�� gillian��'s bookshelf: all

�� gillian��'s bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 22 Dec 2024 03:04:15 -0800 60 �� gillian��'s bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Intermezzo 209311051
Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair and possibility—a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 442 Sally Rooney 0571365469 �� gillian�� 0 to-read 4.04 2024 Intermezzo

author: Sally Rooney
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories]]> 51762640 Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's.

In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Capote created a woman whose name has entered the American idiom and whose style is a part of the literary landscape—her poignancy, wit, and naïveté continue to charm.

It's New York in the 1940s, where the martinis flow from cocktail hour till breakfast at Tiffany's... And nice girls don't, except, of course, Holly Golightly. Pursued by Mafia gangsters and playboy millionaires, Holly is a fragile eyeful of tawny hair and turned-up nose, a heart-breaker, a perplexer, a traveler, a tease. She is irrepressibly 'top banana in the shock department', and one of the shining flowers of American fiction.

Also included are three of Capote's best-known stories:
�� House of Flowers - Ottilie is entranced by a beautiful young man, and leaves her life and friends to live with him and his old grandmother, who seems to hate her.
�� A Diamond Guitar - Hear the story of the prized possession of a younger prison inmate, a rhinestone-studded guitar.
�� A Christmas Memory - A poignant tale of two innocents—a small boy and the old woman who is his best friend—whose sweetness contains a hard, sharp kernel of truth.

Truman Capote (1924��1984) was an American writer whose non-fiction, stories, novels, and plays are recognized literary classics. His first novel, 'Other Voices, Other Rooms' (1948) stayed on the bestseller list for nine weeks. In the 1950s and 1960s, Capote remained prolific producing both fiction and non-fiction, such as the novella 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' (1958). His masterpiece, 'In Cold Blood' (1965), became a worldwide success, after which he published rarely and suffered from alcohol addiction. He died in 1984 at age 59. At least 20 films and TV dramas have been produced from Capote novels, stories and screenplays.]]> 178 Truman Capote 0679745653 �� gillian�� 3 3.84 1958 Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories

Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories

author: Truman Capote
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1958
rating: 3
read at: 2022/05/03
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: g-classics, g-novellas-and-shorts, 3-and-a-half-stars
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Winter (The Lunar Chronicles, #4)]]> 24917919
Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won't approve of her feelings for her childhood friend--the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn't as weak as Levana believes her to be and she's been undermining her stepmother's wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that's been raging for far too long.

Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters? Fans will not want to miss this thrilling conclusion to Marissa Meyer's national bestselling Lunar Chronicles series.]]> 603 Marissa Meyer 1250068754 �� gillian�� 4 Winter is the perfect finale for the Lunar Chronicles series! That ending definitely defined my childhood Disney dream of a happily ever after and I couldn't have asked for a better one.

Also, I LOVE IKO and I would die for this android. Just sayin']]> 4.41 2015 Winter (The Lunar Chronicles, #4)

author: Marissa Meyer
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2020/07/16
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: g-fantasy, g-retellings, 4-stars
review:
Winter is the perfect finale for the Lunar Chronicles series! That ending definitely defined my childhood Disney dream of a happily ever after and I couldn't have asked for a better one.

Also, I LOVE IKO and I would die for this android. Just sayin'
]]> <![CDATA[Godsgrave (The Nevernight Chronicle, #2)]]> 34326424 427 Jay Kristoff 1466885041 �� gillian�� 4 g-fantasy, 4-and-a-half-stars
If you think one single word couldn't affect you and cause you to fling your arms in the air like some retard and hit the nearest object beside you numerous times as if that would help to calm your nerves, then wait till you read Godsgrave. FLIP TO THE LAST PAGE. THAT LAST LINE. THAT SINGLE WORD. 'Byss and blood. imnotokay.]]> 4.46 2017 Godsgrave (The Nevernight Chronicle, #2)

Godsgrave (The Nevernight Chronicle, #2)

author: Jay Kristoff
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2020/05/18
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves: g-fantasy, 4-and-a-half-stars
review:
(4.5)

If you think one single word couldn't affect you and cause you to fling your arms in the air like some retard and hit the nearest object beside you numerous times as if that would help to calm your nerves, then wait till you read Godsgrave. FLIP TO THE LAST PAGE. THAT LAST LINE. THAT SINGLE WORD. 'Byss and blood. imnotokay.
]]> Blanca & Roja 38613394 The biggest lie of all is the story you think you already know.

The del Cisne girls have never just been sisters; they’re also rivals, Blanca as obedient and graceful as Roja is vicious and manipulative. They know that, because of a generations-old spell, their family is bound to a bevy of swans deep in the woods. They know that, one day, the swans will pull them into a dangerous game that will leave one of them a girl, and trap the other in the body of a swan.

But when two local boys become drawn into the game, the swans�� spell intertwines with the strange and unpredictable magic lacing the woods, and all four of their fates depend on facing truths that could either save or destroy them. Blanca & Roja is the captivating story of sisters, friendship, love, hatred, and the price we pay to protect our hearts.]]> 370 Anna-Marie McLemore 125016270X �� gillian�� 4 3.73 2018

author: Anna-Marie McLemore
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2020/07/30
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: g-magical-realism, underrated-af, g-lgbtqia-rep, g-retellings, unpopular-books, 4-stars
review:
Anna-Marie McLemore is one of the reasons why I constantly fall in love with magical realism books. Her books never disappoint.
]]> Girl in Pieces 24879132 Fans of Girl, Interrupted, Thirteen Reasons Why, and All the Bright Places will love this New York Times bestseller.

"A haunting, beautiful, and necessary book that will stay with you long after you've read the last page."—Nicola Yoon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything and The Sun Is Also a Star

Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen she’s already lost more than most people do in a lifetime. But she’s learned how to forget. The broken glass washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don’t have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you.

Every new scar hardens Charlie’s heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts enough to not care anymore, which is sometimes what has to happen before you can find your way back from the edge.

A deeply moving portrait of a girl in a world that owes her nothing, and has taken so much, and the journey she undergoes to put herself back together. Kathleen Glasgow's debut is heartbreakingly real and unflinchingly honest. It’s a story you won’t be able to look away from.

And don’t miss Kathleen Glasgow's novels You’d Be Home Now and How to Make Friends with the Dark , both raw and powerful stories of life.]]> 415 Kathleen Glasgow 1101934727 �� gillian�� 5 okay, just another book to tick off my to-read list, no expectations but ended up loving it instead and wondering why no one else is talking about it?

Girl in Pieces is that book. And as Ellis says it, this book is fucking angelic.]]> 4.09 2016

author: Kathleen Glasgow
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2019/06/01
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: all-time-fave, fave-2019, 5-stars
review:
Ever picked up a book and thought, okay, just another book to tick off my to-read list, no expectations but ended up loving it instead and wondering why no one else is talking about it?

Girl in Pieces is that book. And as Ellis says it, this book is fucking angelic.
]]> <![CDATA[Anna K: A Love Story (Anna K, #1)]]> 52922530 Every happy teenage girl is the same, while every unhappy teenage girl is miserable in her own special way.

Meet Anna K. At seventeen, she is at the top of Manhattan and Greenwich society (even if she prefers the company of her horses and Newfoundland dogs); she has the perfect (if perfectly boring) boyfriend, Alexander W.; and she has always made her Korean-American father proud (even if he can be a little controlling). Meanwhile, Anna's brother, Steven, and his girlfriend, Lolly, are trying to weather an sexting scandal; Lolly’s little sister, Kimmie, is struggling to recalibrate to normal life after an injury derails her ice dancing career; and Steven’s best friend, Dustin, is madly (and one-sidedly) in love with Kimmie.

As her friends struggle with the pitfalls of ordinary teenage life, Anna always seems to be able to sail gracefully above it all. That is…until the night she meets Alexia “Count�� Vronsky at Grand Central. A notorious playboy who has bounced around boarding schools and who lives for his own pleasure, Alexia is everything Anna is not. But he has never been in love until he meets Anna, and maybe she hasn’t, either. As Alexia and Anna are pulled irresistibly together, she has to decide how much of her life she is willing to let go for the chance to be with him. And when a shocking revelation threatens to shatter their relationship, she is forced to question if she has ever known herself at all.

Dazzlingly opulent and emotionally riveting, Anna A Love Story is a brilliant reimagining of Leo Tolstoy's timeless love story, Anna Karenina―but above all, it is a novel about the dizzying, glorious, heart-stopping experience of first love and first heartbreak.]]> 383 Jenny Lee 1250236428 �� gillian�� 4 Anna K: A Love Story.

"Why do people call it a love story when they both end up dead? It doesn't make sense. Why does nothing make sense?

Anna K. is a modern retelling of Anna Karerina which showcases the opulent lifestyle of some of New York’s one-percenters which revolves around love, sex, drug abuse, and the never-ending affairs. This book is told from the alternating POVs of a diverse set of characters where we get to explore love in its many forms, depression, racism, parental pressure, and the double standards of cheating where women always get the shorter end of the stick.

Jenny Lee’s writing is captivating and I was hooked from the very first chapter. I had a fun ride getting a glimpse of the lifestyle of the upper echelon of society and laughing my ass off at how ridiculous they were. Although the characters in this book were highly unlikeable because of their petty, privileged, and self-entitled asses, I was very entertained by them. I also love some of the character developments as the story progressed, especially for Kimmie.

��...tomorrow she was flying off to start her new life, stronger now, because a boy she loved with all her heart had loved her more. And she deserved it.��

author: Jenny Lee
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/07/24
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: underrated-af, g-contemporary-romance, fave-2020, g-retellings, 4-stars
review:
This book is the epitome of all the things I hate in contemporary romance books⁠—too much drama, detestable characters, insta-love, incest (though hinted slightly), cheating, and more cheating. But in spite of all of these, I still fell in love with Anna K: A Love Story.

"Why do people call it a love story when they both end up dead? It doesn't make sense. Why does nothing make sense?

��...tomorrow she was flying off to start her new life, stronger now, because a boy she loved with all her heart had loved her more. And she deserved it.��

I must admit that I wasn't initially a fan of Anna K. and Vronsky's love affair. But somehow their love managed to tug at my heartstrings and I ended up rooting for them. As someone who hasn't read Anna Karerina , the ending was something I did not expect at all. Though based on the Wiki summary that I've read, this modern retelling took a different route with the ending. But both ended in a bitter and tragic way. Hopefully, we get a better ending in the upcoming second book!
]]> <![CDATA[The Bone Witch (The Bone Witch, #1)]]> 31140295 Let me be clear: I never intended to raise my brother from his grave, though he may claim otherwise. If there's anything I've learned from him in the years since, it's that the dead hide truths as well as the living.

When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother from the dead, she learns she is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she's a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older, wiser bone witch, who takes Tea and her brother to another land for training.

In her new home, Tea puts all her energy into becoming an asha-one who can wield elemental magic. But dark forces are approaching quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles...and make a powerful choice.]]> 432 Rin Chupeco 1492635839 �� gillian�� 4 If there's one thing that disappointed me about this book, it's that 3.71 average rating!

THIS BOOK DESERVES MORE THAN THAT IMHO. I was sad to see a number of readers DNF-ing The Bone Witch because it was an interesting and enjoyable read for me. However, upon intense research a.k.a just simply scrolling down to read some reviews, I came up with a conclusion that readers who opted for a 3-star and below rating or a DNF complained mostly about two things:

(1) slow-paced or nothing-ever-happened plot
(2) purple prose writing.

So if you detest books comprising of these two elements, then you might not enjoy this book as much as I did. Don't say I didn't warn you though.

“Then perhaps we should carve a world one day where the strength lies in who you are, rather than in what they expect you to be.��

The Bone Witch is a great book to start this trilogy. Contrary to most who got bored with and hated the overwhelmingly long descriptions, I was mesmerized by the elaborate writing style and world-building that Rin Chupeco was able to weave. Chupeco created a story with unique concepts comprising of ashas, deathseekers, heartglasses, and daevas and introduced us to a diverse set of characters.

This book is told from a Bard's POV where we get to see short snippets of Tea in the present. This part is my favourite because it kept me guessing about the past and what happened to Tea to end up being exiled. [spoilers removed] We also get a backstory of Tea told from her POV on her journey to becoming a Dark asha. And I do agree to most reviews that we didn't get enough actions in this book because it focuses mostly on the world-building, in which Chupeco totally excelled at. I think The Bone Witch is just an introduction to a much more dark and intense plot brewing in the next two books. This book has a promising and well-developed plot that I couldn't wait to read The Heart Forger.

P.S. Rin Chupeco has the most remarkable Acknowledgments and Dedication page. Thanking Tom Hiddleston⁠—just because⁠—and dedicating this precious book to ramen and its supplier. I STAN.

P.P.S. Look at that book cover! ]]> 3.84 2017 The Bone Witch (The Bone Witch, #1)

author: Rin Chupeco
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2020/07/01
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: underrated-af, g-fantasy, 4-stars
review:
If there's one thing that disappointed me about this book, it's that 3.71 average rating!

THIS BOOK DESERVES MORE THAN THAT IMHO. I was sad to see a number of readers DNF-ing The Bone Witch because it was an interesting and enjoyable read for me. However, upon intense research a.k.a just simply scrolling down to read some reviews, I came up with a conclusion that readers who opted for a 3-star and below rating or a DNF complained mostly about two things:

(1) slow-paced or nothing-ever-happened plot
(2) purple prose writing.

So if you detest books comprising of these two elements, then you might not enjoy this book as much as I did. Don't say I didn't warn you though.

“Then perhaps we should carve a world one day where the strength lies in who you are, rather than in what they expect you to be.��

author: Eric Smith
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/06/05
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: g-contemporary-romance, unpopular-books, 4-stars
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Girls with Sharp Sticks (Girls with Sharp Sticks, #1)]]> 43549455 “Enough plot twists to give a reader whiplash.�� —Cosmopolitan From New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Young comes the start of a thrilling, subversive new series about a girls-only boarding school with a terrifying secret and the friends who will stop at nothing to protect each other.Some of the prettiest flowers have the sharpest thorns. The Girls of Innovations Academy are beautiful and well-behaved—it says so on their report cards. Under the watchful gaze of their Guardian, they receive a well-rounded education that promises to make them better. Obedient girls, free from arrogance or defiance. Free from troublesome opinions or individual interests. But the girls�� carefully controlled existence may not be quite as it appears. As Mena and her friends uncover the dark secrets of what’s actually happening there—and who they really are—the girls of Innovations Academy will learn to fight back. Bringing the trademark plot twists and high-octane drama that made The Program a bestselling and award-winning series, Suzanne Young launches a new series that confronts some of today’s most pressing ethical questions.]]> 401 Suzanne Young 1534426159 �� gillian�� 5
RTC]]> 3.84 2019 Girls with Sharp Sticks (Girls with Sharp Sticks, #1)

Girls with Sharp Sticks (Girls with Sharp Sticks, #1)

author: Suzanne Young
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2019/07/29
date added: 2024/08/05
shelves: underrated-af, fave-2019, g-sci-fi, unpopular-books, 4-and-a-half-stars, g-dark-academia
review:
WOW! This is probably one of the best books I've read this year!!! Everything about the title and the book cover totally makes sense to me now.

RTC
]]> <![CDATA[A Court of Frost and Starlight (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3.5)]]> 31076583 229 Sarah J. Maas 168119631X �� gillian�� 0 3.77 2019

A Court of Frost and Starlight (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3.5)

author: Sarah J. Maas
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2018/07/05
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves: g-novellas-and-shorts, g-fantasy
review:
This is such a light-hearted and fluffy novella by Sarah J. Maas. Definitely a great way to calm our hearts from all those intense Under the Mountain and Hybern scenes from the previous books. As much as I really really love the development with Feyre and Rhys's relationship, I had a hard time not hating Nesta's attitude towards Feyre and the rest (Tho I'm definitely looking forward to the 4th book. That sneak peek gave me so much to look forward to!!!). [spoilers removed]
]]> Digital Fortress 5162373
Caught in an accelerating tempest of secrecy and lies, Susan Fletcher battles to save the agency she believes in. Betrayed on all sides, she finds herself fighting not only for her country but for her life, and in the end, for the life of the man she loves.

From the underground hallways of power to the skyscrapers of Tokyo to the towering cathedrals of Spain, a desperate race unfolds. It is a battle for survival--a crucial bid to destroy a creation of inconceivable genius...an impregnable code-writing formula that threatens to obliterate the post-cold war balance of power. Forever.]]> 525 Dan Brown 0312944926 �� gillian�� 0 3.67 1998 Digital Fortress

author: Dan Brown
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/29
shelves: g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, g-sci-fi
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)]]> 960
A devastating new weapon of destruction.
When world-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol -- seared into the chest of a murdered physicist -- he discovers evidence of the unimaginable: the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati...the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. The Illuminati has now surfaced to carry out the final phase of its legendary vendetta against its most hated enemy -- the Catholic Church.

Langdon's worst fears are confirmed on the eve of the Vatican's holy conclave, when a messenger of the Illuminati announces they have hidden an unstoppable time bomb at the very heart of Vatican City. With the countdown under way, Langdon jets to Rome to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and mysterious Italian scientist, to assist the Vatican in a desperate bid for survival.
Embarking on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that snakes across Rome toward the long-forgotten Illuminati lair...a clandestine location that contains the only hope for Vatican salvation.

An explosive international thriller, Angels & Demons careens from enlightening epiphanies to dark truths as the battle between science and religion turns to war.]]> 736 Dan Brown 1416524797 �� gillian�� 0 g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc 3.95 2000 Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)

author: Dan Brown
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/20
shelves: g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Yellow Wall-Paper (Penguin Little Black Classics, #42)]]> 24874307 'The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.'

Written with barely controlled fury after she was confined to her room for 'nerves' and forbidden to write, Gilman's pioneering feminist horror story scandalized nineteenth-century readers with its portrayal of a woman who loses her mind because she has literally nothing to do.

Also contains The Rocking-Chair and Old Water.]]> 54 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 0141397411 �� gillian�� 4 4.07 1892 The Yellow Wall-Paper (Penguin Little Black Classics, #42)

The Yellow Wall-Paper (Penguin Little Black Classics, #42)

author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1892
rating: 4
read at: 2022/03/20
date added: 2023/11/29
shelves: g-classics, g-novellas-and-shorts, g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, 4-and-a-half-stars
review:

]]> Ugly Love 20736424
Never ask about the past.
Don’t expect a future.

They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.

Hearts get infiltrated.
Promises get broken.
Rules get shattered.
Love gets ugly.]]> 317 Colleen Hoover 1476753199 �� gillian�� 2 3.67 2014 Ugly Love

author: Colleen Hoover
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at: 2020/07/06
date added: 2023/06/30
shelves: g-contemporary-romance, i-dont-get-the-hype, 2-stars
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle]]> 35967101 A brilliantly original high concept murder mystery from a fantastic new talent: Gosford Park meets Inception, by way of Agatha Christie and Black Mirror.

'Somebody's going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won't appear to be a murder and so the murderer won't be caught. Rectify that injustice and I'll show you the way out.'

It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.

But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden �� one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party �� can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot.

The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath...

Also titled as The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.]]> 505 Stuart Turton �� gillian�� 4 3.87 2018 The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

author: Stuart Turton
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2018/12/11
date added: 2023/04/21
shelves: g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, 3-and-a-half-stars
review:
This is what I imagined Black Mirror Season 5 would be.
]]> Hooky Volume 1 56732222 Two twins,��one prophecy, and a whole lot of hijinks. From WEBTOON, the #1 digital comic platform, comes a fantastical story about twin siblings Dani and Dorian who have missed the bus to magic school and scramble to find a mentor�� to teach them before their parents find out. Perfect for fans of THE OKAY WITCH and��the 5 Worlds series.��

When Dani and Dorian missed the bus to magic school, they never thought they'd wind up declared traitors to their own kind! Now, thanks to a series of mishaps, they are being chased by powerful magic families seeking the prophesied King of Witches and royals searching for missing princes.
��
But they aren't alone. With a local troublemaker, a princess, and a teacher who can see the future on their side, they might just be able to clear their names…but can they heal their torn kingdom?
��
Based on the beloved webcomic from WEBTOON, Hooky is in stunning print format for the first time with exclusive new content sure to please fans new and old.
��

Episodes 1-71]]> 384 Míriam Bonastre Tur 0358468299 �� gillian�� 0 g-graphic-novels 4.38 2021 Hooky Volume 1

author: Míriam Bonastre Tur
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2020/01/17
date added: 2022/08/28
shelves: g-graphic-novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job]]> 52692515 Convenience Store Woman meets My Year of Rest and Relaxation in this strange, compelling, darkly funny tale of one woman's search for meaning in the modern workplace.

A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: it is close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing �� and ideally, very little thinking.

She is sent to a nondescript office building where she is tasked with watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods. But observing someone for hours on end can be so inconvenient and tiresome. How will she stay awake? When can she take delivery of her favourite brand of tea? And, perhaps more importantly �� how did she find herself in this situation in the first place?

As she moves from job to job, writing bus adverts for shops that mysteriously disappear, and composing advice for rice cracker wrappers that generate thousands of devoted followers, it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all, but something altogether more meaningful...]]> 416 Kikuko Tsumura 1526622246 �� gillian�� 0 3.61 2015 There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job

author: Kikuko Tsumura
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/27
shelves: g-literary-fiction, g-translated, currently-reading
review:

]]> My Body 57145833
Emily Ratajkowski is an acclaimed model and actress, an engaged political progressive, a formidable entrepreneur, a global social media phenomenon, and now, a writer. Rocketing to world fame at age twenty-one, Ratajkowski sparked both praise and furor with the provocative display of her body as an unapologetic statement of feminist empowerment. The subsequent evolution in her thinking about our culture’s commodification of women is the subject of this book.

My Body is a profoundly personal exploration of feminism, sexuality, and power, of men's treatment of women and women's rationalizations for accepting that treatment. These essays chronicle moments from Ratajkowski’s life while investigating the culture’s fetishization of girls and female beauty, its obsession with and contempt for women’s sexuality, the perverse dynamics of the fashion and film industries, and the gray area between consent and abuse. Nuanced, fierce, and incisive, My Body marks the debut of a writer brimming with courage and intelligence.]]> 239 Emily Ratajkowski 1250817862 �� gillian�� 4 g-nonfiction 3.99 2021 My Body

author: Emily Ratajkowski
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/29
date added: 2022/06/29
shelves: g-nonfiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)]]> 40953854 This is a collector's edition with an exclusive letter from the author and six stunning full-colour character portraits.

Criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker is offered a chance at a deadly heist: break into the Ice Court - a military stronghold that has never been breached - and retrieve a hostage whose knowledge could change Grisha magic forever. To succeed would mean rich beyond his wildest dreams - but he can't pull it off alone . . .

A convict with a thirst for revenge.
A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager.
A runaway with a privileged past.
A spy known as the Wraith.
A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.
A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Together they might just be unstoppable - if they don't kill each other first.]]> 494 Leigh Bardugo 1510106286 �� gillian�� 5 Excuse me, ŷ��...but I need 6 awesome stars for Kaz, Inej, Nina, Matthias, Jesper and Wylan. Please work out on adding an additional star rating solely for this matter, thank you!

This book is phenomenal! You guys told me how fucking awesome this book is but I wasn't informed that this book is also capable of playing with my emotions and breaking my heart!

Inej and Kaz totally break me. Their love is so bittersweet. I just wanna wrap myself with a blanket and cry for days. Then there's Nina and Matthias. This push and pull relationship is so frustrating yet I love them so much it breaks me too! And Jesper and Wylan's relationship is so precious! Y'all, I DIED. This is literally my soul typing. Next time, please warn me of all the good and bad so I can fully prepare myself.

Now, I'm off to Crooked Kingdom. But first, let's take a minute of silence to pray for my soul so I can anticipate any unprecedented events that may cause me to lose my sanity and break my already broken heart.

Your silence and prayers are deeply appreciated.]]> 4.62 2015 Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)

author: Leigh Bardugo
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2018/12/06
date added: 2022/06/17
shelves: all-time-fave, g-fantasy, x-collectors-specials-signed, fave-2018, g-lgbtqia-rep, 5-stars
review:
Excuse me, ŷ��...but I need 6 awesome stars for Kaz, Inej, Nina, Matthias, Jesper and Wylan. Please work out on adding an additional star rating solely for this matter, thank you!

This book is phenomenal! You guys told me how fucking awesome this book is but I wasn't informed that this book is also capable of playing with my emotions and breaking my heart!

Inej and Kaz totally break me. Their love is so bittersweet. I just wanna wrap myself with a blanket and cry for days. Then there's Nina and Matthias. This push and pull relationship is so frustrating yet I love them so much it breaks me too! And Jesper and Wylan's relationship is so precious! Y'all, I DIED. This is literally my soul typing. Next time, please warn me of all the good and bad so I can fully prepare myself.

Now, I'm off to Crooked Kingdom. But first, let's take a minute of silence to pray for my soul so I can anticipate any unprecedented events that may cause me to lose my sanity and break my already broken heart.

Your silence and prayers are deeply appreciated.
]]> Everything I Know About Love 40099418 Sunday Times dating columnist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, she vividly recounts falling in love, wrestling with self-sabotage, finding a job, throwing a socially disastrous Rod-Stewart themed house party, getting drunk, getting dumped, realising that Ivan from the corner shop is the only man you've ever been able to rely on, and finding that that your mates are always there at the end of every messy night out. It's a book about bad dates, good friends and - above all else - about recognising that you and you alone are enough.

Glittering with wit and insight, heart and humour, Dolly Alderton's powerful début weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age - while making you laugh until you fall over. Everything I know About Love is about the struggles of early adulthood in all its grubby, hopeful uncertainty.]]> 358 Dolly Alderton 0241982103 �� gillian�� 4 g-nonfiction 4.00 2018

author: Dolly Alderton
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/14
date added: 2022/06/14
shelves: g-nonfiction
review:
this book is a huge slap to my life right now
]]> <![CDATA[Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory: Stories]]> 50165101 ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
NPR - THE A.V. CLUB

From the creator of the beloved and universally acclaimed television series BoJack Horseman, a fabulously off-beat collection of short stories about love--the best and worst thing in the universe.

"Complex, daring, emotional, and unique, with notes of melancholic brilliance and an aftertaste of subtle elation: it is hard to describe the writing of Raphael Bob-Waksberg without sounding like Frasier discussing wine."
--B. J. Novak, author of One More Thing

Written with all the scathing dark humor that is a hallmark of BoJack Horseman, Raphael Bob-Waksberg's stories will make you laugh, weep, and shiver in uncomfortably delicious recognition. In "A Most Blessed and Auspicious Occasion," a young couple engaged to be married is forced to deal with interfering relatives dictating the appropriate number of ritual goat sacrifices for their wedding. "Missed Connection--m4w" is the tragicomic tale of a pair of lonely commuters eternally failing to make that longed-for contact. And in "More of the You That You Already Are," a struggling employee at a theme park of dead presidents finds that love can't be genetically modified.

Equally at home with the surreal and the painfully relatable (and both at once), Bob-Waksberg delivers a killer combination of humor, romance, whimsy, cultural commentary, and crushing emotional vulnerability.]]> 256 Raphael Bob-Waksberg 0525432728 �� gillian�� 4 3.95 2019 Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory: Stories

Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory: Stories

author: Raphael Bob-Waksberg
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/27
date added: 2022/05/27
shelves: g-novellas-and-shorts, 4-stars
review:

]]> Lapvona 59089897 In a village in a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself the unlikely pivot in a power struggle that puts all manner of faith to a savage test, in a spellbinding novel that represents Ottessa Moshfegh's most exciting leap yet

Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, never knew his mother; his father told him she died in childbirth. One of life's few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him when he was a baby, as she did for many of the village's children.

Ina's gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on levels far beyond those available to other villagers, however religious they might be. For some people, Ina's home in the woods outside the village is a place to fear and to avoid, a godless place.

Among their number is Father Barnabas, the town priest and lackey for the depraved lord and governor, Villiam, whose hilltop manor contains a secret embarrassment of riches. The people's desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villiam and the priest, especially in this year of record drought and famine.

But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the lord's family, new and occult forces upset the old order. By year's end, the veil between blindness and sight, life and death, the natural world and the spirit world will prove to be very thin indeed.]]> 304 Ottessa Moshfegh 0593300262 �� gillian�� 0 3.54 2022 Lapvona

author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/26
shelves: to-read, tbr-2022-releases, g-historical-fiction, g-literary-fiction
review:

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

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

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

If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.]]> 377 Emily Henry 0593334833 �� gillian�� 2 Beach Read & People We Meet on Vacation >>>>> Book Lovers ]]> 4.09 2022

author: Emily Henry
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2022/05/12
date added: 2022/05/23
shelves: g-contemporary-romance, 2-and-a-half-stars, i-dont-get-the-hype
review:
Hate to be the minority here but Beach Read & People We Meet on Vacation >>>>> Book Lovers
]]> Never Let Me Go 6334
Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it’s only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is.

Never Let Me Go breaks through the boundaries of the literary novel. It is a gripping mystery, a beautiful love story, and also a scathing critique of human arrogance and a moral examination of how we treat the vulnerable and different in our society. In exploring the themes of memory and the impact of the past, Ishiguro takes on the idea of a possible future to create his most moving and powerful book to date.]]> 288 Kazuo Ishiguro 1400078776 �� gillian�� 0 3.85 2005 Never Let Me Go

author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/22
shelves: to-read, g-sci-fi, g-dark-academia
review:

]]> Cleopatra and Frankenstein 57693262 For readers of Modern Lovers and Conversations with Friends, an addictive, humorous, and poignant debut novel about the shock waves caused by one couple's impulsive marriage.

Twenty-four-year-old British painter Cleo has escaped from England to New York and is still finding her place in the sleepless city when, a few months before her student visa ends, she meets Frank. Twenty years older and a self-made success, Frank's life is full of all the excesses Cleo's lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint, and the opportunity to apply for a Green Card. But their impulsive marriage irreversibly changes both their lives, and the lives of those close to them, in ways they never could've predicted.

Each compulsively readable chapter explores the lives of Cleo, Frank, and an unforgettable cast of their closest friends and family as they grow up and grow older. Whether it's Cleo's best friend struggling to embrace his gender queerness in the wake of Cleo's marriage, or Frank's financially dependent sister arranging sugar daddy dates to support herself after being cut off, or Cleo and Frank themselves as they discover the trials of marriage and mental illness, each character is as absorbing, and painfully relatable, as the last.

As hilarious as it is heartbreaking, entertaining as it is deeply moving, Cleopatra and Frankenstein marks the entry of a brilliant and bold new talent.]]> 384 Coco Mellors 1635576814 �� gillian�� 4 3.71 2022

author: Coco Mellors
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/20
date added: 2022/05/20
shelves: g-literary-fiction, 4-and-a-half-stars, fave-2022
review:
i couldn't remember the last time i felt something over fictional characters, so thank you coco mellors for that.
]]> Confess 25040077
For once, Auburn takes a risk and puts her heart in control, only to discover Owen is keeping major secrets from coming out. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything important to Auburn, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it.

The last thing Owen wants is to lose Auburn, but he can’t seem to convince her that truth is sometimes as subjective as art. All he would have to do to save their relationship is confess. But in this case, the confession could be much more destructive than the actual sin…]]> 320 Colleen Hoover 1476791465 �� gillian�� 3 3.83 2015 Confess

author: Colleen Hoover
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2020/07/09
date added: 2022/05/11
shelves: g-contemporary-romance, 3-stars
review:

]]> Elena Knows 56802275 A unique tale that interweaves crime fiction with intimate tales of morality and search for individual freedom.

After Rita is found dead in the bell tower of the church she used to attend, the official investigation into the incident is quickly closed. Her sickly mother is the only person still determined to find the culprit. Chronicling a difficult journey across the suburbs of the city, an old debt and a revealing conversation, Elena Knows unravels the secrets of its characters and the hidden facets of authoritarianism and hypocrisy in our society.]]> 143 Claudia Piñeiro �� gillian�� 0 4.09 2007

author: Claudia Piñeiro
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/03
shelves: to-read, g-literary-fiction, g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, unpopular-books, that-cover-tho
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast (Penguin Little Black Classics, #119)]]> 29081916 60 Oscar Wilde �� gillian�� 3 3.97 2016

Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast (Penguin Little Black Classics, #119)

author: Oscar Wilde
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2022/05/03
date added: 2022/05/03
shelves: g-classics, g-novellas-and-shorts, 3-stars
review:

]]> Layla 52737423
Feeling distant from Layla, Leeds soon finds solace in Willow—another guest of the B&B with whom he forms a connection through their shared concerns. As his curiosity for Willow grows, his decision to help her find answers puts him in direct conflict with Layla’s well-being. Leeds soon realizes he has to make a choice because he can’t help both of them. But if he makes the wrong choice, it could be detrimental for all of them.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover comes a novel that explores life after tragedy and the enduring spirit of love.]]> 290 Colleen Hoover 1542000173 �� gillian�� 1 3.67 2020 Layla

author: Colleen Hoover
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2020
rating: 1
read at: 2021/02/26
date added: 2022/04/30
shelves: g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, 1-star
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke]]> 57876868
What have you done today to deserve your eyes?]]> 120 Eric LaRocca 1951658132 �� gillian�� 2 2.94 2021

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

author: Eric LaRocca
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 2.94
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2022/04/30
date added: 2022/04/30
shelves: g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, g-lgbtqia-rep, g-novellas-and-shorts, x-weird, 2-and-a-half-stars
review:
Things have gotten worse since I last read this book. I AM SO DISTURBED.
]]> How to Kill Your Family 50224049
When I think about what I actually did, I feel somewhat sad that nobody will ever know about the complex operation that I undertook. Getting away with it is highly preferable, of course, but perhaps when I’m long gone, someone will open an old safe and find this confession. The public would reel. After all, almost nobody else in the world can possibly understand how someone, by the tender age of 28, can have calmly killed six members of her family. And then happily got on with the rest of her life, never to regret a thing.

When Grace Bernard discovers her absentee millionaire father has rejected her dying mother’s pleas for help, she vows revenge, and sets about to kill every member of his family. Readers have a front row seat as Grace picks off the family one by one �� and the result is as and gruesome as it is entertaining in this wickedly dark romp about class, family, love�� and murder.

But then Grace is imprisoned for a murder she didn’t commit.

Outrageously funny, compulsive and subversive, perfect for fans of Killing Eve and My Sister, the Serial Killer.]]> 355 Bella Mackie �� gillian�� 3
"For my dad, who read me a hundred murderous bedtime stories. For my mum, who read me a hundred uplifting ones. I promise never to kill either of you."

LOL]]> 3.49 2021 How to Kill Your Family

author: Bella Mackie
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/04/29
date added: 2022/04/29
shelves: g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, 3-and-a-half-stars
review:
Imagine telling your family that you wrote a new novel, and when one of them asks what the title is, you say "How to Kill Your Family". So you end up writing this on the dedication page hoping they don't send you to a psychiatrist.

"For my dad, who read me a hundred murderous bedtime stories. For my mum, who read me a hundred uplifting ones. I promise never to kill either of you."

LOL
]]> Outline 40176913
Beginning with the neighbouring passenger on the flight out and his tales of fast boats and failed marriages, the storytellers talk of their loves and ambitions and pains, their anxieties, their perceptions and daily lives. In the stifling heat and noise of the city the sequence of voice begins to weave a complex human tapestry. The more they talk the more elliptical their listener becomes, as she shapes and directs their accounts until certain themes begin to emerge: the experience of loss, the nature of family life, the difficulty of intimacy and the mystery of creativity itself.

Outline is a novel about writing and talking, about self-effacement and self-expression, about the desire to create and the human art of self-portraiture in which that desire finds its universal form.]]> 249 Rachel Cusk 0571346766 �� gillian�� 0 to-read, g-literary-fiction 3.75 2014 Outline

author: Rachel Cusk
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: to-read, g-literary-fiction
review:

]]> A Very Nice Girl 60231073 A bitingly honest, darkly funny debut about ambition, sex, power, and love, Imogen Crimp's A Very Nice Girl cracks open the timeless questions of what it is to be young, what it is to want to be wanted, and what it is to find your calling but lose your way to it.

Anna doesn’t fit in. Not with her wealthy classmates at the selective London Conservatory where she unexpectedly wins a place after university, not with the family she left behind, and definitely not with Max, a man she meets in the bar where she sings for cash. He’s everything she’s not—rich, tailored to precision, impossible to read—and before long Anna is hooked, desperate to hold his attention, and determined to ignore the warning signs that this might be a toxic relationship.

As Anna shuttles from grueling rehearsals to brutal auditions, she finds herself torn between two conflicting desires: the drive to nurture her fledgling singing career, which requires her undivided attention, and the longing for human connection. When the stakes increase, and the roles she’s playing—both on stage and off—begin to feel all-consuming, Anna must reckon with the fact that, in carefully performing what’s expected of her as a woman, she risks losing sight of herself completely.

Both exceedingly contemporary and classic, A Very Nice Girl reminds us that even once we have taken possession of our destinies we still have the power to set all we hold dear on fire.]]> 352 Imogen Crimp �� gillian�� 0 3.48 2022

author: Imogen Crimp
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: to-read, g-literary-fiction, tbr-2022-releases
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Sun Will Rise and So Will We]]> 53204046 113 Jennae Cecelia �� gillian�� 3 g-poetry, 3-stars 3.68 2020

author: Jennae Cecelia
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2022/03/20
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: g-poetry, 3-stars
review:

]]> Cursed Bunny 56648660 Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society.

Anton Hur’s translation skilfully captures the way Chung’s prose effortlessly glides from being terrifying to wryly humorous. Winner of a PEN/Heim Grant.]]> 251 Bora Chung 1916277187 �� gillian�� 5 3.77 2017 Cursed Bunny

author: Bora Chung
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2022/04/27
date added: 2022/04/27
shelves: g-translated, g-novellas-and-shorts, g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, x-weird, unpopular-books, 4-and-a-half-stars, fave-2022
review:
I'm honestly in awe of Korean literature and how they are translated. Nothing I've read so far has disappointed me.
]]> The Chosen and the Beautiful 55169019
Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She's also queer, Asian, adopted, and treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her.

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

Nghi Vo's debut novel The Chosen and the Beautiful reinvents this classic of the American canon as a coming-of-age story full of magic, mystery, and glittering excess, and introduces a major new literary voice.]]> 260 Nghi Vo 1250784786 �� gillian�� 0 3.53 2021 The Chosen and the Beautiful

author: Nghi Vo
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/26
shelves: to-read, g-historical-fiction, g-lgbtqia-rep, that-cover-tho, g-retellings
review:

]]> If I Had Your Face 52696537 If I Had Your Face plunges us into the mesmerising world of contemporary Seoul - a place where extreme plastic surgery is as routine as getting a haircut, where women compete for spots in secret 'room salons' to entertain wealthy businessmen after hours, where K-Pop stars are the object of all-consuming obsession and ruthless social hierarchies dictate your every move.

Navigating this cutthroat city are four young women balancing on the razor edge of survival: Kyuri, an exquisitely beautiful woman whose hard-won status at an exclusive 'room salon' is threatened by an impulsive mistake with a client; her flatmate, Miho, an orphan who wins a scholarship to a prestigious art school in New York, where her life becomes tragically enmeshed with the super-wealthy offspring of the Korean elite; Wonna, their neighbour, pregnant with a child that she and her husband have no idea how they will afford to raise in a fiercely competitive economy; and Ara, a hair stylist living down the hall, whose infatuation with a fresh-faced K-Pop star drives her to violent extremes.]]> 288 Frances Cha 0593129466 �� gillian�� 0 to-read, g-literary-fiction 3.74 2020 If I Had Your Face

author: Frances Cha
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/24
shelves: to-read, g-literary-fiction
review:

]]> Vladimir 60172988 A provocative, razor-sharp, and timely debut novel about a beloved English professor facing a slew of accusations against her professor husband by former students—a situation that becomes more complicated when she herself develops an obsession of her own...

“When I was a child, I loved old men, and I could tell that they also loved me.��

And so we are introduced to our deliciously incisive narrator: a popular English professor whose charismatic husband at the same small liberal arts college is under investigation for his inappropriate relationships with his former students. The couple have long had a mutual understanding when it comes to their extra-marital pursuits, but with these new allegations, life has become far less comfortable for them both. And when our narrator becomes increasingly infatuated with Vladimir, a celebrated, married young novelist who’s just arrived on campus, their tinder box world comes dangerously close to exploding.

With this bold, edgy, and uncommonly assured debut, author Julia May Jonas takes us into charged territory, where the boundaries of morality bump up against the impulses of the human heart. Propulsive, darkly funny, and wildly entertaining, Vladimir perfectly captures the personal and political minefield of our current moment, exposing the nuances and the grey area between power and desire.]]> 256 Julia May Jonas �� gillian�� 2 3.51 2022

author: Julia May Jonas
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2022/04/23
date added: 2022/04/24
shelves: g-literary-fiction, 2-and-a-half-stars
review:
this book feels like attending a dinner party where everyone is laughing at a joke you don't understand. i was that lost.
]]> <![CDATA[Heartstopper: Volume One (Heartstopper, #1)]]> 40495957
Charlie Spring is in Year 10 at Truham Grammar School for Boys. The past year hasn't been too great, but at least he's not being bullied anymore. Nick Nelson is in Year 11 and on the school rugby team. He's heard a little about Charlie - the kid who was outed last year and bullied for a few months - but he's never had the opportunity to talk to him.

They quickly become friends, and soon Charlie is falling hard for Nick, even though he doesn't think he has a chance. But love works in surprising ways, and sometimes good things are waiting just around the corner...]]> 288 Alice Oseman 152722533X �� gillian�� 4 4.43 2018 Heartstopper: Volume One (Heartstopper, #1)

Heartstopper: Volume One (Heartstopper, #1)

author: Alice Oseman
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2022/04/13
date added: 2022/04/22
shelves: g-graphic-novels, fave-2019, g-lgbtqia-rep, 4-and-a-half-stars, x-reread
review:
the long wait is finally over. here's to me binge-watching the entire series tonight
]]> Portrait of a Thief 57021127 Ocean’s Eleven meets The Farewell in Portrait of a Thief, a lush, lyrical heist novel inspired by the true story of Chinese art vanishing from Western museums; about diaspora, the colonization of art, and the complexity of the Chinese American identity.

History is told by the conquerors. Across the Western world, museums display the spoils of war, of conquest, of colonialism: priceless pieces of art looted from other countries, kept even now.

Will Chen plans to steal them back.

A senior at Harvard, Will fits comfortably in his carefully curated roles: a perfect student, an art history major and sometimes artist, the eldest son who has always been his parents�� American Dream. But when a mysterious Chinese benefactor reaches out with an impossible—and illegal—job offer, Will finds himself something else as well: the leader of a heist to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures, looted from Beijing centuries ago.

His crew is every heist archetype one can imagine—or at least, the closest he can get. A con artist: Irene Chen, a public policy major at Duke who can talk her way out of anything. A thief: Daniel Liang, a premed student with steady hands just as capable of lockpicking as suturing. A getaway driver: Lily Wu, an engineering major who races cars in her free time. A hacker: Alex Huang, an MIT dropout turned Silicon Valley software engineer. Each member of his crew has their own complicated relationship with China and the identity they’ve cultivated as Chinese Americans, but when Will asks, none of them can turn him down.

Because if they succeed? They earn fifty million dollars—and a chance to make history. But if they fail, it will mean not just the loss of everything they’ve dreamed for themselves but yet another thwarted attempt to take back what colonialism has stolen.

Equal parts beautiful, thoughtful, and thrilling, Portrait of a Thief is a cultural heist and an examination of Chinese American identity, as well as a necessary critique of the lingering effects of colonialism.]]> 375 Grace D. Li 0593184734 �� gillian�� 0 3.44 2022 Portrait of a Thief

author: Grace D. Li
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/21
shelves: to-read, g-lgbtqia-rep, g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, tbr-2022-releases
review:

]]> Red, White & Royal Blue 42265491 A big-hearted romantic comedy in which the First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales after an incident of international proportions forces them to pretend to be best friends...

First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations.

The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince. Alex is busy enough handling his mother’s bloodthirsty opponents and his own political ambitions without an uptight royal slowing him down. But beneath Henry’s Prince Charming veneer, there’s a soft-hearted eccentric with a dry sense of humor and more than one ghost haunting him.

As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. And Henry throws everything into question for Alex, an impulsive, charming guy who thought he knew everything: What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?]]> 432 Casey McQuiston �� gillian�� 4 4.05 2019 Red, White & Royal Blue

author: Casey McQuiston
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2019/05/12
date added: 2022/04/21
shelves: g-contemporary-romance, g-lgbtqia-rep, 4-stars
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Little Women (Wordsworth Collector's Editions)]]> 40161891 374 Louisa May Alcott 1840227788 �� gillian�� 4
So now, I have to purchase another edition with Part Two.

]]> 4.12 1868

Little Women (Wordsworth Collector's Editions)

author: Louisa May Alcott
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1868
rating: 4
read at: 2022/04/17
date added: 2022/04/18
shelves: g-classics, g-middle-grade, g-historical-fiction, x-collectors-specials-signed, 4-stars
review:
My rating for this book is solely for Part One because I stupidly decided to buy the Wordsworth Edition instead of the numerous editions of Litte Women out there which probably includes the complete version.

So now, I have to purchase another edition with Part Two.

]]> <![CDATA[What They Forgot to Teach You at School]]> 57447235
But why, despite all the lessons we sat through, were we never taught the really important things that dominate and trouble our lives: who to start a relationship with, how to trust people, how to understand one's psyche, how to move on from sorrow or betrayal, and how to cope with anxiety and shame?

The School of Life is an organisation dedicated to teaching a range of emotional lessons that we need in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives - and that schools routinely forget to teach us. This book is a collection of our most essential lessons, delivered with directness and humanity, covering topics from love to career, childhood trauma to loneliness. To read the book is to be invited to lead kinder, richer and more authentic lives - and to complete an education we began but still badly need to finish. This is homework to help us make the most of the rest of our lives.]]> 81 The School of Life �� gillian�� 3 4.03 What They Forgot to Teach You at School

author: The School of Life
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.03
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2022/04/17
date added: 2022/04/17
shelves: g-nonfiction, unpopular-books, 3-and-a-half-stars
review:
The title of this book screams a huge F.U. to our education system, and so I read it. Turned out it was half that–in a subtle way–and more about life in general.
]]> <![CDATA[If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again]]> 43064429 30 Zen Cho �� gillian�� 0 4.34 2018

If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again

author: Zen Cho
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/17
shelves: to-read, g-novellas-and-shorts, g-fantasy
review:

]]> Man’s Search for Meaning 4069 Man's Search for Meaning has become one of the most influential books in America; it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living.]]> 165 Viktor E. Frankl 080701429X �� gillian�� 0 4.39 1946 Man’s Search for Meaning

author: Viktor E. Frankl
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1946
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/17
shelves: to-read, g-nonfiction, g-classics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Heartstopper: Volume Four (Heartstopper, #4)]]> 56060300 Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love. The bestselling LGBTQ+ graphic novel about life, love, and everything that happens in between: this is the fourth volume of HEARTSTOPPER, for fans of The Art of Being Normal, Holly Bourne and Love, Simon.

Charlie didn't think Nick could ever like him back, but now they're officially boyfriends. Charlie's beginning to feel ready to say those three little words: I love you.

Nick's been feeling the same, but he's got a lot on his mind - not least coming out to his dad, and the fact that Charlie might have an eating disorder.

As summer turns to autumn and a new school year begins, Charlie and Nick are about to learn a lot about what love means.

Heartstopper is about love, friendship, loyalty and mental illness. It encompasses all the small stories of Nick and Charlie's lives that together make up something larger, which speaks to all of us.

This is the fourth volume of Heartstopper, which has now been optioned for television by See-Saw Films.]]> 384 Alice Oseman 1338617567 �� gillian�� 5 4.57 2021 Heartstopper: Volume Four (Heartstopper, #4)

Heartstopper: Volume Four (Heartstopper, #4)

author: Alice Oseman
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/04/16
date added: 2022/04/15
shelves: g-graphic-novels, g-lgbtqia-rep
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Heartstopper: Volume Three (Heartstopper, #3)]]> 43449920
Meanwhile Tao and Elle will face their feelings for each other, Tara and Darcy share more about their relationship origin story, and the teachers supervising the trip seem�� rather close��?]]> 384 Alice Oseman �� gillian�� 4 4.55 2020 Heartstopper: Volume Three (Heartstopper, #3)

Heartstopper: Volume Three (Heartstopper, #3)

author: Alice Oseman
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/04/15
date added: 2022/04/15
shelves: g-graphic-novels, g-lgbtqia-rep, 4-stars, x-reread
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Heartstopper: Volume Two (Heartstopper, #2)]]> 43307358
But love works in surprising ways, and Nick is discovering all kinds of things about his friends, his family ... and himself.]]> 320 Alice Oseman 1444951408 �� gillian�� 4 4.52 2019 Heartstopper: Volume Two (Heartstopper, #2)

Heartstopper: Volume Two (Heartstopper, #2)

author: Alice Oseman
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2022/04/14
date added: 2022/04/15
shelves: g-graphic-novels, g-lgbtqia-rep, 4-and-a-half-stars, x-reread
review:

]]> American Dirt 50634450
Lydia lives in Acapulco. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while cracks are beginning to show in Acapulco because of the cartels, Lydia’s life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. But after her husband’s tell-all profile of the newest drug lord is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.

Forced to flee, Lydia and Luca find themselves joining the countless people trying to reach the United States. Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?]]> 380 Jeanine Cummins 1250209765 �� gillian�� 0 to-read, g-historical-fiction 4.34 2020 American Dirt

author: Jeanine Cummins
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/12
shelves: to-read, g-historical-fiction
review:

]]> Love in the Big City 56918103 A fresh and unique debut novel by the bestselling young star of Korean queer fiction.

Love in the Big City is an energetic, joyful, and moving novel that depicts both the glittering nighttime world of Seoul and the bleary-eyed morning-after.

Young is a cynical yet fun-loving Korean student who pinballs from home to class to the beds of recent Tinder matches. He and Jaehee, his female best friend and roommate, frequent nearby bars where they suppress their anxieties about their love lives, families, and money with rounds of soju and freezer-chilled Marlboro Reds. Yet in time even Jaehee settles down, leaving Young alone to care for his ailing mother and find companionship in his relationships with a series of men, including one whose handsomeness is matched by his coldness, and another who might end up being the great love of his life.]]> 217 Sang Young Park 1911284657 �� gillian�� 0 3.77 2019 Love in the Big City

author: Sang Young Park
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/12
shelves: to-read, g-translated, g-lgbtqia-rep
review:

]]> Still Life 59454274 By the bestselling, prize-winning author of When God was a Rabbit and Tin Man, Still Life is a beautiful, big-hearted, richly tapestried story of people brought together by love, war, art, flood�� and the ghost of E.M. Forster.

We just need to know what the heart’s capable of, Evelyn.
And do you know what it’s capable of?
I do. Grace and fury.

It’s 1944 and in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as the Allied troops advance and bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening together.

Ulysses Temper is a young British solider and one-time globe-maker, Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and relive her memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view.

These two unlikely people find kindred spirits in each other and Evelyn’s talk of truth and beauty plants a seed in Ulysses mind that will shape the trajectory of his life �� and of those who love him �� for the next four decades.

Moving from the Tuscan Hills, to the smog of the East End and the piazzas of Florence, Still Life is a sweeping, mischievous, richly-peopled novel about beauty, love, family and fate.]]> 438 Sarah Winman 0008283397 �� gillian�� 0 4.15 2021

author: Sarah Winman
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/09
shelves: to-read, g-historical-fiction, g-literary-fiction
review:

]]> Almond 55338962 This story is, in short, about a monster meeting another monster.��

One of the monsters is me.

Yunjae was born with a brain condition called Alexithymia that makes it hard for him to feel emotions like fear or anger. He does not have friends—the two almond-shaped neurons located deep in his brain have seen to that—but his devoted mother and grandmother provide him with a safe and content life. Their little home above his mother’s used bookstore is decorated with colorful Post-it notes that remind him when to smile, when to say "thank you," and when to laugh.

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

As Yunjae begins to open his life to new people—including a girl at school—something slowly changes inside him. And when Gon suddenly finds his life at risk, Yunjae will have the chance to step outside of every comfort zone he has created to perhaps become the hero he never thought he would be.]]> 259 Sohn Won-Pyung 0062961381 �� gillian�� 5 4.21 2017 Almond

author: Sohn Won-Pyung
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2022/04/09
date added: 2022/04/09
shelves: g-literary-fiction, g-translated, 4-and-a-half-stars, fave-2022
review:
ngl, i wouldn't have known about this beautiful and heartfelt book if not for bts in the soop. so thank you, yoongi and namjoon.
]]> The Deal of a Lifetime 42741967 A Man Called Ove and Beartown delivers an insightful and poignant tale about finding out what is truly important in life.

A father and a son are seeing each other for the first time in years. The father has a story to share before it’s too late. He tells his son about a courageous little girl lying in a hospital bed a few miles away. She’s a smart kid—smart enough to know that she won’t beat cancer by drawing with crayons all day, but it seems to make the adults happy, so she keeps doing it.

As he talks about this plucky little girl, the father also reveals more about himself: his triumphs in business, his failures as a parent, his past regrets, his hopes for the future.

Now, on a cold winter’s night, the father has been given an unexpected chance to do something remarkable that could change the destiny of a little girl he hardly knows. But before he can make the deal of a lifetime, he must find out what his own life has actually been worth, and only his son can reveal that answer.

With humor and compassion, Fredrik Backman’s The Deal of a Lifetime reminds us that life is a fleeting gift, and our legacy rests in how we share that gift with others.]]> 85 Fredrik Backman �� gillian�� 4 3.98 2017

author: Fredrik Backman
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2022/04/09
date added: 2022/04/09
shelves: g-novellas-and-shorts, g-translated, 4-stars
review:

]]> Earthlings 50269327
Now Natsuki is grown. She lives a quiet life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by pretending to be normal. But the demands of Natsuki's family are increasing, her friends wonder why she's still not pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki's childhood are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares herself with a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?]]> 247 Sayaka Murata 1783785675 �� gillian�� 0 3.59 2018 Earthlings

author: Sayaka Murata
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/07
shelves: to-read, g-translated, g-literary-fiction, g-magical-realism, g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Curious Case of Benjamin Button]]> 2988671 32 F. Scott Fitzgerald 1603550836 �� gillian�� 3 3.38 1922

author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.38
book published: 1922
rating: 3
read at: 2022/04/06
date added: 2022/04/06
shelves: g-classics, g-novellas-and-shorts, 3-stars
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures]]> 52668915
Neither plant nor animal, it is found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. It can be microscopic, yet also accounts for the largest organisms ever recorded, living for millennia and weighing tens of thousands of tonnes. Its ability to digest rock enabled the first life on land, it can survive unprotected in space, and thrives amidst nuclear radiation.

In this captivating adventure, Merlin Sheldrake explores the spectacular and neglected world of fungi: endlessly surprising organisms that sustain nearly all living systems. They can solve problems without a brain, stretching traditional definitions of ‘intelligence��, and can manipulate animal behaviour with devastating precision. In giving us bread, alcohol and life-saving medicines, fungi have shaped human history, and their psychedelic properties, which have influenced societies since antiquity, have recently been shown to alleviate a number of mental illnesses. The ability of fungi to digest plastic, explosives, pesticides and crude oil is being harnessed in break-through technologies, and the discovery that they connect plants in underground networks, the ‘Wood Wide Web��, is transforming the way we understand ecosystems. Yet they live their lives largely out of sight, and over ninety percent of their species remain undocumented.

Entangled Life is a mind-altering journey into this hidden kingdom of life, and shows that fungi are key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel and behave. The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them.]]> 352 Merlin Sheldrake 0525510311 �� gillian�� 0 to-read, g-nonfiction 4.34 2020 Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures

author: Merlin Sheldrake
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/06
shelves: to-read, g-nonfiction
review:

]]> Hell Bent (Alex Stern, #2) 34019110 Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell.

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex�� Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.

Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies�� most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.]]> 484 Leigh Bardugo 1250313112 �� gillian�� 0 4.20 2023 Hell Bent (Alex Stern, #2)

author: Leigh Bardugo
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/06
shelves: to-read, g-fantasy, g-dark-academia, tbr-2023-releases
review:

]]> The Virgin Suicides 57932777
That girl didn’t want to die. She just wanted out of that house. She wanted out of that decorating scheme.

The five Lisbon sisters �� beautiful, eccentric, and, now, gone –had always been a point of obsession for the entire neighborhood.

Although the boys that once loved them from afar have grown up, they remain determined to understand a tragedy that has defied explanation. The question persists �� why did all five of the Lisbon girls take their own lives?

This lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life announced the arrival of one of the greatest American novelists of the last thirty years.

‘A flare from my own secret world, all the inchoate longings, and obsessions of being a teenager somehow rendered into book form�� Emma Cline, author of The Girls]]> 243 Jeffrey Eugenides 000848516X �� gillian�� 3 3.56 1993 The Virgin Suicides

author: Jeffrey Eugenides
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1993
rating: 3
read at: 2022/04/05
date added: 2022/04/05
shelves: g-literary-fiction, 3-and-a-half-stars
review:

]]> Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body 26074156 New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist: a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.

“I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. . . . I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe.��

In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,�� Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she explores her past—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself.

With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be loved—in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.]]> 306 Roxane Gay 0062362593 �� gillian�� 0 to-read, g-nonfiction 4.17 2017 Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

author: Roxane Gay
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/05
shelves: to-read, g-nonfiction
review:

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

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

Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes on an Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it simultaneously unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our system of justice and our cultural obsession with crime stories, asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the psyches of violent men.]]> 306 Danya Kukafka 0063052733 �� gillian�� 5

”There are millions of men out there who want to hurt women–people seem to think that Ansel Parker is extraordinary, because he actually did.��

Notes on an Execution follows the story of Ansel, a serial killer who is to be executed in 12 hours, and the lives of 3 women who were directly connected to him–his mother, who survived an abusive marriage, his wife’s twin sister, and the detective who was haunted by a traumatizing memory from her childhood.

In this novel, Kukafka posits the notion of nature versus nurture and defines one’s character as a cumulative by-product of the choices one makes. This poses a contrasting view on Ansel’s complex character because was he inherently bad or were the circumstances in his life a catalyst that led him to be a serial killer? What if his mother did not abandon him? What if he’s not haunted by his little brother’s cries? A series of what ifs and choices that might’ve changed the course of his life and his victims.

”There is no such thing as good or evil. Instead we have memory and choice, and we all live at various points on the spectrum between. We are created by what has happened to us, combined with who we choose to be.��

author: Danya Kukafka
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/21
date added: 2022/04/03
shelves: g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, g-literary-fiction, all-time-fave, 5-stars, fave-2022, x-beautiful-prose
review:
There’s something so fascinating and intriguing about a serial killer narrative. And this book exposed the harrowing and ugly truth of how the world constantly obsessed over serial killers–up to the extent of even glorifying them–but never spending a second thought about their victims.

”There are millions of men out there who want to hurt women–people seem to think that Ansel Parker is extraordinary, because he actually did.��

”There is no such thing as good or evil. Instead we have memory and choice, and we all live at various points on the spectrum between. We are created by what has happened to us, combined with who we choose to be.��

With such spellbinding prose and gripping plot, Kukafka ensures that there will be no room for boredom while reading this novel. Each chapter is profound, emotional and thought-provoking. I love how this book put in the limelight the survivors and the struggles of the women who were affected by Ansel. How one survived an abusive marriage, the insecurities stemming from the constant comparison between sisters, the underrepresentation of POC and women in the criminal justice, as well as the flaws in the judicial system.

Overall, this book vividly portrayed the disturbing realities of today’s world and how our strange obsession with serial killers easily proliferated into our culture.

This is one of the easiest 5 stars of my life and I'm highly recommending it to everyone.
]]> The Master and Margarita 117833 The first complete, annotated English Translation of Mikhail Bulgakov's comic masterpiece.

An audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate, The Master and Margarita is recognized as one of the essential classics of modern Russian literature. The novel's vision of Soviet life in the 1930s is so ferociously accurate that it could not be published during its author's lifetime and appeared only in a censored edition in the 1960s. Its truths are so enduring that its language has become part of the common Russian speech.

One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing literally to go to hell for him. What ensues is a novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth, a work whose nuances emerge for the first time in Diana Burgin's and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor's splendid English version.]]> 372 Mikhail Bulgakov 0679760806 �� gillian�� 0 to-read, g-classics 4.31 1967 The Master and Margarita

author: Mikhail Bulgakov
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1967
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/02
shelves: to-read, g-classics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous]]> 52544164 Brilliant, heartbreaking and highly original, Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling.

This is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born. It tells of Vietnam, of the lasting impact of war, and of his family's struggle to forge a new future. And it serves as a doorway into parts of Little Dog's life his mother has never known - episodes of bewilderment, fear and passion - all the while moving closer to an unforgettable revelation.]]> 256 Ocean Vuong 1529110688 �� gillian�� 4

"I am thinking of beauty again, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you're born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly."

author: Ocean Vuong
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/25
date added: 2022/04/02
shelves: g-literary-fiction, g-lgbtqia-rep, 4-stars, x-beautiful-prose
review:
I have never read a book more quote-worthy than this.

"I am thinking of beauty again, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you're born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly."

If I have the physical copy of this book, it'll have more highlighted words than not. Every single sentence in this book served its purpose. The prose is immaculate and lyrical and vividly portrayed love, trauma, grief, the aftermath of war, coming of age, racial discrimination, and self-identity.

On Earth, we are briefly gorgeous indeed. But books like this? They are perpetually gorgeous.
]]> Black Swans 36470362 Black Swans is a collection of nine stories that look back on the 1980s and early 1990s—decades of dreams, drink, and stoned youth turning Republican. Babitz prowls California, telling tales of a changing world. She writes about the Rodeo Gardens, about AIDS, about learning to tango, about the Hollywood Cemetery, about the self-enchanted city, and, most important, about the envy and jealousy underneath it all.

Babitz’s inimitable voice propels these stories forward, corralling everything that gets in their way: sex, rage, the Château Marmont, youth, beauty, Jim Morrison, men, women, and black swans. This exciting reissue further celebrates the phenomenon of Eve Babitz, cementing her reputation as the voice of a generation.]]> 225 Eve Babitz 1640090509 �� gillian�� 0 3.91 1993

author: Eve Babitz
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/31
shelves: to-read, g-literary-fiction, g-novellas-and-shorts, unpopular-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.]]> 28109997
Slow Days, Fast Company is a full-fledged and full-bodied evocation of a bygone Southern California that far exceeds its mash-note premise. In ten sun-baked, Santa Ana wind–swept sketches, Babitz re-creates a Los Angeles of movie stars distraught over their success, socialites on three-day drug binges holed up in the Chateau Marmont, soap-opera actors worried that tomorrow’s script will kill them off, Italian femmes fatales even more fatal than Babitz. And she even leaves LA now and then, spending an afternoon at the house of flawless Orange County suburbanites, a day among the grape pickers of the Central Valley, a weekend in Palm Springs where her dreams of romance fizzle and her only solace is Virginia Woolf. In the end it doesn’t matter if Babitz ever gets the guy—she seduces us.]]> 164 Eve Babitz 1681370085 �� gillian�� 0 4.09 1977 Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.

author: Eve Babitz
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/31
shelves: to-read, g-literary-fiction, g-novellas-and-shorts, unpopular-books
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 �� gillian�� 4 4.12 2020 The Hand on the Wall (Truly Devious, #3)

The Hand on the Wall (Truly Devious, #3)

author: Maureen Johnson
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/06/07
date added: 2022/03/31
shelves: g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, 4-stars, g-dark-academia
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious, #2)]]> 39893545
For her own safety they say. She must move past this obsession with crime. Now that Stevie’s away from the school of topiaries and secret tunnels, and her strange and endearing friends, she begins to feel disconnected from the rest of the world. At least she won’t have to see David anymore. David, who she kissed. David, who lied to her about his identity—son of despised politician Edward King. Then King himself arrives at her house to offer a deal: He will bring Stevie back to Ellingham immediately. In return, she must play nice with David. King is in the midst of a campaign and can’t afford his son stirring up trouble. If Stevie’s at school, David will stay put.

The tantalizing riddles behind the Ellingham murders are still waiting to be unraveled, and Stevie knows she’s so close. But the path to the truth has more twists and turns than she can imagine—and moving forward involves hurting someone she cares for. In New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson’s second novel of the Truly Devious series, nothing is free, and someone will pay for the truth with their life.]]> 369 Maureen Johnson 0062338080 �� gillian�� 4 what the fucks because WHY. MUST. EACH. BOOK. END. WITH. CLIFFHANGERS???]]> 4.12 2019 The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious, #2)

author: Maureen Johnson
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2021/06/06
date added: 2022/03/31
shelves: g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, 4-stars, g-dark-academia
review:
I'm assuming this series would end with me cursing endless what the fucks because WHY. MUST. EACH. BOOK. END. WITH. CLIFFHANGERS???
]]> <![CDATA[Truly, Devious (Truly Devious, #1)]]> 29589074
Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious.�� It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history.

True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder.��

The two interwoven mysteries of this first book in the Truly Devious series dovetail brilliantly, and Stevie Bell will continue her relentless quest for the murderers in books two and three.

New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson weaves a delicate tale of murder and mystery in the first book of a striking new series, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and E. Lockhart.]]> 416 Maureen Johnson �� gillian�� 4
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"For anyone who has ever dreamed of finding a body in the library"

I have never ever dreamed of finding a body in the library, but if I were to be Stevie and unveil the mysteries of a bloody cold murder with conviction, then why not?

Truly Devious is a fun and thrilling YA mystery book that had me shrieking at 2 AM. The thrill and adrenaline I felt while reading this book were insurmountable and incomparable to any YA mystery novels that I've ever read so far. Once you've reached that 200-paged mark, putting this book down is like forcing yourself to die by not breathing. YOU JUST CAN'T.

Maureen Johnson's writing was so captivating and impeccable. The truths and revelations flowed so flawlessly and the sequence for the dual timeline just fit perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle. It kept you guessing till the end and even after, because fuck, that ending just gave me more questions! The only thing that I've guessed correctly was the last line of this book. Other than that, I'm flummoxed, clueless, and just waiting with my last bit of sanity for The Vanishing Stair to come out.

I'm glad I'm ending 2018 with this book because IT'S FUCKING BRILLIANT!]]> 3.90 2018 Truly, Devious (Truly Devious, #1)

author: Maureen Johnson
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2021/06/06
date added: 2022/03/31
shelves: g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, x-reread, fave-2018, 4-stars, g-dark-academia
review:
Still as thrilling and exciting as the first time I read it. This is how you write a YA mystery/thriller book, y'all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"For anyone who has ever dreamed of finding a body in the library"

I have never ever dreamed of finding a body in the library, but if I were to be Stevie and unveil the mysteries of a bloody cold murder with conviction, then why not?

Truly Devious is a fun and thrilling YA mystery book that had me shrieking at 2 AM. The thrill and adrenaline I felt while reading this book were insurmountable and incomparable to any YA mystery novels that I've ever read so far. Once you've reached that 200-paged mark, putting this book down is like forcing yourself to die by not breathing. YOU JUST CAN'T.

Maureen Johnson's writing was so captivating and impeccable. The truths and revelations flowed so flawlessly and the sequence for the dual timeline just fit perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle. It kept you guessing till the end and even after, because fuck, that ending just gave me more questions! The only thing that I've guessed correctly was the last line of this book. Other than that, I'm flummoxed, clueless, and just waiting with my last bit of sanity for The Vanishing Stair to come out.

I'm glad I'm ending 2018 with this book because IT'S FUCKING BRILLIANT!
]]> Self-Help 56755
The publication of Self-Help introduced readers to Lorrie Moore's refined blend of humor and insight, and made her one of the best-loved writers of her generation. These stories, told in a voice that is at once witty, melancholy, and bravely honest, paint a tableau of lovers and family, of loss and pleasure, desire and memory. From the young secretary who by day hopes someone will notice her Phi Beta Kappa key and by night makes love to a married man she met at a Florsheim shoe store, to the shattering of a marriage by the shores of a tranquil lake, Self-Help is a unique, enduring work of short fiction.]]> 176 Lorrie Moore 0446671924 �� gillian�� 4 4.24 1985

author: Lorrie Moore
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at: 2022/03/31
date added: 2022/03/31
shelves: g-literary-fiction, g-novellas-and-shorts, 4-stars, unpopular-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Moth & the Flame (The Wrath & the Dawn, #0.25)]]> 28574949 26 Renée Ahdieh 0399547738 �� gillian�� 0 3.90 2016

The Moth & the Flame (The Wrath & the Dawn, #0.25)

author: Renée Ahdieh
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2020/07/18
date added: 2022/03/28
shelves: g-novellas-and-shorts, g-fantasy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters, #2)]]> 58283080 friends? Bizarre. But he likes her too much to risk a fling, so platonic pals it is.

Now, Hannah's in town for work, crashing in Fox's spare bedroom. She knows he's a notorious ladies' man, but they're definitely just friends. In fact, she's nursing a hopeless crush on a colleague and Fox is just the person to help with her lackluster love life. Armed with a few tips from Westport's resident Casanova, Hannah sets out to catch her coworker's eye... yet the more time she spends with Fox, the more she wants him instead. As the line between friendship and flirtation begins to blur, Hannah can't deny she loves everything about Fox, but she refuses to be another notch on his bedpost.

Living with his best friend should have been easy. Except now she's walking around in a towel, sleeping right across the hall, and Fox is fantasizing about waking up next to her for the rest of his life and... and... man overboard! He's fallen for her, hook, line, and sinker. Helping her flirt with another guy is pure torture, but maybe if Fox can tackle his inner demons and show Hannah he's all in, she'll choose him instead?

In the follow-up to It Happened One Summer, Tessa Bailey delivers another deliciously fun rom-com about a former player who accidentally falls for his best friend while trying to help her land a different man...]]> 353 Tessa Bailey 0063045699 �� gillian�� 1 3.88 2022 Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters, #2)

Hook, Line, and Sinker (Bellinger Sisters, #2)

author: Tessa Bailey
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2022
rating: 1
read at: 2022/03/13
date added: 2022/03/28
shelves: g-contemporary-romance, 1-and-a-half-stars, i-dont-get-the-hype
review:

]]> Where the Crawdads Sing 37703550
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world–until the unthinkable happens.

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

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]> 370 Delia Owens 0735219095 �� gillian�� 0
This is honestly one of my favourite books of all time and I'm kinda excited about the upcoming movie because hello it's Daisy Edgar Jones and we're getting a new Taylor Swift song? ]]> 4.42 2018 Where the Crawdads Sing

author: Delia Owens
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2021/04/14
date added: 2022/03/28
shelves: all-time-fave, g-literary-fiction, fave-2021, g-historical-fiction, 5-stars, x-beautiful-prose
review:
Nothing's more heartbreaking than loving a book so deeply and then subsequently finding out that the author is allegedly involved in a murder.

This is honestly one of my favourite books of all time and I'm kinda excited about the upcoming movie because hello it's Daisy Edgar Jones and we're getting a new Taylor Swift song?
]]> Our Wives Under the Sea 58659343
Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp.

Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from Julia Armfield, the critically acclaimed author of Salt Slow. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep deep sea.]]> 240 Julia Armfield 152901722X �� gillian�� 0 3.75 2022 Our Wives Under the Sea

author: Julia Armfield
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/28
shelves: to-read, g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, g-lgbtqia-rep, tbr-2022-releases
review:

]]> The Girls I've Been 54998272 A slick, twisty YA page-turner about the daughter of a con artist who is taken hostage in a bank heist.

Nora O’Malley’s been a lot of girls. As the daughter of a con-artist who targets criminal men, she grew up as her mother’s protégé. But when mom fell for the mark instead of conning him, Nora pulled the ultimate con: escape.

For five years Nora’s been playing at normal. But she needs to dust off the skills she ditched because she has three problems:

#1: Her ex walked in on her with her girlfriend. Even though they’re all friends, Wes didn’t know about her and Iris.

#2: The morning after Wes finds them kissing, they all have to meet to deposit the fundraiser money they raised at the bank. It’s a nightmare that goes from awkward to deadly, because:

#3: Right after they enter bank, two guys start robbing it.

The bank robbers may be trouble, but Nora’s something else entirely. They have no idea who they’re really holding hostage…]]> 368 Tess Sharpe 0593353803 �� gillian�� 0 4.13 2021 The Girls I've Been

author: Tess Sharpe
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: to-read, g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, g-lgbtqia-rep, x-pls-read-me-asap
review:

]]> Open Water 53414230
At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the most essential British debut of recent years.]]> 145 Caleb Azumah Nelson 0241448778 �� gillian�� 3 4.03 2021 Open Water

author: Caleb Azumah Nelson
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/03/27
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: g-literary-fiction, x-beautiful-prose, 3-and-a-half-stars
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 �� gillian�� 3
Brb, while I contemplate on my life decisions.]]> 3.96 2020 The Midnight Library

author: Matt Haig
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2021/04/08
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: g-magical-realism, g-fantasy, 3-and-a-half-stars
review:
(3.5)

Brb, while I contemplate on my life decisions.
]]> Human Acts 30238842
An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of a historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.]]> 213 Han Kang �� gillian�� 0 4.25 2014 Human Acts

author: Han Kang
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: to-read, g-historical-fiction, g-literary-fiction, g-translated
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Nineteen Eighty-Four (Penguin Clothbound Classics)]]> 53246181 355 George Orwell 0241453518 �� gillian�� 0 4.26 1949

Nineteen Eighty-Four (Penguin Clothbound Classics)

author: George Orwell
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1949
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: to-read, g-classics, g-literary-fiction, g-sci-fi
review:

]]> Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 46041199 A fierce international bestseller that launched Korea’s new feminist movement, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 follows one woman’s psychic deterioration in the face of rigid misogyny.

Truly, flawlessly, completely, she became that person.

In a small, tidy apartment on the outskirts of the frenzied metropolis of Seoul lives Kim Jiyoung. A thirtysomething-year-old “millennial everywoman,�� she has recently left her white-collar desk job—in order to care for her newborn daughter full-time—as so many Korean women are expected to do. But she quickly begins to exhibit strange symptoms that alarm her husband, parents, and in-laws: Jiyoung impersonates the voices of other women—alive and even dead, both known and unknown to her. As she plunges deeper into this psychosis, her discomfited husband sends her to a male psychiatrist.

In a chilling, eerily truncated third-person voice, Jiyoung’s entire life is recounted to the psychiatrist—a narrative infused with disparate elements of frustration, perseverance, and submission. Born in 1982 and given the most common name for Korean baby girls, Jiyoung quickly becomes the unfavored sister to her princeling little brother. Always, her behavior is policed by the male figures around her—from the elementary school teachers who enforce strict uniforms for girls, to the coworkers who install a hidden camera in the women’s restroom and post their photos online. In her father’s eyes, it is Jiyoung’s fault that men harass her late at night; in her husband’s eyes, it is Jiyoung’s duty to forsake her career to take care of him and their child—to put them first.

Jiyoung’s painfully common life is juxtaposed against a backdrop of an advancing Korea, as it abandons “family planning�� birth control policies and passes new legislation against gender discrimination. But can her doctor flawlessly, completely cure her, or even discover what truly ails her?

Rendered in minimalist yet lacerating prose, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 sits at the center of our global #MeToo movement and announces the arrival of writer of international significance]]> 163 Cho Nam-Joo 1631496700 �� gillian�� 4 4.17 2016

author: Cho Nam-Joo
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2021/12/07
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: g-literary-fiction, 4-stars, g-translated
review:

]]> The Little Prince 157993
Few stories are as widely read and as universally cherished by children and adults alike as The Little Prince, presented here in a stunning new translation with carefully restored artwork. The definitive edition of a worldwide classic, it will capture the hearts of readers of all ages.]]> 96 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 0152023984 �� gillian�� 0 g-classics 4.32 1943 The Little Prince

author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1943
rating: 0
read at: 2012/11/05
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: g-classics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas]]> 33632660 Some inhabitants of a peaceful kingdom cannot tolerate the act of cruelty that underlies its happiness.

The story 'Omelas" was first published in [ Dimensions 3' (1973)|5363188], a hard-cover science fiction anthology edited by [ Silverberg|4338], in October 1973, and the following year it won the prestigious Hugo Award for best short story.

The work was subsequently printed in Le Guin's short story collection [ Wind's Twelve Quarters' (1975)|77289].

[ K Le Guin|] (1929��2018) was an American writer who published twenty-two novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry, and four of translation, and has received many Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, and more. She was known for her treatment of gender ([ Left Hand of Darkness' (1969)|18423], [ Matter of Seggri' (1994)|34811132]), political systems ([ Telling' (2000)|59921], [ Dispossessed' (1974)|13651]) and difference/otherness in any other form.]]> 21 Ursula K. Le Guin 0062470973 �� gillian�� 4 4.33 1973 The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1973
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/22
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: g-novellas-and-shorts, g-classics, 4-stars
review:
Another one of the things to be added to the list of all the good things BTS has ever done to me is introducing this book.
]]> Kafka on the Shore 6564051 Alternate cover for this ASIN can be found here

Kafka on the Shore is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom.

As their paths converge, and the reasons for that convergence become clear, Haruki Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder. Kafka on the Shore displays one of the world's great storytellers at the peak of his powers.]]> 505 Haruki Murakami �� gillian�� 0 4.15 2002

author: Haruki Murakami
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: to-read, g-magical-realism, g-translated
review:

]]> The Stranger 49552 The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."]]> 123 Albert Camus �� gillian�� 0 to-read, g-classics 4.04 1942 The Stranger

author: Albert Camus
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1942
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: to-read, g-classics
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, #1)]]> 37772713 Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

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

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

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

In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.]]> 370 Holly Black 1471407039 �� gillian�� 5 "This is what you wanted, isn't it?" he asks. "What you sacrificed everything for. Go on. It's all yours."

Reading this book for the second time did not make my experience any lesser. Instead, my love for this book only intensified! If I could find a magic lamp like Aladdin, I'd wish for The Wicked King right now.

P.S. Kaye and Roiben's short story was amazing!]]> 4.05 2018 The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, #1)

The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, #1)

author: Holly Black
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2018/12/29
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: x-reread, g-fantasy, fave-2018, 4-and-a-half-stars
review:
"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" he asks. "What you sacrificed everything for. Go on. It's all yours."

Reading this book for the second time did not make my experience any lesser. Instead, my love for this book only intensified! If I could find a magic lamp like Aladdin, I'd wish for The Wicked King right now.

P.S. Kaye and Roiben's short story was amazing!
]]> <![CDATA[The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender]]> 18166936
Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava—in all other ways a normal girl—is born with the wings of a bird.

In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naïve to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the Summer Solstice celebration.

That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo.

First-time author Leslye Walton has constructed a layered and unforgettable mythology of what it means to be born with hearts that are tragically, exquisitely human.]]> 301 Leslye Walton 0763665665 �� gillian�� 4 “Why would you be given wings if you weren't meant to fly?��

I can't put my finger on it, but there's something really odd and weird about this book, which I really really like!

The writing was so beautiful and the symbolism and deep meanings behind each word were really captivating. I must admit that I wasn't a fan at the start. I dived into this story thinking that the story focused solely on Ava and how she got her wings. But it was more than Ava. Half of it was about her ancestors, her grandma, her mom and how love made them all fools. I found them rather fast-paced and confusing at the start. But the more I read it, the more engrossed I'd become!

The only downside for me (and I am partly to blame) was the fact that there were too many names mentioned and it was very hard for me to differentiate most of them since I'm really bad with names. Add up the fact that I read this in intervals.

Also, that ending!!! ]]> 4.03 2014 The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

author: Leslye Walton
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2018/10/16
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: g-magical-realism, g-historical-fiction, 3-and-a-half-stars
review:
“Why would you be given wings if you weren't meant to fly?��

I can't put my finger on it, but there's something really odd and weird about this book, which I really really like!

The writing was so beautiful and the symbolism and deep meanings behind each word were really captivating. I must admit that I wasn't a fan at the start. I dived into this story thinking that the story focused solely on Ava and how she got her wings. But it was more than Ava. Half of it was about her ancestors, her grandma, her mom and how love made them all fools. I found them rather fast-paced and confusing at the start. But the more I read it, the more engrossed I'd become!

The only downside for me (and I am partly to blame) was the fact that there were too many names mentioned and it was very hard for me to differentiate most of them since I'm really bad with names. Add up the fact that I read this in intervals.

Also, that ending!!!
]]> <![CDATA[Ghost Teller Season 1 (Ghost Teller, #1)]]> 53099519 NOT A BOOK �� gillian�� 0 g-graphic-novels 4.47 2017

Ghost Teller Season 1 (Ghost Teller, #1)

author: NOT A BOOK
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2020/03/27
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: g-graphic-novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ghost Teller Season 2 (Ghost Teller, #2)]]> 53099575
A weird story about lots of people as told by ghosts.]]> QTT �� gillian�� 0 g-graphic-novels 4.44 2019

Ghost Teller Season 2 (Ghost Teller, #2)

author: QTT
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2020/11/15
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: g-graphic-novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[귀전구�� 3 [Gwijeongudam 3] (Ghost Teller, #3)]]> 41632443 “인간들�� 잔혹함은 정말 소름 끼쳐��
귀신보�� 무서�� 사람들의 이야��

은철은 같은 작업장에�� 일하�� 아저씨가 마음�� 들지 않는��. 그가 알코�� 중독이라�� 말을 들은 후론 �� 달갑지 않다. 그러�� 어느 ��, 반장�� 사이�� 다툼�� 있었��, �� 이후�� 씨를 �� 없었��. 얼마 ��, 회사�� 중요�� 행사�� 앞두�� 출근�� 은철은 작업장에�� 씨를 발견하는��...! 「한 아들�� 이야기��

유명 가�� 아람! 그녀가 학교폭력�� 가해자��? 어느 ��, 인터넷엔 학창시절 아람에게 괴롭힘을 당했다는 증언부�� 일진설이 올라온다. 하루아침�� 인기스타에서 대중의 비난거리가 �� 아람. 엎친 �� 덮친 격으�� 유명 아이�� 멤버와 스캔들까지 나고 마는��...! 과연, 그녀�� 둘러�� 소문은 모두 진실일까? 「그 소녀�� 진실 이야기��

6명의 귀신이 전하�� 귀신보�� 무서�� 사람들의 이야��! 믿음보단 배신, 사랑보단 이익, 진실보단 거짓�� 난무하는 인간�� 어둡�� 잔혹�� 모습�� 담은 네이버웹�� 「귀전구담」의 �� 번째 이야기가 시작됩니��.

Episodes 46-90]]> 264 QTT 1190153408 �� gillian�� 0 g-graphic-novels 4.40 귀전구담 3 [Gwijeongudam 3] (Ghost Teller, #3)

귀전구담 3 [Gwijeongudam 3] (Ghost Teller, #3)

author: QTT
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.40
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2019/07/25
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: g-graphic-novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3)]]> 35247769 Lara Jean is having the best senior year.

And there’s still so much to look forward to: a class trip to New York City, prom with her boyfriend Peter, Beach Week after graduation, and her dad’s wedding to Ms. Rothschild. Then she’ll be off to college with Peter, at a school close enough for her to come home and bake chocolate chip cookies on the weekends.

Life couldn’t be more perfect!

At least, that’s what Lara Jean thinks . . . until she gets some unexpected news.

Now the girl who dreads change must rethink all her plans—but when your heart and your head are saying two different things, which one should you listen to?]]> 325 Jenny Han 1481430483 �� gillian�� 4

"At college, when people ask us how we met, how will we answer them? The short story is, we grew up together. But that's more Josh's and my story. High school sweet-hearts? That's Peter and Gen's story. So what's ours, then?

I suppose I'll say it all started with a love letter."

Brb, while I cry in the corner.

This is such an honest and raw book for me. Jenny Han's writing style made everything seemed so simple yet complex and true to life. This book does not only revolve around love, but graduation, pre-college struggles, family relationship, letting go, and heartbreaks.

As the last book of this series, I'm so satisfied with how the plot ended and how the character growth and chemistry between Lara Jean and Peter K evolved. They experienced numerous setbacks in their relationship, yet still found a way to come back to each other. It's just inspiring and EVERYTHING'S JUST SO EMOTIONAL.

I couldn't think of any other ways to end this story because it's just perfect. But I'm still sad that their story really ends here. I'm definitely rereading this series after I recover.

P.S. I need this to be made into a movie too.]]> 3.99 2017 Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3)

Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3)

author: Jenny Han
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2018/08/12
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: g-contemporary-romance, 4-stars
review:
(4.5)

"At college, when people ask us how we met, how will we answer them? The short story is, we grew up together. But that's more Josh's and my story. High school sweet-hearts? That's Peter and Gen's story. So what's ours, then?

I suppose I'll say it all started with a love letter."

Brb, while I cry in the corner.

This is such an honest and raw book for me. Jenny Han's writing style made everything seemed so simple yet complex and true to life. This book does not only revolve around love, but graduation, pre-college struggles, family relationship, letting go, and heartbreaks.

As the last book of this series, I'm so satisfied with how the plot ended and how the character growth and chemistry between Lara Jean and Peter K evolved. They experienced numerous setbacks in their relationship, yet still found a way to come back to each other. It's just inspiring and EVERYTHING'S JUST SO EMOTIONAL.

I couldn't think of any other ways to end this story because it's just perfect. But I'm still sad that their story really ends here. I'm definitely rereading this series after I recover.

P.S. I need this to be made into a movie too.
]]> <![CDATA[More Than We Can Tell (Letters to the Lost, #2)]]> 38464193 From the author of Letters to the Lost comes a heart-wrenching story of two teens with big secrets and a love that could set them free.

Rev Fletcher is battling the demons of his past. But with loving adoptive parents by his side, he’s managed to keep them at bay...until he gets a letter from his abusive father and the trauma of his childhood comes hurtling back.

Emma Blue spends her time perfecting the computer game she built from scratch, rather than facing her parents�� crumbling marriage. She can solve any problem with the right code, but when an online troll’s harassment escalates, she’s truly afraid.

When Rev and Emma meet, they both long to lift the burden of their secrets and bond instantly over their shared turmoil. But when their situations turn dangerous, their trust in each other will be tested in ways they never expected. This must-read story will once again have readers falling for Brigid Kemmerer’s emotional storytelling.]]> 410 Brigid Kemmerer 1408885077 �� gillian�� 4
I NEED ANOTHER BOOK ABOUT DECLAN AND REV'S FRIENDSHIP.

It's like, if you remove Juliet from Letters to the Lost or Emma from More Than We Can Tell, I'll still read the book and definitely enjoy it. BECAUSE...DECLAN AND REV??? THEIR FRIENDSHIP IS SO PRECIOUS.]]> 4.26 2018 More Than We Can Tell (Letters to the Lost, #2)

More Than We Can Tell (Letters to the Lost, #2)

author: Brigid Kemmerer
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2018/10/19
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: g-contemporary-romance, 4-stars
review:
(4.5)

I NEED ANOTHER BOOK ABOUT DECLAN AND REV'S FRIENDSHIP.

It's like, if you remove Juliet from Letters to the Lost or Emma from More Than We Can Tell, I'll still read the book and definitely enjoy it. BECAUSE...DECLAN AND REV??? THEIR FRIENDSHIP IS SO PRECIOUS.
]]> The Hating Game 25883848
Nemesis (n.) 1) An opponent or rival whom a person cannot best or overcome.
2) A person’s undoing
3) Joshua Templeman

Lucy Hutton has always been certain that the nice girl can get the corner office. She’s charming and accommodating and prides herself on being loved by everyone at Bexley & Gamin. Everyone except for coldly efficient, impeccably attired, physically intimidating Joshua Templeman. And the feeling is mutual.

Trapped in a shared office together 40 (OK, 50 or 60) hours a week, they’ve become entrenched in an addictive, ridiculous never-ending game of one-upmanship. There’s the Staring Game. The Mirror Game. The HR Game. Lucy can’t let Joshua beat her at anything—especially when a huge new promotion goes up for the taking.

If Lucy wins this game, she’ll be Joshua’s boss. If she loses, she’ll resign. So why is she suddenly having steamy dreams about Joshua, and dressing for work like she’s got a hot date? After a perfectly innocent elevator ride ends with an earth shattering kiss, Lucy starts to wonder whether she’s got Joshua Templeman all wrong.

Maybe Lucy Hutton doesn’t hate Joshua Templeman. And maybe, he doesn’t hate her either. Or maybe this is just another game. ]]> 387 Sally Thorne �� gillian�� 3 3.93 2016 The Hating Game

author: Sally Thorne
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2018/08/24
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: g-contemporary-romance, i-dont-get-the-hype, 3-stars
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Loneliest Girl in the Universe]]> 32601841 Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never met, never even spoken to �� someone who is light years away?

Romy Silvers is the only surviving crew-member of a spaceship travelling to a new planet, on a mission to establish a second home for humanity amongst the stars. Alone in space, she is the loneliest girl in the universe until she hears about a new ship which has launched from Earth �� with a single passenger on board. A boy called J.

Their only communication with each other is via email �� and due to the distance between them, their messages take months to transmit across space. And yet Romy finds herself falling in love.

But what does Romy really know about J? And what do the mysterious messages which have started arriving from Earth really mean?

Sometimes, there’s something worse than being alone . . .]]> 290 Lauren James 1406375470 �� gillian�� 3 g-sci-fi, 3-stars
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3.5 stars

Okay. This book has ONE HELLUVA PLOT TWIST. It wasn't even my intention to finish this book so soon...but holy crap, those last 100 pages of the book got me so hooked up, I knew I had to finish it ASAP!

This book has one of the most interesting storylines ever. I mean, a girl born in space who's commandeering an entire spaceship and is in charge of starting a new life on Earth II? That's basically everyone's dream (okay, maybe not everyone, but still)! And she's probably the only human alive who hasn't been on Earth!!!

However, aside from page 200 onwards, there wasn't really much going on. And it wasn't actually that bad considering that Romy's experiences alone in space was interesting enough for me. The whole idea of being alone out there in space, at 16, is so bizarre and out of this world (no pun intended). I think this book is good in such ways that it's thought-provoking. However, character-wise, there wasn't really much developments in my opinion. And Romy seems so millennial-ish? Like a normal teenager. Which is a bit odd to me considering that her only real human interaction is with her parents. IN SPACE. I mean I know Molly has been sending her updates from Earth, but I feel like she's too normal. And don't even get me started with J. J's personality totally caught me off-guard. That ending? [spoilers removed]

But overall, I think this book was totally enjoyable and interesting!]]> 3.75 2018 The Loneliest Girl in the Universe

author: Lauren James
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2018/09/06
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: g-sci-fi, 3-stars
review:
EDIT: I just finished watching the movie Passenger (starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt) and I can't help but compare the similarities between the two. The storyline is somewhat similar with all these travelling to another planet, having hibernation pods, being alone in space etc. If you love this book you should watch the movie!!! Or vice versa.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3.5 stars

Okay. This book has ONE HELLUVA PLOT TWIST. It wasn't even my intention to finish this book so soon...but holy crap, those last 100 pages of the book got me so hooked up, I knew I had to finish it ASAP!

This book has one of the most interesting storylines ever. I mean, a girl born in space who's commandeering an entire spaceship and is in charge of starting a new life on Earth II? That's basically everyone's dream (okay, maybe not everyone, but still)! And she's probably the only human alive who hasn't been on Earth!!!

However, aside from page 200 onwards, there wasn't really much going on. And it wasn't actually that bad considering that Romy's experiences alone in space was interesting enough for me. The whole idea of being alone out there in space, at 16, is so bizarre and out of this world (no pun intended). I think this book is good in such ways that it's thought-provoking. However, character-wise, there wasn't really much developments in my opinion. And Romy seems so millennial-ish? Like a normal teenager. Which is a bit odd to me considering that her only real human interaction is with her parents. IN SPACE. I mean I know Molly has been sending her updates from Earth, but I feel like she's too normal. And don't even get me started with J. J's personality totally caught me off-guard. That ending? [spoilers removed]

But overall, I think this book was totally enjoyable and interesting!
]]> A List of Cages 25613472
Adam is ecstatic to be reunited. At first, Julian seems like the boy he once knew. He’s still kindhearted. He still writes stories and loves picture books meant for little kids. But as they spend more time together, Adam realizes that Julian is keeping secrets, like where he hides during the middle of the day, and what’s really going on inside his house. Adam is determined to help him, but his involvement could cost both boys their lives…]]> 310 Robin Roe 1484763807 �� gillian�� 3 3-stars 4.25 2017 A List of Cages

author: Robin Roe
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2019/01/09
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: 3-stars
review:

]]> Where Things Come Back 11185321
Meanwhile, the crisis of faith spawned by a young missionary’s disillusion in Africa prompts a frantic search for meaning that has far-reaching consequences. As distant as the two stories initially seem, they are woven together through masterful plotting and merge in a surprising and harrowing climax.

This extraordinary tale from a rare literary voice finds wonder in the ordinary and illuminates the hope of second chances.]]> 240 John Corey Whaley 1442413352 �� gillian�� 3 3-stars
Wow! I did not expect to like this!

This book is not for everyone. Where Things Come Back is weird in a good kind of way. It has a similar strangeness to The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender. However, I just didn't like the slow buildup and my lack of attachment to Cullen.]]> 3.63 2011

author: John Corey Whaley
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2019/05/14
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: 3-stars
review:
(3.5)

Wow! I did not expect to like this!

This book is not for everyone. Where Things Come Back is weird in a good kind of way. It has a similar strangeness to The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender. However, I just didn't like the slow buildup and my lack of attachment to Cullen.
]]> <![CDATA[The Empress of Salt and Fortune (The Singing Hills Cycle, #1)]]> 51190882
Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.

At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She's a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.

Librarian Note: Older cover of B07VH6Y4JD.]]> 119 Nghi Vo �� gillian�� 3 3.91 2020 The Empress of Salt and Fortune (The Singing Hills Cycle, #1)

The Empress of Salt and Fortune (The Singing Hills Cycle, #1)

author: Nghi Vo
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2020/07/05
date added: 2022/03/27
shelves: g-novellas-and-shorts, g-fantasy, g-lgbtqia-rep, 3-stars
review:

]]> Mr Salary 43159260 My love for him felt so total and so annihilating that it was often impossible for me to see him clearly at all.

Years ago, Sukie moved in with Nathan because her mother was dead and her father was difficult, and she had nowhere else to go. Now they are on the brink of the inevitable.

Sally Rooney is one of the most acclaimed young talents of recent years. With her minute attention to the power dynamics in everyday speech, she builds up sexual tension and throws a deceptively low-key glance at love and death.

]]> 48 Sally Rooney 0571354645 �� gillian�� 4 reread: Nothing's better than starting my Saturday morning reading a Sally Rooney writing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
first read: I've come to a point in my life where I would read anything Sally Rooney writes.]]> 3.45 2016 Mr Salary

author: Sally Rooney
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2022/03/26
date added: 2022/03/26
shelves: g-novellas-and-shorts, g-literary-fiction, 4-and-a-half-stars, x-beautiful-prose, x-reread
review:
reread: Nothing's better than starting my Saturday morning reading a Sally Rooney writing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
first read: I've come to a point in my life where I would read anything Sally Rooney writes.
]]> Normal People 41086877 Librarian note: See an alternate cover edition here.

Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. In school, Connell is popular and well-liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation �� awkward but electrifying �� something life-changing begins.

Normal People is a story of mutual fascination, friendship and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find they can’t.]]> 266 Sally Rooney �� gillian�� 5 reread:

I like to believe that Salley Rooney’s books and I are fated because I could’ve been born in the 1800s and die not knowing the existence of such an incredible book/author. But here I am, living in the same era as her while I also get to watch the adaptation of Normal People. How blessed am I?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
first read:

I AM SO EMOTIONAL AND FRUSTRATED AND ANNOYED AND EXHAUSTED AND REALLY REALLY SAD RIGHT NOW.

"I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know why I can't be like normal people.��

There's this part in the book where Connell expressed himself as being moved by literature in a way that he's all wrapped up in the drama of fictional characters. One of his professors called it 'the pleasure of being touched by great art'. And that basically sums up my current state after reading this book. I AM TOUCHED BY GREAT ART and I'm gonna go on for days thinking about Marianne and Connell.

Normal People is a love story about two complex and flawed individuals who were trying to figure out themselves and find love in this seemingly broken and fucked up world. Marianne and Connell’s relationship lacked communication. It's filled with angst and bottled up emotions, lots of sex (not graphic), and a series of unofficial breakups and getting back together a million times.

Everything about their relationship is frustrating and emotionally draining. I reached a point where I had enough and I didn’t want them to end up together. But the moment they started dating a different person, I had never felt so hurt. I realised I wanted them together after all.

”All these years, they’ve been like two little plants sharing the same plot of soil, growing around one another, contorting to make room, taking certain unlikely positions.��

author: Sally Rooney
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/19
date added: 2022/03/26
shelves: all-time-fave, g-contemporary-romance, g-literary-fiction, fave-2020, 5-stars, x-reread, that-cover-tho, x-beautiful-prose
review:
reread:

I like to believe that Salley Rooney’s books and I are fated because I could’ve been born in the 1800s and die not knowing the existence of such an incredible book/author. But here I am, living in the same era as her while I also get to watch the adaptation of Normal People. How blessed am I?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
first read:

I AM SO EMOTIONAL AND FRUSTRATED AND ANNOYED AND EXHAUSTED AND REALLY REALLY SAD RIGHT NOW.

"I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know why I can't be like normal people.��

There's this part in the book where Connell expressed himself as being moved by literature in a way that he's all wrapped up in the drama of fictional characters. One of his professors called it 'the pleasure of being touched by great art'. And that basically sums up my current state after reading this book. I AM TOUCHED BY GREAT ART and I'm gonna go on for days thinking about Marianne and Connell.

Normal People is a love story about two complex and flawed individuals who were trying to figure out themselves and find love in this seemingly broken and fucked up world. Marianne and Connell’s relationship lacked communication. It's filled with angst and bottled up emotions, lots of sex (not graphic), and a series of unofficial breakups and getting back together a million times.

Everything about their relationship is frustrating and emotionally draining. I reached a point where I had enough and I didn’t want them to end up together. But the moment they started dating a different person, I had never felt so hurt. I realised I wanted them together after all.

”All these years, they’ve been like two little plants sharing the same plot of soil, growing around one another, contorting to make room, taking certain unlikely positions.��

This is my first Sally Rooney book and it's definitely not my last. Her writing is captivating and it drew me in immediately. The plot is fast-paced which fared for me well but might not be the case to some. The lack of quotation marks also bothered me at the start but as I read more, I got used to it and I didn’t even notice its absence.

Overall, I'm not entirely sure why I love this book because I surely did not enjoy how it played with my emotions. But I love Normal People and I might've found myself a new favourite author.
]]> Five Feet Apart 38926328 In this moving story two teens fall in love with just one minor complication—they can’t get within five feet of each other without risking their lives.

Can you love someone you can never touch?

Stella Grant likes to be in control—even though her totally out of control lungs have sent her in and out of the hospital most of her life. At this point, what Stella needs to control most is keeping herself away from anyone or anything that might pass along an infection and jeopardize the possibility of a lung transplant. Six feet apart. No exceptions.

The only thing Will Newman wants to be in control of is getting out of this hospital. He couldn’t care less about his treatments, or a fancy new clinical drug trial. Soon, he’ll turn eighteen and then he’ll be able to unplug all these machines and actually go see the world, not just its hospitals.

�¾��’s exactly what Stella needs to stay away from. If he so much as breathes on Stella she could lose her spot on the transplant list. Either one of them could die. The only way to stay alive is to stay apart. But suddenly six feet doesn’t feel like safety. It feels like punishment.

What if they could steal back just a little bit of the space their broken lungs have stolen from them? Would five feet apart really be so dangerous if it stops their hearts from breaking too?]]> 304 Rachael Lippincott 1534437339 �� gillian�� 1
It's such a bummer that this book has one of the prettiest covers that I've ever seen, yet it has the MOST CRAPPY AND CLICHÉ PLOT ever! Don't even get me started with these bidimensional characters (they're more bland than water, trust me). Not to mention the insta-love between Will and Stella, which was probably the root cause of all the wrong things in this book. They probably knew each other for what...a couple of weeks? Barely knew each other's favourite food yet somehow, they decided they fucking love each other sooooooooo freaking much that Stella was literally willing to die and forgo the life she could get just for this couple-of-weeks feeling that they called love. I called it s-t-u-p-i-d-i-t-y. And this whole idea of five feet apart would make you cry because again, it's plain stupid.

Let's just hope that this is one of the rare instances where the movie is better than the book.]]> 4.06 2018

author: Rachael Lippincott
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 1
read at: 2019/01/23
date added: 2022/03/26
shelves: that-cover-tho, g-contemporary-romance, i-dont-get-the-hype, 1-star
review:
I’m sorry, but did someone put a spell on me and made my heart into stone because it’s incapable of feeling any emotions right now?

It's such a bummer that this book has one of the prettiest covers that I've ever seen, yet it has the MOST CRAPPY AND CLICHÉ PLOT ever! Don't even get me started with these bidimensional characters (they're more bland than water, trust me). Not to mention the insta-love between Will and Stella, which was probably the root cause of all the wrong things in this book. They probably knew each other for what...a couple of weeks? Barely knew each other's favourite food yet somehow, they decided they fucking love each other sooooooooo freaking much that Stella was literally willing to die and forgo the life she could get just for this couple-of-weeks feeling that they called love. I called it s-t-u-p-i-d-i-t-y. And this whole idea of five feet apart would make you cry because again, it's plain stupid.

Let's just hope that this is one of the rare instances where the movie is better than the book.
]]> French Braid 58065401 From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author--a funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one Baltimore family's foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for reunion with a grandchild in our pandemic present.

The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts' influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation.

Full of heartbreak and hilarity, French Braid is classic Anne Tyler: a stirring, uncannily insightful novel of tremendous warmth and humor that illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us, and how close--yet how unknowable--every family is to itself.]]> 244 Anne Tyler 059332109X �� gillian�� 0 3.51 2022 French Braid

author: Anne Tyler
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/26
shelves: to-read, g-historical-fiction, g-literary-fiction, tbr-2022-releases
review:

]]> Burn Our Bodies Down 48570208 From the author of the New York Times bestseller Wilder Girls comes a new twisty thriller about a girl whose past has always been a mystery—until she decides to return to her mother’s hometown . . . where history has a tendency to repeat itself.

Ever since Margot was born, it’s been just her and her mother. No answers to Margot’s questions about what came before. No history to hold on to. No relative to speak of. Just the two of them, stuck in their run-down apartment, struggling to get along.

But that’s not enough for Margot. She wants family. She wants a past. And she just found the key she needs to get it: A photograph, pointing her to a town called Phalene. Pointing her home. Only, when Margot gets there, it’s not what she bargained for.

Margot’s mother left for a reason. But was it to hide her past? Or was it to protect Margot from what’s still there?

The only thing Margot knows for sure is there’s poison in their family tree, and their roots are dug so deeply into Phalene that now that she’s there, she might never escape.]]> 352 Rory Power 0525645624 �� gillian�� 0 3.59 2020 Burn Our Bodies Down

author: Rory Power
name: �� gillian��
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/26
shelves: to-read, g-mystery-thriller-horror-etc, g-lgbtqia-rep, that-cover-tho
review:

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