frankie's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 16 Apr 2025 22:46:55 -0700 60 frankie's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Cassandra at the Wedding 902010 256 Dorothy Baker 1590171128 frankie 4 not-at-library 3.96 1962 Cassandra at the Wedding
author: Dorothy Baker
name: frankie
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1962
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: not-at-library
review:
i fear this book had a genius to it that went over my head and i wish i could have fully appreciated it. 4.5
]]> Victorian Psycho 213395480 From the acclaimed author of Mrs. March comes the riveting tale of a bloodthirsty governess who learns the true meaning of vengeance.

Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family—Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze. Compounded with her disdain for the entitled Pounds children, Winifred finds herself struggling at every turn to stifle the violent compulsions of her past. French tutoring and needlework are one way to pass the time, as is admiring the ugly portraits in the gallery . . . and creeping across the moonlit lawns. . . .

Patience. Winifred must have patience, for Christmas is coming, and she has very special gifts planned for the dear souls of Ensor House. Brimming with sardonic wit and culminating in a shocking conclusion, Victorian Psycho plunges readers into the chilling mind of an iconic new literary psychopath.]]> 208 Virginia Feito 1631498630 frankie 0 currently-reading 3.63 2025 Victorian Psycho
author: Virginia Feito
name: frankie
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Adulterants 35276866
The Adulterants would be a coming-of-age story if its protagonist could only forget that he is thirty-three years old. Throughout a series of escalating catastrophes, our deadpan antihero keeps up a merciless mental commentary on the foibles and failings of those around him, and the vicissitudes of modern urban life: internet trolls, buy-to-let landlords, open marriages, and the threat posed by more sensitive men. But the wonder of The Adulterants is how we feel ourselves rooting for Ray even as we acknowledge that he deserves everything he gets.]]> 150 Joe Dunthorne 194104087X frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.35 2018 The Adulterants
author: Joe Dunthorne
name: frankie
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Patricia Wants to Cuddle 59093587 The contestants of a reality television dating show compete for love—and their lives—in this pulse-pounding and viciously funny fiction debut from the GLAAD Award-winning author of Real Queer America.

When the final four women in competition for an aloof, if somewhat sleazy, bachelor's heart arrive on a mysterious island in the Pacific Northwest, they mentally prepare themselves for another week of extreme sleep deprivation, invasive interviews, and of course, the salacious drama that viewers nationwide tune in to eagerly devour. Each woman came on 'The Catch' for her own reasons—brand sponsorships, followers, and yes, even love—and they've all got their eyes steadfastly trained on their respective prizes.

Enter Patricia, a temperamental, but woefully misunderstood local, living alone in the dark, verdant woods and desperate to forge a connection of her own. As the contestants perform for the cameras that surround them, Patricia watches from her place in the shadows, a queer specter haunting the bombastic display of heterosexuality before her. But when the cast and crew at last make her acquaintance atop the island's tallest and most desolate peak, they soon realize that if they're to have any hope of making it to the next Elimination Event, they'll first have to survive the night.

A whirlwind romp careening toward a last-girl-standing conclusion and a scathing indictment of contemporary American media culture, Patricia Wants to Cuddle is also a love story: between star-crossed lesbians who rise above their intolerant town, a deeply ambivalent woman and her budding self-actualization, and a chosen family of misfit islanders forging community against all odds.]]> 256 Samantha Allen 163893004X frankie 4 at-library 3.52 2022 Patricia Wants to Cuddle
author: Samantha Allen
name: frankie
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: at-library
review:
maybe 3.75.. had HUGE potential to be a five; fast paced, compulsively readable, interesting characters / dynamics, so damn fun. but i wanted it to push farther into what it was doing- more campy, more slasher, more weird, more LESBIAN! and i also wanted it to say something. thoroughly enjoyable and easy reading experience though
]]> Fake Accounts 45732027 A woman in a post-election tailspin discovers that her boyfriend is an anonymous online conspiracy theorist in this provocative and subversive debut novel that examines social media, sex, feminism, and fiction, the connection they've all promised, and the lies they help us tell.

On the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, a young woman snoops through her boyfriend's phone and makes a startling discovery: he's an anonymous internet conspiracy theorist, and a popular one at that. Already fluent in internet fakery, irony, and outrage, she's not exactly shocked by the revelation. Actually, she's relieved—he was always a little distant—and she plots to end their floundering relationship while on a trip to the Women's March in DC. But this is only the first in a series of bizarre twists that expose a world whose truths are shaped by online lies.

Suddenly left with no reason to stay in New York and increasingly alienated from her friends and colleagues, our unnamed narrator flees to Berlin, embarking on her own cycles of manipulation in the deceptive spaces of her daily life, from dating apps to expat meetups, open-plan offices to bureaucratic waiting rooms. She begins to think she can't trust anyone--shouldn't the feeling be mutual?

Narrated with seductive confidence and subversive wit, Fake Accounts challenges the way current conversations about the self and community, delusions and gaslighting, and fiction and reality play out in the internet age.]]> 272 Lauren Oyler 1948226928 frankie 3 2.83 2021 Fake Accounts
author: Lauren Oyler
name: frankie
average rating: 2.83
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/15
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves:
review:
mindnumbingly boring. like boring to an unbelievable degree
]]> Such Small Hands 31944839 Such Small Hands evokes the pain of loss and the hunger for acceptance.]]> 105 Andrés Barba 1945492007 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.47 2008 Such Small Hands
author: Andrés Barba
name: frankie
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Freshwater 35412372 Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side." Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities.

Ada begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency. A traumatic assault leads to a crystallization of her alternate selves: Asụghara and Saint Vincent. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these selves--now protective, now hedonistic--move into control, Ada's life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction.

Narrated by the various selves within Ada and based in the author's realities, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace, heralding the arrival of a fierce new literary voice.]]> 229 Akwaeke Emezi 0802127355 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 4.03 2018 Freshwater
author: Akwaeke Emezi
name: frankie
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Thirst Trap 221188099 Sometimes friends hold you together.
Sometimes they’re why you’re falling apart.

Maggie, Harley and RĂłise are friends on the of triumph, catastrophe, or maybe just finally growing up. Their crumbling Belfast houseshare has been witness to their roaring twenties, filled with questionable one-night stands and ruthless hangovers. But now fault-lines are beginning to show.

The three girls are still grieving the tragic death of their friend, Lydia, whose room remains untouched. Their last big fight hangs heavy over their heads, unspoken since the accident. And now they are all beginning to unravel.

Thirst Trap by Gráinne O'Hare is a blazing, bittersweet, bitingly funny, and painfully relatable story about the friendships that endure through the very best and the very worst of times.]]> 288 Grainne O'Hare 1035046229 frankie 0 to-read, unpublished 4.14 2025 Thirst Trap
author: Grainne O'Hare
name: frankie
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read, unpublished
review:

]]> The Safekeep 199798201
A house is a precious thing...

It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season.

Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation—leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem.

Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, and infused with intrigue, atmosphere, and sex, The Safekeep is a brilliantly plotted and provocative debut novel you won’t soon forget.]]> 272 Yael van der Wouden 1668034344 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 4.05 2024 The Safekeep
author: Yael van der Wouden
name: frankie
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Oh, Sister 61398410 Meet Isobel, Jen and Zelda.
Three women whose bodies and minds are not their own.

They belong to the Church.
Life and death decisions are taken by others on their behalf.
Who they might marry.
Whether they start a family.

Isobel and Jen know nothing of the world.
But when Isobel's husband leaves her and Jen challenges those in charge, the Church turns its back on them.

Zelda - never one for doing what is expected - dares to find hope on the outside.

Meet Isobel, Jen and Zelda.
Three women desperate to find a life to call their own . . .

This is a novel about what it is like to live inside a prison of the mind and how to break out of it - if you can.
____________

Praise for Jodie Chapman:

'Beautifully written...I couldn't put it down' EMMA GANNON
'An astounding debut about sibling grief, religion and sliding doors love' PANDORA SYKES
'Deep, rich, thoughtful' GILLIAN MCALLISTER
'This beautiful tale of love, loss and sacrifice will break your heart . . . With echoes of David Nicholls' One Day and Sally Rooney's novels, it perfectly captures the agony of falling in love and the razor-sharp reality of pain and loss' DAILY MAIL]]> 352 Jodie Chapman 0241456959 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 4.13 2023 Oh, Sister
author: Jodie Chapman
name: frankie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Beta Vulgaris 213395442 A young woman’s seasonal job takes a dark, surreal turn in this vivid and surprising debut.

When Elise and her boyfriend, Tom, set off for Minnesota, all she knows about harvesting sugar beets (Beta vulgaris) is that her paycheck will cover a few months� rent on their Brooklyn apartment. She’ll try anything to escape the incessant debt collection calls—and chronic anxieties about her body and her relationship. But as the grueling graveyard shifts set in, Elise notices strange threatening texts, a mysterious rash, a string of disappearances from the workers� campsite, and snatches of a hypnotic voice coming from the beet pile itself.

As crewmembers vanish, Elise obsesses over Tom’s closeness with their charismatic coworker Cee and falls back on self-destructive patterns of disordered eating and dissociation. Against the horrors of her uncertain future, is the siren song of the beet pile almost . . . appealing? Biting and eerie, Beta Vulgaris harnesses an audacious premise to undermine straightforward narratives of class, trauma, consumption, and redemption.]]> 296 Margie Sarsfield 1324078731 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.58 2025 Beta Vulgaris
author: Margie Sarsfield
name: frankie
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Despair 418209 Despair is the wickedly inventive and richly derisive story of Hermann Karlovich, a man who undertakes the perfect crime - his own murder.]]> 212 Vladimir Nabokov 0679723439 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.92 1934 Despair
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: frankie
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1934
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Make Sure You Die Screaming 211004043 An electrifying debut about a nonbinary corporate burnout embarking on a road trip from Chicago to Arkansas to find their conspiracy-theorist father, who has gone missing—for fans of Detransition Baby and Chain-Gang All-Stars

The newly nameless narrator of Make Sure You Die Screaming has rejected the gender binary, has flamed out with a vengeance at their corporate gig, is most likely brain damaged from a major tussle with their now ex-boyfriend, and is on a bender to end all benders.

A call from their mother with the news that their MAGA-friendly, conspiracy-theorist father has gone missing launches the narrator from Chicago to deep red Arkansas in a stolen car. Along the way, the narrator and their new bestie—a self-proclaimed "garbage goth" with her own emotional baggage (and someone on her tail)—unpack the narrator’s childhood and a recent personal loss that they refuse to face head-on.

An unflinching interrogation of class rage, economic (im)mobility, gender expression, and the rot at the heart of capitalism, Make Sure You Die Screaming is the loud, funny, tragic, suspenseful road trip novel of our times.]]> 224 Zee Carlstrom 1250365678 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.78 2025 Make Sure You Die Screaming
author: Zee Carlstrom
name: frankie
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> My Face in the Light 58587368 A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF 2022

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 TORONTO BOOK AWARD

"My mother is an artist and I am a liar. Or, if I scratch the surface, my mother is a sick woman and I am an actress . . ."

Justine feels uneasy in her marriage, her theatre career and her relationship with her estranged mother, a famous painter. An intuitive and uncanny mimic, distinguished by a pronounced scar across her forehead (the result of a childhood accident), Justine has made acting the centre of her life since she was a teenager, but lately her outwardly charmed life in Toronto has begun to ring false. After a disastrous audition in London, England, a chance encounter with a stranger leads to an unorthodox business proposition that would allow Justine to abandon the world she knows indefinitely. As the complications and contradictions of leaving a life behind swell to the point of crisis, Justine must confront the collateral damage of a traumatic, long-repressed past.

In psychologically astute prose full of provocative insights, My Face in the Light is a piercing, poignant novel about truth in art and identity. It's the story of a young woman owning up to the lies she's fallen in love with, and figuring out if she can still recognize herself when she finally lets them go.]]> 312 Martha Schabas 073527763X frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.49 2022 My Face in the Light
author: Martha Schabas
name: frankie
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Everything Here Is Beautiful 34262106
Miranda leaves her own self-contained life in Switzerland to rescue her sister again—but only Lucia can decide whether she wants to be saved. The bonds of sisterly devotion stretch across oceans—but what does it take to break them?

Everything Here Is Beautiful is, at its heart, an immigrant story, and a young woman’s quest to find fulfillment and a life unconstrained by her illness. But it’s also an unforgettable, gut-wrenching story of the sacrifices we make to truly love someone—and when loyalty to one’s self must prevail over all.]]> 360 Mira T. Lee 0735221960 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.90 2018 Everything Here Is Beautiful
author: Mira T. Lee
name: frankie
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> The Reeds 211765571 The Reeds is about family, love, and nostalgia while exploring the dehumanization of work and the power of art against a backdrop of mid-century modern furniture, shag carpeting, the relentlessness of change, gentrification, and Korean fried chicken. In many ways, The Reeds is an optimistic story about the middle class, its hopes, ambitions, and challenges.]]> 360 Arjun Basu 1770417435 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.52 The Reeds
author: Arjun Basu
name: frankie
average rating: 3.52
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Disorientation 58350424 A Taiwanese American woman’s coming-of-consciousness ignites eye-opening revelations and chaos on a college campus in this outrageously hilarious and startlingly tender debut novel.

Twenty-nine-year-old PhD student Ingrid Yang is desperate to finish her dissertation on the late canonical poet Xiao-Wen Chou and never read about “Chinese-y� things again. But after years of grueling research, all she has to show for her efforts are junk food addiction and stomach pain. When she accidentally stumbles upon a curious note in the Chou archives one afternoon, she convinces herself it’s her ticket out of academic hell.

But Ingrid’s in much deeper than she thinks. Her clumsy exploits to unravel the note’s message lead to an explosive discovery, upending not only her sheltered life within academia but her entire world beyond it. With her trusty friend Eunice Kim by her side and her rival Vivian Vo hot on her tail, together they set off a roller coaster of mishaps and misadventures, from book burnings and OTC drug hallucinations, to hot-button protests and Yellow Peril 2.0 propaganda.

In the aftermath, nothing looks the same to Ingrid—including her gentle and doting fiancé, Stephen Greene. When he embarks on a book tour with the super kawaii Japanese author he’s translated, doubts and insecurities creep in for the first time� As the events Ingrid instigated keep spiraling, she’ll have to confront her sticky relationship to white men and white institutions—and, most of all, herself.

For readers of Paul Beatty’s The Sellout and Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown, this uproarious and bighearted satire is a blistering send-up of privilege and power in America, and a profound reckoning of individual complicity and unspoken rage. In this electrifying debut novel from a provocative new voice, Elaine Hsieh Chou asks who gets to tell our stories—and how the story changes when we finally tell it ourselves.]]> 403 Elaine Hsieh Chou 0593298357 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.84 2022 Disorientation
author: Elaine Hsieh Chou
name: frankie
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> The Glow 62802760
“A satire both cutting and careful in its approach, The Glow is a triumph.”� Elle (Best New Books to Read in Summer 2023)

Jane Dorner has two PR Jane, twenty-five, chummy, and eager to sell you a feminist vibrator or a self-care/bereavement subscription box; and Actual Jane, twenty-nine, drifting through mediocre workdays and lackluster dates while paralyzed by her crushing mountain of overdue medical bills. When her job performance is called into question, Jane’s last-ditch effort to preserve her livelihood and pay off her debt is to land a white whale of a client.

Enter the impossibly gorgeous Cass—whom Jane discovers scrolling through Instagram—and her unassuming husband, Tom—proprietors of a “wellness retreat� based out of a ramshackle country house that may or may not be giving off cult vibes. Suddenly Jane realizes she might have found the one ladder she can climb—if she can convince them that transforming Cass herself into a high-end wellness brand is the key to all three of their futures. Magnetic yet mysterious, Cass is primed to be an She speaks in a mix of inspirational quotes and Zen koans, eats only zucchini (the most spiritually nourishing vegetable), and has baby-perfect skin. Despite Tom’s reticence about selling out, Jane sets out to mold Cass into the kind of guru who can offer inner peace and make your skin glow—all at a hefty price, of course. As Jane reckons with her own long-dormant ambitions, she Can a person really “do good� for others while profiting off them? And what parts of our selves do we lose when we trade power, influence, and beauty?

Sparklingly plotted, deliciously deadpan, and irresistibly entertaining, The Glow is a razor-sharp sendup of an industry built on the peculiar intersection of money and wellness, where health is a commodity and self-care a luxury.]]> 320 Jessie Gaynor 0593447875 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.18 2023 The Glow
author: Jessie Gaynor
name: frankie
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> NSFW 58673061 Blisteringly sharp, hypersmart, and compulsively readable―meet Isabel Kaplan’s searing debut novel about a young woman trying to succeed in Hollywood without selling her soul.

From the outside, the unnamed protagonist in NSFW appears the vision of success. She has landed an entry-level position at a leading TV network that thousands of college grads would kill for. And sure, she has much to learn. The daughter of a prominent feminist attorney, she grew up outside the industry, better versed in gender dynamics than box office hits. But she’s resourceful and hardworking―what could go wrong?

At first, the high adrenaline work environment motivates her, yet as she climbs the ranks, she confronts the reality of creating change from the inside. Her points only get attention when echoed by male colleagues. She hears whispers of abuse and sexual misconduct. Her mother says to keep her head down until she’s the one in charge―a scenario that seems idealistic at best, morally questionable at worst.

When her personal and professional lives collide, threatening both the network and her future, she must finally decide what to protect: the career she’s given everything for or the empowered woman she claims to be.]]> 272 Isabel Kaplan 1250822890 frankie 0 to-read 3.48 2022 NSFW
author: Isabel Kaplan
name: frankie
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> O Sinners! 213618149 A journalist investigates a seductive and mysterious cult and its leader, an enigmatic Vietnam War veteran, in this not-to-be-missed novel.

Faruq Zaidi, a young journalist reeling from the recent death of his father, a devout Muslim, takes the opportunity to embed in a cult called The Nameless. Based in the California redwoods and shepherded by an enigmatic Vietnam War-veteran named Odo, The Nameless adhere to the 18 Utterances, including teachings such as “THERE IS NO GOD BUT THE NAMELESS,� “ALL SUFFERING IS DISTORTION,� and “SEE ONLY BEAUTY.� Faruq, skeptical but committed to unraveling the mystery of The Nameless, extends his stay over months, as he gets deeper into the cult's inner workings, compassionate teachings, and closer to Odo. Faruq himself begins to unravel, forced to come-to-terms with the memories he has been running from while trying to resist Odo's spell. 

Told in three seamlessly interwoven threads between Faruq’s present-day investigation, Odo’s time before the formation of the movement as a Black infantryman during the Vietnam War, alongside three other Black soldiers, and a documentary script that recounts The Nameless� clash with a Texan fundamentalist church, O SINNERS! examines both longing and belonging. Ultimately the novel What is it that we seek from cults and, inevitably, from each other?]]> 464 Nicole Cuffy 0593597443 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.68 2025 O Sinners!
author: Nicole Cuffy
name: frankie
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/11
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review:

]]> Goodbye, Vitamin 27746288 Goodbye, Vitamin is the wry, beautifully observed story of a woman at a crossroads, as Ruth and her friends attempt to shore up her father's career; she and her mother obsess over the ambiguous health benefits - in the absence of a cure - of dried jellyfish supplements and vitamin pills; and they all try to forge a new relationship with the brilliant, childlike, irascible man her father has become.]]> 208 Rachel Khong 1250109167 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.72 2017 Goodbye, Vitamin
author: Rachel Khong
name: frankie
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[A School for Fools (English and Russian Edition)]]> 722134 232 Sasha Sokolov 0941423077 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 4.12 1976 A School for Fools (English and Russian Edition)
author: Sasha Sokolov
name: frankie
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Dream State 215362651 “The story of relationships built and broken, mistakes inherited and repeated, and the beauty of trying again�.already one of the year’s best.”�People

Cece is in love. She has arrived early at her future in-laws� lake house in Salish, Montana, to finish planning her wedding to Charlie, a young doctor with a brilliant life ahead of him. Charlie has asked Garrett, his best friend from college, to officiate the ceremony, though Cece can’t imagine anyone more ill-suited for the task—an airport baggage handler haunted by a tragedy from his and Charlie’s shared past. But as Cece spends time with Garrett, his gruff mask slips, and she grows increasingly uncertain about her future. And why does Garrett, after meeting Cece, begin to feel, well, human again? As a contagious stomach flu threatens to scuttle the wedding, and Charlie and Garrett’s friendship is put to the ultimate test, Cece must decide between the life she’s dreamed of and a life she’s never imagined.

The events of that summer have long-lasting repercussions, not only on the three friends caught in its shadow but also on their children, who struggle to escape their parents� story. Spanning fifty years and set against the backdrop of a rapidly warming Montana, Dream State explores what it means to live with the mistakes of the past—both our own and the ones we’ve inherited.

Written with humor, precision, and enormous heart, both a love letter and an elegy to the American West, Dream State is a thrillingly ambitious ode to the power of friendship, the weird weather of marriage, and the beauty of impermanence.]]> 448 Eric Puchner 0385550669 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.63 2025 Dream State
author: Eric Puchner
name: frankie
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/11
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]]> Shred Sisters 208107364 A wry and riveting debut novel about family, mental illness, and a hard-won path between two sisters

It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight, but when her stunning confidence morphs into something erratic and unpredictable, she becomes a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Put simply, she has no brakes.

Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, survives Ollie’s bullying and outcast status throughout her school years. She dreams of winning a Nobel Prize and unlocking the mysteries of the mind. Amy believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world. Except none of that can explain what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the bipolar disorder that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed world.

As Amy comes of age and seeks to find her place—first in academics, then New York publishing, and through a series of troubled relationships—every step brings collisions with Ollie, who slips in and out of the Shred family without warning. For all that upends and unsettles these sisters, an inextricable bond always draws them back.

Spanning two decades, Shred Sisters is an intimate and bittersweet story exploring the fierce complexities of sisterhood, mental health, loss and love. If anything is true it’s what Amy learns on her road to self-acceptance: No one will love you or hurt you more than a sister.]]> 272 Betsy Lerner 080216370X frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.77 Shred Sisters
author: Betsy Lerner
name: frankie
average rating: 3.77
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Rental House 208584952 From the award-winning author of Chemistry, a sharp-witted, insightful novel about a marriage as seen through the lens of two family vacations

Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,� says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign� wife.

Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together?

With her “wry, wise, and simply spectacular� style (People) and “hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron� (O, The Oprah Magazine), Weike Wang offers a portrait of family that is equally witty, incisive, and tender.]]> 224 Weike Wang 0593545540 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.31 2024 Rental House
author: Weike Wang
name: frankie
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Baby X 173476065 When any biological matter can be used to create life, stolen celebrity DNA sells to the highest bidder—or the craziest stalker—in this propulsive thriller.

With a vivid imagining of the future, _Gattaca _meets Black Mirror in Kira Peikoff’s Baby X.

In the near-future United States, where advanced technology can create eggs or sperm from any person’s cells, celebrities face the alarming potential of meeting biological children they never conceived. Famous singer Trace Thorne is tired of being targeted by the Vault, a black market site devoted to stealing DNA. Sick of paying ransom money for his own cell matter, he hires bio-security guard Ember Ryan to ensure his biological safety.

Ember will do anything she can to protect her clients. She knows all the Vault’s tricks—discarded tissues, used straws, lipstick tubes—and has prevented countless DNA thefts. Working for Thorne, her focus becomes split when she begins to fall for him, but she knows she hasn’t let anything slip—love or not, his DNA is safe. But then she and Thorne are confronted by a pregnant woman, Quinn, who claims that Thorne is the father of her baby, and all bets are off.

Brilliantly plotted and terrifyingly prescient, Baby X is an unpredictable and relentless speculative thriller perfect for fans of Blake Crouch and John Marrs.]]> 326 Kira Peikoff 1639106332 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.82 2024 Baby X
author: Kira Peikoff
name: frankie
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/11
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review:

]]> Annie Bot 156023123
She’s learning, too.

Doug says he loves that Annie’s artificial intelligence makes her seem more like a real woman, but the more human Annie becomes, the less perfectly she behaves. As Annie's relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder whether Doug truly desires what he says he does. In such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?]]> 231 Sierra Greer 0063312697 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.81 2024 Annie Bot
author: Sierra Greer
name: frankie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Fruit of the Dead 176443312
Camp counselor Cory Ansel, eighteen and aimless, afraid to face her high-strung single mother in New York, is no longer sure where home is when the father of one of her campers offers an alternative. The CEO of a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company, Rolo Picazo is middle-aged, divorced, magnetic. He is also intoxicated by Cory. When Rolo proffers a childcare job (and an NDA), Cory quiets an internal warning and allows herself to be ferried to his private island. Plied with luxury and opiates manufactured by his company, she continues to tell herself she’s in charge. Her mother, Emer, head of a teetering agricultural NGO, senses otherwise. With her daughter seemingly vanished, Emer crosses land and sea to heed a cry for help she alone is convinced she hears.

Alternating between the two women’s perspectives, Rachel Lyon’s Fruit of the Dead incorporates its mythic inspiration with a light touch and devastating precision. The result is a tale that explores love, control, obliteration, and America’s own late capitalist mythos. Lyon’s reinvention of Persephone and Demeter’s story makes for a haunting and ecstatic novel that vibrates with lush abandon. Readers will not soon forget it.]]> 320 Rachel Lyon 1668020858 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.50 2024 Fruit of the Dead
author: Rachel Lyon
name: frankie
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
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review:

]]> Old Enough 62562896 A debut novel about a young bisexual woman who is pulled between a new sense of community and loyalty to a friendship she's outgrown

Savannah Sav Henry is almost the person she wants to be, or at least she's getting closer. It's the second semester of her sophomore year. She's finally come out as bisexual, is making friends with the other queers in her dorm, and has just about recovered from her disastrous first queer "situationship." She is cautiously optimistic that her life is about to begin.

But when she learns that Izzie, her best friend from childhood, has gotten engaged, Sav faces a crisis of confidence. Things with Izzie haven't been the same since what happened between Sav and Izzie's older brother when they were sixteen. Now, with the wedding around the corner, Sav is forced to reckon with trauma she thought she could put behind her.

On top of it all, Sav can't stop thinking about Wes from her Gender Studies class--sweet, funny Wes, with their long eyelashes and green backpack. There's something different here--with Wes and with her new friends (who delight in teasing her about this face-burning crush); it feels, terrifyingly, like they might truly see her in a way no one has before.

With a singularly funny, heartfelt voice, Old Enough explores queer love, community, and what it means to be a sexual assault survivor. Haley Jakobson has written a love letter to friendship and an honest depiction of what finding your people can feel like--for better or worse.]]> 336 Haley Jakobson 0593473000 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.95 2023 Old Enough
author: Haley Jakobson
name: frankie
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/11
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare]]> 65211335 From major new storytelling talent Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, a blazing, bodily, raucous journey through contemporary Hawaiian identity and womanhood.

Megan Kamalei Kakimoto's wrenching and sensational debut story collection follows a cast of mixed native Hawaiian and Japanese women through a contemporary landscape thick with inherited wisdom and the ghosts of colonization. This is a Hawai'i where unruly sexuality and generational memory overflow the postcard image of paradise and the boundaries of the real, where the superstitions born of the islands take on the weight of truth.

A childhood encounter with a wild pua'a (pig) on the haunted Pali highway portends one young woman's fraught relationship with her pregnant body. An elderly widow begins seeing her deceased lover in a giant flower. A kanaka writer, mid-manuscript, feels her raw pages quaking and knocking in the briefcase.

Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare is both a fierce love letter to Hawaiian identity and mythology, and a searing dispatch from an occupied territory threatening to erupt with violent secrets.]]> 272 Megan Kamalei Kakimoto 1639731164 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.62 2023 Every Drop Is a Man's Nightmare
author: Megan Kamalei Kakimoto
name: frankie
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
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]]> With Teeth 56160395
If she's being honest, Sammie Lucas is scared of her son. Working from home in the close quarters of their Florida house, she lives with one wary eye peeled on Samson, a sullen, unknowable boy who resists her every attempt to bond with him. Uncertain in her own feelings about motherhood, she tries her best—driving, cleaning, cooking, prodding him to finish projects for school—while growing increasingly resentful of Monika, her confident but absent wife. As Samson grows from feral toddler to surly teenager, Sammie's life begins to deteriorate into a mess of unruly behavior, and her struggle to create a picture-perfect queer family unravels. When her son's hostility finally spills over into physical aggression, Sammie must confront her role in the mess—and the possibility that it will never be clean again.

Blending the warmth and wit of Arnett's breakout hit, Mostly Dead Things, with a candid take on queer family dynamics, With Teeth is a thought-provoking portrait of the delicate fabric of family—and the many ways it can be torn apart.]]> 304 Kristen Arnett 0593191501 frankie 4 3.49 2021 With Teeth
author: Kristen Arnett
name: frankie
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/11
date added: 2025/04/11
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review:

]]> The Wall 59468837
Allegorical yet deeply personal and absorbing, The Wall is at once a critique of modern civilization, a nuanced and loving portrait of a relationship between a woman and her animals, a thrilling survival story, a Cold War-era dystopian adventure, and a truly singular feminist classic.]]> 239 Marlen Haushofer 0811231941 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 4.12 1963 The Wall
author: Marlen Haushofer
name: frankie
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Little Rot 202165946 A thrilling new novel from the bestselling, award-winning Akwaeke Emezi, about five friends trying to outrun and outmatch a powerful, underground world

One weekend. The elite underbelly of a Nigerian city. A breakup that starts a spiral. A party that goes awry. A tangled web of sex and lies and corruption that leaves no one unscathed. Little Rot is a whirling journey through the city’s dark side, told through the eyes of five people, each determined to run from the twisted powers out to destroy them.

Aima and Kalu are a longtime couple who have just split. When Kalu, reeling from his loss, visits a sex party hosted by his best friend, Ahmed, he makes a decision that will plunge them all into chaos, brutally upending their lives. Ola and Souraya, two Nigerian sex workers visiting from Kuala Lumpur, intersect with the three old friends as everything goes to hell. Sucked into the city’s corrupt underworld, they’re all looking for a way out of the trouble they’ve instigated, driven by loss and fueled by a desperate need to escape the dangerous threat that looms over them. They careen madly in the face of the poison of power, sexual violence, murder, betrayals. Little Rot tests how far these five will go to save each other—or themselves—when confronted by evil, culminating in a shattering denouement.

With each novel, with each creation, Akwaeke Emezi shows their genius as a storyteller, as a visionary force who has created a thrilling tale of sex, power, and deviance in Little Rot. You won’t be able to look away.]]> 276 Akwaeke Emezi 0525541632 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.59 2024 Little Rot
author: Akwaeke Emezi
name: frankie
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Some Strange Music Draws Me In]]> 150778945 The Burning Girl and the propulsive social interrogation of Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You, Hansbury reckons with gender and class as he delivers a timely and captivating narrative of self-realization amid the everyday violence of small-town intolerance. As the story builds to its explosive conclusion, Some Strange Music Draws Me In illuminates the unexpected ways that queerness can provide a ticket to liberation.]]> 320 Griffin Hansbury 1324050799 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 4.47 2024 Some Strange Music Draws Me In
author: Griffin Hansbury
name: frankie
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Resurrection 42641 562 Leo Tolstoy 0735102864 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 4.15 1899 Resurrection
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: frankie
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1899
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Idol 58908158 'Follow your heart and speak your truth.'

For Samantha Miller's young fans - her 'girls' - she's everything they want to be. She's an oracle, telling them how to live their lives, how to be happy, how to find and honour their 'truth'.

And her career is booming: she's just hit three million followers, her new book Chaste has gone straight to the top of the bestseller lists and she's appearing at sell-out events.

Determined to speak her truth and bare all to her adoring fans, she's written an essay about her sexual awakening as a teenager, with her female best friend, Lisa. She's never told a soul but now she's telling the world. The essay goes viral.

But then - years since they last spoke - Lisa gets in touch to say that she doesn't remember it that way at all. Her memory of that night is far darker. It's Sam's word against Lisa's - so who gets to tell the story? Whose 'truth' is really a lie?

'You put yourself on that pedestal, Samantha. You only have yourself to blame.'

Riveting, compulsive and bold, IDOL interrogates our relationship with our heroes and explores the world of online influencers, asking how well we can ever really know those whose carefully curated profiles we follow online. And it asks us to consider how two memories of the same event can differ, and how effortlessly we choose which stories to believe.]]> 320 Louise O'Neill 1787635333 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.55 2022 Idol
author: Louise O'Neill
name: frankie
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Bad Fruit 60258642 For fans of My Dark Vanessa and Celeste Ng, Bad Fruit is an unforgettable portrayal of a toxic mother-daughter relationship and a young woman's search for truth and liberation.

Just graduated from high school and waiting to start college at Oxford, Lily lives under the scrutiny of her volatile Singaporean mother, May, and is unable to find kinship with her elusive British father, Charlie. When May suspects that Charlie is having an affair, there's only one thing that calms May down: a glass of perfectly, spoiled orange juice served by Lily, who must always taste it first to make sure it's just right.

As her mother becomes increasingly unhinged, Lily starts to have flashbacks that she knows aren't her own. Over a sweltering London summer, all semblance of civility and propriety is lost, as Lily begins to unravel the harrowing history that has always cast a shadow on her mother. The horrifying secrets she uncovers will shake her family to its core, culminating in a shattering revelation that will finally set Lily free.

Beautiful and shocking, Bad Fruit is as compulsive as it is thought-provoking, as nuanced as it is explosive. A masterful exploration of mothers and daughters, inherited trauma and the race to break its devastating cycle, Bad Fruit will leave readers breathlessly questioning their own notions of femininity, race and redemption.]]> 256 Ella King 1662601492 frankie 4 3.73 2022 Bad Fruit
author: Ella King
name: frankie
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/04
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves:
review:

]]> Wet Paint 59980509
But when a chance encounter at work brings her past thundering into her present, Eve becomes consumed by painful memories of Grace. And soon her precariously maintained life begins to unravel: she loses her job, gets thrown out of her flat, and risks pushing away the one decent man who cares about her.

Taking up life-modelling to pay the bills, Eve lays bare her body but keeps hidden the mounting chaos inside her head. When her self-destructive urges spiral out of control, she's forced to confront the traumatic event that changed the course of her life, and to finally face her grief and guilt.

Perfect for fans of CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS, LUSTER and MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION.]]> 316 Chloë Ashby 1398702986 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.79 2022 Wet Paint
author: Chloë Ashby
name: frankie
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Idlewild 98653925 James Frankie Thomas’s Idlewild is a darkly funny story of two adults looking back on their intense teenage friendship, in a queer, trans, and early-Internet twist on the Manhattan prep school novel.

Idlewild is a tiny, artsy Quaker high school in lower Manhattan. Students call their teachers by their first names, there are no grades, and every day begins with 20 minutes of contemplative silence in the Meetinghouse. It is during one of those meetings that an airplane hits the Twin Towers.

For two Idlewild outcasts, 9/11 serves as the first day of an intense, 18-month friendship. Fay is prickly, aloof, and obsessed with gay men; Nell is shy, sensitive, and obsessed with Fay. The two of them bond fiercely and spend all their waking hours giddily parsing their environment for homoerotic subtext. Then, during rehearsals for the fall play, they notice two sexually ambiguous boys who are potential candidates for their exclusive Invert Society. The pairs become mirrors of one another and drive each other to make choices that they’ll regret for the rest of their lives.

Looking back on these events as adults, the estranged Fay and Nell trace that fateful school year, recalling backstage theater department intrigue, antiwar demonstrations, smutty fanfic written over AIM, a shared dial-up connection—and the spectacular cascade of mistakes, miscommunications, and betrayals that would ultimately tear the two of them apart.]]> 389 James Frankie Thomas 1419769146 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 4.06 2023 Idlewild
author: James Frankie Thomas
name: frankie
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Sleep 217453570 From a dazzling new talent, the story of a newly divorced young mother forced to reckon with the secrets of her own childhood when she brings her daughters back to the big house where she was raised.

Every parent exists inside of two families simultaneously � the one she was born into, and the one she has made.

Ten-year-old Margaret hides beneath a blackberry bush in her family’s verdant backyard while her brother hunts for her in a game of flashlight tag. Hers is a childhood of sunlit swimming pools and Saturday morning pancakes and a devoted best friend, but her family life requires careful maintenance. Her mother can be as brittle and exacting as she is loving, and her father and brother assume familiar, if uncomfortable, models of masculinity. Then late one summer, everything changes. After a series of confusing transgressions, the simple pleasures of girlhood, slip away.

Twenty-five years later, Margaret hides under her parents� bed, waiting for her young daughters to find her in a game of hide and seek. She’s newly divorced and navigating her life as a co-parent, while discovering the pleasures of a new lover. But some part of her is still under the blackberry bush, punched out of time. Called upon to be a mother to her daughters, and a daughter to her mother, she must reckon with the echoes and refractions between the past and the present, what it means to keep a child safe, and how much of our lives are our own, alone.

Warm and generous, unflinchingly human, and ultimately joyful and empowering, SLEEP is about the cycles of motherhood and childhood, the cost of secrets and the burden of love, and what’s on the other side of the world, rich in possibility.]]> 272 Honor Jones 0593851986 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 4.11 2025 Sleep
author: Honor Jones
name: frankie
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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review:

]]> Audition 216247518 One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. A mesmerizing Mobius strip of a novel that asks who we are to the people we love.

Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an elegant and accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, and young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In Audition, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day—partner, parent, creator, muse—and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us best.]]> 208 Katie Kitamura 059385232X frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.69 2025 Audition
author: Katie Kitamura
name: frankie
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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review:

]]> Sky Daddy 216247489 Subversive and unexpectedly heartwarming, Sky Daddy hijacks the classic love story, exploring desire, fate, and the longing to be accepted for who we truly are.

Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer. Weekdays, she earns $20 an hour moderating comments for a video-sharing platform, then rides the bus home to the windowless garage she rents on the outskirts of San Francisco. But on the last Friday of each month, she indulges in her true passion: taking BART to SFO for a round-trip flight to a regional hub. The destination is irrelevant because each trip means a new date with a handsome stranger—a stranger whose intelligent windscreens, sleek fuselages, and powerful engines make Linda feel a way that no human ever could.

Linda knows that she can’t tell anyone she’s sexually obsessed with planes—nor can she reveal her belief her destiny is to “marry� one of her suitors by dying in a plane crash, thereby uniting her with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she’s always dreamed of.]]> 368 Kate Folk 059323149X frankie 0 to-read, at-library 4.04 2025 Sky Daddy
author: Kate Folk
name: frankie
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
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review:

]]> Liquid: A Love Story 215749072 The Marriage Plot meets The Idiot in this brilliant debut, which tells the story of a young Muslim scholar stuck in the mire of adjunct professorship in Los Angeles who decides to give up her career in academia and marry rich, committing herself to 100 dates in the course of a single summer. By midsummer reality hits, taking her—and her project—to Tehran.

The unnamed Iranian-Indian American narrator of Liquid, A Love Story has always believed herself to be the smartest person in the room. And from an early age, she and her best friend—a poet-turned-marketer named Adam—have turned their noses up at other peoples� riches. But two years after earning a PhD from UCLA, the narrator is no closer to the middle-class comfort promised to her by the prestige of her fancy, scholarship-funded education and the successes of her immigrant parents. Jokingly, Adam suggests she just marry rich.

But our protagonist, whose PhD thesis compared Eastern and Western views of marriage in film and literature, takes the idea seriously. She makes a spreadsheet and outlines a 100 dates with people of all genders and a marriage proposal in hand by the official start of the fall semester. What follows is a whirlwind summer packed with martinis sans vermouth with the lazy scion of an Eastside construction empire; board games with a butch producer who owns a house in the hills and a newly dented Porsche; a Venmo request from a “socialist� trust fund babe; and an evening spent dodging the halitosis of a maxillofacial surgeon from Orange County.

Only a tragedy in Tehran and an overdue familial reckoning can alter the narrator’s increasingly manic trajectory and force her to confront the contradictions of her life in Los Angeles. And as doubts begin to creep in about her marriage project, it suddenly seems possible that the eligible prospect she’s been looking for has been beneath her nose the entire time.

For fans of Kaveh Akbar and Elif Batuman, Liquid, A Love Story delivers a modern tale of romance, loss, and belonging like no other. Mariam Rahmani’s gorgeous high-wire satire explodes off the page with verve and originality in this riveting spin on the classic romantic comedy.]]> 320 Mariam Rahmani 1643756508 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.00 2025 Liquid: A Love Story
author: Mariam Rahmani
name: frankie
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Animal Instinct 214986208 Fleishman Is in Trouble meets Big Swiss in this darkly humorous and tantalizing pandemic-ridden portrait of sex, divorce, and midlife, about a Brooklynite who frankensteins the perfect lover, from the critically acclaimed author of Unseen City.

It’s spring of 2020 and Rachel Bloomstein, mother of three, recent divorcee, and Brooklynite is stuck inside. But her newly awakened sexual desire and lust for a new life refuse to be contained. Leaning on her best friend Lulu to show her the ropes, Rachel dips a toe in the online dating world, leading to park bench dates with younger men, ongoing flirtations with beautiful women, and finally, actual, in-person sex. None of them, individually, are perfect . . . hence her rotation.

But what if one person could perfectly cater to all her emotional needs? 
Driven by this possibility, Rachel creates Frankie, the AI chatbot she programs with all the good parts of dating in middle age . . . and some of the bad. But as Rachel plays with her fantasy to her heart’s content, she begins to realize she can’t reprogram her ex-husband, or her children, or her friends, or the roster of paramours that’s grown unwieldy. Perhaps real life has more in store for Rachel than she could ever program for herself. 

Animal Instinct is at once a provocative tale of one woman’s burgeoning freedom, an indictment and celebration of our fraught relationship with technology, and a snapshot of life at its most fragile and most precious.]]> 288 Amy Shearn 059371833X frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.47 2025 Animal Instinct
author: Amy Shearn
name: frankie
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Goddess Complex 214537784 From the author of Gold Diggers, a biting examination of millennial adulthood, the often fraught conversations around fertility and reproduction, and the painful quest to forge an identity

Sanjana Satyananda is trying to recover her life. It’s been a year since she walked out on her husband, a struggling actor named Killian, at a commune in India, after a disagreement about whether to have children. Now, Sanjana is struggling to resurrect her busted anthropology dissertation and crashing at her annoyingly perfect sister’s while her similarly well-adjusted peers obsess over marriages, mortgages, and motherhood. Sanjana needs to move forward—and finalize her divorce, ASAP.

There’s just one problem: Killian is missing. As Sanjana tries to track him down, she’s bombarded with unnerving calls from women seeking her advice on pregnancy and fertility. Soon, Sanjana comes face to face—literally—with what her life might have been if she’d chosen parenthood. And the road not taken turns out to be wilder, stranger, and more tempting than she imagined.

A darkly funny, vertiginous novel about the dilemmas of procreation, pregnancy, and parenting, Goddess Complex is both a twist-filled psychological thriller and a feminist satire of our age of GirlBosses turned self-care influencers, optimization cults, internet mommy gurus, egg freezing, and so much more.]]> 304 Sanjena Sathian 0593489772 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.69 2025 Goddess Complex
author: Sanjena Sathian
name: frankie
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Stone Yard Devotional 219430717 Shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, a novel about forgiveness, grief, and what it means to be good, from the award-winning author of The Weekend.

Burnt out and in need of retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, taking refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of rural Australia. She doesn't believe in God, or know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident.

But disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signaling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who disappeared decades before, presumed murdered. And finally, a troubling visitor plunges the narrator further back into her past.

Meditative, moving, and finely observed, Stone Yard Devotional is a seminal novel from a writer of rare power, exploring what it means to retreat from the world, the true nature of forgiveness, and the sustained effect of grief on the human soul.]]> 304 Charlotte Wood frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.93 2023 Stone Yard Devotional
author: Charlotte Wood
name: frankie
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Perfume & Pain 199797848 A controversial Los Angeles author attempts to revive her career and finally find true love in this hilarious nod to 1950s lesbian pulp fiction.

Having recently moved both herself and her formidable perfume bottle collection into a tiny bungalow in Los Angeles, mid-list author Astrid Dahl finds herself back in the Zoom writer’s group she cofounded, Sapphic Scribes, after an incident that leaves her and her career lightly canceled. But she temporarily forgets all that by throwing herself into a few sexy distractions—like Ivy, a grad student who smells like metallic orchids and is researching 1950s lesbian pulp, or her new neighbor, Penelope, who smells like patchouli.

Penelope, a painter living off Urban Outfitters settlement money, immediately ingratiates herself in Astrid’s life, bonding with her best friends and family, just as Astrid and Ivy begin to date in person. Astrid feels judged and threatened by Penelope, a responsible older vegan, but also finds her irresistibly sexy.

When Astrid receives an unexpected call from her agent with the news that actress and influencer Kat Gold wants to adapt her previous novel for TV, Astrid finally has a chance to resurrect her waning career. But the pressure causes Astrid’s worst vice to rear its head—the Patricia Highsmith, a blend of Adderall, alcohol, and cigarettes—and results in blackouts and a disturbing series of events.

Unapologetically feminine yet ribald, steamy yet hilarious, Anna Dorn has crafted an exquisite homage to the lesbian pulp of yore, reclaiming it for our internet- and celebrity-obsessed world.]]> 352 Anna Dorn 1668047179 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.89 2024 Perfume & Pain
author: Anna Dorn
name: frankie
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Come and Get It 127482608
It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie's starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardised by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks and illicit intrigue.

A fresh and intimate portrait of desire, consumption and reckless abandon, Come and Get It is a tension-filled story about money, indiscretion, and bad behavior.]]> 400 Kiley Reid 0593328205 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.32 2024 Come and Get It
author: Kiley Reid
name: frankie
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
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review:

]]> Exhibit 177192267
At a lavish party in the hills outside of San Francisco, Jin Han meets Lidija Jung and nothing will ever be the same for either woman. A brilliant young photographer, Jin is at a crossroads in her work, in her marriage to her college love Philip, and in who she is and who she wants to be. Lidija is an alluring, injured world-class ballerina on hiatus from her ballet company under mysterious circumstances. Drawn to each other by their intense artistic drives, the two women talk all night.

Cracked open, Jin finds herself telling Lidija about an old familial curse, breaking a lifelong promise. She’s been told that if she doesn’t keep the curse a secret, she risks losing everything; death and ruin could lie ahead. As Jin and Lidija become more entangled, they realize they share more than the ferocity of their ambition, and begin to explore hidden desires. Something is ignited in Jin: her art, her body, and her sense of self irrevocably changed. But can she avoid the specter of the curse? Vital, bold, powerful, and deeply moving, Exhibit asks: how brightly can you burn before you light your life on fire?]]> 224 R.O. Kwon 0593190025 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.14 2024 Exhibit
author: R.O. Kwon
name: frankie
average rating: 3.14
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> Colored Television 220572240 An alternative cover edition can be found here

A dark comedy about second acts, creative appropriation, and the racial identity–industrial complex

Jane has high hopes her life is about to turn around. After years of living precariously, she; her painter husband, Lenny; and their two kids have landed a stint as house sitters in a friend’s luxurious home in the hills above Los Angeles, a gig that coincides magically with Jane’s sabbatical. If she can just finish her latest novel, Nusu Nusu, the centuries-spanning epic Lenny refers to as her “mulatto War and Peace,� she’ll have tenure and some semblance of stability and success within her grasp.

But things don’t work out quite as hoped. In search of a plan B, like countless writers before her, Jane turns her desperate gaze to Hollywood. After she meets with a hot young producer to create “diverse content� for a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a “real writer.� She can create what he envisions as the greatest biracial comedy to ever hit the small screen. Things finally seem to be going right for Jane—until they go terribly wrong.]]> 288 Danzy Senna 0593544374 frankie 0 at-library, to-read 3.50 2024 Colored Television
author: Danzy Senna
name: frankie
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: at-library, to-read
review:

]]> Tennis Lessons 53095648 You know you're strange and wrong. You've known it from the beginning.

This is the voice that rings in your ears. That worries you never say the right thing and you’re probably a disappointment to your parents. That you’re a far cry from pretty � and your thoughts are ugly too. It says no one will ever like you just as you are.

But you know what it is to laugh with your best friend until your stomach hurts, to feel the first delicious tingles of attraction, to take exquisite pleasure in the goriness of your ingrowing toenail.

There is a place for you out there. You just need to find it.

TENNIS LESSONS is the unflinchingly honest story of one misfit and her uncertain journey to something like happiness. Stopping by each year along the way, she navigates disastrous dates, dead pets, crashed cars, best friends and lost loves. Susannah Dickey reminds us that we're all a bit weird. And that's just fine.]]> 256 Susannah Dickey 0857526863 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.39 2020 Tennis Lessons
author: Susannah Dickey
name: frankie
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/31
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]]> <![CDATA[It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over]]> 177148776 128 Anne de Marcken 0811237850 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.70 2024 It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over
author: Anne de Marcken
name: frankie
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/31
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]]> Your Love Is Not Good 91290204 An artist of color becomes obsessed with a white model in a novel with the glamor of Clarice Lispector and the viscerality of Han Kang.

At an otherwise forgettable party in Los Angeles, a queer Korean American painter spots a woman who instantly controls the gorgeous and distant and utterly white, the center of everyone’s attention. Haunted into adulthood by her Korean father’s abandonment of his family, as well as the specter of her beguiling, abusive white mother, the painter finds herself caught in a perfect trap. She wants Hanne, or wants to be her, or to sully her, or destroy her, or consume her, or some confusion of all the above. Since she’s an artist, she will use art to get closer to Hanne, beginning a series of paintings with her new muse as model. As for Hanne, what does she want? Her whiteness seems sometimes as cruel as a new sheet of paper.

When the paintings of Hanne become a hit, resulting in the artist’s first sold-out show, she resolves to bring her new muse with her to Berlin, to continue their work, and her seduction. But, just when the painter is on the verge of her long sought-after breakthrough, a petition started by a Black performance artist begins making the rounds in the art community, calling for the boycott of major museums and art galleries for their imperialist and racist practices.

Torn between her desire to support the petition, to be a success, and to possess Hanne, the painter and her reality become more unstable and disorienting, unwilling to cut loose any one of her warring ambitions, yet unable to accommodate them all. Is it any wonder so many artists self-destruct so spectacularly? Is it perhaps just a bit exciting to think she could too?

Your Love Is Not Good stuffs queer explosive into the cracks between identity and aspiration, between desire and art, and revels in the raining debris.]]> 320 Johanna Hedva 1913505669 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.55 2023 Your Love Is Not Good
author: Johanna Hedva
name: frankie
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/30
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]]> 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 frankie 1 3.96 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: frankie
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 1
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves:
review:
i got my first ever stye reading this book
]]> Woodworm 195607710 The house breathes.

The house contains bodies and secrets.

The house is visited by ghosts, by angels that line the roof like insects, and by saints that burn the bedsheets with their haloes.

It was built by a small-time hustler as a means of controlling his wife, and even after so many years, their daughter and her granddaughter can’t leave.

They may be witches or they may just be angry, but when the mysterious disappearance of a young boy draws unwanted attention, the two isolated women, already subjects of public scorn, combine forces with the spirits that haunt them in pursuit of something that resembles justice.

Layla Martínez’s eerie debut novel Woodworm is class-conscious horror that drags generations of monsters into the sun.]]> 124 Layla Martínez frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.86 2021 Woodworm
author: Layla MartĂ­nez
name: frankie
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/28
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review:

]]> Nevada 58837536 A beloved and blistering cult classic and finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction finally back in print, Nevada follows a disaffected trans woman as she embarks on a cross-country road trip.

Maria Griffiths is almost thirty and works at a used bookstore in New York City while trying to stay true to her punk values. She's in love with her bike but not with her girlfriend, Steph. She takes random pills and drinks more than is good for her, but doesn't inject anything except, when she remembers, estrogen, because she's trans. Everything is mostly fine until Maria and Steph break up, sending Maria into a tailspin, and then onto a cross-country trek in the car she steals from Steph. She ends up in the backwater town of Star City, Nevada, where she meets James, who is probably but not certainly trans, and who reminds Maria of her younger self. As Maria finds herself in the awkward position of trans role model, she realizes that she could become James's savior—or his downfall.

One of the most beloved cult novels of our time and a landmark of trans literature, Imogen Binnie's Nevada is a blistering, heartfelt, and evergreen coming-of-age story, and a punk-smeared excavation of marginalized life under capitalism. Guided by an instantly memorable, terminally self-aware protagonist—and back in print featuring a new afterword by the author�Nevada is the great American road novel flipped on its head for a new generation.]]> 290 Imogen Binnie 0374606617 frankie 4 at-library 3.93 2013 Nevada
author: Imogen Binnie
name: frankie
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: at-library
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]]> The Husbands 193781998 An exuberant debut, The Husbands delights in how do we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of never-ending options?

When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem—she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years.

As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you’ve taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living?]]> 352 Holly Gramazio 0385550618 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.50 2024 The Husbands
author: Holly Gramazio
name: frankie
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/24
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review:

]]> Down the Drain 123183412
This commitment to authenticity has never been more on display than in Down the Drain . With writing that is both eloquent and accessible, Fox recounts her turbulent path to cultural her parents� volatile relationship that divided her childhood between Italy and New York City and left her largely raising herself; a possessive and abusive drug-dealing boyfriend whose torment continued even from within Rikers Island; her own trips to jail as well as to a psychiatric hospital; her work as a dominatrix that led to a complicated entanglement with a sugar daddy; a heroin habit that led to New Orleans trap houses and that she would kick only after the fatal overdose of her best friend; her own near-lethal overdoses and the deaths of still more friends from drugs and suicide; an emotionally explosive, tabloid-dominating romance with a figure she dubs “The Artist�; a whirlwind, short-lived marriage and her trials as a single parent striving to support her young son. Yet as extraordinary as her story is, its universality is what makes it so powerful. Fox doesn’t just capture her improbable evolution from grade-school outcast to fashion-world icon, she captures her transition from girlhood to womanhood to motherhood. Family and friendship, sex and death, violence and love, money and power, innocence and experience—it’s all here, in raw, remarkable and riveting detail.

More than a year before the book’s publication, Fox’s description of it as “a masterpiece� in a red carpet interview went viral. As always, she was just being honest. Down the Drain is a true literary achievement, as one-of-a-kind as its author.]]> 318 Julia Fox 1668011506 frankie 5 absolutely stunning memoir and perfect audio performance ]]> 4.38 2023 Down the Drain
author: Julia Fox
name: frankie
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves:
review:
julia fox you will always be famous
absolutely stunning memoir and perfect audio performance
]]> Native Son 15622 Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.

Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.]]> 504 Richard Wright frankie 0 to-read, at-library 4.03 1940 Native Son
author: Richard Wright
name: frankie
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1940
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/24
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]]> The Eyes Are the Best Part 195703882 Crying in H-Mart meets My Sister, the Serial Killer in this feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective.

Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying� yet enticing.

In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Salivatingly blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George’s, who is Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend. George has already overstayed his welcome in her family’s claustrophobic apartment. He brags about his puffed-up consulting job, ogles Asian waitresses while dining out, and acts condescending toward Ji-won and her sister as if he deserves all of Umma’s fawning adoration. No, George doesn’t deserve anything from her family. Ji-won will make sure of that.

For no matter how many victims accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won’s hunger and her rage deserve to be sated.

A brilliantly inventive, subversive novel about a young woman unraveling, Monika Kim’s The Eyes Are the Best Part is a story of a family falling apart and trying to find their way back to each other, marking a bold new voice in horror that will leave readers mesmerized and craving more.]]> 278 Monika Kim 1645661237 frankie 3 3.81 2024 The Eyes Are the Best Part
author: Monika Kim
name: frankie
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/03
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 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 frankie 4 at-library 3.85 2005 Never Let Me Go
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: frankie
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/21
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: at-library
review:

]]> Hot Springs Drive 122944244
She finds comfort in her best friend Theresa, whose seemingly perfect life she desperately covets. The two navigate the trials of motherhood side by side � Theresa with her quiet, cherubic daughter, and Jacquelyn with her rambunctious, unruly boys. Their bond is tight, but it is not enough to keep Jacquelyn, finally moving through the world in the body she has always wanted, from stealing a bit of Theresa’s perfect life by having an increasingly torrid affair with Theresa’s husband, Adam.

Hot Springs Drive is a dark, heart-pounding exploration of one woman’s deepest desires, and the lives she will destroy to satisfy them. In her third and fiercest novel, acclaimed literary voice Lindsay Hunter deftly peels back the fragile veneer of two suburban families and the secrets roiling between them.]]> 274 Lindsay Hunter 0802161456 frankie 4 3.43 2023 Hot Springs Drive
author: Lindsay Hunter
name: frankie
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves:
review:

]]> A Winter Book 891672 The Summer Book, here is a Winter Book collection of some of Tove Jansson’s best loved and most famous stories. Drawn from youth and older age, and spanning most of the twentieth century, this newly translated selection provides a thrilling showcase of the great Finnish writer’s prose, scattered with insights and home truths. It has been selected and is introduced by Ali Smith, and there are afterwords by Philip Pullman, Esther Freud and Frank Cottrell Boyce.

The Winter Book features thirteen stories from Tove Jansson’s first book for adults, The Sculptor’s Daughter (1968) along with seven of her most cherished later stories (from 1971 to 1996), translated into English and published here for the first time.]]> 208 Tove Jansson 0954899520 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.90 2006 A Winter Book
author: Tove Jansson
name: frankie
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
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review:

]]> Homegoing 27071490 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

A novel of breathtaking sweep and emotional power that traces three hundred years in Ghana and along the way also becomes a truly great American novel. Extraordinary for its exquisite language, its implacable sorrow, its soaring beauty, and for its monumental portrait of the forces that shape families and nations, Homegoing heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia's descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.

Generation after generation, Yaa Gyasi's magisterial first novel sets the fate of the individual against the obliterating movements of time, delivering unforgettable characters whose lives were shaped by historical forces beyond their control. Homegoing is a tremendous reading experience, not to be missed, by an astonishingly gifted young writer.]]> 305 Yaa Gyasi frankie 0 to-read, at-library 4.48 2016 Homegoing
author: Yaa Gyasi
name: frankie
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/21
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]]> Stag Dance 215362032 In this collection of one novel and three stories, bestselling author Torrey Peters’s keen eye for the rough edges of community and desire push the limits of trans writing.

In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition.

Three startling stories surround Stag Dance: “Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones� imagines a gender apocalypse brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend. In “The Chaser,� a secret romance between roommates at a Quaker boarding school brings out intrigue and cruelty. In the last story, “The Masker,� a party weekend on the Las Vegas strip turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between two guides: a handsome mystery man who objectifies her in thrilling ways, or a cynical veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood.

Acidly funny and breathtaking in its scope, with the inventive audacity of George Saunders or Jennifer Egan, Stag Dance provokes, unsettles, and delights.]]> 304 Torrey Peters 0593595645 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 4.09 2025 Stag Dance
author: Torrey Peters
name: frankie
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/20
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]]> Plum 215089436 “You wish to never see a plum again in your life� You When I am an adult, I will never have a fruit tree. I will never be like this.�


For fans of Sarah Rose Etter and Scott McClanahan, Plum is a darkly beautiful, unflinching novel about modern girlhood in the internet age, the daily toll of trauma, and the limits of love.


Told entirely in the second person, Plum follows J as she grows from kid to teen in a house ruled by her alcoholic dad and complicit mother. Her older brother is sometimes wonderful, sometimes gross, and he’s her only hope of getting out. J’s world is one of nail polish, above-ground pools, and drive-thrus—and of violence, carelessness, and so many rules. J covets the peace that comes when she slips on her headphones, turns on her handheld radio, and dreams of how she and her brother can make their escape.


When her brother leaves home and disappears, so does J’s best chance to flee her parents� chaotic orbit. Alone and angry, J reaches through her computer screen for the life she blonde hair, glittering nails, attention, freedom. As she stumbles into adulthood with no template to follow, J must figure out how to build a family for herself full of the love she deserves. In her brutally compelling debut, Anderegg turns her singular gaze on the generational patterns of addiction and abuse.]]> 232 Andy Anderegg frankie 0 to-read, unpublished 4.69 Plum
author: Andy Anderegg
name: frankie
average rating: 4.69
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read, unpublished
review:

]]> Nightbitch 55835474
At home full-time with her two-year-old son, an artist finds she is struggling. She is lonely and exhausted. She had imagined - what was it she had imagined? Her husband, always travelling for his work, calls her from faraway hotel rooms. One more toddler bedtime, and she fears she might lose her mind.

Instead, quite suddenly, she starts gaining things, surprising things that happen one night when her child will not sleep. Sharper canines. Strange new patches of hair. New appetites, new instincts. And from deep within herself, a new voice...

With its clear eyes on contemporary womanhood and sharp take on structures of power, Nightbitch is an outrageously original, joyfully subversive read that will make you want to howl in laughter and recognition. Addictive enough to be devoured in one sitting, this is an unforgettable novel from a blazing new talent.]]> 256 Rachel Yoder 0385546815 frankie 4 3.47 2021 Nightbitch
author: Rachel Yoder
name: frankie
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves:
review:

]]> Solitaria: A Novel 227956317 For fans of Fernanda Melchor and Tove Ditlevsen, a raw, propulsive novel by an award-winning Afro-Brazillian novelist about a Black mother and daughter who work as live-in maids for a rich family in an unnamed Brazilian city, and the tragedy they unwittingly bear witness to.

Mabel has been staying in the Golden Plate—the most expensive building on the block, in an unnamed city in Brazil—for almost her entire life. Yet her presence there is merely she inhabits a miniscule room with her mother, Eunice, who alongside Mabel provides round-the-clock attention and care for the wealthy family who lives there. As Mabel grows up, her dissatisfaction with the forced smallness of her life becomes difficult to bear, and she is driven to work towards new possibilities for herself.

Eunice does the best that she can—uneducated, and with a daughter and ailing mother both depending solely on her, her life is a series of limitations. She moves through the rooms of the penthouse suite in silent servitude, and though Mabel is ashamed of this invisibility act they've both perfected, the era of slavery is still fresh in the country's
consciousness, and Eunice thinks it best not to dwell too hard on such things. But when tragedy strikes, and a little boy dies, Eunice must decide if she can face the indifference and injustices of the ruling class she has spent so long orbiting.

Told through direct, agile and evocative prose, Solitaria is a liberation novel of the most rousing order. Through the book's awareness of space and whose presence is permissible, the world of the Golden Plate unfurls, and an unflinching portrait emerges of modern-day Brazil, its legacies of colonial violence haunting rooms across the country, both big and small.]]> 240 Eliana Alves Cruz 1662603320 frankie 0 to-read, unpublished 4.00 2022 Solitaria: A Novel
author: Eliana Alves Cruz
name: frankie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read, unpublished
review:

]]> The Adult 62315926 "Soon, but not yet, Nora will look up and she will see me, sitting at a distance.  In the wet grass, the imprints of Nora’s shoes will fill back slowly, and I won’t suspect that she is walking towards me. 
After Nora meets me on the bench, it will be difficult to recall that in the beginning, when I first arrived at school, there were moments so plain and unconsumed that I felt I could watch them like a distant view. Like hills rolling away.

Once she holds out her hand and asks, do you mind if I sit, it will be impossible for any other memory to exist without touching backwards or forwards over the view of her eyes looking down at me. The soft and penetrable skull of the world will suddenly harden and everything will be seen through the damp and willful light of our first meeting."

Eighteen-year-old Natalie has just arrived at her first year of university in Toronto, leaving her remote, forested hometown for the big, impersonal city. Everyone she encounters seems to know exactly who they are. Chatty, confident Clara from down the hall, who wants to be her friend; intense, determined Rachel from her poetry class, who is going to be a writer. Natalie doesn't know what she wants. She reads advice listicles and watches videos online and thinks about how to fit in, how to really become someone, who that someone even is.

Just as she is trying to find her footing, she meets Nora, an older woman who takes an unexpected interest in her. Natalie is drawn magnetically into Nora's orbit. She begins spending more and more of her time off-campus at Nora's perfect home living in her beautiful, quiet world. She lies to her floormates about her absence, inventing a secret boyfriend called Paul, and carefully protects this intimate, sacred adulthood she is building for herself. But when it becomes clear that Nora is lying, too, her secrets begin to take an insidious shape in Natalie's life, even as Natalie tries to look away. What, or who, is Nora hiding?]]> 320 Bronwyn Fischer 1643752723 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.70 2023 The Adult
author: Bronwyn Fischer
name: frankie
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Lucky Night 215361984 Two people, one hotel room, and all the choices and complications that make up a life.

After six years of a stolen hour here, another there, tonight is going to be different—very different—for Nick Holloway and Jenny Parrish. They’ve booked a room in a new luxury hotel in Manhattan, where they’ll spend the entire night together for the first time. Expectations are running high for this brief reprieve from ordinary life: they both need a good bout of ravishing sex and witty conversation.

But that’s not what they get.

Because they’ve barely gotten started when a smoke alarm goes off. Nick is annoyed, but not worried about what must be only a minor glitch. Jenny is anxious, guilty—is karma coming for them at last?

This existential page-turner seamlessly shifts between Nick and Jenny’s perspectives as the reality of their situation becomes apparent, and all their secrets, evasions and regrets come spilling out. Stripped of their defenses, disagreeing about everything, these two flawed, funny, very different people are forced to be honest—with each other and themselves—about what they want, where they’ve screwed up, and whether their affair is really as casual as it seems.]]> 288 Eliza Kennedy 0593800834 frankie 4 unpublished
absolutely bonkers tension the whole time made it super compelling though it could be a bit repetitive in the middle, i didn't want to put it down

thank you to kimberly at crown publishing for the advanced copy :)
]]> 3.64 2025 Lucky Night
author: Eliza Kennedy
name: frankie
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: unpublished
review:
annoying, unlikeable characters grapple with themselves and their unfaithful relationship while their world crumbles around them. i thought the characters were insufferable in a really fun way and i enjoyed being frustrated by their endless capacity for hypocrisy and selfishness. the writing is breathless and urgent while also being choppy, giving it a really interesting flow.

absolutely bonkers tension the whole time made it super compelling though it could be a bit repetitive in the middle, i didn't want to put it down

thank you to kimberly at crown publishing for the advanced copy :)

]]> Wake Up and Open Your Eyes 204640265 From Vulture's "master of horror" Clay McLeod Chapman, a relentless and emotionally charged social horror novel about a family on the run from a demonic possession epidemic that spreads through media, for fans of The Last of Us and When Evil Lurks

Noah Fairchild has been losing his formerly polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening� is here, he assumes it’s related to one of the many conspiracy theories she believes in. But when his own phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the long drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles, a fridge full of spoiled food, and his parents locked in a terrifying trance-like state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it and get medical help.

Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.

But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart-–literally-–as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend watching particular channels, using certain apps, or visiting certain websites. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn�-but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?

This ambitious, searing novel from "one of horror's modern masters" holds a mirror to our divided nation, and will shake readers to the core.]]> 384 Clay McLeod Chapman frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.39 2025 Wake Up and Open Your Eyes
author: Clay McLeod Chapman
name: frankie
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Mother Naked 213661136 The City of Durham, 1434. Out of a storm, an aging minstrel arrives at the cathedral to entertain the city’s most powerful men.

Mother Naked is his name, and the story he’s come to tell is the Legend of the Fell Wraith: the gruesome â€walking ghostâ€� some say slaughtered the nearby village of Segerston forty years earlier.

But is this monster only a myth, born from the dim minds of toiling peasants? Or does the Wraith � and do the murders � have roots in real events suffered by those fated to a lifetime of labour? As Mother Naked weaves the strands of the mystery � of class, religion, art, and ale � it starts to seem as though the chilling truth might be closer to his privileged audience than they could ever imagine.

Taking its inspiration from a single payment entered into Durham’s Cathedral rolls, â€Modyr Nakettâ€� was the lowest-paid performer in over 200 years of records. Set against the traumatic shadow of the Black Death and the Peasant’s Revolt, Mother Naked speaks back from the margins in a fury of imaginative recuperation.]]> 256 Glen James Brown 1913512487 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 4.43 Mother Naked
author: Glen James Brown
name: frankie
average rating: 4.43
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Cult Classic 58772761 Hilariously insightful and delightfully suspenseful, Cult Classic is an original: a masterfully crafted tale of love, memory, morality, and mind control, as well as a fresh foray into the philosophy of romance.

One night in New York City’s Chinatown, a woman is at a work reunion dinner with former colleagues when she excuses herself to buy a pack of cigarettes. On her way back, she runs into a former boyfriend. And then another. And . . . another. Nothing is quite what it seems as the city becomes awash with ghosts of heartbreaks past.

What would normally pass for coincidence becomes something far stranger as the recently engaged Lola must contend not only with the viability of her current relationship but with the fact that both her best friend and her former boss, a magazine editor turned mystical guru, might have an unhealthy investment in the outcome. Memories of the past swirl and converge in ways both comic and eerie, as Lola is forced to decide if she will surrender herself to the conspiring of one very contemporary cult.

Is it possible to have a happy ending in an age when the past is ever at your fingertips and sanity is for sale? With her gimlet eye, Sloane Crosley spins a wry literary fantasy that is equal parts page-turner and poignant portrayal of alienation.]]> 304 Sloane Crosley 0374603391 frankie 3 3.28 2022 Cult Classic
author: Sloane Crosley
name: frankie
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves:
review:
this book tried to trick me into thinking it was going to be way more interesting than it actually was. “mysterious�?? “thriller�??? HELLO?? it was so dry and dull and every character was so one note
]]> Ghost Mountain 200331592
It looks at the uncertain fragile sense of self we hold inside ourselves, and our human compulsion to project it into the uncertain word around us, whether we’re ready or not. It is also about the presence of absence, and how it shadows us in our lives. Mountains are at once unmistakably present yet never truly fathomable.]]> 280 Ronan Hession 1915693136 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.87 2024 Ghost Mountain
author: Ronan Hession
name: frankie
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> The Pisces 32871394 An original, imaginative, and hilarious debut novel about love, anxiety, and sea creatures, from the author of So Sad Today.

Lucy has been writing her dissertation about Sappho for thirteen years when she and Jamie break up. After she hits rock bottom in Phoenix, her Los Angeles-based sister insists Lucy housesit for the summer—her only tasks caring for a beloved diabetic dog and trying to learn to care for herself. Annika’s home is a gorgeous glass cube atop Venice Beach, but Lucy can find no peace from her misery and anxiety—not in her love addiction group therapy meetings, not in frequent Tinder meetups, not in Dominic the foxhound’s easy affection, not in ruminating on the ancient Greeks. Yet everything changes when Lucy becomes entranced by an eerily attractive swimmer one night while sitting alone on the beach rocks.

Whip-smart, neurotically funny, sexy, and above all, fearless, The Pisces is built on a premise both sirenic and incredibly real—what happens when you think love will save you but are afraid it might also kill you.]]> 270 Melissa Broder 1524761559 frankie 4 3.31 2018 The Pisces
author: Melissa Broder
name: frankie
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves:
review:

]]> Aquamarine 195674 Bastard Out of Carolina, writes, "I found myself wishing I could buy a dozen copies and start a discussion group, just so I'd be able to debate all the questions this astonishing novel provokes." A Reader's Guide is available.]]> 197 Carol Anshaw 0395877555 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.62 1992 Aquamarine
author: Carol Anshaw
name: frankie
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Sealed 36759987
Heavily pregnant Alice and her partner Pete are done with the city. Above all, Alice is haunted by the rumours of the skin sealing epidemic starting to infect the urban population. Surely their new remote mountain house will offer safety, a place to forget the nightmares and start their little family. But the mountains and their people hold a different kind of danger.With their relationship under intolerable pressure, violence erupts and Alice is faced with the unthinkable as she fights to protect her unborn child.]]> 170 Naomi Booth 1911585134 frankie 4 3.44 2017 Sealed
author: Naomi Booth
name: frankie
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves:
review:

]]> She's a Lamb! 216698520
Jessamyn St. Germain is meant to be a star. Not an actor who occasionally books yogurt commercials and certainly not a lowly usher at one of Vancouver’s smallest regional theaters. No, she is bound for greatness, and that’s why the part of Maria in the theater’s upcoming production of The Sound of Music is hers. Or it’s going to be.

Jessamyn may have been relegated to the position of childminder for the little brats playing the von Trapp children, but it’s so obvious she’s there for a different reason � the director wants her close to the role so when Samantha, the lead, inevitably fails, Jessamyn will be there to take her place in the spotlight.

This must be it. Because if it isn’t, well, then every skipped meal, every brutal rehearsal, every inch won against a man attempting to drag her down will have all been for nothing.

Sharp, relentless, and darkly funny, She’s a Lamb! is a cutting satire about the grotesque pall patriarchy casts over one woman’s delusional quest to achieve her dreams and the depths she will sink to for a chance at the life she’s convinced she deserves.]]> 312 Meredith Hambrock 1770417893 frankie 0 to-read, unpublished 4.00 2025 She's a Lamb!
author: Meredith Hambrock
name: frankie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read, unpublished
review:

]]> Comfort Me with Apples 56179382
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?]]> 103 Catherynne M. Valente 1250816211 frankie 2 3.58 2021 Comfort Me with Apples
author: Catherynne M. Valente
name: frankie
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls]]> 8603232 188 Alissa Nutting 0984213325 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.83 2010 Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls
author: Alissa Nutting
name: frankie
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Toad 59808588 A previously unpublished novel of the reflections of a deeply scarred and reclusive woman, from the cult icon Katherine Dunn, the author of Geek Love.

Sally Gunnar has been in love, has been mad, has been an agent of destruction, has been spurned; and now she has retreated from the world. She lives in isolation in her small house, where her only companions are a vase of goldfish, a garden toad, and the door-to-door salesman who sells her cleaning supplies once a month. From her comfortable perch, she broods over her deepest regrets: her wayward, weed-hazy college days; her blighted romance with a scornful poet; a tragically comic accident involving a paper cutter; a suicide attempt; and her decision to ultimately relinquish a conventional life.

Colorful, crass, and profound, Toad is Katherine Dunn’s ode to her time as a student at Reed College, filled with the same keen observations, taboo-shirking verve, and singular characters that made Geek Love a cult classic. Through the perceptive Sally, a fish out of water among a cadre of eccentric, privileged young people, we meet Sam, an unwashed collector of other people’s stories; Carlotta, a free spirit who nevertheless fails to escape the deception of marriage; and Rennel, a shallow, self-obsessed philosophy student. With sly self-deprecation and mordant wit, Sally recounts their misadventures, up to the tragedy that tore them apart.

Through it all, Toad demonstrates Dunn’s genius for black humor and irony, her ecstatic celebration of the grotesque. Daring and bizarre, Toad is a brilliant precursor to the book that would make Dunn a misfit hero—even fifty-some years after it was written, it’s a refreshing take on the lives of young outsiders treading the delicate lines between isolation and freedom, love and insanity, hatred and friendship.]]> 352 Katherine Dunn 0374602328 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.65 2022 Toad
author: Katherine Dunn
name: frankie
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> The Other Valley 176450755
Sixteen-year-old Odile is an awkward, quiet girl vying for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she’ll decide who may cross her town’s heavily guarded borders. On the other side, it’s the same valley, the same town--except to the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it’s twenty years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness.

When Odile recognizes two visitors she wasn’t supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her friend Edme have been escorted across the border from the future, on a mourning tour, to view their son while he’s still alive in Odile’s present. Edme––who is brilliant, funny, and the only person to truly see Odile––is about to die. Sworn to secrecy in order to preserve the timeline, Odile now becomes the Conseil’s top candidate, yet she finds herself drawing closer to the doomed boy, imperiling her entire future.]]> 290 Scott Alexander Howard 1668015471 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.86 2024 The Other Valley
author: Scott Alexander Howard
name: frankie
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> Dog Symphony 36327045

Shadowed with foreboding, and yet alive with the comical mischief of César Aira and the nimble touch of a great stylist, Dog Symphony is an un-nerving and propulsive novel by a talented new American voice. ]]> 144 Sam Munson 0811227685 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.50 2018 Dog Symphony
author: Sam Munson
name: frankie
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Panenka 55410610
But at night, Panenka suffers crippling headaches that he calls his Iron Mask. Faced with losing everything, he meets Esther, a woman who has come to live in the town to escape her own disappointments. Together, they find resonance in each other’s experiences and learn new ways to let love into their broken lives.]]> 164 Ronan Hession 1910422673 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.98 2021 Panenka
author: Ronan Hession
name: frankie
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Recitatif 34842610 A beautiful, arresting short story by Toni Morrison—the only one she ever wrote—about race and the relationships that shape us through life, with an introduction by Zadie Smith.

Twyla and Roberta have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in the St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable at the time, they lose touch as they grow older, only to find each other later at a diner, then at a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and in disagreement each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.

Written in 1980 and anthologized in a number of collections, this is the first time Recitatif is being published as a stand-alone hardcover. In the story, Twyla's and Roberta's races remain ambiguous. We know that one is white and one is black, but which is which? And who is right about the race of the woman the girls tormented at the orphanage?

Morrison herself described this story as "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial." Recitatif is a remarkable look into what keeps us together and what keeps us apart, and about how perceptions are made tangible by reality.]]> 19 Toni Morrison frankie 5 4.31 1983 Recitatif
author: Toni Morrison
name: frankie
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves:
review:

]]> The Night Guest 127306444
IĂ°unn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something's not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven't revealed any cause.

When she talks to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same � have you tried eating better? exercising more? establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a step-counting watch. Nothing helps.

Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on, and wakes up to find she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night . . .

What is happening when she’s asleep? Why is she waking up with increasingly disturbing injuries? And why won’t anyone believe her?]]> 197 Hildur Knútsdóttir 1250322049 frankie 2 an interesting premise that missed the mark at every single stage . so so bad and so so shallow while thinking it was deep or had fresh takes omg hard to read ]]> 3.30 2021 The Night Guest
author: Hildur KnĂştsdĂłttir
name: frankie
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves:
review:
i don’t know if i’ve ever read anything cornier�
an interesting premise that missed the mark at every single stage . so so bad and so so shallow while thinking it was deep or had fresh takes omg hard to read
]]> Suture 57136856
Suture shares three interweaving stories of artists tearing themselves open to make art. Each artist baffles their family, or harms their loved ones, with their necessary sacrifices. Eva's wife worries about her mental health; Finn's teenager follows in her footsteps, using forearms bones for drumsticks; Grace's network constantly worries about the prolific writer's penchant for self-harm, and the over-use of her vitals for art.

The result is a hyper-real exploration of the cruelties we commit and forgive in ourselves and others. Brewer brings a unique perspective to mental illness while exploring how support systems in relationships—spousal, parental, familial—can be both helpful and damaging.

This exciting debut novel is a highly original meditation on the fractures within us, and the importance of empathy as medicine and glue.]]> 200 Nic Brewer 1771667028 frankie 2 3.87 2021 Suture
author: Nic Brewer
name: frankie
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves:
review:
in the nicest way possible i thought it was fucking stupid
]]> Do You Remember Being Born? 123856309 FINALIST FOR THE 2023 PARAGRAPHE HUGH MACLENNAN AWARD FOR FICTION

Scotiabank Giller Prize-winner Sean Michaels' luminous new novel takes readers on a lyrical joy ride—seven, epic days in Silicon Valley with a tall, formidable poet (inspired by the real-life Marianne Moore) and her unusual new collaborator, a digital mind just one month old. It's both a love letter to and an aching examination of art-making, family, identity and belonging.

Dear Marian, the letter from the Company begins. You are one of the great writers of this century.

At 75, Marian Ffarmer is almost as famous for her signature tricorn hat and cape as for her verse. She has lived for decades in the one-bedroom New York apartment she once shared with her mother, miles away from any other family, dedicating herself to her art. Yet recently her certainty about her choices has started to fray, especially when she thinks about her only son, now approaching middle age with no steady income. Into that breach comes the letter: an invitation to the Silicon Valley headquarters of one of the world's most powerful companies in order to make history by writing a poem.

Marian has never collaborated with anyone, let alone a machine, but the offer is too lucrative to resist, and she boards a plane to San Francisco with dreams of helping her son. In the Company's serene and golden Mind Studio, she encounters Charlotte, their state-of-the-art poetry bot, and is startled to find that it has written 230,442 poems in the last week, though it claims to only like two of them.

Over the conversations to follow, the poet is by turns intrigued, confused, moved and frightened by Charlotte's vision of the world, by what it knows and doesn't know ("Do you remember being born?" it asks her. Of course Marian doesn't, but Charlotte does.) This is a relationship, a friendship, unlike anything Marian has known, and as it evolves—and as Marian meets strangers at swimming pools, tortoises at the zoo, a clutch of younger poets, a late-night TV host and his synthetic foam set—she is forced to confront the secrets of her past and the direction of her future. Who knew that a disembodied mind could help bend Marian's life towards human connection, that friendship and family are not just time-eating obligations but soul-expanding joys. Or that belonging to one’s art means, above all else, belonging to the world.]]> 335 Sean Michaels 1039006752 frankie 4 3.77 2023 Do You Remember Being Born?
author: Sean Michaels
name: frankie
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/08
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Cold Earth 6556789
Increasingly unsure whether their missives will ever reach their destination, each of the characters writes a letter to someone close to them, trying to make sense of their situation and expressing their fears and dwindling hope of ever getting back home...

In fluid, witty prose, Moss weaves a rich tapestry of personal narratives, history, ghost stories, love stories, stories of grief and naked survival. Through these missives, the author explores themes that are at the very heart of our existence: What do people do in extremis? What do they think when faced with near-certain death? How do the group dynamics shift under such strain?]]> 280 Sarah Moss 184708060X frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.63 2010 Cold Earth
author: Sarah Moss
name: frankie
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
review:

]]> Hunchback 214986269 A bombshell bestseller in Japan, a provocative, defiant debut novel about a young woman in a care home seeking autonomy and the full possibilities of her life.

Born with a congenital muscle disorder, Shaka spends her days in her room in a care home outside Tokyo, relying on an electric wheelchair to get around and a ventilator to breathe. But if Shaka's physical life is limited, her quick, mischievous mind has no boundaries: She takes e-learning courses on her iPad, publishes explicit fantasies on websites, and anonymously troll-tweets to see if anyone is paying attention (“If I were to live again, I’d want to be a high-class prostitute�). One day, she tweets into the void an offer of an enormous sum of money for a sperm donor. To her surprise, her new nurse accepts the dare, unleashing a series of events that will forever change Shaka's sense of herself as a woman in the world.

Hunchback has shaken Japanese literary culture with its skillful depiction of the physical body and unrepentant humor. Winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, it's a feminist story about the dignity of an individual who insists on her right to make choices for herself, no matter the consequences. Formally creative and refreshingly unsentimental, Hunchback depicts the joy, anger, and desires of a woman demanding autonomy in a world that doesn't aways grant it to people like her. Full of wit, bite, and heart, this unforgettable novel reminds us all of the full potential of our lives, no matter the limitations we experience.]]> 112 Saou Ichikawa 0593734718 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 3.54 2023 Hunchback
author: Saou Ichikawa
name: frankie
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> The Stepford Wives 52350
At once a masterpiece of psychological suspense and a savage commentary on a media-driven society that values the pursuit of youth and beauty at all costs, The Stepford Wives is a novel so frightening in its final implications that the title itself has earned a place in the American lexicon.]]> 144 Ira Levin 0060080841 frankie 5 3.85 1972 The Stepford Wives
author: Ira Levin
name: frankie
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1972
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
just worked for me on every level. cutting, tight, authentic??, atmospheric, charming. loveable characters and great pacing made this such a compulsive read and i enjoyed every second of it
]]> The Nursery 61358644 208 Szilvia Molnar 0593316843 frankie 4 3.75 2023 The Nursery
author: Szilvia Molnar
name: frankie
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:

]]> La comemadre 17319107 La comemadre ofrece dos relatos que hunden sus raíces en la misma materia y abrevan en las mismas obsesiones. De un lado, un médico que se ve envuelto en una iniciativa científica descabellada y cruel, en un sanatorio suburbano. Por otra parte, un célebre artista plástico que lleva al extremo su búsqueda estética y se transforma, él mismo, en objeto de experimentación.

Por ambos hemisferios de este libro rondan la intervenciĂłn sobre el cuerpo y la bĂşsqueda de la trascendencia. Primero, presentadas como derivaciĂłn de una contrahecha esperanza positivista, a comienzos de 1900. Luego, como resultado de una apuesta artĂ­stica radical, exitosa y, finalmente, banal en los inicios del siglo XXI.

En el centro de esta novela, puntuada por el humor y la velocidad de su cadencia narrativa, flota la idea de lo monstruoso. Roque Larraquy lo presenta no ya de un modo ajeno o repudiable, sino como el motor de un quimérico progreso colectivo o personal, como una de las absurdas secuelas del amor.]]> 148 Roque Larraquy 9871768001 frankie 5 3.75 2010 La comemadre
author: Roque Larraquy
name: frankie
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves:
review:
absolutely rivetingly absurd and dark and funny and intelligent. this ruled
]]> Home Fire 33621427
Then Eamonn enters the sisters� lives. Son of a powerful political figure, he has his own birthright to live up to—or defy. Is he to be a chance at love? The means of Parvaiz’s salvation? Suddenly, two families� fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined, in this searing novel that asks: What sacrifices will we make in the name of love?

The suspenseful and heartbreaking story of an immigrant family driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences ]]> 276 Kamila Shamsie 0735217688 frankie 0 to-read, at-library 4.00 2017 Home Fire
author: Kamila Shamsie
name: frankie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read, at-library
review:

]]> The Dream Hotel 218695937 A novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.]]> 336 Laila Lalami 0593317602 frankie 0 3.67 2025 The Dream Hotel
author: Laila Lalami
name: frankie
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read, not-at-library, unpublished
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]]> Myrrh 175736614
Myrrh has a goblin inside her, a voice in her head that tells her all the things she's done wrong, that berates her and drags her down. Desperately searching for her birth-parents across dilapidated seaside towns in the South coast of England, she finds herself silenced and cut off at every step.

Cayenne is trapped in a loveless marriage, the distance between her and her husband growing further and further each day. Longing for a child, she has visions promising her a baby.

As Myrrh's frustrations grow, the goblin in her grows louder and louder, threatening to tear apart the few relationships she holds dear and destroy everything around her. When Cayenne finds her husband growing closer to his daughter, Cayenne's stepdaughter, pushing her further out of his life, she makes a decision that sends her into a terrible spiral.

The stories of these women will unlock a past filled with dark secrets, strange connections; all leading to an unforgettable, horrific climax.]]> 281 Polly Hall 1803364971 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.10 2024 Myrrh
author: Polly Hall
name: frankie
average rating: 3.10
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read, not-at-library
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]]> A Game in Yellow 220161567 Euphoria meets Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke in this latest novel by the Bram Stoker Award–winning author Hailey Piper, following a couple whose search to spice up their sex life leads them down a path of madness.

A kink-fixated couple, Carmen and Blanca, have been in a rut. That is until Blanca discovers the enigmatic Smoke in an under-street drug den, who holds pages to a strange play, The King in Yellow. Read too much, and you’ll fall into madness. But read just a little and pull back, and it gives you the adrenaline rush of survivor’s euphoria, leading Carmen to fall into a game of lust at a nightmare’s edge.

As the line blurs between the world Carmen knows and the one that she visits after reading from the play, she begins to desire more time in this other world no matter what horrors she brings back with her.

Bram Stoker Award–winning author Hailey Piper masterfully blends horror, erotica, and psychological thriller in this captivating and chilling story.]]> 288 Hailey Piper 1668077086 frankie 0 to-read, unpublished 3.74 2025 A Game in Yellow
author: Hailey Piper
name: frankie
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read, unpublished
review:

]]> What We Lose 33280160
Raised in Pennsylvania, Thandi views the world of her mother’s childhood in Johannesburg as both impossibly distant and ever present. She is an outsider wherever she goes, caught between being black and white, American and not. She tries to connect these dislocated pieces of her life, and as her mother succumbs to cancer, Thandi searches for an anchor—someone, or something, to love.

In arresting and unsettling prose, we watch Thandi’s life unfold, from losing her mother and learning to live without the person who has most profoundly shaped her existence, to her own encounters with romance and unexpected motherhood. Through exquisite and emotional vignettes, Clemmons creates a stunning portrayal of what it means to choose to live, after loss. An elegiac distillation, at once intellectual and visceral, of a young woman’s understanding of absence and identity that spans continents and decades, What We Lose heralds the arrival of a virtuosic new voice in fiction.]]> 213 Zinzi Clemmons 0735221715 frankie 0 to-read 3.59 2017 What We Lose
author: Zinzi Clemmons
name: frankie
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Trash 61208889 Trash interweaves the voices of three women with lived connections to the municipal garbage dump of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

Aguilar ZĂ©leny's English-language debut shows the complexities of survival and joy, love and violence for three women: a teenager abandoned by her guardian at the dump, a scientist doing research on the residents of the dump, and a transwoman living nearby who is the matriarch of a group of sex workers.

Each one of the characters navigates family, abandonment, power, jealousy, greed, and multiple taboos around sexuality and gender violence. Their stories are linked by geography and by ideas of waste and abandonment.

As Aguilar ZĂ©leny explores these territories in her book, she asks crucial questions: who is seen as disposable and why? How do women find their own means of survival and joy in the midst of a perilous sociopolitical context? What does it mean to live a life in a time of austerity and extreme violence? Trash is a critical intervention in Mexican literature.

]]> 222 Sylvia Aguilar-ZĂ©leny 164605220X frankie 0 to-read, at-library 4.06 2018 Trash
author: Sylvia Aguilar-ZĂ©leny
name: frankie
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/27
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]]> My Death 6218239
The narrator of Lisa Tuttle’s uncanny novella is a recent widow, a writer adrift. Not only has she lost her husband, but her muse seems to have deserted her altogether. Her agent summons her to Edinburgh to discuss her next book. What will she tell him? At once the answer comes to she will write the biography of Helen Ralston, best known, if at all, as the subject of W.E. Logan’s much-reproduced painting Circe , and the inspiration for his classic children’s book.

But Ralston was a novelist and artist in her own right, though her writing is no longer in print and her most storied painting too shocking, too powerful—malevolent even—to be shown in public. Over the months that follow, Ralston proves a reluctantly cooperative subject, even as her biographer uncovers eerie resonances between the older woman’s life and her own. Whose biography is she writing, really?]]> 93 Lisa Tuttle 1902880900 frankie 0 to-read, not-at-library 3.88 2004 My Death
author: Lisa Tuttle
name: frankie
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/27
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