Kristine's bookshelf: read en-US Wed, 30 Apr 2025 20:34:08 -0700 60 Kristine's bookshelf: read 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[How to Solve Your Own Murder (Castle Knoll Files, #1)]]> 181350367 For fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club, an enormously fun mystery about a woman who spends her entire life trying to prevent her foretold murder only to be proven right sixty years later, when she is found dead in her sprawling country estate.... Now it's up to her great-niece to catch the killer.

It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be.

In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?

As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.]]> 358 Kristen Perrin 0593474015 Kristine 0 3.76 2024 How to Solve Your Own Murder (Castle Knoll Files, #1)
author: Kristen Perrin
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/30
date added: 2025/04/30
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]]> The Life Impossible 198281740
“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…�

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.]]> 324 Matt Haig 0593489276 Kristine 0 3.45 2024 The Life Impossible
author: Matt Haig
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/22
date added: 2025/04/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 387 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Kristine 4 4.60 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection]]> 220341389 John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.

Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.

In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.]]> 208 John Green 0525556575 Kristine 5 4.50 2025 Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
author: John Green
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
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Very approachable/readable, shows how the injustice that is tuberculosis persists in the modern world, but doesn't have to. Worth the read!
]]> The Answer Is No 219876684 In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone?

Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Told in Fredrik Backman’s singular witty style with sharply drawn characters and relatable antics, The Answer Is No is a laugh-out-loud portrait of a man struggling to keep to himself in a world that won’t leave him alone.]]> 68 Fredrik Backman 1662526520 Kristine 0 3.94 2024 The Answer Is No
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance, #1)]]> 6437061 427 N.K. Jemisin 0316043915 Kristine 0 3.88 2010 The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance, #1)
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Blackmail and Bibingka (Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery, #3)]]> 60046855 When her long lost cousin comes back to town just in time for the holidays, Lila Macapagal knows that big trouble can't be far behind in this new mystery by Mia P. Manansala, author of Arsenic and Adobo.

It's Christmastime in Shady Palms, but things are far from jolly for Lila Macapagal. Sure, her new business, The Brew-ha Cafe, is looking to turn a profit in its first year. And yes, she's taken the first step in a new romance with her good friend, Jae Park. But her cousin Ronnie is back in town after ghosting the family fifteen years ago, claiming that his recent purchase of a local winery shows that he's back on his feet and ready to give back to the Shady Palms community. Tita Rosie is thrilled with the return of her prodigal son, but Lila knows that wherever Ronnie goes, trouble follows.

She's soon proven right when Ronnie is accused of murder, and secrets and rumors surrounding her shady cousin and those involved with the winery start piling up. Now Lila has to put away years of resentment and distrust to prove her cousin's innocence. He may be a jerk, but he's still family. And there's no way her flesh and blood could actually be a murderer...right?]]> 270 Mia P. Manansala 059320171X Kristine 4 3.70 2022 Blackmail and Bibingka (Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery, #3)
author: Mia P. Manansala
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
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]]> The Lost Letter 33098837 A heart-breaking, heart-warming historical novel of love and survival inspired by real resistance workers during World War II Austria, and the mysterious love letter that connects generations of Jewish families. For readers of The Nightingale, Lilac Girls, and Sarah's Key.

Austria, 1938.
Kristoff is a young apprentice to a master Jewish stamp engraver. When his teacher disappears during Kristallnacht, Kristoff is forced to engrave stamps for the Germans, and simultaneously works alongside Elena, his beloved teacher's fiery daughter, and with the Austrian resistance to send underground messages and forge papers. As he falls for Elena amidst the brutal chaos of war, Kristoff must find a way to save her, and himself.

Los Angeles, 1989.
Katie Nelson is going through a divorce and while cleaning out her house and life in the aftermath, she comes across the stamp collection of her father, who recently went into a nursing home. When an appraiser, Benjamin, discovers an unusual World War II-era Austrian stamp placed on an old love letter as he goes through her dad's collection, Katie and Benjamin are sent on a journey together that will uncover a story of passion and tragedy spanning decades and continents, behind the just fallen Berlin Wall.

A beautiful, poignant and devastating novel, The Lost Letter shows the lasting power of love.]]> 322 Jillian Cantor 0399185674 Kristine 4 4.16 2017 The Lost Letter
author: Jillian Cantor
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> Wish You Were Here 40603774
Then Charlotte collides with Adam, a gorgeous and soulful painter who seems just as lost as she feels. Their instant connection turns into a midnight drink� and a whirlwind night of champagne, Chinese food, and the kind of conversation that only happens in romantic comedies. But the next morning, Adam gives Charlotte the cold shoulder, leaving her confused and hurt—and wondering if the few odd moments between them the night before were red flags in disguise.

Months later, Charlotte hasn’t been able to shake Adam, so she decides to find out what happened the morning after their magical night together. This fateful decision rewrites their wild love story, but what Charlotte doesn’t know yet is that the ending has already been written.]]> 320 Renee Carlino Kristine 0 3.90 2017 Wish You Were Here
author: Renee Carlino
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> The Dinner List 36399096 We’ve been waiting for an hour. That’s what Audrey says. She states it with a little bit of an edge, her words just bordering on cursive. That’s the thing I think first. Not: Audrey Hepburn is at my birthday dinner, but Audrey Hepburn is annoyed.

At one point or another, we’ve all been asked to name five people, living or dead, with whom we’d like to have dinner. Why do we choose the people we do? And what if that dinner was to actually happen? These are the questions Rebecca Serle contends within her utterly captivating novel, The Dinner List, a story imbued with the same delightful magical realism as One Day, and the life-changing romance of Me Before You.

When Sabrina arrives at her thirtieth birthday dinner she finds at the table not just her best friend, but also three significant people from her past, and well, Audrey Hepburn. As the appetizers are served, wine poured, and dinner table conversation begins, it becomes clear that there’s a reason these six people have been gathered together.

Delicious but never indulgent, sweet with just the right amount of bitter, The Dinner List is a romance for our times. Bon appetit.]]> 288 Rebecca Serle Kristine 4 3.53 2018 The Dinner List
author: Rebecca Serle
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Adrift: The Curious Tale of the Lego Lost at Sea]]> 58010115 184 Tracey Williams 1913491196 Kristine 4 4.35 2022 Adrift: The Curious Tale of the Lego Lost at Sea
author: Tracey Williams
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving]]> 43822770
Mo Rocca has always loved obituaries—reading about the remarkable lives of global leaders, Hollywood heavyweights, and innovators who changed the world. But not every notable life has gotten the send-off it deserves. His quest to right that wrong inspired Mobituaries, his #1 hit podcast. Now with Mobituaries , the book, he has gone much further, with all new essays on artists, entertainers, sports stars, political pioneers, founding fathers, and more. Even if you know the names, you’ve never understood why they matter...until now.

Take Herbert before he was president, he was the “Great Humanitarian,� the man who saved tens of millions from starvation. But after less than a year in the White House, the stock market crashed, and all the good he had done seemed to be forgotten. Then there’s Marlene Dietrich, well remembered as a screen goddess, less remembered as a great patriot. Alongside American servicemen on the front lines during World War II, she risked her life to help defeat the Nazis of her native Germany. And what about Billy Carter and history’s unruly presidential brothers? Were they ne’er-do-well liabilities…or secret weapons? Plus, Mobits for dead sports teams, dead countries, the dearly departed station wagon, and dragons. Yes, dragons.

Rocca is an expert researcher and storyteller. He draws on these skills here. With his dogged reporting and trademark wit, Rocca brings these men and women back to life like no one else can. Mobituaries is an insightful and unconventional account of the people who made life worth living for the rest of us, one that asks us to think about who gets remembered, and why.]]> 384 Mo Rocca 1501197622 Kristine 4 4.09 2019 Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving
author: Mo Rocca
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves:
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]]> Call Us What We Carry 56805404 The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, Amanda Gorman’s remarkable new collection reveals an energizing and unforgettable voice in American poetry. Call Us What We Carry is Gorman at her finest. Including “The Hill We Climb,� the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, and bursting with musical language and exploring themes of identity, grief, and memory, this lyric of hope and healing captures an important moment in our country’s consciousness while being utterly timeless.

The breakout poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman.]]> 228 Amanda Gorman 0593465067 Kristine 4 4.27 2021 Call Us What We Carry
author: Amanda Gorman
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/01/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Well to the Core: A Realistic, Guilt-Free Approach to Getting Fit and Feeling Good for a Lifetime]]> 123185837
Robin Long, certified Pilates instructor and founder of Lindywell, is on a mission to help you reclaim your health, your fitness, and your body. In Well to the Core , join Robin on a journey toward holistic health and It is possible to break free from constant stress about what you’re eating, how you’re exercising, or how much weight you need to lose in order to really start living. This is where true wellness begins. Let Robin Long show you the way in Well to the Core .]]> 192 Robin Long 1496472624 Kristine 4 4.37 Well to the Core: A Realistic, Guilt-Free Approach to Getting Fit and Feeling Good for a Lifetime
author: Robin Long
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.37
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
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]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

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

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

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Kristine 5 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/12
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]]> The Women 127305853
Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm's way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Kristine 5 4.58 2024 The Women
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 Kristine 4 4.37 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/09
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves:
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]]> The Hygge Holiday 36060171 Clara is on holiday but she can see the potential in the pretty town, so she rolls up her sleeves and sets to work. Things are looking up until Joe comes to Yulethorpe to find out exactly what is going on with his mother's shop. Joe is Very Busy and Important in the City and very sure that Clara is up to no good. Surely no one would work this hard just for the fun of it?

Can a man who answers emails at 3 a. m. learn to appreciate the slower, happier, hygge things in life - naps, candles, good friends and maybe even falling in love?

]]> 229 Rosie Blake Kristine 4 3.85 2017 The Hygge Holiday
author: Rosie Blake
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/03
date added: 2024/12/03
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]]> The Bookish Life of Nina Hill 42379022
When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They're all—or mostly all—excited to meet her! She'll have to Speak. To. Strangers. It's a disaster! And as if that wasn't enough, Tom, her trivia nemesis, has turned out to be cute, funny, and deeply interested in getting to know her. Doesn't he realize what a terrible idea that is?

Nina considers her options.

1. Completely change her name and appearance. (Too drastic, plus she likes her hair.)
2. Flee to a deserted island. (Hard pass, see: coffee).
3. Hide in a corner of her apartment and rock back and forth. (Already doing it.)

It's time for Nina to come out of her comfortable shell, but she isn't convinced real life could ever live up to fiction. It's going to take a brand-new family, a persistent suitor, and the combined effects of ice cream and trivia to make her turn her own fresh page.]]> 351 Abbi Waxman 0451491882 Kristine 0 3.80 2019 The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
author: Abbi Waxman
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/17
date added: 2024/11/17
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]]> Funny Story 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

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

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

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

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Kristine 0 4.21 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/17
date added: 2024/11/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Eternity's Wheel (InterWorld, #3)]]> 23717125
With InterWorld trapped by HEX and his only other companion—the mysterious Time Agent Acacia Jones—missing in action, Joey's the only one left. Though injured and alone, he refuses to give up. How can he, when all the worlds are depending on him?

As the threat of FrostNight looms ever closer, Joey seeks out more of his fellow Walkers across the Altiverse, training them as fast as he can and trying to track down InterWorld Base Town along the way. But even a solid team of recruits—including Acacia's brother, Avery, who's not a recruit so much as a tenuous ally—can't prepare Joey for the ultimate showdown with InterWorld's enemies, old and new.

Joey never wanted to be in charge. But he's the one everyone is looking to now, and he'll have to step up if he has any hope of saving InterWorld, the Multiverse, and everything in between.

Eternity's Wheel is the heart-pounding conclusion to the InterWorld series, full of time and space travel, magic, science, and the bravery of a young boy who must now face his destiny as a young man.]]> 197 Michael Reaves 0062068016 Kristine 3 3.94 2015 Eternity's Wheel (InterWorld, #3)
author: Michael Reaves
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2018/08/07
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves:
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]]> Slow Dance 198530925
They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.

Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.

Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.

When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?

The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.

Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.

It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.]]> 400 Rainbow Rowell 0063380196 Kristine 5 3.63 2024 Slow Dance
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/23
date added: 2024/09/23
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]]> Laziness Does Not Exist 54304124
Extra-curricular activities. Honors classes. 60-hour work weeks. Side hustles.

Like many Americans, Dr. Devon Price believed that productivity was the best way to measure self-worth. Price was an overachiever from the start, graduating from both college and graduate school early, but that success came at a cost. After Price was diagnosed with a severe case of anemia and heart complications from overexertion, they were forced to examine the darker side of all this productivity.

Laziness Does Not Exist explores the psychological underpinnings of the “laziness lie,� including its origins from the Puritans and how it has continued to proliferate as digital work tools have blurred the boundaries between work and life. Using in-depth research, Price explains that people today do far more work than nearly any other humans in history yet most of us often still feel we are not doing enough.

Filled with practical and accessible advice for overcoming society’s pressure to do more, and featuring interviews with researchers, consultants, and experiences from real people drowning in too much work, Laziness Does Not Exist “is the book we all need right now� (Caroline Dooner, author of The F*ck It Diet ).]]> 256 Devon Price 1982140100 Kristine 1
The false equivalency that pushed me over the edge was this sentence: "My intense, hardworking friend had finally found a way to chill out and stop fearing 'laziness'". You know what way their friend found? They got properly medicated for their medical condition (ADHD)!!!! That isn't fearing laziness!

I'm truly wondering how an editor let this be published without catching these issues.]]> 3.91 2021 Laziness Does Not Exist
author: Devon Price
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2021
rating: 1
read at: 2024/09/07
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves:
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The author might have had a point - but they spent so much of this book forcing situations into their thesis (people are afraid to be called/viewed as lazy) while ignoring other very really important factors (ie the person who lost their business never turning down freelance work while trying to recover financially, or the person who had spent time in jail never saying no to a job because they didn't know the next time they'd be able to get one) that it invalidates most of their arguments for me.

The false equivalency that pushed me over the edge was this sentence: "My intense, hardworking friend had finally found a way to chill out and stop fearing 'laziness'". You know what way their friend found? They got properly medicated for their medical condition (ADHD)!!!! That isn't fearing laziness!

I'm truly wondering how an editor let this be published without catching these issues.
]]> Death at Morning House 199793628 From the bestselling author of the Truly Devious books, Maureen Johnson, comes a new stand-alone YA about a teen who uncovers a mystery while working as a tour guide on an island and must solve it before history repeats itself.

The fire wasn’t Marlowe Wexler’s fault. Dates should be hot, but not hot enough to warrant literal firefighters. Akilah, the girl Marlowe has been in love with for years, will never go out with her again. No one dates an accidental arsonist.

With her house-sitting career up in flames, it seems the universe owes Marlowe a new summer job, and that’s how she ends up at Morning House, a mansion built on an island in the 1920s and abandoned shortly thereafter. It’s easy enough, giving tours. Low risk of fire. High chance of getting bored talking about stained glass and nut cutlets and Prohibition.

Oh, and the deaths. Did anyone mention the deaths?]]> 384 Maureen Johnson 0063255952 Kristine 5 3.71 2024 Death at Morning House
author: Maureen Johnson
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/28
date added: 2024/08/28
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]]> Every Summer After 58014893
Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.

For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.

When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.

Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic look at love and the people and choices that mark us forever.

Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right.]]> 320 Carley Fortune 0593438531 Kristine 4 4.17 2022 Every Summer After
author: Carley Fortune
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/09
date added: 2024/08/09
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[More Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet]]> 2973780 True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet comes this incredibly fun sequel.

Just when Morgan Carter is falling in love with the simple life she built incognito in Fort Wayne, Indiana, her true identity as an infamous Hollywood starlet is outed and she’s forced to return to LA.

While most girls would give anything for a life filled with celeb-studded parties, constant press coverage, and mega-fame, for Morgan going home is more complicated than it seems. Hollywood holds deep, dark secrets that Morgan has yet to confront. Secrets that could ruin everything.

]]> 224 Lara Deloza 1595141294 Kristine 5 3.40 2005 More Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet
author: Lara Deloza
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law]]> 56769577
Roach tags along with animal-attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and "danger tree" faller blasters. Intrepid as ever, she travels from leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Indian Himalaya to St. Peter’s Square in the early hours before the pope arrives for Easter Mass, when vandal gulls swoop in to destroy the elaborate floral display. She taste-tests rat bait, learns how to install a vulture effigy, and gets mugged by a macaque.

Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers. When it comes to "problem" wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem—and the solution. Fascinating, witty, and humane, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.]]> 308 Mary Roach 1324001933 Kristine 4 3.81 2021 Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law
author: Mary Roach
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/07/08
shelves:
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]]> People We Meet on Vacation 54985743 Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.

Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.

Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.

Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.

Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?]]> 400 Emily Henry 1984806750 Kristine 4 3.85 2021 People We Meet on Vacation
author: Emily Henry
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/08
date added: 2024/04/08
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]]> The Room on Rue Amelie 35297316
When newlywed Ruby Henderson Benoit arrives in Paris in 1939 with her French husband Marcel, she imagines strolling arm in arm along the grand boulevards, awash in the golden afternoon light. But war is looming on the horizon, and as France falls to the Nazis, her marriage begins to splinter, too.

Charlotte Dacher is eleven when the Germans roll into the French capital, their sinister swastika flags snapping in the breeze. After the Jewish restrictions take effect and Jews are ordered to wear the yellow star, Charlotte can’t imagine things getting much worse. But then the mass deportations begin, and her life is ripped forever apart.

Thomas Clarke joins the British Royal Air Force to protect his country, but when his beloved mother dies in a German bombing during the waning days of the Blitz, he wonders if he’s really making a difference. Then he finds himself in Paris, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, and he discovers a new reason to keep fighting—and an unexpected road home.

When fate brings them together, Ruby, Charlotte, and Thomas must summon the courage to defy the Nazis—and to open their own broken hearts—as they fight to survive. Rich with historical drama and emotional depth, this is an unforgettable story that will stay with you long after the final page is turned.]]> 400 Kristin Harmel 1501171402 Kristine 4 4.16 2018 The Room on Rue Amelie
author: Kristin Harmel
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/12
date added: 2024/03/12
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]]> Beach Read 52867387 A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

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

They’re polar opposites.

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

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no-one will fall in love. Really.]]> 371 Emily Henry 1984806734 Kristine 4 3.99 2020 Beach Read
author: Emily Henry
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/24
date added: 2024/02/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![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 Kristine 4 4.12 2022 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/17
date added: 2024/02/17
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]]> Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk 29939353
As she traverses a grittier Manhattan, a city anxious after an attack by a still-at-large subway vigilante, she encounters bartenders, bodega clerks, chauffeurs, security guards, bohemians, criminals, children, parents, and parents-to-be—in surprising moments of generosity and grace. While she strolls, Lillian recalls a long and eventful life that included a brief reign as the highest-paid advertising woman in America—a career cut short by marriage, motherhood, divorce, and a breakdown.

A love letter to city life—however shiny or sleazy�Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney paints a portrait of a remarkable woman across the canvas of a changing America: from the Jazz Age to the onset of the AIDS epidemic; the Great Depression to the birth of hip-hop.]]> 287 Kathleen Rooney 1250113326 Kristine 4 3.80 2017 Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
author: Kathleen Rooney
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/29
date added: 2024/01/29
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]]> Anxious People 49127718 A poignant, charming novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined

Looking at real estate isn't usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can't fix up their own marriage. There's a wealthy banker who has been too busy making money to care about anyone else and a young couple who are about to have their first child but can't seem to agree on anything, from where they want to live to how they met in the first place. Add to the mix an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment's only bathroom, and you've got the worst group of hostages in the world.

Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises, these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in a motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.

Humorous, compassionate, and wise, Anxious People is an ingeniously constructed story about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope—the things that save us, even in the most anxious of times.

Includes short story - The Last Round of Golf]]> 336 Fredrik Backman 198216963X Kristine 5 4.17 2019 Anxious People
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/04
date added: 2024/01/04
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]]> Consent 52539553 A smart, mysterious and heartbreaking novel centred on two sets of sisters whose lives are braided together when tragedy changes them forever. From the award-winning author of The Golden Mean.

Saskia and Jenny are twins who are alike only in appearance. Saskia is a hard-working grad student whose interests are solely academic, while Jenny, an interior designer, is glamourous, thrill-seeking, capricious and narcissistic. Still, when Jenny is severely injured in an accident, Saskia puts her life on hold to be with her sister.

Sara and Mattie are sisters with a difficult relationship. Mattie, the younger sister, is affectionate, curious and intellectually disabled. As soon as Sara is able, she leaves home, in pursuit of a life of the mind and the body: she loves nothing more than fine wines, sensual perfumes, and expensive clothing. But when their mother dies, Sara inherits the duty of caring for her sister. Arriving at the house one day, she finds out that Mattie has married Robert, her wealthy mother's handyman. Though Mattie seems happy, Sara cannot let this go, forcing the annulment of the marriage and the banishment of Robert. With him out of the picture, though, she has no choice but to become her sister's keeper, sacrificing her own happiness and Mattie's too. When Robert turns up again, another tragedy happens. The waves from these events eventually engulf Sara and Saskia, sisters in mourning, in a quest for revenge.

Consent is a startling, moving, thought-provoking novel on the complexities of familial duty and on how love can become entangled with guilt, resentment and regret.]]> 224 Annabel Lyon 0345811453 Kristine 0 3.49 2020 Consent
author: Annabel Lyon
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2023/11/26
date added: 2023/11/26
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]]> <![CDATA[10 Things I Hate About Pinky (Dimple and Rishi, #3)]]> 52753485 Pinky Kumar wears the social justice warrior badge with pride. From raccoon hospitals to persecuted rock stars, no cause is too esoteric for her to champion. But a teeny tiny part of her also really enjoys making her conservative, buttoned-up corporate lawyer parents cringe.

Samir Jha might have a few . . . quirks remaining from the time he had to take care of his sick mother, like the endless lists he makes in his planner and the way he schedules every minute of every day, but those are good things. They make life predictable and steady.

Pinky loves lazy summers at her parents� Cape Cod lake house, but after listening to them harangue her about the poor decisions (aka boyfriends) she's made, she hatches a plan. Get her sorta-friend-sorta-enemy—who is a total Harvard-bound mama’s boy—to pose as her perfect boyfriend for the summer.

When Samir’s internship falls through, leaving him with an unplanned summer, he gets a text from Pinky asking if he’ll be her fake boyfriend in exchange for a new internship. He jumps at the opportunity; Pinky’s a freak, but he can survive a summer with her if there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

As they bicker their way through lighthouses and butterfly habitats, sparks fly, and they both realize this will be a summer they'll never forget.]]> 354 Sandhya Menon 1534416811 Kristine 4 3.84 2020 10 Things I Hate About Pinky (Dimple and Rishi, #3)
author: Sandhya Menon
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/10/08
date added: 2023/11/09
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]]> Happy Place 61761938 A couple who broke up months ago pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends.

Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t.

They broke up five months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.

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

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends� hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week� in front of those who know you best?]]> 395 Emily Henry 0593441206 Kristine 4 4.05 2023 Happy Place
author: Emily Henry
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/23
date added: 2023/10/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires]]> 44074800 Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

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

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she--and her book club--are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.]]> 410 Grady Hendrix Kristine 4 3.78 2020 The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/13
date added: 2023/10/13
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]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man]]> 62918681 One of our nation’s most prominent writers finds the truth about how to live a long and happy life in the centenarian next door.

When a veteran Washington journalist moved to Kansas, he met a new neighbor who was more than a century old. Little did he know that he was beginning a long friendship—and a profound lesson in the meaning of life. Charlie White was no ordinary neighbor. Born before radio, Charlie lived long enough to use a smartphone. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, Charlie mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom. Thus armored, Charlie’s sense of adventure carried him on an epic journey across the continent, and later found him swinging across bandstands of the Jazz Age, racing aboard ambulances through Depression-era gangster wars, improvising techniques for early open-heart surgery, and cruising the Amazon as a guest of Peru’s president.

David Von Drehle came to understand that Charlie’s resilience and willingness to grow made this remarkable neighbor a master in the art of thriving through times of dramatic change. As a gift to his children, he set out to tell Charlie’s secrets. The Book of Charlie is a gospel of grit—the inspiring story of one man’s journey through a century of upheaval. The history that unfolds through Charlie’s story reminds you that the United States has always been a divided nation, a questing nation, an inventive nation—a nation of Charlies in the rollercoaster pursuit of a good and meaningful life.]]> 194 David von Drehle 1476773920 Kristine 4 3.86 2023 The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man
author: David von Drehle
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/19
date added: 2023/08/19
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]]> Suite Scarlett (Scarlett, #1) 2328841
Scarlett is the third of four children in the Martin family. The Martins live in and manage a shabby hotel in NYC that dates back to the 1920s. When Scarlett turns 15, she is put in charge of one of the hotel's 27 rooms- the Empire Suite. Into this room moves Mrs. Amberson, a failed 1970s starlet who has returned to New York to write her memoirs. Soon, Scarlett is taking dictation, running around town with Mrs. Amberson, and getting caught up in her Auntie Mame-meets-Bianca Jagger adventures.]]> 368 Maureen Johnson 0439899273 Kristine 5 3.61 2008 Suite Scarlett (Scarlett, #1)
author: Maureen Johnson
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/07/30
shelves:
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]]> The People We Keep 55711726 The People We Keep is about a young songwriter longing to find a home in the world.

Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a motorless motorhome that her father won in a poker game. Failing out of school, picking up shifts at Margo’s diner, she’s left fending for herself in a town where she’s never quite felt at home. When she “borrows� her neighbor’s car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to find a life that’s all hers.

As April moves through the world, meeting people who feel like home, she chronicles her life in the songs she writes and discovers that where she came from doesn’t dictate who she has to be.

This lyrical, unflinching tale is for anyone who has ever yearned for the fierce power of found family or to grasp the profound beauty of choosing to belong.]]> 368 Allison Larkin 1982171294 Kristine 4 4.07 2021 The People We Keep
author: Allison Larkin
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/30
date added: 2023/07/30
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]]> Maybe in Another Life 23492661
From the acclaimed author of Forever, Interrupted and After I Do comes a breathtaking new novel about a young woman whose fate hinges on the choice she makes after bumping into an old flame; in alternating chapters, we see two possible scenarios unfold—with stunningly different results.

At the age of twenty-nine, Hannah Martin still has no idea what she wants to do with her life. She has lived in six different cities and held countless meaningless jobs since graduating college. On the heels of leaving yet another city, Hannah moves back to her hometown of Los Angeles and takes up residence in her best friend Gabby’s guestroom. Shortly after getting back to town, Hannah goes out to a bar one night with Gabby and meets up with her high school boyfriend, Ethan.

Just after midnight, Gabby asks Hannah if she’s ready to go. A moment later, Ethan offers to give her a ride later if she wants to stay. Hannah hesitates. What happens if she leaves with Gabby? What happens if she leaves with Ethan?

In concurrent storylines, Hannah lives out the effects of each decision. Quickly, these parallel universes develop into radically different stories with large-scale consequences for Hannah, as well as the people around her. As the two alternate realities run their course, Maybe in Another Life raises questions about fate and true love: Is anything meant to be? How much in our life is determined by chance? And perhaps, most compellingly: Is there such a thing as a soul mate?

Hannah believes there is. And, in both worlds, she believes she’s found him.]]> 342 Taylor Jenkins Reid Kristine 4 3.77 2015 Maybe in Another Life
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/06
date added: 2023/07/06
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]]> Lessons in Chemistry 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus Kristine 5 4.23 2022 Lessons in Chemistry
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/02
date added: 2023/07/02
shelves:
review:
Really enjoyed this one. Other reviews have mentioned dark themes, but I found it very much like life. Life has some darkness to it, even the happiest lives.
]]> <![CDATA[This Is How You Lose the Time War]]> 43352954 Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war.]]> 209 Amal El-Mohtar Kristine 4 3.86 2019 This Is How You Lose the Time War
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/20
date added: 2023/06/20
shelves:
review:

]]> Really Good, Actually 60877616 A hilarious and painfully relatable debut novel about one woman’s messy search for joy and meaning in the wake of an unexpected breakup, from comedian, essayist, and award-winning screenwriter Monica Heisey

Maggie is fine. She’s doing really good, actually. Sure, she’s broke, her graduate thesis on something obscure is going nowhere, and her marriage only lasted 608 days, but at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new life as a Surprisingly Young Divorcée�.

Now she has time to take up nine hobbies, eat hamburgers at 4 am, and “get back out there� sex-wise. With the support of her tough-loving academic advisor, Merris; her newly divorced friend, Amy; and her group chat (naturally), Maggie barrels through her first year of single life, intermittently dating, occasionally waking up on the floor and asking herself tough questions along the way.

Laugh-out-loud funny and filled with sharp observations, Really Good, Actually is a tender and bittersweet comedy that lays bare the uncertainties of modern love, friendship, and our search for that thing we like to call “happiness�. This is a remarkable debut from an unforgettable new voice in fiction.]]> 370 Monica Heisey 0063235412 Kristine 4 <br /> 3.14 2023 Really Good, Actually
author: Monica Heisey
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.14
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/10
date added: 2023/06/10
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue]]> 50623864
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.]]> 448 Victoria E. Schwab 0765387565 Kristine 5 4.16 2020 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/28
date added: 2023/04/28
shelves:
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]]> Daisy Jones & The Six 40597810 Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n� roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.]]> 368 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1524798622 Kristine 4 4.20 2019 Daisy Jones & The Six
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/28
date added: 2023/03/28
shelves:
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]]> Truly Madly Guilty 27831371 The electrifying new novel from the international bestselling author, Liane Moriarty

Despite their differences, Erika and Clementine have been best friends since they were children. So when Erika needs help, Clementine should be the obvious person to turn to. Or so you'd think.

For Clementine, as a mother of a two desperately trying to practise for the audition of a lifetime, the last thing she needs is Erika asking for something, again.

But the barbecue should be the perfect way to forget their problems for a while. Especially when their hosts, Vid and Tiffany, are only too happy to distract them.

Which is how it all spirals out of control...

]]> 517 Liane Moriarty 1250069815 Kristine 4 3.59 2016 Truly Madly Guilty
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/03/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times]]> 61355265 #1 NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER - ONE OF TIME'S 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2022 - In an inspiring follow-up to her critically acclaimed, #1 bestselling memoir Becoming, former First Lady Michelle Obama shares practical wisdom and powerful strategies for staying hopeful and balanced in today's highly uncertain world.

There may be no tidy solutions or pithy answers to life's big challenges, but Michelle Obama believes that we can all locate and lean on a set of tools to help us better navigate change and remain steady within flux. In The Light We Carry, she opens a frank and honest dialogue with readers, considering the questions many of us wrestle with: How do we build enduring and honest relationships? How can we discover strength and community inside our differences? What tools do we use to address feelings of self-doubt or helplessness? What do we do when it all starts to feel like too much?

Michelle Obama offers readers a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress. Drawing from her experiences as a mother, daughter, spouse, friend, and First Lady, she shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt to change and overcome various obstacles--the earned wisdom that helps her continue to "become." She details her most valuable practices, like "starting kind," "going high," and assembling a "kitchen table" of trusted friends and mentors. With trademark humor, candor, and compassion, she also explores issues connected to race, gender, and visibility, encouraging readers to work through fear, find strength in community, and live with boldness.

"When we are able to recognize our own light, we become empowered to use it," writes Michelle Obama. A rewarding blend of powerful stories and profound advice that will ignite conversation, The Light We Carry inspires readers to examine their own lives, identify their sources of gladness, and connect meaningfully in a turbulent world.]]> 319 Michelle Obama 0593237463 Kristine 4 4.26 2022 The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times
author: Michelle Obama
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/19
date added: 2023/03/19
shelves:
review:
I'm really enjoyed this read. It feels like she tapped into a wave length in my brain, but with way more poise than I will ever have
]]> The Book of Lost Names 52762903 The Book of Lost Names.

The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II—an experience Eva remembers well—and the search to reunite people with the texts taken from them so long ago. The book in the photograph, an eighteenth-century religious text thought to have been taken from France in the waning days of the war, is one of the most fascinating cases. Now housed in Berlin’s Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it appears to contain some sort of code, but researchers don’t know where it came from—or what the code means. Only Eva holds the answer—but will she have the strength to revisit old memories and help reunite those lost during the war?

As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. Finding refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, she begins forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named RĂ©my, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in The Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the resistance cell they work for is betrayed and RĂ©my disappears.

An engaging and evocative novel reminiscent of The Lost Girls of Paris and The Alice Network, The Book of Lost Names is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of bravery and love in the face of evil.]]> 388 Kristin Harmel 1982131896 Kristine 4 4.41 2020 The Book of Lost Names
author: Kristin Harmel
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/25
date added: 2023/02/25
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]]> The Last Bookshop in London 53331577 Inspired by the true World War II history of the few bookshops to survive the Blitz, The Last Bookshop in London is a timeless story of wartime loss, love and the enduring power of literature.

August 1939: London prepares for war as Hitler’s forces sweep across Europe. Grace Bennett has always dreamed of moving to the city, but the bunkers and blackout curtains that she finds on her arrival were not what she expected. And she certainly never imagined she’d wind up working at Primrose Hill, a dusty old bookshop nestled in the heart of London.

Through blackouts and air raids as the Blitz intensifies, Grace discovers the power of storytelling to unite her community in ways she never dreamed—a force that triumphs over even the darkest nights of the war.]]> 325 Madeline Martin 133528480X Kristine 4 4.07 2021 The Last Bookshop in London
author: Madeline Martin
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/23
date added: 2023/01/23
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)]]> 60495147
Relief comes when David invites Stevie and her friends to join him for study abroad, and his new friend Izzy introduces her to a double-murder cold case. In 1995, nine friends from Cambridge University went to a country house and played a drunken game of hide-and-seek. Two were found in the woodshed the next day, murdered with an ax.

The case was assumed to be a burglary gone wrong, but one of the remaining seven saw something she can’t explain. This was no break-in. Someone’s lying about what happened in the woodshed.

Seven suspects. Two murders. One killer still playing a deadly game.]]> 445 Maureen Johnson 0063032651 Kristine 4 3.79 2022 Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)
author: Maureen Johnson
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/07
date added: 2023/01/07
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]]> The Holiday Trap 59828774 For fans of Alexandria Bellefleur and Alexis Hall comes a charming, hilarious, and heartwarming LGBTQIA+ romcom about two separate couples finding love over the holidays from acclaimed author Roan Parrish!

Greta Russakoff loves her tight-knit family and tiny Maine hometown, even if they don't always understand what it's like to be a lesbian living in such a small world. She desperately needs space to figure out who she is.

Truman Belvedere has just had his heart crushed into a million pieces when he learned that his boyfriend of almost a year has a secret life that includes a husband and a daughter. Reeling from this discovery, all he wants is a place to lick his wounds far, far away from New Orleans.

Enter Greta and Truman's mutual friend, Ramona, who facilitates a month-long house swap. Over the winter holidays, each of them will have a chance to try on a new life...and maybe fall in love with the perfect partner of their dreams. But all holidays must come to an end, and eventually Greta and Truman will have to decide whether the love they each found so far from home is worth fighting for.]]> 442 Roan Parrish 1728256275 Kristine 4 3.50 2022 The Holiday Trap
author: Roan Parrish
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/17
date added: 2022/12/17
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]]> In Five Years 50093704 Where do you see yourself in five years?

When Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Kohan is asked this question at the most important interview of her career, she has a meticulously crafted answer at the ready. Later, after nailing her interview and accepting her boyfriend's marriage proposal, Dannie goes to sleep knowing she is right on track to achieve her five-year plan.

But when she wakes up, she’s suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. The television news is on in the background, and she can just make out the scrolling date. It’s the same night—December 15—but 2025, five years in the future.

After a very intense, shocking hour, Dannie wakes again, at the brink of midnight, back in 2020. She can’t shake what has happened. It certainly felt much more than merely a dream, but she isn’t the kind of person who believes in visions. That nonsense is only charming coming from free-spirited types, like her lifelong best friend, Bella. Determined to ignore the odd experience, she files it away in the back of her mind.

That is, until four-and-a-half years later, when by chance Dannie meets the very same man from her long-ago vision.

Brimming with joy and heartbreak, In Five Years is an unforgettable love story that reminds us of the power of loyalty, friendship, and the unpredictable nature of destiny.]]> 272 Rebecca Serle 1982137444 Kristine 4 3.74 2020 In Five Years
author: Rebecca Serle
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/02
date added: 2022/12/02
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]]> Lou in Lockdown 53796479 46 Jojo Moyes Kristine 0 4.10 2020 Lou in Lockdown
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/11/26
date added: 2022/11/26
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]]> Carrie Soto Is Back 60435878 Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular.

By the time Carrie retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Slam titles. And if you ask her, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father as her coach.

But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning, British player named Nicki Chan.

At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked the 'Battle-Axe' anyway. Even if her body doesn't move as fast as it did. And even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley. Like her, he has something to prove before he gives up the game forever.

In spite of it all: Carrie Soto is back, for one epic final season. In this riveting and unforgettable novel, Taylor Jenkins Reid tells a story about the cost of greatness and a legendary athlete attempting a comeback.]]> 384 Taylor Jenkins Reid 0593158687 Kristine 4 4.19 2022 Carrie Soto Is Back
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/01
date added: 2022/11/01
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]]> Where the Crawdads Sing 36809135
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.]]> 384 Delia Owens 0735219117 Kristine 4 4.35 2018 Where the Crawdads Sing
author: Delia Owens
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/24
date added: 2022/09/24
shelves:
review:
Took a really long time for this book to hook me (talking like, 2/3 of the books), but it was worth it in the long run.
]]> Book Lovers 58690308 One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming....

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

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

If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.]]> 377 Emily Henry 0593334833 Kristine 4 4.09 2022 Book Lovers
author: Emily Henry
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/20
date added: 2022/09/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Homicide and Halo-Halo (Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery, #2)]]> 58082198
To add to her feelings of sticky unease, Lila's little town of Shady Palms has resurrected the Miss Teen Shady Palms Beauty Pageant, which she won many years ago--a fact that serves as a wedge between Lila and her cousin slash rival, Bernadette. But when the head judge of the pageant is murdered and Bernadette becomes the main suspect, the two must put aside their differences and solve the case--because it looks like one of them might be next.]]> 279 Mia P. Manansala 0593201698 Kristine 4 3.66 2022 Homicide and Halo-Halo (Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery, #2)
author: Mia P. Manansala
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/11
date added: 2022/09/11
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]]> Malibu Rising 55404546 Four famous siblings throw an epic party to celebrate the end of the summer. But over the course of twenty-four hours, their lives will change forever.

Malibu: August, 1983. It’s the day of Nina Riva’s annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together, the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer, Mick Riva.

The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud—because it is long past time to confess something to the brother from whom he’s been inseparable since birth.

Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can’t stop thinking about promised she’ll be there.

And Kit has a couple secrets of her own—including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.

By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family’s generations will all come bubbling to the surface.

Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them... and what they will leave behind.]]> 369 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1524798657 Kristine 5 4.02 2021 Malibu Rising
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/08/02
date added: 2022/08/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Arsenic and Adobo (Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery, #1)]]> 54351235 The first book in a new culinary cozy series full of sharp humor and delectable dishes—one that might just be killer....

When Lila Macapagal moves back home to recover from a horrible breakup, her life seems to be following all the typical rom-com tropes. She's tasked with saving her Tita Rosie's failing restaurant, and she has to deal with a group of matchmaking aunties who shower her with love and judgment. But when a notoriously nasty food critic (who happens to be her ex-boyfriend) drops dead moments after a confrontation with Lila, her life quickly swerves from a Nora Ephron romp to an Agatha Christie case.

With the cops treating her like she's the one and only suspect, and the shady landlord looking to finally kick the Macapagal family out and resell the storefront, Lila's left with no choice but to conduct her own investigation. Armed with the nosy auntie network, her barista best bud, and her trusted Dachshund, Longanisa, Lila takes on this tasty, twisted case and soon finds her own neck on the chopping block�
]]> 336 Mia P. Manansala 059320168X Kristine 4 3.54 2021 Arsenic and Adobo (Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery, #1)
author: Mia P. Manansala
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/21
date added: 2022/05/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 1984 40961427 Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell's nightmarish vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff's attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell's prescience of modern life—the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language—and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written.]]> 298 George Orwell Kristine 0 4.24 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1949
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/03
date added: 2022/04/03
shelves:
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]]> The Vanishing Half 51791252
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.]]> 343 Brit Bennett 0525536299 Kristine 4 4.11 2020 The Vanishing Half
author: Brit Bennett
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/18
date added: 2022/02/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett]]> 31775995 Hawthorn wasn't trying to insert herself into a missing person's investigation. Or maybe she was. But that's only because Lizzie Lovett's disappearance is the one fascinating mystery their sleepy town has ever had. Bad things don't happen to popular girls like Lizzie Lovett, and Hawthorn is convinced she'll turn up at any moment-which means the time for speculation is now.

So Hawthorn comes up with her own theory for Lizzie's disappearance.Ěý A theory way too absurd to take seriously...at first. The more Hawthorn talks, the more she believes. And what better way to collect evidence than to immerse herself in Lizzie's life? Like getting a job at the diner where Lizzie worked and hanging out with Lizzie's boyfriend. After all, it's not as if he killed her-or did he?

Told with a unique voice that is both hilarious and heart-wrenching, Hawthorn's quest for proof may uncover the greatest truth is within herself.

]]> 418 Chelsea Sedoti 1492636096 Kristine 3 3.33 2017 The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett
author: Chelsea Sedoti
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2020/05/20
date added: 2021/12/09
shelves:
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]]> Good Neighbors 54304088 Celeste Ng’s enthralling dissection of suburbia meets Shirley Jackson’s creeping dread in this propulsive literary noir, when a sudden tragedy exposes the depths of deception and damage in a Long Island suburb�pitting neighbor against neighbor and putting one family in terrible danger.

Welcome to Maple Street, a picture-perfect slice of suburban Long Island, its residents bound by their children, their work, and their illusion of safety in a rapidly changing world.

Arlo Wilde, a gruff has-been rock star who’s got nothing to show for his fame but track marks, is always two steps behind the other dads. His wife, beautiful ex-pageant queen Gertie, feels socially ostracized and adrift. Spunky preteen Julie curses like a sailor and her kid brother Larry is called “Robot Boy� by the kids on the block.

Their next-door neighbor and Maple Street’s Queen Bee, Rhea Schroeder�a lonely community college professor repressing her own dark past�welcomes Gertie and family into the fold. Then, during one spritzer-fueled summer evening, the new best friends share too much, too soon.

As tensions mount, a sinkhole opens in a nearby park, and Rhea’s daughter Shelly falls inside. The search for Shelly brings a shocking accusation against the Wildes that spins out of control. Suddenly, it is one mom’s word against the other’s in a court of public opinion that can end only in blood.

A riveting and ruthless portrayal of American suburbia, Good Neighbors excavates the perils and betrayals of motherhood and friendships and the dangerous clash between social hierarchy, childhood trauma, and fear.]]> 304 Sarah Langan 198214436X Kristine 4 3.53 2021 Good Neighbors
author: Sarah Langan
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/11/17
date added: 2021/12/01
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious, #4)]]> 52716736 TheĚýTruly Devious series continues as Stevie Bell investigates her first mystery outside of Ellingham Academy in this spine-chilling and hilarious stand-alone mystery.

Amateur sleuth Stevie Bell needs a good murder. After catching a killer at her high school, she’s back at home for a normal (that means boring) summer.

But then she gets a message from the owner of Sunny Pines, formerly known as Camp Wonder Falls—the site of the notorious unsolved case, the Box in the Woods Murders. Back in 1978, four camp counselors were killed in the woods outside of the town of Barlow Corners, their bodies left in a gruesome display. The new owner offers Stevie an invitation: Come to the camp and help him work on a true crime podcast about the case.

Stevie agrees, as long as she can bring along her friends from Ellingham Academy. Nothing sounds better than a summer spent together, investigating old murders.

But something evil still lurks in Barlow Corners. When Stevie opens the lid on this long-dormant case, she gets much more than she bargained for. The Box in the Woods will make room for more victims. This time, Stevie may not make it out alive.]]> 400 Maureen Johnson 0063032627 Kristine 4 4.05 2021 The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious, #4)
author: Maureen Johnson
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/09/22
date added: 2021/09/22
shelves:
review:

]]> The Midnight Library 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

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

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]> 288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Kristine 4 3.96 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/22
date added: 2021/08/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Henna Artist (The Jaipur Trilogy, #1)]]> 50607466 Vivid and compelling in its portrait of one woman’s struggle for fulfillment in a society pivoting between the traditional and the modern, The Henna Artist opens a door into a world that is at once lush and fascinating, stark and cruel.

Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone to the vibrant 1950s pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist—and confidante—to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own�

Known for her original designs and sage advice, Lakshmi must tread carefully to avoid the jealous gossips who could ruin her reputation and her livelihood. As she pursues her dream of an independent life, she is startled one day when she is confronted by her husband, who has tracked her down these many years later with a high-spirited young girl in tow—a sister Lakshmi never knew she had. Suddenly the caution that she has carefully cultivated as protection is threatened. Still she perseveres, applying her talents and lifting up those that surround her as she does.]]> 384 Alka Joshi 0778310205 Kristine 4 4.14 2020 The Henna Artist (The Jaipur Trilogy, #1)
author: Alka Joshi
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/04/30
date added: 2021/04/30
shelves:
review:

]]> Daredevil: Yellow 19324545 170 Jeph Loeb 0785170324 Kristine 4 4.14 2002 Daredevil: Yellow
author: Jeph Loeb
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2019/12/30
date added: 2021/02/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Adulthood Is a Myth (Sarah's Scribbles, #1)]]> 25855506 Are you a special snowflake?
Do you enjoy networking to advance your career?
Is adulthood an exciting new challenge for which you feel fully prepared?

Ugh. Please go away.

This book is for the rest of us. These comics document the wasting of entire beautiful weekends on the internet, the unbearable agony of holding hands on the street with a gorgeous guy, dreaming all day of getting home and back into pajamas, and wondering when, exactly, this adulthood thing begins. In other words, the horrors and awkwardnesses of young modern life.

Sarah Andersen is a young Brooklyn artist. This book is totally not autobiographical. At all.]]> 110 Sarah Andersen 1449474195 Kristine 4 4.10 2016 Adulthood Is a Myth (Sarah's Scribbles, #1)
author: Sarah Andersen
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2021/02/03
date added: 2021/02/03
shelves:
review:

]]> Solutions and Other Problems 51323365
Solutions and Other Problems includes humorous stories from Allie Brosh’s childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life.

This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features all-new material with more than 1,600 pieces of art.]]> 519 Allie Brosh 1982156945 Kristine 5 4.21 2020 Solutions and Other Problems
author: Allie Brosh
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/01/31
date added: 2021/01/31
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (The Carls, #2)]]> 49003616 An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.

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

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

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

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is the bold and brilliant follow-up to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. It’s a fast-paced adventure that is also a biting social commentary, asking hard, urgent questions. How will we live online? What powers over our lives are we giving away for free? Who has the right to change the world forever? And how do we find comfort in an increasingly isolated world?]]> 452 Hank Green 152474347X Kristine 5 4.22 2020 A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (The Carls, #2)
author: Hank Green
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/01/24
date added: 2021/01/24
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Heart and Brain: Body Language]]> 34536961
Heart and Body Language continues the adventures of the loveably conflicted sentimental Heart and rational Brain, as well as other bodily inhabitantsĚýlike Gallbladder, Muscle, and Tongue.
Ěý
Warm-hearted and laugh-out-loud funny, these comics bring our inner struggles to vibrant, humorous life.
Ěý]]> 144 Nick Seluk 1449487122 Kristine 0 4.25 2017 Heart and Brain: Body Language
author: Nick Seluk
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2020/09/25
date added: 2020/11/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery]]> 16248146 Lost Girls is a portrait of unsolved murders in an idyllic part of America, of the underside of the Internet, and of the secrets we keep without admitting to ourselves that we keep them.]]> 399 Robert Kolker 006218363X Kristine 4 3.59 2013 Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery
author: Robert Kolker
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2020/11/01
date added: 2020/11/01
shelves:
review:

]]> Three Wishes 1466455 Alternative cover edition of ISBN 9780060586133

Lyn, Cat, and Gemma Kettle, beautiful thirty-three-year-old triplets, seem to attract attention everywhere they go. Whenever they're together, laughter, drama, and mayhem seem to follow. But apart, each is very much her own woman, dealing with her own share of ups and downs. Lyn has organized her life into one big checklist, juggling the many balls of work, marriage, and motherhood with expert precision, but is she as together as her datebook would have her seem? Cat has just learned a startling secret about her marriage -- can she bring another life into her very precarious world? And can free-spirited Gemma, who bolts every time a relationship hits the six-month mark, ever hope to find lasting love? In this wise, witty, hilarious new novel, we follow the Kettle sisters through their thirty-third-year, as they struggle to survive their divorced parents' dating each other, their technologically savvy grandmother, a cheating husband, champagne hangovers, and the fabulous, frustrating life of forever being part of a trio.]]> 384 Liane Moriarty Kristine 0 3.70 2003 Three Wishes
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2020/10/24
date added: 2020/11/01
shelves:
review:

]]> The Prince and the Dressmaker 34506912 Paris, at the dawn of the modern age:

Prince Sebastian is looking for a bride―or rather, his parents are looking for one for him. Sebastian is too busy hiding his secret life from everyone. At night he puts on daring dresses and takes Paris by storm as the fabulous Lady Crystallia―the hottest fashion icon in the world capital of fashion!

Sebastian’s secret weapon is his brilliant dressmaker, Frances―his best friend and one of only two people who know the truth: sometimes this boy wears dresses. But Frances dreams of greatness, and being someone’s secret weapon means being a secret. Forever. How long can Frances defer her dreams to protect her friend?

Jen Wang weaves an exuberantly romantic tale of identity, young love, art, and family. A fairy tale for any age, The Prince and the Dressmaker will steal your heart.]]> 277 Jen Wang 162672363X Kristine 4 4.34 2018 The Prince and the Dressmaker
author: Jen Wang
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2020/10/18
date added: 2020/10/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ink in Water: An Illustrated Memoir (Or, How I Kicked Anorexia’s Ass and Embraced Body Positivity)]]> 33776084 Ink in Water is the visceral and groundbreaking graphic memoir of a young woman’s devastating struggle with negative body image and eating disorders, and how she rose above her own destructive behaviors and feelings of inadequacy to live a life of strength and empowerment.

As a young artist living in Portland, Lacy Davis� eating disorder began with the germ of an idea: a seed of a thought that told her she just wasn’t good enough. And like ink in water, that idea spread until it reached every corner of her being. This is the true story of Lacy’s journey into the self-destructive world of multiple eating disorders. It starts with a young and positive Lacy, trying to grapple with our culture’s body-image obsession and stay true to her riot grrrl roots. And while she initially succeeds in overcoming a nagging rumination about her body, a break up with a recovering addict starts her on a collision course with anorexia, health food obsession, and compulsive exercise addiction. At the request of her last real friend, she starts going to a twelve-step Overeaters Anonymous course, only to find that it conflicts with her punk feminist ideology.

Blending bold humor, a healthy dose of self-deprecation, vulnerability, literary storytelling, and dynamic and provocative artwork by illustrator Jim Kettner, Ink in Water is an unflinching, brutally honest look into the author’s mind: how she learned to take control of her damaging thoughts, redirect her perfectionism from self-destructive behaviors into writing and art, and how she committed herself to a life of health, strength, and nourishment.]]> 272 Lacy J. Davis 1626258317 Kristine 3 4.21 2017 Ink in Water: An Illustrated Memoir (Or, How I Kicked Anorexia’s Ass and Embraced Body Positivity)
author: Lacy J. Davis
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2020/09/28
date added: 2020/09/28
shelves:
review:

]]> Book Love 39296114 Ěý
Book Love is a gift book of comics tailor-made for tea-sipping, spine-sniffing, book-hoarding bibliophiles. Debbie Tung’s comics are humorous and instantly recognizable—making readers laugh while precisely conveying the thoughts and habits of book nerds. Book Love is the ideal gift to let a book lover know they’re understood and appreciated. Ěý]]> 140 Debbie Tung 1449494285 Kristine 3 4.28 2019 Book Love
author: Debbie Tung
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2020/09/25
date added: 2020/09/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Girl Who Reads on the MĂ©tro]]> 43263671 In the vein of Amelie and The Little Paris Bookshop, a modern fairytale about a French woman whose life is turned upside down when she meets a reclusive bookseller and his young daughter.

Juliette leads a perfectly ordinary life in Paris, working a slow office job, dating a string of not-quite-right men, and fighting off melancholy. The only bright spots in her day are her metro rides across the city and the stories she dreams up about the strangers reading books across from her: the old lady, the math student, the amateur ornithologist, the woman in love, the girl who always tears up at page 247.

One morning, avoiding the office for as long as she can, Juliette finds herself on a new block, in front of a rusty gate wedged open with a book. Unable to resist, Juliette walks through, into the bizarre and enchanting lives of Soliman and his young daughter, Zaide. Before she realizes entirely what is happening, Juliette agrees to become a passeur, Soliman's name for the booksellers he hires to take stacks of used books out of his store and into the world, using their imagination and intuition to match books with readers. Suddenly, Juliette's daydreaming becomes her reality, and when Soliman asks her to move in to their store to take care of Zaide while he goes away, she has to decide if she is ready to throw herself headfirst into this new life.

Big-hearted, funny, and gloriously zany, The Girl Who Reads on the Metro is a delayed coming-of-age story about a young woman who dares to change her life, and a celebration of the power of books to unite us all.]]> 175 Christine FĂ©ret-Fleury 1250315425 Kristine 3 3.06 2017 The Girl Who Reads on the MĂ©tro
author: Christine FĂ©ret-Fleury
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.06
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2020/09/24
date added: 2020/09/24
shelves:
review:

]]> Mexican Gothic 53152636
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

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

And NoemĂ­, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.]]> 320 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0525620788 Kristine 4 3.66 2020 Mexican Gothic
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/09/21
date added: 2020/09/21
shelves:
review:

]]> Bad Feminist 18813642 Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink—all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I’m not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once live-tweeted the September issue.

In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman of color while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years and commenting on the state of feminism today. The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture.

Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better.

Feel me, see me, hear me, reach me --
Peculiar benefits --
Typical first year professor --
To scratch, claw or grope clumsily or frantically --
How to be friends with another woman --
Girls, girls, girls --
I once was Miss America --
Garish, glorious spectacles --
Not here to make friends --
How we all lose --
Reaching for catharsis : getting fat right (or wrong) and Diana Spechler's Skinny --
The smooth surfaces of idyll --
The careless language of sexual violence --
What we hunger for --
The illusion of safety/the safety of illusion --
The spectacle of broken men --
A tale of three coming out stories --
Beyond the measure of men --
Some jokes are funnier than others --
Dear young ladies who love Chris Brown --
So much they would let him beat them --
Blurred lines, indeed --
The trouble with Prince Charming, or, He who trespassed against us --
The solace of preparing fried foods and other quaint remembrances from 1960s Mississippi : thoughts on The help --
Surviving Django --
Beyond the struggle narrative --
The morality of Tyler Perry --
The last day of a young black man --
When less is more --
The politics of respectability --
When Twitter does what journalism cannot --
The alienable rights of women --
Holding out for a hero --
A tale of two profiles --
The racism we all carry --
Tragedy, call, compassion, response --
Bad feminist : take one --
Bad feminist : take two]]> 320 Roxane Gay 0062282719 Kristine 4 3.93 2014 Bad Feminist
author: Roxane Gay
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2020/08/09
date added: 2020/08/09
shelves:
review:

]]> This Adventure Ends 27779275
Sloane becomes closest to Vera, a social-media star who lights up any room, and Gabe, Vera's twin brother and the most serious person Sloane's ever met. When a beloved painting by the twins' late mother goes missing, Sloane takes on the responsibility of tracking it down, a journey that takes her across state lines—and ever deeper into the twins' lives.

Filled with intense and important friendships, a wonderful warts-and-all family, shiveringly good romantic developments, and sharp, witty dialogue, this story is about finding the people you never knew you needed.]]> 320 Emma Mills 1627799354 Kristine 4 4.06 2016 This Adventure Ends
author: Emma Mills
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2020/08/02
date added: 2020/08/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Charmed Life of Alex Moore]]> 38087830 There are success stories � and there are true stories

How would you feel if everything in your life suddenly started to go . . . right? Six months ago, Alex Moore was stuck in a dead-end job, feeling her potential quietly slip away. Then, seemingly overnight, she launched her dream start-up and became one of London's fastest rising tech stars. At thirty-one, her life has just begun. But Alex’s transformation isn’t easy for those around her. Her friends are struggling to accept her rapid success, her parents worry she’s burning out and her fiancé is getting cold feet.

Then weird things start to happen. Muggings, stalkers � even a wild claim that she murdered a stranger. But when Alex visits the Orkney Islands to recharge, weird turns into WTF. Because there she discovers the world’s oldest secret � and it’s a secret that Alex’s stratospheric rise has royally messed up.

Full of heart and humour, this is a very modern adventure with a most unexpected twist.]]> 416 Molly Flatt 1509854541 Kristine 3 3.03 2018 The Charmed Life of Alex Moore
author: Molly Flatt
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.03
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2020/07/15
date added: 2020/07/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Was Told There'd Be Cake: Essays]]> 2195289 From the author of the novel, The Clasp, hailed by Michael Chabon, Heidi Julavits, and J. Courtney Sullivan. Wry, hilarious, and profoundly genuine, this debut collection of literary essays from Sloane Crosley is a celebration of fallibility and haplessness in all their glory.

From despoiling an exhibit at the Natural History Museum to provoking the ire of her first boss to siccing the cops on her mysterious neighbor, Crosley can do no right despite the best of intentions -- or perhaps because of them. Together, these essays create a startlingly funny and revealing portrait of a complex and utterly recognizable character who aims for the stars but hits the ceiling, and the inimitable city that has helped shape who she is. I Was Told There'd Be Cake introduces a strikingly original voice, chronicling the struggles and unexpected beauty of modern urban life.

The pony problem --
Christmas in July --
The ursula cookie --
Bring your machete to work day --
The good people of this dimension --
Bastard out of Westchester --
The beauty of strangers --
Fuck you, Columbus --
One-night bounce --
Sign language for infidels --
You on a stick --
Height of luxury --
Smell this --
Lay like broccoli --
Fever faker]]> 230 Sloane Crosley 159448306X Kristine 3 3.47 2008 I Was Told There'd Be Cake: Essays
author: Sloane Crosley
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2020/06/28
date added: 2020/06/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)]]> 51901147
The odds are against him. He's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined -- every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute... and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.]]> 541 Suzanne Collins Kristine 4 3.99 2020 The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/06/11
date added: 2020/06/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet]]> 23492735
Before her older sister, Lizzie, started her wildly popular vlog, Lydia was just a normal twenty-year-old plotting the many ways she could get away with skipping her community college classes and finding the perfect fake ID. She may not have had much direction, but she loved her family and had plenty of fun. Then Lizzie’s vlog turned the Bennet sisters into Internet sensations, and Lydia basked in the attention as people watched, debated, tweeted, tumblr’d, and blogged about her life. But not all attention is good�

After her ex-boyfriend, George Wickham took advantage of Lydia’s newfound web-fame, betrayed her trust, and destroyed her online reputation, she’s no longer a naïve, carefree girl. Now, Lydia must work to win back her family’s trust and respect and find her place in a far more judgmental world.

Told in Lydia’s distinctive, eccentric, and endearing voice, The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet picks up right where The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet left off and “offers a fresh take on Pride and Prejudice without ruining it� (The Washington Post, on The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet). Featuring fresh twists, wonderful new characters, and scores of hilarious texts, doodles, and tweets, The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet takes you behind the webcam and into the lives of your favorite sisters in a way that’s sure to satisfy existing fans and delight new ones.]]> 336 Kate Rorick 1476763232 Kristine 4 4.05 2015 The Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet
author: Kate Rorick
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2020/05/29
date added: 2020/05/29
shelves:
review:

]]> Before and After 44908411
The incredible, poignant true stories of victims of a notorious adoption scandal--some of whom learned the truth from Lisa Wingate's bestselling novel Before We Were Yours and were reunited with birth family members as a result of its wide reach

From the 1920s to 1950, Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee Children's Home Society in Memphis. She offered up more than 5,000 orphans tailored to the wish lists of eager parents--hiding the fact that many weren't orphans at all, but stolen sons and daughters of poor families, desperate single mothers, and women told in maternity wards that their babies had died.

The publication of Lisa Wingate's novel Before We Were Yours brought new awareness of Tann's lucrative career in child trafficking. Adoptees who knew little about their pasts gained insight into the startling facts behind their family histories. Encouraged by their contact with Wingate and award-winning journalist Judy Christie, who documented the stories of fifteen adoptees in this book, many determined Tann survivors set out to trace their roots and find their birth families.

Before and After includes moving and sometimes shocking accounts of the ways in which adoptees were separated from their first families. Often raised as only children, many have joyfully reunited with siblings in the final decades of their lives. In Before and After, Wingate and Christie tell of first meetings that are all the sweeter and more intense for time missed and of families from very different social backgrounds reaching out to embrace better-late-than-never brothers, sisters, and cousins. In a poignant culmination of art meeting life, long-silent victims of the tragically corrupt system return to Memphis with Wingate and Christie to reclaim their stories at a Tennessee Children's Home Society reunion . . . with extraordinary results.]]> 320 Judy Christie 0593130146 Kristine 4 3.93 2019 Before and After
author: Judy Christie
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/05/10
date added: 2020/05/10
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Page by Paige: A Graphic Novel]]> 8928004 Everyone sees a quiet redhead who draws things. But when I close my eyes, I'm laughing and screaming and scheming and daydreaming. New city. New friends. New Paige?

When Paige's parents move her family from Virginia to New York City, Paige doesn't know where she fits in anymore. At first, the only thing keeping her company is her notebook, where she pours her worries and observations and experiments with her secret identity: ARTIST. With the confidence the book brings her, she starts to make friends and shake up her family's expectations. But she is ready to become the person she draws in her notebook?

Laura Lee Gulledge's stunning art digs deep into the soul and exposes all the ups, downs, and sideways feelings of being a young adult on the edge of the rest of your life.]]> 192 Laura Lee Gulledge 0810997223 Kristine 4 3.92 2011 Page by Paige: A Graphic Novel
author: Laura Lee Gulledge
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2020/05/03
date added: 2020/05/03
shelves:
review:

]]> Before We Were Yours 32148570 Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty.

Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption.

Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.]]> 342 Lisa Wingate 0425284689 Kristine 4 4.38 2017 Before We Were Yours
author: Lisa Wingate
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2020/04/29
date added: 2020/04/29
shelves:
review:

]]> Attachments 8909152 "Hi, I'm the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you..."

Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It's company policy.) But they can't quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.

Meanwhile, Lincoln O'Neill can't believe this is his job now—reading other people's e-mail. When he applied to be "internet security officer," he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers—not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.

When Lincoln comes across Beth's and Jennifer's messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can't help being entertained—and captivated—by their stories.

By the time Lincoln realizes he's falling for Beth, it's way too late to introduce himself.

What would he say . . . ?]]> 323 Rainbow Rowell Kristine 4 3.86 2011 Attachments
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2020/03/29
date added: 2020/04/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)]]> 7260188 My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans—except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay—no matter what the personal cost.]]> 390 Suzanne Collins 0439023513 Kristine 5 4.10 2010 Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2020/03/21
date added: 2020/03/21
shelves:
review:

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

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

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

In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before . . . and surprising readers at every turn.]]> 391 Suzanne Collins 0439023491 Kristine 4 4.34 2009 Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2020/03/17
date added: 2020/03/21
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)]]> 2767052
Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . .

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.]]> 374 Suzanne Collins Kristine 5 4.34 2008 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2020/03/13
date added: 2020/03/13
shelves:
review:

]]> The Starless Sea 43575115 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Night Circus, a timeless love story set in a secret underground world—a place of pirates, painters, lovers, liars, and ships that sail upon a starless sea.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues—a bee, a key, and a sword—that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library hidden far below the surface of the earth. What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians—it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also of those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose—in both the mysterious book and in his own life.]]> 498 Erin Morgenstern 038554121X Kristine 4 3.82 2019 The Starless Sea
author: Erin Morgenstern
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/03/09
date added: 2020/03/11
shelves:
review:

]]> Jo's Boys (Little Women, #3) 372319 336 Louisa May Alcott 1406501077 Kristine 4 3.84 1886 Jo's Boys (Little Women, #3)
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1886
rating: 4
read at: 2020/02/27
date added: 2020/03/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Muse of Nightmares (Strange the Dreamer, #2)]]> 25446343 Sarai has lived and breathed nightmares since she was six years old.

She believed she knew every horror and was beyond surprise.

She was wrong.

In the wake of tragedy, neither Lazlo nor Sarai are who they were before. One a god, the other a ghost, they struggle to grasp the new boundaries of their selves as dark-minded Minya holds them hostage, intent on vengeance against Weep.

Lazlo faces an unthinkable choice—save the woman he loves, or everyone else?—while Sarai feels more helpless than ever. But is she? Sometimes, only the direst need can teach us our own depths, and Sarai, the Muse of Nightmares, has not yet discovered what she's capable of.

As humans and godspawn reel in the aftermath of the citadel's near fall, a new foe shatters their fragile hopes, and the mysteries of the Mesarthim are resurrected: Where did the gods come from, and why? What was done with thousands of children born in the citadel nursery? And most important of all, as forgotten doors are opened and new worlds revealed: Must heroes always slay monsters, or is it possible to save them instead?

Love and hate, revenge and redemption, destruction and salvation all clash in this astonishing and heart-stopping sequel to the New York Times bestseller, Strange the Dreamer.]]> 514 Laini Taylor 0316341711 Kristine 4 4.41 2018 Muse of Nightmares (Strange the Dreamer, #2)
author: Laini Taylor
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2020/02/21
date added: 2020/02/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Strange the Dreamer (Strange the Dreamer, #1)]]> 28449207 The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around�and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.

What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?

The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?

Welcome to Weep.]]> 532 Laini Taylor 0316341681 Kristine 4 4.27 2017 Strange the Dreamer (Strange the Dreamer, #1)
author: Laini Taylor
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2020/02/15
date added: 2020/02/18
shelves:
review:

]]> Little Men (Little Women, #2) 78950 329 Louisa May Alcott 1406954365 Kristine 0 3.88 1871 Little Men (Little Women, #2)
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: Kristine
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1871
rating: 0
read at: 2020/02/08
date added: 2020/02/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hand on the Wall (Truly Devious, #3)]]> 45240918
She knows who Truly Devious is. She’s solved it. The greatest case of the century.

At least, she thinks she has. With this latest tragedy, it’s hard to concentrate on the past. Not only has someone died in town, but David disappeared of his own free will and is up to something. Stevie is sure that somehow—somehow—all these things connect. The three deaths in the present. The deaths in the past. The missing Alice Ellingham and the missing David Eastman. Somewhere in this place of riddles and puzzles there must be answers.

Then another accident occurs as a massive storm heads toward Vermont. This is too much for the parents and administrators. Ellingham Academy is evacuated. Obviously, it’s time for Stevie to do something stupid. It’s time to stay on the mountain and face the storm—and a murderer.

In the tantalizing finale to the Truly Devious trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson expertly tangles her dual narrative threads and ignites an explosive end for all who’ve walked through Ellingham Academy.

New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson delivers the witty and pulse-pounding conclusion to the Truly Devious series as Stevie Bell solves the mystery that has haunted Ellingham Academy for over 75 years.]]> 369 Maureen Johnson 0062338110 Kristine 4 4.12 2020 The Hand on the Wall (Truly Devious, #3)
author: Maureen Johnson
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/02/07
date added: 2020/02/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Little Women (Little Women, #1)]]> 1934 This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780451529305.

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.

It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with "woman’s work,� including sewing, doing laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon discovered she could make more money writing. Little Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from being the "girl’s book� her publisher requested, it explores such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the conflict between personal ambition and family responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe and America.

]]> 449 Louisa May Alcott Kristine 5 i-own 4.16 1868 Little Women (Little Women, #1)
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1868
rating: 5
read at: 2020/01/31
date added: 2020/02/03
shelves: i-own
review:

]]> The Dire King (Jackaby, #4) 31438747 352 William Ritter 1616207620 Kristine 4 4.08 2017 The Dire King (Jackaby, #4)
author: William Ritter
name: Kristine
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2020/01/12
date added: 2020/01/12
shelves:
review:

]]>