethos has helped boost Sweden to the No.10 ranking in 2017's World Happiness Report. Lagom (pronounced 'lah-gom') has no equivalent in the English language but is loosely translated as 'not too little, not too much, just right'. It is widely believed that the word comes from the Viking term 'laget om', for when a mug of mead was passed around a circle and there was just enough for everyone to get a sip.]]> Héctor García 9123672609 Mariel 0 currently-reading 3.85 2018 Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Lykke / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living
author: Héctor García
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/09
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Discover Your Ikigai: Everything You Need to Know for Effective and Immediate Implementation Today (ikigai book, ikagai, ikagi, ikigay, ikigau Book 1)]]> 204288505 If You Answered Yes, Then This Essential Guide Is Perfect For You, But Before You Immediately Embark On This Magical And Fascinating Adventure, Let Me Explain Why This Book Will Transform Your Life Almost Automatically And In A Way That Meets All Your Needs, Almost Without You Even Realizing It.
1. Holistic It's Funny How When You Immerse Yourself In A Reading That Addresses Multiple Dimensions Of Your Existence, You Can Feel Every Aspect Of Your Life Improve. This Work Explores Everything From Self-Knowledge And Passion To How Personal Narrative And Mysticism Can Enrich Your Ikigai, Your Life Purpose.
2. Practical The More You Read, The More Tools You Acquire To Implement Real, Tangible Changes In Your Life. This Is Not Pure Theory; On The Contrary, This Complete And Up-To-Date Guide Will Take You By The Hand From Deep Understanding To Direct Application In Your Daily Life.
3. Transformational As You Immerse Yourself In This Powerful Read, You Will Experience Profound Change That Will Manifest In Your Life Automatically, Almost Instantly. Each Chapter Is One Step Closer To Discovering And Living Your Ikigai.
Now, It Is Not For Everyone. This Book May Not Be For You
1. You Expect Miraculous Results From A Single Reading, Without Being Willing To Invest Personal Time And Effort.
2. You Don't Finish What You Start And Are Not Committed To Your Own Personal Growth.
3. You Expect A Single Work To Solve All Aspects Of Your Life Without The Need To Continue Learning And Evolving.
Let Me Tell You Why This Book Is Right For You. In Fact, If You Are Ready To Embark On A Personalized Journey Towards Self-Realization, Where Every Small Action Generates A Butterfly Effect On Your Well-Being, Then This Essential Guide Is Your Map.
So What Are You Waiting For? Start Now On This Magical And Fascinating Adventure To Discover Your Ikigai And Transform Your Life Into A Masterpiece Of Well-Being And Fulfillment. Click The "Buy" Button And Start Living The Life You Deserve, Now.
]]> 198 Lemur Gosh Mariel 0 to-read 3.70 Discover Your Ikigai: Everything You Need to Know for Effective and Immediate Implementation Today (ikigai book, ikagai, ikagi, ikigay, ikigau Book 1)
author: Lemur Gosh
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.70
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow]]> 58784475 In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

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

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 Mariel 0 to-read 4.12 2022 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> Winter in Sokcho 52873922 As if Marguerite Duras wrote Convenience Store Woman - a beautiful, unexpected novel from a debut French Korean author

It’s winter in Sokcho, a tourist town on the border between South and North Korea. The cold slows everything down. Bodies are red and raw, the fish turn venomous, beyond the beach guns point out from the North’s watchtowers. A young French Korean woman works as a receptionist in a tired guesthouse. One evening, an unexpected guest arrives: a French cartoonist determined to find inspiration in this desolate landscape.

The two form an uneasy relationship. When she agrees to accompany him on trips to discover an ‘authentic� Korea, they visit snowy mountaintops and dramatic waterfalls, and cross into North Korea. But he takes no interest in the Sokcho she knows � the gaudy neon lights, the scars of war, the fish market where her mother works. As she’s pulled into his vision and taken in by his drawings, she strikes upon a way to finally be seen.

An exquisitely-crafted debut, which won the Prix Robert Walser, Winter in Sokcho is a novel about shared identities and divided selves, vision and blindness, intimacy and alienation. Elisa Shua Duspain’s voice is distinctive and unmistakable.]]> 154 Elisa Shua Dusapin 1911547542 Mariel 0 to-read 3.55 2016 Winter in Sokcho
author: Elisa Shua Dusapin
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/19
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]]> Please Look After Mom 8574333 Please Look After Mom is a stunning, deeply moving story of a family's search for their missing mother - and their discovery of the desires, heartaches and secrets they never realized she harbored within.

When sixty-nine year old So-nyo is separated from her husband among the crowds of the Seoul subway station, and vanishes, their children are consumed with loud recriminations, and are awash in sorrow and guilt. As they argue over the "Missing" flyers they are posting throughout the city - how large of a reward to offer, the best way to phrase the text - they realize that none of them have a recent photograph of Mom. Soon a larger question emerges: do they really know the woman they called Mom?

Told by the alternating voices of Mom's daughter, son, her husband and, in the shattering conclusion, by Mom herself, the novel pieces together, Rashomon-style, a life that appears ordinary but is anything but.

This is a mystery of one mother that reveals itself to be the mystery of all our mothers: about her triumphs and disappointments and about who she is on her own terms, separate from who she is to her family. If you have ever been a daughter, a son, a husband or a mother, Please Look After Mom is a revelation - one that will bring tears to your eyes.]]> 237 Kyung-Sook Shin 0307593916 Mariel 0 to-read 3.89 2008 Please Look After Mom
author: Kyung-Sook Shin
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[DallerGut Dream Department Store (DallerGut Dream Department Store, #1)]]> 194036469
For Penny, an enthusiastic new hire, working at the store is the opportunity of a lifetime. As she uncovers the workings of this whimsical world, she bonds with a cast of unforgettable characters, including DallerGut, the flamboyant and wise owner, Babynap Rockabye, a famous dream designer, Maxim, a nightmare producer, and the many customers who dream to heal, dream to grow, and dream to flourish.

A captivating story that will leave a lingering magical feeling in readers' minds, this is the first book in a bestselling duology for anyone exhausted from the reality of their daily life.]]> 243 Lee Mi-ye 1035412748 Mariel 0 to-read 3.65 2020 DallerGut Dream Department Store (DallerGut Dream Department Store, #1)
author: Lee Mi-ye
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> The House on Mango Street 139253 The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero.

Told in a series of vignettes � sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous–it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.]]> 110 Sandra Cisneros 0679734775 Mariel 0 to-read 3.69 1984 The House on Mango Street
author: Sandra Cisneros
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories]]> 30861 A collection of stories by Sandra Cisneros, the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

The lovingly drawn characters of these stories give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border with tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.]]> 192 Sandra Cisneros 0679738568 Mariel 0 to-read 4.06 1991 Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories
author: Sandra Cisneros
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1991
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/14
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]]> Cursed Bunny 56648660 Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society.

Anton Hur’s translation skilfully captures the way Chung’s prose effortlessly glides from being terrifying to wryly humorous. Winner of a PEN/Heim Grant.]]> 251 Bora Chung 1916277187 Mariel 0 to-read 3.76 2017 Cursed Bunny
author: Bora Chung
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones]]> 40121378 Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving—every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.

If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.

Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.

Learn how to:
-Make time for new habits (even when life gets crazy);
-Overcome a lack of motivation and willpower;
- Design your environment to make success easier;
- Get back on track when you fall off course;
...and much more.

Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits--whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.]]> 319 James Clear Mariel 3 4.34 2018 Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
author: James Clear
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/03
date added: 2024/03/03
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review:
A realistic approach to creating lasting habits. Although a bit repetitive, there were some great points about introducing new habits into your existing ones in order to save time and energy. I’ll definitely be implementing some of these into my own life!
]]> Acts of Desperation 49535227
Part breathless confession, part lucid critique, Acts of Desperation renders a consciousness split between rebellion and submission, between escaping degradation and eroticizing it, between loving and being lovable. With unsettling, electric precision, Nolan dissects one of life’s most elusive mysteries: Why do we want what we want, and how do we want it?

Heralding the arrival of a stunning new literary talent, Acts of Desperation interrogates the nature of fantasy, desire, and power, challenging us to reckon honestly with our own insatiability.]]> 288 Megan Nolan Mariel 0 to-read 3.71 2021 Acts of Desperation
author: Megan Nolan
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Wash Day: Passing on the Legacy, Rituals, and Love of Natural Hair]]> 177185894
In this stunning book, documentary photographer Tomesha Faxio explores the power of “wash day,� a day that Black women dedicate to washing, detangling, conditioning, and styling their natural hair. The significance of wash day goes far beyond hair care—it’s an opportunity for Black women to pour love into their curly, coily locks and, when they have children, pass on this sacred ritual to the next generation.

Wash Day celebrates the unique bonds between Black mothers and daughters through intimate photographs of their hair-care routines and insightful stories that detail their natural hair journeys. Faxio brings you into the homes of twenty-six different families, illustrating the many ways that these mothers have used wash day to instill love, acceptance, and confidence in their daughters about wearing their natural hair. Through hours spent with their children, typically at the kitchen sink, each of these mothers is resisting generations of hair discrimination by creating a space for empowerment, all while finding their own sense of self-acceptance along the way.

Capturing the inherent beauty and diversity of natural hair, Wash Day is a visual homage to Black culture, Black rituals, and the generational bonds that strengthen the Black community.]]> 256 Tomesha Faxio 0593579712 Mariel 0 to-read 4.51 Wash Day: Passing on the Legacy, Rituals, and Love of Natural Hair
author: Tomesha Faxio
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.51
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/24
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]]> The Orange and Other Poems 200539015 My heart has made its mind up
And I'm afraid it's you.

The Orange and Other Poems provides the perfect introduction to Wendy Cope, one of Britain's wittiest, best-selling, and best-loved poets.

In poems that go from laugh-out-loud funny to deeply moving, Cope offers reflections on love and life. From the joy of falling—and being—in love to how to manage a painful break-up to cherishing the memories of people loved and lost, this is a collection to savour and share.]]> 53 Wendy Cope 057138952X Mariel 0 to-read 4.12 2023 The Orange and Other Poems
author: Wendy Cope
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/24
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]]> Salt 18585282 salt. a literary work. 251 Nayyirah Waheed Mariel 0 to-read 4.21 2013 Salt
author: Nayyirah Waheed
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, #1)]]> 26032825 Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

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

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

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

As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.]]> 370 Holly Black 0316310271 Mariel 3 4.01 2018 The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, #1)
author: Holly Black
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/24
date added: 2024/02/24
shelves:
review:
I am not a fan of fantasy novels, but I decided to give this a try after being bombarded by my bookstagram feed with reviews of The Cruel Prince. Surprisingly, I didn't hate it and would consider picking up the next book in the series to read.
]]> <![CDATA[What I Talk About When I Talk About Running]]> 2195464
Equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon and takes us to places ranging from Tokyo’s Jingu Gaien gardens, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston among young women who outpace him. Through this marvelous lens of sport emerges a panorama of memories and insights: the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer, his greatest triumphs and disappointments, his passion for vintage LPs, and the experience, after fifty, of seeing his race times improve and then fall back.

By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is rich and revelatory, both for fans of this masterful yet guardedly private writer and for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in running.]]> 188 Haruki Murakami Mariel 0 to-read 3.87 2007 What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Seneca's Letters from a Stoic 60283639
Written in an intimate, conversational style, the letters reflect the traditional Stoic focus on living in accordance with nature and accepting the world on its own terms. The philosopher emphasizes the Roman values of courage, self-control, and rationality, yet he remains remarkably modern in his tolerant and cosmopolitan attitude. Rich in epigrammatic wit, Seneca's interpretation of Stoicism constitutes a timeless and inspiring declaration of the dignity of the individual mind.]]> 320 Seneca 2384230719 Mariel 0 currently-reading 4.22 64 Seneca's Letters from a Stoic
author: Seneca
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.22
book published: 64
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/09
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> The Myth of Sisyphus 39947376 The Myth of Sisyphus—featured here in a stand-alone edition—is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide--the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence, and the possibility of life lived with dignity and authenticity.]]> 160 Albert Camus 0525564454 Mariel 4 4.09 1942 The Myth of Sisyphus
author: Albert Camus
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1942
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/09
date added: 2024/02/09
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]]> The Good Lie 55596836 Six teens murdered. A suspect behind bars. A desperate father. In a case this shadowy, the truth is easy to hide.

Psychiatrist Dr. Gwen Moore is an expert on killers. She’s spent a decade treating California’s most depraved predators and unlocking their motives—predators much like the notorious Bloody Heart serial killer, whose latest teenage victim escaped and then identified local high school teacher Randall Thompson as his captor. The case against Thompson as the Bloody Heart Killer is damning—and closed, as far as Gwen and the media are concerned. If not for one new development�

Defense attorney Robert Kavin is a still-traumatized father whose own son fell prey to the BH Killer. Convinced of Thompson’s innocence, he steps in to represent him. Now Robert wants Gwen to interview the accused, create a psych profile of the killer and his victims, and help clear his client’s name.

As Gwen and Robert grow closer and she dives deeper into the investigation, grave questions arise. So does Gwen’s suspicion that Robert is hiding something—and that he might not be the only one with a secret.

Six teenagers dead. Finally, the killer behind bars. But are the games just beginning?]]> 256 A.R. Torre 1542020166 Mariel 0 to-read 4.01 2021 The Good Lie
author: A.R. Torre
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/06
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]]> <![CDATA[The Call of Cthulhu: And Other Stories]]> 58085210 432 H.P. Lovecraft 1631498398 Mariel 0 to-read 3.59 The Call of Cthulhu: And Other Stories
author: H.P. Lovecraft
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.59
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/02/01
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]]> <![CDATA[No One Belongs Here More Than You]]> 113429 205 Miranda July 0743299396 Mariel 0 to-read 3.83 2007 No One Belongs Here More Than You
author: Miranda July
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Houseguest and Other Stories]]> 38458438 122 Amparo Dávila 0811228215 Mariel 0 to-read 3.58 2018 The Houseguest and Other Stories
author: Amparo Dávila
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Black Friend: Essays 56969544
Ziwe made a name for herself by asking guests like Alyssa Milano, Fran Lebowitz, and Chet Hanks direct questions. In Black Friend, she turns her incisive perspective on both herself and the culture at large. Throughout the book, Ziwe combines pop-culture commentary and personal stories, which grapple with her own (mis)understanding of identity. From a hilarious case of mistaken identity via a jumbotron to a terrifying fight-or-flight encounter in the woods, Ziwe raises difficult questions for comedic relief.

From Black Friend’s Introduction:

“Today, I learned that my book is ranked as the #1 new release in ‘Discrimination and Racism� on Amazon. Wow. This is a huge honor, especially considering my stiff competition in the selfpublished manifestos space. Unfortunately, this victory is bittersweet. I worry that people may get the wrong idea and think that I am pro-racism when in actuality, I am indifferent. Still, I’d love to thank everyone who made this possible. I solemnly swear to write the most discriminatory book in American history. I hope I can make you proud.

“Just kidding . . . I will not marginalize you . . . unless that’s your kink. This book of essays offers moments of extreme discomfort (and the subsequent growth) in my life around the role of ‘black friend.� Black friends come in all shapes and sizes. Yet the archetype is often a two-dimensional character meant to support the non-black protagonists� more complex humanity. Some black friends exist as the comic relief, like Donkey in any of the Shrek movies. Some are the sassy friend, like Louise from St. Louis in Sex and the City. Still others are the inexplicably sagacious companion, like Morpheus in The Matrix. It’s impossible for these individual portraits to reflect my complicated reality. To start, they are fictional. One of them is a talking ass. I do not exist just to move plot. While I am a supportive friend, I am not a supporting character. I am the protagonist of my perfectly imperfect story.”]]> 192 Ziwe 1419756346 Mariel 0 to-read 4.26 2023 Black Friend: Essays
author: Ziwe
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress]]> 35696171
Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.

Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature–tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking–which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.

With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.]]> 576 Steven Pinker 0525427570 Mariel 3 4.18 2018 Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
author: Steven Pinker
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/26
date added: 2023/11/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Before Your Memory Fades (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #3)]]> 60224365 The latest novel in the international bestselling Before the Coffee Gets Cold Series, following four new customers in a little Tokyo café where customers can travel back in time.

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and Tales from the Cafecomes another story of four new customers, each of whom is hoping to take advantage of Café Funiculi Funicula's time-travelling offer. Among some familiar faces from Kawaguchi's previous novels, readers will also be introduced to a daughter, a comedian, a sister, and a lover, each with something they wish they had said differently.

With his signature heartwarming characters and immersive storytelling, Kawaguchi once again invites the reader to ask themselves: what would you change if you could travel back in time?]]> 220 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 0369722698 Mariel 4 3.90 2018 Before Your Memory Fades (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #3)
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/12
date added: 2023/08/12
shelves:
review:
What can I say other than I am enamored by this series? I absolutely loved the ongoing theme of “what would you do if the world ended tomorrow?� and how each character grappled with the questions while reflecting on their own actions. I think that out of the three books, this one shattered my heart the most and actually had me take action in my own life. I feel so grateful to have come across these books and am patiently waiting for book four to be released.
]]> <![CDATA[Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World � and Why Things Are Better Than You Think]]> 34890015 Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.

When asked simple questions about global trends�what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers.

In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse).

Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases.

It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most.

Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. ]]> 342 Hans Rosling 1473637465 Mariel 4 4.34 2018 Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
author: Hans Rosling
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/13
date added: 2023/07/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2)]]> 50659468
Feyre has undergone more trials than one human woman can carry in her heart. Though she's now been granted the powers and lifespan of the High Fae, she is haunted by her time Under the Mountain and the terrible deeds she performed to save the lives of Tamlin and his people.

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

Bestselling author Sarah J. Maas's masterful storytelling brings this second book in her dazzling, sexy, action-packed series to new heights.]]> 626 Sarah J. Maas 1635575583 Mariel 0 currently-reading 4.65 2016 A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.65
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/13
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Little Fires Everywhere 51704136 Everything I Never Told You, a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives.

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

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

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

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

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

Perfect for book clubs! Visit celesteng.com for discussion guides and more. ]]> 368 Celeste Ng 0143135163 Mariel 2 4.06 2017 Little Fires Everywhere
author: Celeste Ng
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2021/04/22
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves:
review:
I was very excited to read this, but never came around to it until my book club chose it for our month's read. That being said, the only reason why I finished the book was because it was my book club's read. This book bore me, I was eagerly awaiting the end and it felt like forever before reaching it. I didn't feel the plot was exactly there. Maybe I am not the target audience for this book and I hate that this was my first introduction to the author. I will be giving her other title a chance, but definitely did not understand the hype this book has.
]]> <![CDATA[Letting Go: The Pathway To Surrender]]> 16098910 368 David R. Hawkins 193388598X Mariel 3 4.13 2012 Letting Go: The Pathway To Surrender
author: David R. Hawkins
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2023/07/02
date added: 2023/07/02
shelves:
review:

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

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

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

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

There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.]]> 212 Mark Manson Mariel 2 3.87 2016 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
author: Mark Manson
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2023/05/28
date added: 2023/05/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry]]> 12391521
The Psychopath Test is a fascinating journey through the minds of madness. Jon Ronson's exploration of a potential hoax being played on the world's top neurologists takes him, unexpectedly, into the heart of the madness industry. An influential psychologist who is convinced that many important CEOs and politicians are, in fact, psychopaths teaches Ronson how to spot these high-flying individuals by looking out for little telltale verbal and nonverbal clues. And so Ronson, armed with his new psychopath-spotting abilities, enters the corridors of power. He spends time with a death-squad leader institutionalized for mortgage fraud in Coxsackie, New York; a legendary CEO whose psychopathy has been speculated about in the press; and a patient in an asylum for the criminally insane who insists he's sane and certainly not a psychopath.

Ronson not only solves the mystery of the hoax but also discovers, disturbingly, that sometimes the personalities at the helm of the madness industry are, with their drives and obsessions, as mad in their own way as those they study. And that relatively ordinary people are, more and more, defined by their maddest edges.]]> 275 Jon Ronson 1594485755 Mariel 3 3.97 2011 The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry
author: Jon Ronson
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/10
date added: 2023/05/10
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays]]> 6425404 A sparkling collection of Zadie Smith's nonfiction over the past decade.

Zadie Smith brings to her essays all of the curiosity, intellectual rigor, and sharp humor that have attracted so many readers to her fiction, and the result is a collection that is nothing short of extraordinary.

Split into four sections�"Reading," "Being," "Seeing," and "Feeling"�Changing My Mind invites readers to witness the world from Zadie Smith's unique vantage. Smith casts her acute eye over material both personal and cultural, with wonderfully engaging essays-some published here for the first time-on diverse topics including literature, movies, going to the Oscars, British comedy, family, feminism, Obama, Katharine Hepburn, and Anna Magnani.

In her investigations Smith also reveals much of herself. Her literary criticism shares the wealth of her experiences as a reader and exposes the tremendous influence diverse writers—E. M. Forster, Zora Neale Hurston, George Eliot, and others—have had on her writing life and her self-understanding. Smith also speaks directly to writers as a craftsman, offering precious practical lessons on process. Here and throughout, readers will learn of the wide-ranging experiences—in novels, travel, philosophy, politics, and beyond—that have nourished Smith's rich life of the mind. Her probing analysis offers tremendous food for thought, encouraging readers to attend to the slippery questions of identity, art, love, and vocation that so often go neglected.

Changing My Mind announces Zadie Smith as one of our most important contemporary essayists, a writer with the rare ability to turn the world on its side with both fact and fiction. Changing My Mind is a gift to readers, writers, and all who want to look at life more expansively.]]> 320 Zadie Smith 1594202370 Mariel 0 to-read 3.84 2009 Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays
author: Zadie Smith
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Reliquaria (The Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry)]]> 21945040 Winner, 2013 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry

In his prize-winning poetry collection Reliquaria, R. A. Villanueva embraces liminal spaces in considering an ever-evolving Filipino American identity. Languages and cultures collide; mythologies and faiths echo and resound. Part haunting, part prayer, part prophecy, these poems resonate with the voices of the dead and those who remember them. In this remarkable book, we enter the vessel of memory, the vessel of the body. The dead act as witness, the living as chimera, and we learn that whatever the state of the body, this much rings true: every ode is an elegy; each elegy is always an ode.
]]> 82 R. A. Villanueva 080329638X Mariel 0 to-read 4.21 2014 Reliquaria (The Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry)
author: R. A. Villanueva
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Haunting of Hill House 89717 182 Shirley Jackson 0143039989 Mariel 0 to-read 3.85 1959 The Haunting of Hill House
author: Shirley Jackson
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1959
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Dharma Bums 412732 On the Road put the Beat Generation on the map, The Dharma Bums is sparked by Kerouac's expansiveness, humor, and a contagious zest for life.]]> 244 Jack Kerouac Mariel 0 to-read 3.94 1958 The Dharma Bums
author: Jack Kerouac
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1958
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Punk 57 41021967
Misha

I can’t help but smile at the words in her letter. She misses me.

In fifth grade, my teacher set us up with pen pals from a different school. Thinking I was a girl, with a name like Misha, the other teacher paired me up with her student, Ryen. My teacher, believing Ryen was a boy like me, agreed.

It didn’t take long for us to figure out the mistake. And in no time at all, we were arguing about everything. The best take-out pizza. Android vs. iPhone. Whether or not Eminem is the greatest rapper ever�

And that was the start. For the next seven years, it was us.

Her letters are always on black paper with silver writing. Sometimes there’s one a week or three in a day, but I need them. She’s the only one who keeps me on track, talks me down, and accepts everything I am.

We only had three rules. No social media, no phone numbers, no pictures. We had a good thing going. Why ruin it?

Until I run across a photo of a girl online. Name’s Ryen, loves Gallo’s pizza, and worships her iPhone. What are the chances?

F*ck it. I need to meet her.

I just don’t expect to hate what I find.

Ryen

He hasn’t written in three months. Something’s wrong. Did he die? Get arrested? Knowing Misha, neither would be a stretch.

Without him around, I’m going crazy. I need to know someone is listening. It’s my own fault. I should've gotten his number or picture or something.

He could be gone forever.

Or right under my nose, and I wouldn’t even know it.]]> 343 Penelope Douglas 1952646049 Mariel 0 to-read 3.76 2016 Punk 57
author: Penelope Douglas
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/04/07
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]]> Under the Whispering Door 53205888 Welcome to Charon's Crossing.
The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through.

When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead.

And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead.

But even in death he’s not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days.

Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.]]> 376 T.J. Klune 1250217342 Mariel 4 4.11 2021 Under the Whispering Door
author: T.J. Klune
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/17
date added: 2023/04/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Call Me By Your Name (Call Me By Your Name, #1)]]> 36336078 Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks' duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.

The psychological maneuvers that accompany attraction have seldom been more shrewdly captured than in André Aciman's frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion. Call Me by Your Name is clear-eyed, bare-knuckled, and ultimately unforgettable.]]> 248 André Aciman 1786495252 Mariel 3 4.08 2007 Call Me By Your Name (Call Me By Your Name, #1)
author: André Aciman
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/05
date added: 2023/01/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy]]> 42771901 232 Jenny Odell 1612197493 Mariel 0 to-read 3.68 2019 How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
author: Jenny Odell
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo]]> 32620332
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the �80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501139231 Mariel 4 4.39 2017 The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/21
date added: 2022/12/21
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving]]> 52668196 Despite our constant search for new ways to 'hack' our bodies and minds for peak performance, human beings are working more instead of less, living harder not smarter, and becoming more lonely and anxious. We strive for the absolute best in every aspect of our lives, ignoring what we do well naturally. Why do we measure our time in terms of efficiency instead of meaning? Why can't we just take a break?

In Do Nothing, award-winning journalist Celeste Headlee illuminates a new path ahead, seeking to institute a global shift in our thinking so we can stop sabotaging our well-being, put work aside and start living instead of doing.

The key lies in embracing what makes us human: our creativity, our social connections (Instagram doesn't count), our ability for reflective thought, and our capacity for joy. Celeste's strategies will allow you to regain control over your life and break your addiction to false efficiency, including:

-Increase your time perception and determine how your hours are being spent.
-Stop comparing yourself to others.
-Invest in quality idle time. Take a hot bath and listen to music.
-Spend face-to-face time with friends and family

It's time to recover our leisure time and reverse the trend that's making us all sadder, sicker, and less productive.

]]> 288 Celeste Headlee 1984824732 Mariel 2 3.84 2020 Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving
author: Celeste Headlee
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2022/10/23
date added: 2022/10/23
shelves:
review:
I thought this book had some good points, but I did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would.
]]> I Decided to Live as Me 56134854
Heartfelt advice to make myself live as me!
Deep words of comfort for you who are novice adults!

/ Don't worry about being miserable.
/ Don't think problems are yours alone.
/ Don't make excuses for yourself.
/ Don't live to meet expectations of others.
/ Don't blindly work hard just because you're anxious.
/ Don't let your life get hurt by passersby.
/ Don't write a rubbish scenario about the future.
/ Don't be swayed by what others say.
/ Don't succumb to the prescribed answers.
/ Don't humble yourself to the point of being intimidated.
/ Say goodbye to the past.
/ Endure if you have to.
/ Live as who you are.]]> 290 Kim Suhyun 9715088341 Mariel 0 to-read 4.06 2016 I Decided to Live as Me
author: Kim Suhyun
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Plants are Burning 61246892 Vianney Harelly Mariel 5
I first came across Vianney's work through her readings of her poetry on tik tok. I normally shy away from recommendations that I get on that platform, but Vianney's words really touched me. There is an unfortunate shared experience that comes with being a first gen, from carrying ancestral weight to having imposter syndrome. There is a lot of trauma we harbor from having to grow up too fast and being an anchor to our loved ones.

Vianney te extrano
y me dejaste sola

These poems have given voice to a lot of those emotions we buried away for only ourselves to see. Vianney beautifully writes about the tragedy of losing loved ones, belongings...of losing oneself but picking yourself up porque todavia necesito regar mis plantas.

Vianney, your writing has helped heal a part of my inner child. Thank you for sharing your talent with us and I am so excited for any future work you put out.]]> 4.62 The Plants are Burning
author: Vianney Harelly
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.62
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/09
date added: 2022/10/09
shelves:
review:
I waited a long time to get my hands on this book - I missed the sale of her first collection of poetry and this one kept selling out. I was so happy to finally have made the preorder.

I first came across Vianney's work through her readings of her poetry on tik tok. I normally shy away from recommendations that I get on that platform, but Vianney's words really touched me. There is an unfortunate shared experience that comes with being a first gen, from carrying ancestral weight to having imposter syndrome. There is a lot of trauma we harbor from having to grow up too fast and being an anchor to our loved ones.

Vianney te extrano
y me dejaste sola

These poems have given voice to a lot of those emotions we buried away for only ourselves to see. Vianney beautifully writes about the tragedy of losing loved ones, belongings...of losing oneself but picking yourself up porque todavia necesito regar mis plantas.

Vianney, your writing has helped heal a part of my inner child. Thank you for sharing your talent with us and I am so excited for any future work you put out.
]]> Almond 52219386 This story is, in short, about a monster meeting another monster.

One of the monsters is me.

Yunjae was born with a brain condition called Alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He does not have friends—the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his brain have seen to that—but his devoted mother and grandmother aren’t fazed by his condition. Their little home above his mother’s used bookstore is decorated with colorful post-it notes that remind him when to smile, when to say "thank you," and when to laugh. Yunjae grows up content, even happy, with his small family in this quiet, peaceful space.

Then on Christmas Eve—Yunjae’s sixteenth birthday—everything changes. A shocking act of random violence shatters his world, leaving him alone and on his own. Struggling to cope with his loss, Yunjae retreats into silent isolation, until troubled teenager Gon arrives at his school and begins to bully Yunjae.

Against all odds, tormentor and victim learn they have more in common than they realized. Gon is stumped by Yunjae’s impassive calm, while Yunjae thinks if he gets to know the hotheaded Gon, he might learn how to experience true feelings. Drawn by curiosity, the two strike up a surprising friendship. As Yunjae begins to open his life to new people—including a girl at school—something slowly changes inside him. And when Gon suddenly finds his life in danger, it is Yunjae who will step outside of every comfort zone he has created to perhaps become a most unlikely hero.

The Emissary meets The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime in this poignant and triumphant story about how love, friendship, and persistence can change a life forever.]]> 272 Sohn Won-Pyung 0062961373 Mariel 5 4.16 2017 Almond
author: Sohn Won-Pyung
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2022/09/24
date added: 2022/09/24
shelves:
review:

]]> I'm Glad My Mom Died 59364173
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,� eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?� She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly , she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!�), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.]]> 320 Jennette McCurdy Mariel 5 4.45 2022 I'm Glad My Mom Died
author: Jennette McCurdy
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/09/22
date added: 2022/09/22
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]]> We Had to Remove This Post 58146427
Kayleigh needs money. That’s why she takes a job as a content moderator for a social media platform whose name she isn’t allowed to mention. Her job: reviewing offensive videos and pictures, rants and conspiracy theories, and deciding which need to be removed. It’s grueling work. Kayleigh and her colleagues spend all day watching horrors and hate on their screens, evaluating them with the platform’s ever-changing terms of service while a supervisor sits behind them, timing and scoring their assessments. Yet Kayleigh finds a group of friends, even a new love—and, somehow, the job starts to feel okay.

But when her colleagues begin to break down; when Sigrid, her new girlfriend, grows increasingly distant and fragile; when her friends start espousing the very conspiracy theories they’re meant to be evaluating; Kayleigh begins to wonder if the job may be too much for them. She’s still totally fine, though—or is she?]]> 136 Hanna Bervoets 0358622360 Mariel 2 2.85 2021 We Had to Remove This Post
author: Hanna Bervoets
name: Mariel
average rating: 2.85
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2022/09/20
date added: 2022/09/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to Be Calm in a Busy World]]> 30780006
“Wise advice on how to reflect and slow down.� � Elle

Is it the world that’s busy, or is it my mind?

The world moves fast, but that doesn’t mean we have to. This bestselling mindfulness guide by Haemin Sunim (which means “spontaneous wisdom�), a renowned Buddhist meditation teacher born in Korea and educated in the United States, illuminates a path to inner peace and balance amid the overwhelming demands of everyday life.

By offering guideposts to well-being and happiness in eight areas—including relationships, love, and spirituality—Haemin Sunim emphasizes the importance of forging a deeper connection with others and being compassionate and forgiving toward ourselves. The more than twenty full-color illustrations that accompany his teachings serve as calming visual interludes, encouraging us to notice that when you slow down, the world slows down with you.]]> 288 Haemin Sunim 0143130773 Mariel 5 4.06 2012 The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to Be Calm in a Busy World
author: Haemin Sunim
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2022/09/16
date added: 2022/09/16
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review:

]]> Men Without Women 33652490 Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all.

Marked by the same wry humor that has defined his entire body of work, in this collection Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic.]]> 242 Haruki Murakami 0385689454 Mariel 3 3.75 2014 Men Without Women
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2022/09/16
date added: 2022/09/16
shelves:
review:

]]> Lapvona 59693959 In a village in a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself the unlikely pivot of a power struggle that puts all manner of faith to a savage test, in a spellbinding novel that represents Ottessa Moshfegh’s most exciting leap yet

Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, never knew his mother; his father told him she died in childbirth. One of life’s few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him as a baby, as she did so many of the village’s children. Ina’s gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on levels far beyond those available to other villagers, however religious they might be. For some people, Ina’s home in the woods outside of the village is a place to fear and to avoid, a godless place.

Among their number is Father Barnabas, the town priest and lackey for the depraved lord and governor, Villiam, whose hilltop manor contains a secret embarrassment of riches. The people’s desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villiam and the priest, especially in this year of record drought and famine. But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the lord’s family, new and occult forces upset the old order. By year’s end, the veil between blindness and sight, life and death, the natural world and the spirit world, civility and savagery, will prove to be very thin indeed.]]> 313 Ottessa Moshfegh Mariel 4 3.53 2022 Lapvona
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/08/24
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves:
review:

]]> The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle 284066
In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.]]> 607 Haruki Murakami Mariel 0 to-read 4.14 1994 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tales from the Café (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #2)]]> 54373691 In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time...

From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold comes a story of four new customers each of whom is hoping to take advantage of Cafe Funiculi Funicula's time-travelling offer.

Among some faces that will be familiar to readers of Kawaguchi's previous novel, we will be introduced to:

The man who goes back to see his best friend who died 22 years ago
The son who was unable to attend his own mother’s funeral
The man who travelled to see the girl who he could not marry
The old detective who never gave his wife that gift...

This beautiful, simple tale tells the story of people who must face up to their past, in order to move on with their lives. Kawaguchi once again invites the reader to ask themselves: what would you change if you could travel back in time?]]> 192 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1529050863 Mariel 5 3.98 2017 Tales from the Café (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #2)
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2022/08/19
date added: 2022/08/19
shelves:
review:

]]> The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle 11275
In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.]]> 607 Haruki Murakami 0965341984 Mariel 0 to-read 4.16 1994 The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Gentleman in Moscow 34066798 The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers—Now a Paramount+ with Showtime series starring Ewan McGregor as Count Alexander Rostov

From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.]]> 462 Amor Towles Mariel 0 to-read 4.28 2016 A Gentleman in Moscow
author: Amor Towles
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Language of Flowers 10032672
Look for special features inside. Join the Circle for author chats and more.]]> 323 Vanessa Diffenbaugh 034552554X Mariel 0 to-read 4.09 2011 The Language of Flowers
author: Vanessa Diffenbaugh
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart]]> 25733658
Doty would go on to put Ruth’s practices to work with extraordinary results—power and wealth that he could only imagine as a twelve-year-old, riding his orange Sting-Ray bike. But he neglects Ruth’s most important lesson, to keep his heart open, with disastrous results—until he has the opportunity to make a spectacular charitable contribution that will virtually ruin him. Part memoir, part science, part inspiration, and part practical instruction, Into the Magic Shop shows us how we can fundamentally change our lives by first changing our brains and our hearts.]]> 288 James R. Doty 1594632987 Mariel 0 to-read 4.18 2016 Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart
author: James R. Doty
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Highly Sensitive People in an Insensitive World]]> 29083645

Written for highly sensitive people, the book explains the characteristics of being highly sensitive and how to overcome common difficulties, such as low self-esteem and the exhausting effects of socialising. Ilse Sand also encourages you to explore and appreciate the advantages of high sensitivity, including your aptitude for depth, intensity and presence, and suggests activities to calm and inspire.]]> 160 Ilse Sand 1785920669 Mariel 0 to-read 3.66 2010 Highly Sensitive People in an Insensitive World
author: Ilse Sand
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> How Do You Live? 54110592 Anime master Hayao Miyazaki’s favorite childhood book, in English for the first time.

First published in 1937, Genzaburō Yoshino’s How Do You Live? has long been acknowledged in Japan as a crossover classic for young readers. Academy Award–winning animator Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle) has called it his favorite childhood book and announced plans to emerge from retirement to make it the basis of a final film.

How Do You Live? is narrated in two voices. The first belongs to Copper, fifteen, who after the death of his father must confront inevitable and enormous change, including his own betrayal of his best friend. In between episodes of Copper’s emerging story, his uncle writes to him in a journal, sharing knowledge and offering advice on life’s big questions as Copper begins to encounter them. Over the course of the story, Copper, like his namesake Copernicus, looks to the stars, and uses his discoveries about the heavens, earth, and human nature to answer the question of how he will live.

This first-ever English-language translation of a Japanese classic about finding one’s place in a world both infinitely large and unimaginably small is perfect for readers of philosophical fiction like The Alchemist and The Little Prince, as well as Miyazaki fans eager to understand one of his most important influences.]]> 288 Genzaburo Yoshino 1616209771 Mariel 0 to-read 4.00 1937 How Do You Live?
author: Genzaburo Yoshino
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1937
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Miracles of the Namiya General Store]]> 44287550
By acclaimed author Keigo Higashino, The Miracles of the Namiya General Store is a work that has touched the hearts of readers around the world.]]> 314 Keigo Higashino 1975382579 Mariel 0 to-read 4.40 2012 The Miracles of the Namiya General Store
author: Keigo Higashino
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Thief's Journal 328208 268 Jean Genet 0802130143 Mariel 0 to-read 4.03 1949 The Thief's Journal
author: Jean Genet
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1949
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)]]> 44421460 What would you change if you could go back in time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?]]> 213 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1529029589 Mariel 5 3.66 2015 Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2022/08/14
date added: 2022/08/14
shelves:
review:

]]> My Dark Vanessa 44890081
2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.

2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed?

Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.]]> 373 Kate Elizabeth Russell 006294150X Mariel 4 4.09 2020 My Dark Vanessa
author: Kate Elizabeth Russell
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/08/09
date added: 2022/08/09
shelves:
review:
Still putting my thoughts together after this read... review to come.
]]> Breasts and Eggs 50736031
Breasts and Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own.

It tells the story of three women: the thirty-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko. Makiko has traveled to Tokyo in search of an affordable breast enhancement procedure. She is accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with growing up. Her silence proves a catalyst for each woman to confront her fears and frustrations.

On another hot summer’s day ten years later, Natsu, on a journey back to her native city, struggles with her own indeterminate identity as she confronts anxieties about growing old alone and childless.]]> 430 Mieko Kawakami 1609455878 Mariel 4 3.87 2008 Breasts and Eggs
author: Mieko Kawakami
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/17
date added: 2022/07/17
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)]]> 60095426 From National Poetry Series winner Su Cho, chosen by Paige Lewis, a debut poetry collection about immigration, memory, and a family's lexicon

Language and lore are at the core of The Symmetry of Fish, a moving debut about coming-of-age in the middle of nowhere. With striking and tender insight, it seeks to give voice to those who have been denied their stories, and examines the way phrases and narratives are passed down through immigrant families--not diluted over time, but distilled into potency over generations. In this way, a family's language is not lost but continuously remade, hitched to new associations, and capable of blooming anew, with the power to cut across space and time to unearth buried memories. The poems in The Symmetry of Fish insist that language is first and foremost a bodily act; even if our minds can't recall a word or a definition, if we trust our mouths, expression will find us--though never quite in the forms we expect.]]> 80 Su Cho 0143137255 Mariel 0 to-read 3.83 2022 The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)
author: Su Cho
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The School for Good Mothers 60051683 In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents� sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.

Until Frida has a very bad day.

The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.

Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good.

A searing page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect� upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love, The School for Good Mothers introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages. Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic.]]> 336 Jessamine Chan 1982156120 Mariel 4 3.58 2022 The School for Good Mothers
author: Jessamine Chan
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/08
date added: 2022/06/17
shelves:
review:
I really enjoyed this book, it was refreshingly different. I was not someone who felt empathy for our narrator's situation (I will say, I do think this entire system is an abuse of power and do not agree with the punishment for what she did) but rather - her continuously reminding us that what she did was because of a "bad day" led me to dislike her. I thought it was interesting that she constantly compared herself to other "bad moms" and justified her internal reasoning for her actions. The ending...had me feeling some type of way, but I do think this is something I'd recommend to someone else!
]]> The Art of Loving 14142
Most people are unable to love on the only level that truly matters: love that is compounded of maturity, self-knowledge, and courage. As with every art, love demands practice and concentration, as well as genuine insight and understanding.

In his classic work, The Art of Loving, renowned psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm explores love in all its aspects—not only romantic love, steeped in false conceptions and lofty expectations, but also brotherly love, erotic love, self-love, the love of God, and the love of parents for their children.]]> 180 Erich Fromm 0061129739 Mariel 2 4.05 1956 The Art of Loving
author: Erich Fromm
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1956
rating: 2
read at: 2022/06/17
date added: 2022/06/17
shelves:
review:
There were parts of this book that I found quite insightful - especially in putting into words what it means to be vulnerable with oneself and learn to be alone with oneself before you can truly love. However, that is where my praise end. This book is...outdated. Very sexist and homophobic. If you are a middle/upper class white male you will probably enjoy this - for the rest of us...it can get unbearable to power through this one. Never in my life has a book with less than 200 pages felt like it was 1000.
]]> <![CDATA[How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water]]> 59808037
Structurally inventive and emotionally kaleidoscopic, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is Angie Cruz’s most ambitious and moving novel yet, and Cara is a heroine for the ages.]]> 195 Angie Cruz 1250208459 Mariel 0 to-read 3.87 2022 How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water
author: Angie Cruz
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)]]> 54386622 A thrilling, seductive new series from New York Times bestselling author Sarah J. Maas, blending Beauty and the Beast with faerie lore.

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.

As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow grows over the faerie lands, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

Perfect for fans of Kristin Cashore and George R. R. Martin, this first book in a sexy and action-packed new series is impossible to put down!]]> 433 Sarah J. Maas Mariel 3 since unfortunately I refuse to DNF anything.

The only likeable characters with substance were...villains, but that's all that I'll say as to not spoil anything for new readers. I just personally found our main characters, Feyre and Tamlin to be painfully boring and incredibly annoying. Seriously. Like, hello Feyre, not everything is about you!

It aches me to not finish a series, but I'm not too sure I have it in me to put myself through the pain of finishing the second book. We'll see. ]]> 4.35 2015 A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2022/05/18
date added: 2022/05/24
shelves:
review:
I fear I may have missed something because I cannot understand the hype around this book... perhaps fantasy novels are just no longer my thing (I am not slamming fantasy novels, YA fantasy novels like Inkheart got me through middle school). This book was so slow and I lost interest several times throughout the story. It legit took me months to finish this because it was painful for me to pick it up and force myself to finish since unfortunately I refuse to DNF anything.

The only likeable characters with substance were...villains, but that's all that I'll say as to not spoil anything for new readers. I just personally found our main characters, Feyre and Tamlin to be painfully boring and incredibly annoying. Seriously. Like, hello Feyre, not everything is about you!

It aches me to not finish a series, but I'm not too sure I have it in me to put myself through the pain of finishing the second book. We'll see.
]]> A Little Life 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride.Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 Mariel 5
I'm sure by this time you have heard a lot about this book - we follow a group of friends from college into late adulthood as their lives unfold in different but always interconnecting ways. Primarily, we follow sweet Jude. I do not want to say much about what happens, but I came out of this novel with an extremely heavy heart. Because of the sheer size of A Little Life, I grew very attached to the characters and each event was like a personal blow to my stomach. Throughout several points I was questioning the goodness of humanity. Nothing in this novel feels fictional, the depictions of what unfolds is extremely realistic (coming from someone who works in a field that is heavy with crisis intervention and trauma-informed). I finished it on an airplane and sobbed. The ending absolutely broke me and it has taken me two weeks to really process some of those final pages.

I am still thinking about this book and I doubt this will ever leave my mind. Yanagihara is extremely talented. I will surely be reading some of her other work when I have made a full recovery from this one. ]]> 4.28 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2022/05/02
date added: 2022/05/17
shelves:
review:
I do not cry easily at all, I really thought that I was strong enough to get through this without being too affected by it. I was wrong. It took me almost two months to finish this and it wasn't due to the length - the sheer amount of trauma and sadness in this book was too overwhelming to digest as quickly as I get through other novels.

I'm sure by this time you have heard a lot about this book - we follow a group of friends from college into late adulthood as their lives unfold in different but always interconnecting ways. Primarily, we follow sweet Jude. I do not want to say much about what happens, but I came out of this novel with an extremely heavy heart. Because of the sheer size of A Little Life, I grew very attached to the characters and each event was like a personal blow to my stomach. Throughout several points I was questioning the goodness of humanity. Nothing in this novel feels fictional, the depictions of what unfolds is extremely realistic (coming from someone who works in a field that is heavy with crisis intervention and trauma-informed). I finished it on an airplane and sobbed. The ending absolutely broke me and it has taken me two weeks to really process some of those final pages.

I am still thinking about this book and I doubt this will ever leave my mind. Yanagihara is extremely talented. I will surely be reading some of her other work when I have made a full recovery from this one.
]]> Verity 59112754 Whose truth is the lie? Stay up all night reading the sensational psychological thriller that has readers obsessed, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of It Ends With Us.

Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish.

Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of the night her family was forever altered.

Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents could devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.]]> 314 Colleen Hoover 1538724731 Mariel 3
Due to the way it was being promoted by others, I came into this book believing it was going to be a horror novel. It is not. This book is NOT scary, although, the descriptions of some of the acts (won't say what, it's a major spoiler) are horrific. It was a bit of a thriller, I suppose.

Our narrator is a struggling author hired to finish a novel series for a very famous psychological thriller? author named Verity who is known for writing from the point of view from her demented antagonists. Verity was recently in an accident and unable to continue her own work, so our narrator moves into her estate to tap into her life and mind. Things get crazy.

This book can be triggering for some folk, I'll leave that as a warning for new readers. The plot is fast-paced, it is a good book to read as a cleanser if you're anything like me and read long, depressing novels. You will be able to get through it quickly. I personally found the book to be predictable, although the selling point for a lot of people is a "plot twist" in the novel.

I don't want to discourage people from reading, I can definitely see the appeal and think that if you are into romance or romantic thrillers then you should give it a try. I gave this 3 stars because it was easy to read, interesting, and moved quickly. ]]> 4.37 2018 Verity
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2022/05/17
date added: 2022/05/17
shelves:
review:
I think I perhaps have one more CoHo book in me before I confirm that I may not be the target audience for her writing. I believe the Booktok community may also be to blame for this - this was one of several books being recommended to me (practically shoved down my throat) by other users.

Due to the way it was being promoted by others, I came into this book believing it was going to be a horror novel. It is not. This book is NOT scary, although, the descriptions of some of the acts (won't say what, it's a major spoiler) are horrific. It was a bit of a thriller, I suppose.

Our narrator is a struggling author hired to finish a novel series for a very famous psychological thriller? author named Verity who is known for writing from the point of view from her demented antagonists. Verity was recently in an accident and unable to continue her own work, so our narrator moves into her estate to tap into her life and mind. Things get crazy.

This book can be triggering for some folk, I'll leave that as a warning for new readers. The plot is fast-paced, it is a good book to read as a cleanser if you're anything like me and read long, depressing novels. You will be able to get through it quickly. I personally found the book to be predictable, although the selling point for a lot of people is a "plot twist" in the novel.

I don't want to discourage people from reading, I can definitely see the appeal and think that if you are into romance or romantic thrillers then you should give it a try. I gave this 3 stars because it was easy to read, interesting, and moved quickly.
]]> When Nietzsche Wept 21031
Josef Breuer, one of the founding fathers of psychoanalysis, is at the height of his career. Friedrich Nietzsche, Europe's greatest philosopher, is on the brink of suicidal despair, unable to find a cure for the headaches and other ailments that plague him. When he agrees to treat Nietzsche with his experimental "talking cure", Breuer never expects that he, too, will find solace in their sessions. Only through facing his own inner demons can the gifted healer begin to help his patient.

In When Nietzsche Wept, Irvin Yalom blends fact and fiction, atmosphere and suspense to unfold an unforgettable story about the redemptive power of friendship.]]> 310 Irvin D. Yalom 0060748125 Mariel 0 to-read 4.36 1992 When Nietzsche Wept
author: Irvin D. Yalom
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back]]> 44578190 When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back chronicles the few first years after receiving that devastating phone call. It is at once a sober account of life after losing a child and an exploration of the language of poetry, loss, and love.
Intensely moving and quietly devastating, When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back explores what is it to be a family, what it is to love and lose, and what it is to treasure life in spite of death's indomitable resolve.]]> 142 Naja Marie Aidt 1566895685 Mariel 0 to-read 4.34 2017 When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back
author: Naja Marie Aidt
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois]]> 51183428 Homegoing; Sing, Unburied, Sing; and The Water Dancer—that chronicles the journey of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era.

The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,� a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s Problem on her shoulders.

Ailey is reared in the north in the City but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother’s family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that’s made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of women—her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries—that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead.

To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors—Indigenous, Black, and white—in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story—and the song—of America itself.]]> 816 Honorée Fanonne Jeffers 006294293X Mariel 0 to-read 4.51 2021 The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
author: Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Aristotle and Dante, #1)]]> 12000020
But against all odds, when Ari and Dante meet, they develop a special bond that will teach them the most important truths of their lives, and help define the people they want to be. But there are big hurdles in their way, and only by believing in each other—and the power of their friendship—can Ari and Dante emerge stronger on the other side.]]> 390 Benjamin Alire Sáenz 1442408928 Mariel 0 to-read 4.29 2012 Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Aristotle and Dante, #1)
author: Benjamin Alire Sáenz
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Convenience Store Woman 38357895
A brilliant depiction of an unusual psyche and a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.]]> 163 Sayaka Murata Mariel 4
This is a short story about a woman in her mid-30s who works a part-time dead end job and genuinely likes it despite everyone around her pressuring her to "do better" which begs the question - how do you measure your own success?]]> 3.70 2016 Convenience Store Woman
author: Sayaka Murata
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2022/03/10
date added: 2022/03/10
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars, but rounded up to 4. Quick and easy book if you need a break from your long list of emotionally draining reading list (yes, I'm talking about myself here LEAVE ME ALONE).

This is a short story about a woman in her mid-30s who works a part-time dead end job and genuinely likes it despite everyone around her pressuring her to "do better" which begs the question - how do you measure your own success?
]]> The Picture of Dorian Gray 5297 Apaixonado pela sua própria imagem na tela, Dorian deseja que esses traços imutáveis de beleza fiquem para sempre no seu rosto e que seja o retrato a envelhecer. É este o parti-pris narcisista, ou fáustico, do romance de Oscar Wilde.]]> 272 Oscar Wilde Mariel 5
No one in this book is likable - Dorian needs some serious therapy and Lord Henry is the king instigator of all time, the original gaslighter. BUT, I can't stop coming back to this every few years. Definitely a must for anyone wanting to get into classics.]]> 4.13 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1890
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/08
date added: 2022/03/08
shelves:
review:
What would you do with your life if you were granted the wish to stay young forever? What are you willing to give up? Would you live righteously? You find out very soon into the book what Dorian's answers to these questions are.

No one in this book is likable - Dorian needs some serious therapy and Lord Henry is the king instigator of all time, the original gaslighter. BUT, I can't stop coming back to this every few years. Definitely a must for anyone wanting to get into classics.
]]> Night Sky with Exit Wounds 23841432 89 Ocean Vuong Mariel 5 4.20 2016 Night Sky with Exit Wounds
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/08
date added: 2022/03/08
shelves:
review:
Wonderfully tragic, beautiful in every sense of the word. Ocean Vuong is an incredible writer. His talent and grasp on language never fails to amaze me. I cried - from happiness, sorrow, and a desperate feeling of longing.
]]> To Paradise 57739876 From the author of the classic A Little Life, a bold, brilliant novel spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment, about lovers, family, loss and the elusive promise of utopia.

In an alternate version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems). The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist’s damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him—and solve the mystery of her husband’s disappearances.

These three sections are joined in an enthralling and ingenious symphony, as recurring notes and themes deepen and enrich one another: A townhouse in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village; illness, and treatments that come at a terrible cost; wealth and squalor; the weak and the strong; race; the definition of family, and of nationhood; the dangerous righteousness of the powerful, and of revolutionaries; the longing to find a place in an earthly paradise, and the gradual realization that it can’t exist. What unites not just the characters, but these Americas, are their reckonings with the qualities that make us human: Fear. Love. Shame. Need. Loneliness.

To Paradise is a fin de siècle novel of marvellous literary effect, but above all it is a work of emotional genius. The great power of this remarkable novel is driven by Yanagihara’s understanding of the aching desire to protect those we love � partners, lovers, children, friends, family and even our fellow citizens � and the pain that ensues when we cannot.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385547935 Mariel 0 to-read 3.74 2022 To Paradise
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 84, Charing Cross Road 368916
[text from the back cover of the book]]]> 106 Helene Hanff Mariel 5
Want to know what's the best thing about this being my first time read? I got to experience the laughter, the sadness, the wit - all for the very first time.

Simply put these are letters between a writer and a small bookshop in London. You will laugh. And you will probably finish in one sitting, as I did. And you will probably re-read, like everyone else. In few words, this book is an absolute gem.]]> 4.17 1970 84, Charing Cross Road
author: Helene Hanff
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1970
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/26
date added: 2022/03/01
shelves:
review:
I cannot believe I've never read this before. I've heard time and time again that this is a MUST read for all book lovers...can you believe I ignored that for so long?!

Want to know what's the best thing about this being my first time read? I got to experience the laughter, the sadness, the wit - all for the very first time.

Simply put these are letters between a writer and a small bookshop in London. You will laugh. And you will probably finish in one sitting, as I did. And you will probably re-read, like everyone else. In few words, this book is an absolute gem.
]]> Kitchen 50144 Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, is an enchantingly original and deeply affecting book about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine of Kitchen, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, she is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who was once his father), Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale that recalls early Marguerite Duras. Kitchen and its companion story, "Moonlight Shadow," are elegant tales whose seeming simplicity is the ruse of a writer whose voice echoes in the mind and the soul.]]> 160 Banana Yoshimoto 0802142443 Mariel 5
In many cultures food brings comfort to us. The act of cooking and sharing meals with others helps build intimacy and trust between each other. Mikage, our protagonist of the main story, knows this very well as her favorite place in the world is the kitchen. We watch as she uses the kitchen and food as tools to cope with the losses that she has suffered.

Moonlight Shadow was an unexpected gift, but I feel incredibly blessed to have been able to read it. I can only wish to be able to read it in its original written language. This one deals with loss as well, but there is something so deeply touching about the feeling of untethered-ness (is that a word? I really don't care) in this short story that I had to re-read it twice.

I 100% expect to revisit this work later in the year and will definitely add Yoshimoto to my list of new favorite authors.]]> 3.91 1988 Kitchen
author: Banana Yoshimoto
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/26
date added: 2022/03/01
shelves:
review:
Wow. This book was incredible. Kitchen, accompanied by Moonlight Shadow, is so incredibly well written that even the English translation of the text is moving. I cannot tell you how many lines I highlighted and how many pages I tabbed. Yoshimoto does an incredible job of portraying grief and mourning, or lack thereof.

In many cultures food brings comfort to us. The act of cooking and sharing meals with others helps build intimacy and trust between each other. Mikage, our protagonist of the main story, knows this very well as her favorite place in the world is the kitchen. We watch as she uses the kitchen and food as tools to cope with the losses that she has suffered.

Moonlight Shadow was an unexpected gift, but I feel incredibly blessed to have been able to read it. I can only wish to be able to read it in its original written language. This one deals with loss as well, but there is something so deeply touching about the feeling of untethered-ness (is that a word? I really don't care) in this short story that I had to re-read it twice.

I 100% expect to revisit this work later in the year and will definitely add Yoshimoto to my list of new favorite authors.
]]> Where the Crawdads Sing 43323704
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world–until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]> 370 Delia Owens 1472154665 Mariel 4
Where the Crawdads Sing follows Kya, and her life growing up in the marsh. It is both a crime mystery and a coming of age story. I love that it was written in third person as opposed to Kya's point of view as it helped the story develop naturally. Kya's feeling of longing is something we can all relate to, but to multiplied by a thousand as poor Kya went years without so little as human touch when she was forced to fend for herself. The ending, although sad, brought the story together beautifully.

Give yourself time to enjoy this one, at times it can be slow but it was well worth the read.]]> 4.27 2018 Where the Crawdads Sing
author: Delia Owens
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/24
date added: 2022/03/01
shelves:
review:
Genuinely was surprised at how much enjoyed this book! This was not something I would have picked up on my own despite how often I saw it online as the setting of the plot was not of interest to me. I'll admit I even thought it would be painstakingly boring... however, after a close friend of mine told me to give it a go, I bought a copy.

Where the Crawdads Sing follows Kya, and her life growing up in the marsh. It is both a crime mystery and a coming of age story. I love that it was written in third person as opposed to Kya's point of view as it helped the story develop naturally. Kya's feeling of longing is something we can all relate to, but to multiplied by a thousand as poor Kya went years without so little as human touch when she was forced to fend for herself. The ending, although sad, brought the story together beautifully.

Give yourself time to enjoy this one, at times it can be slow but it was well worth the read.
]]> <![CDATA[What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma]]> 58214328 A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life.

"Every cell in my body is filled with the code of generations of trauma, of death, of birth, of migration, of history that I cannot understand. . . . I want to have words for what my bones know."

By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD—a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years.

Both of Foo's parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she'd moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD.

In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don't move on from trauma—but you can learn to move with it.

Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body—and examines one woman's ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.]]> 352 Stephanie Foo 0593238109 Mariel 0 to-read 4.50 2022 What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma
author: Stephanie Foo
name: Mariel
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Fiebre Tropical 49557282
Uprooted from Bogotá into an ant-infested Miami townhouse, fifteen-year-old Francisca is miserable in her strange new city. Her alienation grows when her mother is swept up in an evangelical church, replete with abstinent salsa dancers and baptisms for the dead. But there, Francisca meets the magnetic Carmen: head of the youth group and the pastor’s daughter. As her mother’s mental health deteriorates, Francisca falls for Carmen and is saved to grow closer with her, even as their relationship hurtles toward a shattering conclusion.]]> 240 Juliana Delgado Lopera 193693275X Mariel 4
Listen, being a teenager is hard. Being a teenager newly arrived to another country while your grandma descents into alcoholism and your mother descends into madness is even harder. Add navigating your own emotions and exploring your sexuality and BOOM. Tropical fever, tropical revenge. ]]> 3.79 2020 Fiebre Tropical
author: Juliana Delgado Lopera
name: Mariel
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/08
date added: 2022/02/09
shelves:
review:
I wish I had a book like this to read when I was in high school. Fiebre Tropical follows our narrator, Francisca, as she transitions into her sparkly new "American Dream" life that isn't so sparkly and much more like a nightmare than a dream. Francisca's voice as a narrator is fun to follow and her styles feels like your cousin gossiping with you.

Listen, being a teenager is hard. Being a teenager newly arrived to another country while your grandma descents into alcoholism and your mother descends into madness is even harder. Add navigating your own emotions and exploring your sexuality and BOOM. Tropical fever, tropical revenge.
]]>