en-US Sat, 28 Sep 2024 11:07:18 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 56892352 A terrifying new thriller from bestseller Catherynne M. Valente, for fans of Gone Girl and Spinning Silver

Sophia was made for him. Her perfect husband. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Everything is perfect.

It's just that he's away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.

But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband's face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can't quite meet her gaze...

But everything is perfect. Isn't it?]]> 112 Catherynne M. Valente 1250816203 usef 4 3.60 2021
author: Catherynne M. Valente
name: usef
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/11/20
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: fairy-tale-retelings, great-writing, terrible-confusing-or-weak-ending, horror, mystery
review:

]]> 55381086 A novel about isolation and human connection.

Tru Beck is a teenage girl from Pennsylvania who lives in a world that has become trapped in a fold in time and space, where “real�� time has stopped but humanity continues to mark artificial time based on a website called N3WCLOCK.com. Tru lives in a house that has a switch at its center. No one knows what the switch controls, but her father continually builds larger and larger boxes around the switch (Tru lives in Box #7). Tru leaves the box through a Tru-shaped hole to go to school, where she pays no attention to the new “Solution Time�� curriculum. In fact, the only interesting thing that’s ever happened to Tru at school is when she discovers (on her first try) that she can throw a javelin farther than any human has ever thrown anything before in human history.]]> 240 A.S. King 052555551X usef 5 4.5 star 3.27 2021
author: A.S. King
name: usef
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/11/29
date added: 2022/03/18
shelves: great-writing, favorites, comfort-read, fantasy-or-magical-realism
review:
4.5 star
]]> 1060562 A brilliant, twisted, spirited anti-fairy tale from the amazing Chris Wooding

Poison has always been a willful, contrary girl, prone to being argumentative and stubborn. So when her sister is snatched by the mean-spirited faeries, she seeks out the Phaerie Lord to get her back.

But finding him isn't easy, and the quest leads Poison into a murderous world of intrigue, danger, and deadly storytelling. With only her wits and her friends to aid her, Poison must survive the attentions of the Phaerie Lord, rescue her sister, and thwart a plot that's beyond anything she (or the reader) can imagine. . . .]]> 288 Chris Wooding 0439755700 usef 4 actual rating : 3:75 stars - 4 stars cant decide
"how was it that life, like a story, had such a comic timing"]]> 4.01 2003
author: Chris Wooding
name: usef
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2021/08/08
date added: 2022/03/18
shelves: great-writing, fantasy-or-magical-realism
review:
"and sorrow can only last for so long before it must be shed or it will consume the sorrower"
actual rating : 3:75 stars - 4 stars cant decide
"how was it that life, like a story, had such a comic timing"
]]> 3327199 From internationally renowned literary phenomenon Haruki Murakami comes this spellbinding novel set in Tokyo during the spooky hours between midnight and dawn.

Nineteen-year-old Mari is waiting out the night in an anonymous Denny’s when she meets a young man who insists he knows her older sister, thus setting her on an odyssey through the sleeping city. In the space of a single night, the lives of a diverse cast of Tokyo residents—models, prostitutes, mobsters, and musicians—collide in a world suspended between fantasy and reality. Utterly enchanting and infused with surrealism, After Dark is a thrilling account of the magical hours separating midnight from dawn.]]> 201 Haruki Murakami 0099520869 usef 3 will probably still give murakami another try in the future]]> 3.81 2004
author: Haruki Murakami
name: usef
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 2021/12/27
date added: 2022/03/18
shelves: terrible-confusing-or-weak-ending, relatable-charachters, great-writing, lack-of-plot, fantasy-or-magical-realism
review:
After dark is set in the hours after midnight and while its set through multiple days, the whole book goes through 12-6am (if chapter one is day 1, it begins at 12 am, the next chapter is day 2 and its set at 1am and so forth.) this book gives you no closure and feels unfinished.
will probably still give murakami another try in the future
]]> 825840 218 Chuck Palahniuk 0099765217 usef 5 4.11 1996
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: usef
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 2021/11/10
date added: 2022/03/18
shelves: favorites, great-writing, scifi
review:

]]> 33376816 240 Martha Batalha 178607172X usef 5 3.73 2016
author: Martha Batalha
name: usef
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/01
date added: 2022/03/18
shelves: great-writing, has-a-movie-or-show, lack-of-plot, contemporary
review:

]]> 9361589
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.]]> 506 Erin Morgenstern usef 4 date read : 6 july 2021- 10 july 2021]]> 4.00 2011
author: Erin Morgenstern
name: usef
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/10
date added: 2022/03/18
shelves: great-writing, fantasy-or-magical-realism
review:
-actual rating : 4.25 stars ��
date read : 6 july 2021- 10 july 2021
]]> 30038855
Declan Murphy isn't the sort of guy you want to cross. In the midst of his court-ordered community service at the local cemetery, he's trying to escape the demons of his past.

When Declan reads a haunting letter left beside a grave, he can't resist writing back. Soon, he's opening up to a perfect stranger, and their connection is immediate. But neither Declan nor Juliet knows that they're not actually strangers. When life at school interferes with their secret life of letters, sparks will fly as Juliet and Declan discover truths that might tear them apart.]]> 391 Brigid Kemmerer 1681190087 usef 5 4.30 2017
author: Brigid Kemmerer
name: usef
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2022/01/29
date added: 2022/03/18
shelves: sad, good-ending, great-writing, favorites, contemporary, epistolary, recomended-to-me
review:

]]> 17245 You can find an alternative cover edition for this ISBN here and here.

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the 'Master' and his imminent arrival.

In Dracula, Bram Stoker created one of the great masterpieces of the horror genre, brilliantly evoking a nightmare world of vampires and vampire hunters and also illuminating the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire.

This Norton Critical Edition includes a rich selection of background and source materials in three areas: Contexts includes probable inspirations for Dracula in the earlier works of James Malcolm Rymer and Emily Gerard. Also included are a discussion of Stoker's working notes for the novel and "Dracula's Guest," the original opening chapter to Dracula. Reviews and Reactions reprints five early reviews of the novel. "Dramatic and Film Variations" focuses on theater and film adaptations of Dracula, two indications of the novel's unwavering appeal. David J. Skal, Gregory A. Waller, and Nina Auerbach offer their varied perspectives. Checklists of both dramatic and film adaptations are included.

Criticism collects seven theoretical interpretations of Dracula by Phyllis A. Roth, Carol A. Senf, Franco Moretti, Christopher Craft, Bram Dijkstra, Stephen D. Arata, and Talia Schaffer.

A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are included.]]> 488 Bram Stoker 0393970124 usef 0 great-writing, on-hold 4.02 1897
author: Bram Stoker
name: usef
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1897
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/18
shelves: great-writing, on-hold
review:

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