Alyssa's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 24 Apr 2025 22:23:05 -0700 60 Alyssa's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Greta & Valdin 176443453
It’s been a year since his ex-boyfriend dumped him and moved from Auckland to Buenos Aires, and Valdin is doing fine. He has a good flat with his sister Greta, a good career where his colleagues only occasionally remind him that he is the sole Māori person in the office, and a good friend who he only sleeps with when he’s sad. But when work sends him to Argentina and he’s thrown back in his former lover’s orbit, Valdin is forced to confront the feelings he’s been trying to ignore—and the future he wants.

Greta is not letting her painfully unrequited crush (or her possibly pointless master’s thesis, or her pathetic academic salary...) get her down. She would love to focus on the charming fellow grad student she meets at a party and her friendships with a circle of similarly floundering twenty-somethings, but her chaotic family life won’t stop her mother is keeping secrets, her nephew is having a gay crisis, and her brother has suddenly flown to South America without a word.

Sharp, hilarious, and with an undeniable emotional momentum that builds to an exuberant conclusion, Greta & Valdin careens us through the siblings� misadventures and the messy dramas of their sprawling, eccentric Maaori-Russian-Catalonian family. An acclaimed bestseller in New Zealand, Greta & Valdin is fresh, joyful, and alive with the possibility of love in its many mystifying forms.]]> 352 Rebecca K. Reilly 1668028042 Alyssa 0 3.89 2021 Greta & Valdin
author: Rebecca K. Reilly
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/24
date added: 2025/04/24
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]]> The Vanishing Half 51791252
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.]]> 343 Brit Bennett 0525536299 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.11 2020 The Vanishing Half
author: Brit Bennett
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight]]> 121561903
� The Country of the Blind is about seeing—but also about marriage and family and the moral and emotional challenge of accommodating the parts of ourselves that scare us. A warm, profound, and unforgettable meditation on how we adjust to new ways of being in the world.� —Rachel Aviv, author of Strangers to Ourselves

We meet Andrew Leland as he’s suspended in the liminal state of the soon-to-be he’s midway through his life with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that ushers those who live with it from sightedness to blindness over years, even decades. He grew up with full vision, but starting in his teenage years, his sight began to degrade from the outside in, such that he now sees the world as if through a narrow tube. Soon—but without knowing exactly when—he will likely have no vision left.

Full of apprehension but also dogged curiosity, Leland embarks on a sweeping exploration of the state of being that awaits not only the physical experience of blindness but also its language, politics, and customs. He negotiates his changing relationships with his wife and son, and with his own sense of self, as he moves from his mainstream, “typical� life to one with a disability. Part memoir, part historical and cultural investigation, The Country of the Blind represents Leland’s determination not to merely survive this transition but to grow from it—to seek out and revel in that which makes blindness enlightening.

Thought-provoking and brimming with warmth and humor, The Country of the Blind is a deeply personal and intellectually exhilarating tour of a way of being that most of us have never paused to consider—and from which we have much to learn.]]> 368 Andrew Leland 1984881426 Alyssa 0 4.09 2023 The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight
author: Andrew Leland
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/21
date added: 2025/04/21
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]]> Kindred 18889555 The visionary author’s masterpiece pulls us—along with her Black female hero—through time to face the horrors of slavery and explore the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.

Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.]]> 264 Octavia E. Butler 0807083704 Alyssa 5 4.37 1979 Kindred
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1979
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/08
date added: 2025/04/20
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]]> Martyr! 139400713 Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others—in which a newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum.

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of Tehran in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.]]> 331 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 Alyssa 4 lgbtqia-fiction 4.22 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/28
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
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]]> The Reading List 55276648 An unforgettable and heartwarming debut about how a chance encounter with a list of library books helps forge an unlikely friendship between two very different people in a London suburb.

Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life in the London Borough of Ealing after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries.

Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she’s facing at home.

When Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading list� hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again.]]> 368 Sara Nisha Adams 0063025280 Alyssa 3 4.02 2021 The Reading List
author: Sara Nisha Adams
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2025/04/20
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]]> The Vaster Wilds 62952130
A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.

Lauren Groff’s new novel is at once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how—and if—we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.]]> 272 Lauren Groff 0593418395 Alyssa 4 3.73 2016 The Vaster Wilds
author: Lauren Groff
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/04/20
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]]> <![CDATA[101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do]]> 57008123 176 Kate Sloan 1913947211 Alyssa 5 4.41 101 Kinky Things Even You Can Do
author: Kate Sloan
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.41
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/04/20
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]]> Model Home 205363963
The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things—the strange and the unexplainable—began to happen in their house. Maybe it was some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper-middle class. Whatever it was, the Maxwells, steered by their formidable mother, stayed put, unwilling to abandon their home, terrors and trauma be damned.

As adults, the siblings could finally get away from the horrors of home, leaving their parents all alone in the house. But when news of their parents' death arrives, Ezri is forced to return to Texas with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with their family’s past and present, and to find out what happened while they were away. It was not a “natural� death for their parents . . . but was it supernatural?

Rivers Solomon turns the haunted-house story on its head, unearthing the dark legacies of segregation and racism in the suburban American South. Unbridled, raw, and daring, Model Home is the story of secret histories uncovered, and of a queer family battling for their right to live, grieve, and heal amid the terrors of contemporary American life.]]> 304 Rivers Solomon 0374607133 Alyssa 3 lgbtqia-fiction 3.72 2024 Model Home
author: Rivers Solomon
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
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]]> The Strange Case of Jane O. 213870076
In the first year after her child is born, Jane suffers a series of strange episodes: amnesia, premonitions, hallucinations, and an inexplicable sense of dread. As her psychiatrist struggles to solve the mystery of what is happening to Jane’s mind, she suddenly goes missing. A day later she is found unconscious in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, in the midst of what seems to be an episode of dissociative fugue; when she comes to, she has no memory of what has happened to her.

Are Jane’s strange experiences related to the overwhelm of single motherhood, or are they the manifestation of a long-buried trauma from her past? Why is she having visions of a young man who died twenty years ago, who warns her of a disaster ahead? Jane’s symptoms lead her psychiatrist ever-deeper into the furthest reaches of her mind, and cause him to question everything he thought he knew about so-called reality—including events in his own life.

Karen Thompson Walker’s profound and beautifully written novel is a speculative mystery about memory, identity, and fate, a mesmerizing story about the bonds of love between a mother and child, a man and a woman, and those who we’ve lost but may still be alive among us.]]> 288 Karen Thompson Walker 1984853945 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.92 2025 The Strange Case of Jane O.
author: Karen Thompson Walker
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/15
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]]> Salt Slow 42870948
Teenagers develop ungodly appetites, a city becomes insomniac overnight, and bodies are diligently picked apart to make up better ones. The mundane worlds of schools and sleepy sea-side towns are invaded and transformed, creating a landscape which is constantly shifting to hold on to its inhabitants. Blurring the mythic and the gothic with the everyday, salt slow considers characters in motion � turning away, turning back or simply turning into something new entirely.

Winner of The White Review Short Story Prize, Armfield is a writer of sharp, lyrical prose and tilting dark humour � salt slow marks the arrival of an ambitious and singular new voice.]]> 193 Julia Armfield 1529012562 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.99 2019 Salt Slow
author: Julia Armfield
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> If We Were Villains 30319086
As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.]]> 354 M.L. Rio 125009528X Alyssa 0 to-read 4.11 2017 If We Were Villains
author: M.L. Rio
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story]]> 204316857 The Nobelist's latest masterwork, set in a sanitarium on the eve of World War I, probes the horrors that lie beneath our most hallowed ideas.

In September 1913, Mieczysław, a student suffering from tuberculosis, arrives at Wilhelm Opitz's Guesthouse for Gentlemen, a health resort inGörbersdorf, what is now western Poland. Every day, its residents gather in the dining room to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur, to obsess over money and status, and to discuss the great issues of the day: Will there be war? Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women inherently inferior?

Meanwhile, disturbing things are beginning to happen in the guesthouse and its surroundings. As stories of shocking events in the surrounding highlands reach the men, a sense of dread builds. Someone—or something—seems to be watching them and attempting to infiltrate their world. Little does Mieczysław realize, as he attempts to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target.

A century after the publication of The Magic Mountain, Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, blending horror story, comedy, folklore, and feminist parable with brilliant storytelling.]]> 320 Olga Tokarczuk 0593712943 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.66 2022 The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story
author: Olga Tokarczuk
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> Piranesi 50202953
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.]]> 272 Susanna Clarke 163557563X Alyssa 0 to-read 4.22 2020 Piranesi
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Case of the Missing Maid 210366427 Chicago, 1898. Harriet Morrow is a new junior detective on the scene in the Windy City—and she’s defying every convention of her time. But can she maintain composure when her first case proves more scandalous than a woman trading skirts for trousers? Rough-around-the-edges Harriet Morrow has long been drawn to the idea of whizzing around the city on her bicycle as a professional detective, solving crimes for a living without having to take a husband. Just twenty-one with a younger brother to support, she seizes the chance when the prestigious Prescott Agency hires her as its first woman operative. The move sparks controversy—with skeptical male colleagues, a high-strung office secretary, and her boss, Mr. Theodore Prescott, all waiting for her to unravel under the pressure . . . Only an hour into the job, Harriet has an Discover the whereabouts of a missing maid from one of the most extravagant mansions on Prairie Avenue. Owner Pearl Bartlett has a reputation for sending operatives on wild goose chases around her grand estate, but Harriet believes the stunningly beautiful Agnes Wozniak has indeed vanished under mysterious circumstances—possibly a victim of kidnapping, possibly a victim of something worse . . . With Mr. Prescott pushing a hard deadline, Harriet’s burgeoning career depends on working through a labyrinth of eccentric characters and murky motives in a race to discover who made Agnes disappear. When her search leads to Chicago’s Polish community and a new friendship in Agnes’s charming older sister, Barbara, clues scattered across the city slowly reveal just how much depends on Harriet’s inexperienced investigation for answers . . . and the deep danger that awaits once she learns the truth.]]> 320 Rob Osler 1496749480 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.62 The Case of the Missing Maid
author: Rob Osler
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.62
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tarot Reader of Versailles]]> 217400705 She can see the future, but can she change it?
It is the early days of the French Revolution and, on the streets of Paris, terror reigns.
Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand is a young woman with an extraordinary power - through her tarot cards, she can commune with the dead. Her reputation is such that revolutionaries and the aristocracy alike seek her out to divine their fortunes, though she is loyal to Marie Antoinette and the dauphin of France. But Lenormand has seen the queen's fate in the cards, and must take care that it doesn't become her own.
Then, one fateful day, she comes across Cait, a scullery maid from Ireland who has travelled to Paris for love. Cait has powers too - she can read people's pasts as Lenormand reads their futures. The two young women have an instant connection, drawn to each other's abilities. But Cait is hiding something from her new as much as she loves Lenormand, she loves freedom and her country more. What will she do - and who will she betray - to bring revolution to the shores of Ireland?
Set against the background of the French Revolution and the Great Rebellion in Ireland and entwining dark folklore with tarot mysticism, this is a novel of fate and free will, where allegiances and romances can be forged or broken by the turn of a card.]]> 480 Anya Bergman 1786582589 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.54 2025 The Tarot Reader of Versailles
author: Anya Bergman
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Lost Americans 60916180 352 Christopher Bollen 0063224429 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.60 2023 The Lost Americans
author: Christopher Bollen
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Night Circus 9361589
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

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

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.]]> 506 Erin Morgenstern Alyssa 0 to-read 4.00 2011 The Night Circus
author: Erin Morgenstern
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> Beautyland 127282939 From the acclaimed author of Parakeet, Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a wise, tender novel about a woman who doesn't feel at home on Earth.

At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. Adina Giorno is tiny and jaundiced, but she reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognizes that she is different: She possesses knowledge of a faraway planet. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of Earthlings.

For years, as she moves through the world and makes a life for herself among humans, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and surprising joys of their existence. Then, at a precarious moment, a beloved friend urges Adina to share her messages with the world. Is there a chance she is not alone?

Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a novel of startling originality about the fragility and resilience of life on our Earth and in our universe. It is a remarkable evocation of the feeling of being in exile at home, and it introduces a gentle, unforgettable alien for our times.]]> 327 Marie-Helene Bertino 0374109281 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.08 2024 Beautyland
author: Marie-Helene Bertino
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> Rejection 199635125
Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the touchiest problems of modern life. The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex, relationships, identity, and the internet.

In “The Feminist,� a young man’s passionate allyship turns to furious nihilism as he realizes, over thirty lonely years, that it isn’t getting him laid. A young woman’s unrequited crush in “Pics� spirals into borderline obsession and the systematic destruction of her sense of self. And in “Ahegao; or, The Ballad of Sexual Repression,� a shy late bloomer’s flailing efforts at a first relationship leads to a life-upending mistake. As the characters pop up in each other’s dating apps and social media feeds, or meet in dimly lit bars and bedrooms, they reveal the ways our delusions can warp our desire for connection.

These brilliant satires explore the underrated sorrows of rejection with the authority of a modern classic and the manic intensity of a manifesto. Audacious and unforgettable, Rejection is a stunning mosaic that redefines what it means to be rejected by lovers, friends, society, and oneself.]]> 272 Tony Tulathimutte 0063337878 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.88 2024 Rejection
author: Tony Tulathimutte
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Lights Out (Into Darkness, #1)]]> 201017011 “I don’t need another kink.�

That thought pops into my head whenever I pull up my favorite social media app, but alas, every time I scroll, I learn something new about myself, and another one is born. And yes, I know I’m responsible for what the algorithm shows me, but I’m trying to ignore that fact.

Lately, my feed has been dominated by masked men. I’ve favorited videos with them dressed in full cosplay, decked out in futuristic military apparel, and wrapped up like ghouls.

But more than anything else, my FYP is filled with shirtless men wearing ghost masks. Bonus points if they’re heavily tattooed, wielding a knife, or covered in fake blood. At night, I dream about being chased by them, of them catching me and doing deliciously dark things to my more than willing body.

I never could have guessed that by sending one drunken text, those dreams would become my new reality.

Lights Out is a fast-paced dark romance with a morally grey male lead. Some themes and scenes may be disturbing to readers. Please check the TWs at the beginning of the book. ]]> 338 Navessa Allen Alyssa 0 to-read 4.16 2024 Lights Out (Into Darkness, #1)
author: Navessa Allen
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> Radical Love 62217109
Everything changes when Church meets the unworldly and free-thinking Ned, part of a group of African activist abolitionists who attend his chapel. The two bond over their broken childhoods, and Church falls obsessively in love with Ned's tender nature. In a fragile, colourful secret world under threat, Church's love for Ned takes him to the edge of reason . . . and beyond.

Based on the incredible true story of one of the most important events in queer history, Radical Love is a sensuous and prescient story about gender and sexuality, and how the most vulnerable survive in dangerous times.]]> 288 Neil Blackmore 1529152070 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.03 2023 Radical Love
author: Neil Blackmore
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> Julia 86508927
But Julia becomes intrigued by a colleague from the Records Department—a mid-level worker of the Outer Party called Winston Smith—when she sees him locking eyes with a superior from the Inner Party at the Two Minutes Hate. And when one day, finding herself walking toward Winston, she impulsively hands him a note—a potentially suicidal gesture—she comes to realise that she's losing her grip and can no longer safely navigate her world.

Seventy-five years after Orwell finished writing his iconic novel, Sandra Newman has tackled the world of Big Brother in a truly convincing way, offering a dramatically different, feminist narrative that is true to and stands alongside the original. For the millions of readers who have been brought up with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, here, finally, is a provocative, vital and utterly satisfying companion novel.]]> 400 Sandra Newman 0063265338 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.72 2023 Julia
author: Sandra Newman
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> Better by Far 195888784 A genre-bending story about love and loss, hope and heartbreak, and the healing to be found in life’s little limbos, those in-between spaces where you’re no longer who you were and not yet the person you will be

Following a breakup, Kate and Finn decide to keep sharing their house until the lease runs out in twelve weeks, alternating week by week so that they are occupying the same space but never at the same time. Practically, the plan makes sense, but coming back each Sunday to a home where Finn has been feels far too much like living with a ghost. Soon Kate finds herself adrift in her own subconscious, trapped in the liminal space between loving someone and letting go.]]> 320 Hazel Hayes 0593472950 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.74 2024 Better by Far
author: Hazel Hayes
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> Isaac's Song 210719174 The beloved author of Don’t Cry for Me and Perfect Peace returns with a poignant, emotionally exuberant novel about a young queer Black man finding his voice in 1980s Chicago—a novel of family, forgiveness and perseverance, for fans of The Great Believers and On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.

Isaac is at a crossroads in his young life. Growing up in Missouri, the son of a caustic, hard-driving father, he was conditioned to suppress his artistic pursuits and physical desires, notions that didn’t align with a traditional view of masculinity. But now, in late �80s Chicago, Isaac has finally carved out a life of his own. He is sensitive and tenderhearted and has built up the courage to seek out a community. Yet just as he begins to embrace who he is, two social catalysts—the AIDS crisis and Rodney King’s attack—collectively extinguish his hard-earned joy. At a therapist’s encouragement, Isaac begins to write down his story. In the process, he taps into a creative energy that will send him on a journey back to his family, his ancestral home in Arkansas and the inherited trauma of the nation’s dark past. But a surprise discovery will either unlock the truths he’s seeking or threaten to derail the life he’s fought so hard to claim.

Poignant, sweeping and luminously told, Isaac's Song is a return to the beloved characters of Don’t Cry for Me and a high-water mark in the career of an award-winning author.]]> 320 Daniel Black 133509041X Alyssa 0 to-read 4.30 2025 Isaac's Song
author: Daniel Black
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (Wayfarers, #4)]]> 50209317
At the Five-Hop One-Stop, long-haul spacers can stretch their legs (if they have legs, that is), and get fuel, transit permits, and assorted supplies. The Five-Hop is run by an enterprising alien and her sometimes helpful child, who work hard to provide a little piece of home to everyone passing through.

When a freak technological failure halts all traffic to and from Gora, three strangers—all different species with different aims—are thrown together at the Five-Hop. Grounded, with nothing to do but wait, the trio—an exiled artist with an appointment to keep, a cargo runner at a personal crossroads, and a mysterious individual doing her best to help those on the fringes—are compelled to confront where they’ve been, where they might go, and what they are, or could be, to each other.]]> 336 Becky Chambers 0062936050 Alyssa 4 4.38 2021 The Galaxy, and the Ground Within (Wayfarers, #4)
author: Becky Chambers
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/07
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves:
review:

]]> A Sorceress Comes to Call 195790847 A dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm's Goose Girl, rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic

Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend—unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.

After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away on Falada’s sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia’s mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage, and Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister.

Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother, how the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.]]> 327 T. Kingfisher 1250244072 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.06 2024 A Sorceress Comes to Call
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Nettle & Bone 56179377
Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince—if she can complete three impossible tasks. But, as is the way in tales of princes, witches, and daughters, the impossible is only the beginning.

On her quest, Marra is joined by the gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother, a strapping former knight, and a chicken possessed by a demon. Together, the five of them intend to be the hand that closes around the throat of the prince and frees Marra's family and their kingdom from its tyrannous ruler at last.]]> 243 T. Kingfisher 1250244048 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.07 2022 Nettle & Bone
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Bellies 74896989 "TRIUMPHANT AND HUMANE." � Elle , A Most Anticipated Book of 2023

I wore a dress on the night I first met Ming.

It begins as your typical boy meets boy. While out with friends at their local university drag night, Tom buys Ming a drink. Confident and witty, a magnetic young playwright, Ming is the perfect antidote to Tom’s awkward energy, and their connection is instant. Tom finds himself deeply and desperately drawn into Ming’s orbit, and on the cusp of graduation, he’s already mapped out their future together. Butshortly after they move to London to start their next chapter, Ming announces her intention to transition.

From London to Kuala Lumpur, New York to Cologne, we follow Tom and Ming as they face tectonic shifts in their relationship and friend circle in the wake of Ming’s transition. Through a spiral of unforeseen crises—some personal, some professional, some life-altering—Tom and Ming are forced to confront the vastly different shapes their lives have taken since graduating, and each must answer the essential question: Is it worth losing a part of yourself to become who you are?

Buoyed by a voice as tender, effervescent and wryly funnyas the cast of characters it centers,Belliesis an unforgettable story of youth, intimacy, hunger and heartbreak, at once boldly original yet fiercely familiar, which unabashedly holds a mirror up to our most vulnerable selves and desires.]]> 352 Nicola Dinan 0369736567 Alyssa 5 lgbtqia-fiction 3.98 2023 Bellies
author: Nicola Dinan
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/13
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> That Summer Feeling 61984828 Turns out you're never too old for a summer camp romance. Or a change of heart. When a divorced woman attends a sleepaway camp for adults only, she reconnects with a man from her past--only to catch feelings for his sister instead.

Garland Moore used to believe in magic, the power of optimism, and signs from the universe. Then her husband surprised her with divorce papers over Valentine's Day dinner. Now Garland isn't sure what to believe anymore, except that she's clearly never meant to love again. When new friends invite her to spend a week at their reopened sleepaway camp, she and her sister decide it's an opportunity to enjoy the kind of summer getaway they never had as kids. If Garland still believed in signs, this would sure seem like one. Summer camp is a chance to let go of her past and start fresh.

Nestled into the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains, Camp Carl Cove provides the exact escape Garland always dreamed of, until she runs into Mason--the man she had a premonition about after one brief meeting years ago. No matter how she tries to run, the universe appears determined to bring love back into Garland's life. She even ends up rooming with Mason's sister Stevie, a vibrant former park ranger who is as charming as she is competitive. The more time Garland spends with Stevie, the more the signs confuse her. The stars are aligning in a way Garland never could have predicted.

Amid camp tournaments and moonlit dances, Garland continues to be pulled toward the beautiful blonde outdoorswoman who makes her laugh and swoon. Summer camp doesn't last forever, but if Garland can learn to trust her heart, the love she finds there just might.]]> 336 Bridget Morrissey 0593549244 Alyssa 4 lgbtqia-fiction 3.73 2023 That Summer Feeling
author: Bridget Morrissey
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/14
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> Lavender House 57568015 A "Best Of" Book Amazon * Buzzfeed * Rainbow Reading * Library Journal * CrimeReads * BookPage * Book Riot * Autostraddle

A delicious story from a new voice in suspense, Lev AC Rosen's Lavender House is Knives Out with a queer historical twist.

Lavender House, 1952: the family seat of recently deceased matriarch Irene Lamontaine, head of the famous Lamontaine soap empire. Irene’s recipes for her signature scents are a well guarded secret—but it's not the only one behind these gates. This estate offers a unique freedom, where none of the residents or staff hide who they are. But to keep their secret, they've needed to keep others out. And now they're worried they're keeping a murderer in.

Irene’s widow hires Evander Mills to uncover the truth behind her mysterious death. Andy, recently fired from the San Francisco police after being caught in a raid on a gay bar, is happy to accept—his calendar is wide open. And his secret is the kind of secret the Lamontaines understand.

Andy had never imagined a world like Lavender House. He's seduced by the safety and freedom found behind its gates, where a queer family lives honestly and openly. But that honesty doesn't extend to everything, and he quickly finds himself a pawn in a family game of old money, subterfuge, and jealousy—and Irene’s death is only the beginning.

When your existence is a crime, everything you do is criminal, and the gates of Lavender House can’t lock out the real world forever. Running a soap empire can be a dirty business.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 256 Lev A.C. Rosen Alyssa 3 lgbtqia-fiction 4.05 2022 Lavender House
author: Lev A.C. Rosen
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/06
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Board to Death (A Board Game Shop Mystery, #1)]]> 94168029
Back in his hometown of Sugar House, running his family’s board game shop and café, Ben Rosencrantz just can’t seem to get his life to pass go, much less collect $200. Once he was a happily married English professor in Seattle. Now he’s a divorced caregiver, looking after his ill father and a Chihuahua named Beans while still figuring out the rules of retail management. At least the town has become more LGBTQ+ friendly than when Ben was a teenager—and that flower shop owner, Ezra McCaslin, enjoys flirting with him.

But despite his usual clientele of gamers, Ben is barely earning enough to keep the store running and stay on top of his father’s medical bills. Then a local toy and game collector named Clive offers him a winning strategy—to purchase a turn-of-the-twentieth-century edition of The Landlord’s Game , the realty and taxation game that inspired Monopoly , at a tenth of the rare edition’s true value. Suspicious of Clive’s shady, low-priced deal, Ben turns the offer down.

Then Clive turns up dead at the front door of Ben’s shop and a backpack full of $100 bills appears on his doorstep. Now Ben is the #1 suspect in Clive’s death, and unless he and Ezra can prove his innocence and find the real killer, he’ll go to jail for murder—and no amount of double dice rolls will set him free . . .]]> 242 C.J. Connor 1496742230 Alyssa 3 lgbtqia-fiction 3.22 2023 Board to Death (A Board Game Shop Mystery, #1)
author: C.J. Connor
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/26
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> Homesick: Stories 44082027 Homesick meditate on the theme of home and our estrangement from it, and what happens when the familiar suddenly shifts into the uncanny. In stories that foreground queer relationships and transgender or nonbinary characters, Cipri delivers the origin story for a superhero team comprised of murdered girls; a housecleaner discovering an impossible ocean in her least-favorite clients� house; a man haunted by keys that appear suddenly in his throat; and a team of scientists and activists discovering the remains of a long-extinct species of intelligent weasels.

In the spirit of Laura van den Berg, Emily Geminder, Chaya Bhuvaneswar, and other winners of the Dzanc Short Story Collection Prize, Nino Cipri’s debut collection announces the arrival of a brilliant and wonderfully unpredictable writer with a gift for turning the short story on its ear.]]> 197 Nino Cipri 1945814950 Alyssa 4 lgbtqia-fiction 4.07 2019 Homesick: Stories
author: Nino Cipri
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/10
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)]]> 26042767 Follow a motley crew on an exciting journey through space—and one adventurous young explorer who discovers the meaning of family in the far reaches of the universe—in this light-hearted debut space opera from a rising sci-fi star.

Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.

Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. But risking her life wasn’t part of the plan. In the far reaches of deep space, the tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on each other. To survive, Rosemary’s got to learn how to rely on this assortment of oddballs—an experience that teaches her about love and trust, and that having a family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the universe.

]]> 423 Becky Chambers Alyssa 4 lgbtqia-fiction 4.26 2014 The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)
author: Becky Chambers
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/27
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> Finna (LitenVerse, #1) 44081573 Finna is a rambunctious, touching story that blends all the horrors the multiverse has to offer with the everyday awfulness of low-wage work. It explores queer relationships and queer feelings, capitalism and accountability, labor and love, all with a bouncing sense of humor and a commitment to the strange.

When an elderly customer at a big box furniture store slips through a portal to another dimension, it’s up to two minimum-wage employees to track her across the multiverse and protect their company’s bottom line. Multi-dimensional swashbuckling would be hard enough, but those two unfortunate souls broke up a week ago.

To find the missing granny, Ava and Jules will brave carnivorous furniture, swarms of identical furniture spokespeople, and the deep resentment simmering between them. Can friendship blossom from the ashes of their relationship? In infinite dimensions, all things are possible.]]> 103 Nino Cipri 1250245729 Alyssa 3 lgbtqia-fiction 3.64 2020 Finna (LitenVerse, #1)
author: Nino Cipri
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/27
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> Wolfsong (Green Creek, #1) 98182228 The Bennett family has a secret: They're not just a family, they're a pack. Wolfsong is Oxnard "Ox" Matheson's story.

Ox Matheson was twelve when his father taught him a lesson: Ox wasn’t worth anything and people would never understand him. Then he left.

Ox was sixteen when the energetic Bennett family moved in next door, harbouring a secret that would change him forever. For the family are shapeshifters, who can transform into wolves at will. Drawn to their magic, loyalty and enduring friendships, Ox feels a gulf between this extraordinary new world and the quiet life he’s known. He also finds an ally in Joe, the youngest Bennett boy. Joe is charming and handsome, but haunted by scars he cannot heal.

Ox was twenty-three when murder came to town, and tore a hole in his heart. Violence flared, tragedy split the pack and Joe left town, leaving Ox behind. Three years later, the boy is back. Except now he’s a man � and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.

The Green Creek Series is for adult readers. ]]> 517 T.J. Klune Alyssa 3 lgbtqia-fiction 4.21 2016 Wolfsong (Green Creek, #1)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> Bury Your Gays 195790870 From Chuck Tingle, author of the USA Today bestselling Camp Damascus, comes a new heart-pounding story about what it takes to succeed in a world that wants you dead.

Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for years, and has just been nominated for his first Oscar. But when he's pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale�"for the algorithm"―Misha discovers that it's not that simple.

As he is haunted by his past, and past mistakes, Misha must risk everything to find a way to do what's right―before it's too late.]]> 295 Chuck Tingle 1250874653 Alyssa 4 lgbtqia-fiction 4.13 2024 Bury Your Gays
author: Chuck Tingle
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/20
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> Four Squares 199426316
Artie Anderson wouldn’t call himself lonely, not exactly. He has a beautiful apartment in the West Village, a steady career as a ghostwriter, and he has Halle and Vanessa, who—as the daughter and ex-wife of his former partner—are the closest thing he can call family. But when the women announce a move across the country, on Artie’s 60th birthday no less, Artie realizes that his seemingly full life isn’t quite as full as he imagined. To make matters worse, a surprising injury strips Artie of the independent lifestyle he’s used to and pushes him into the hands of GALS, the local LGBTQ senior center down the street.

Since the death of his ex-boyfriend, Abe decades ago, Artie’s intentionally avoided big crowds and close friends. So, he’s woefully unprepared for the other patrons of GALS, a group of larger-than-life seniors who insist on celebrating each and every day. They refuse to dwell in the past, but Artie, who has never quite recovered from Abe’s death and the loss of his dearest friends, can’t shake the memories of his youth, and of the chances he did, and didn’t, take.

Stretching across the 1990s and the present day, Four Squares is an intimate and profound look at what it means to create community and the lasting impressions even the most fleeting of relationships can leave. With Bobby Finger’s signature warmth, humor, and wit, it is touching reminder that it’s never too late for a second chance at truly living.]]> 336 Bobby Finger 0593713559 Alyssa 5 lgbtqia-fiction 3.97 Four Squares
author: Bobby Finger
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.97
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/03
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> Fruiting Bodies: Stories 58999220 Fruiting Bodies ranges confidently from the fantastical to the gothic to the uncanny as it follows characters—mostly queer, mostly women—on the precipice of change. Echoes of timeless myth and folklore reverberate through urgent narratives of discovery, appetite, and coming-of-age in a time of crisis.


In “The Changeling,� two young cousins wait in dread for a new family member to arrive, convinced that he may be a dangerous supernatural creature. In “Endangered Animals,� Jane prepares to say goodbye to her almost-love while they road-trip across a country irrevocably altered by climate change. In “Take Only What Belongs to You,� a queer woman struggles with the personal history of an author she idolized, while in “Fiddler, Fool, Pair,� an anthropologist is drawn into a magical—and dangerous—gamble. In the title story, partners Agnes and Geb feast peacefully on the mushrooms that sprout from Agnes’s body—until an unwanted male guest disturbs their cloistered home.


Audacious, striking, and wholly original, Fruiting Bodies offers stories about knowledge in a world on the verge of collapse, knowledge that alternately empowers or devastates. Pulling beautifully, brazenly, from a variety of literary traditions, Kathryn Harlan firmly establishes herself as a thrilling new voice in fiction.]]> 256 Kathryn Harlan 1324021225 Alyssa 4 lgbtqia-fiction 4.16 2022 Fruiting Bodies: Stories
author: Kathryn Harlan
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/13
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> The Rachel Incident 63094957
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.

When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.]]> 304 Caroline O'Donoghue 0593535707 Alyssa 5 lgbtqia-fiction 4.06 2023 The Rachel Incident
author: Caroline O'Donoghue
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/13
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)]]> 199415360
Arthur Parnassus lives a good life, built on the ashes of a bad one. He's the headmaster of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six magical and so-called dangerous children who live there.

Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. And he is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth; Zoe Chapelwhite, the island's sprite; and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.

But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they're at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.

Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur's story.]]> 406 T.J. Klune Alyssa 5 lgbtqia-fiction 4.22 2024 Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/27
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> The Pairing 199352366
Time apart has done them good. Theo has found confidence as a hustling bartender by night and aspiring sommelier by day, with a long roster of casual lovers. Kit, who never returned to America, graduated as the reigning sex god of his pastry school class and now bakes at one of the finest restaurants in Paris. Sure, nothing really compares to what they had, and life stretches out long and lonely ahead of them, but—yeah. It's in the past.

All that remains is the unused voucher for the European tour that never happened, good for 48 months after its original date and about to expire. Four years later, it seems like a great idea to finally take the trip. Solo. Separately.

It's not until they board the tour bus that they discover they've both accidentally had the exact same idea, and now they're trapped with each other for three weeks of stunning views, luscious flavors, and the most romantic cities of France, Spain, and Italy. It's fine. There's nothing left between them. So much nothing that, when Theo suggests a friendly wager to see who can sleep with their hot Italian tour guide first, Kit is totally game. And why stop there? Why not a full-on European hookup competition?

But sometimes a taste of everything only makes you crave what you can't have.]]> 432 Casey McQuiston 1250864054 Alyssa 4 lgbtqia-fiction 3.86 2024 The Pairing
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/05
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> Stone Fruit 55678434
At turns joyful and heartbreaking, Stone Fruit reveals through intimately naturalistic dialog and blue-hued watercolor how painful it can be to truly become vulnerable to your loved ones � and how fulfilling it is to be finally understood for who you are. Lee Lai is one of the most exciting new voices to break into the comics medium and she has created one of the truly sophisticated graphic novel debuts in recent memory.
]]> 231 Lee Lai 1683964268 Alyssa 4 lgbtqia-fiction 4.07 2021 Stone Fruit
author: Lee Lai
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/07
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> Chlorine 62326621 In the vein of The Pisces and The Vegetarian, Chlorine is a debut novel that blurs the line between a literary coming-of-age narrative and a dark unsettling horror tale, told from an adult perspective on the trials and tribulations of growing up in a society that puts pressure on young women and their bodies... a powerful, relevant novel of immigration, sapphic longing, and fierce, defiant becoming.


Ren Yu is a swimmer. Her daily life starts and ends with the pool. Her teammates are her only friends. Her coach is her guiding light. If she swims well enough, she will be scouted, get a scholarship, go to a good school. Her parents will love her. Her coach will be kind to her. She will have a good life.

But these are human concerns. These are the concerns of those confined to land, those with legs. Ren grew up on stories of creatures of the deep, of the oceans and the rivers. Creatures that called sailors to their doom. That dragged them down and drowned them. That feasted on their flesh. The creature that she's always longed to the mermaid.

Ren aches to be in the water. She dreams of the scent of chlorine, the feel of it on her skin. And she will do anything she can to make a life for herself where she can be free. No matter the pain. No matter what anyone else thinks. No matter how much blood she has to spill.]]> 248 Jade Song 0063257629 Alyssa 3 lgbtqia-fiction 3.73 2023 Chlorine
author: Jade Song
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> We Could Be Rats 211766820 A moving story about two very different sisters, and a love letter to childhood, growing up, and the power of imagination—from the bestselling author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead and Interesting Facts About Space.

Sigrid hates working at the Dollar Pal but having always resisted the idea of growing up into the trappings of adulthood, she did not graduate high school, preferring to roam the streets of her small town with her best friend Greta, the only person in the world who ever understood her. Her older sister Margit is baffled and frustrated by Sigrid’s inability to conform to the expectations of polite society.

But Sigrid’s detachment veils a deeper turmoil and sensitivity. She’s haunted by the pains of her past—from pretending her parents were swamp monsters when they shook the floorboards with their violent arguments to grappling with losing Greta’s friendship to the opioid epidemic ravaging their town. As Margit sets out to understand Sigrid and the secrets she has hidden, both sisters, in their own time and way, discover that reigniting their shared childhood imagination is the only way forward.

What unfolds is an unforgettable story of two sisters finding their way back to each other, and a celebration of that transcendent, unshakable bond.]]> 6 Emily R. Austin Alyssa 4 lgbtqia-fiction 4.18 2025 We Could Be Rats
author: Emily R. Austin
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: lgbtqia-fiction
review:

]]> Good Dirt 213618132 The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick

When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well.

The crime was never solved—and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England—the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers, but when Ebby's high profile romance falls apart without any explanation, that's exactly what they get.

So Ebby flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what's happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago—the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family's history—it might also hold the key to unlocking her own future.

In this sweeping, evocative novel, Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life a multi-generational epic that examines how the past informs our present.]]> 368 Charmaine Wilkerson 0593358368 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.05 2025 Good Dirt
author: Charmaine Wilkerson
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster]]> 205478835
Acid rainstorms have transformed New York City into a toxic wasteland. Thousands have died and thousands more have been left stranded inside the five self-contained boroughs under military control. In one apartment building, an unlikely family of humans and ghosts survives. Mira reels from a devastating breakup with her partner Mal who is lost in the faraway expanse of Queens. A second generation Chinese American now back at home with her mother, Mira calls out to the empty airwaves with her HAM radio in the hopes of reconnecting with Mal, or connecting with anyone at all. Across the hall, Shin, a ghost cockroach, replays his lost life, and a headless man named Sad falls in love. Mira’s mother is plagued by furious dreams alongside Grandpa Why, now a rambunctious ghost. As the world around them worsens, each character must learn to redefine what it means to live, die, and love at the end of the world.]]> 272 Muriel Leung 1324076186 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.61 2024 How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster
author: Muriel Leung
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Reincarnation Blues 33571217 A magically inspiring tale of a man who is reincarnated through many lifetimes so that he can be with his one true love: Death herself.

What if you could live forever—but without your one true love? Reincarnation Blues is the story of a man who has been reincarnated nearly 10,000 times, in search of the secret to immortality so that he can be with his beloved, the incarnation of Death. Neil Gaiman meets Kurt Vonnegut in this darkly whimsical, hilariously profound, and wildly imaginative comedy of the secrets of life and love. Transporting us from ancient India to outer space to Renaissance Italy to the present day, is a journey through time, space, and the human heart.]]> 374 Michael Poore 0399178481 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.86 2017 Reincarnation Blues
author: Michael Poore
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/28
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]]> Hemlock & Silver 217388302 DELUXE EDITION—a gorgeous hardcover edition featuring bright green sprayed edges, a foil stamp on the casing, and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.

From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Hemlock & Silver, a dark reimagining of “Snow White� steeped in poison, intrigue, and treason of the most magical kind

Healer Anja regularly drinks poison.

Not to die, but to save—seeking cures for those everyone else has given up on.

But a summons from the King interrupts her quiet, herb-obsessed life. His daughter, Snow, is dying, and he hopes Anja’s unorthodox methods can save her.

Aided by a taciturn guard, a narcissistic cat, and a passion for the scientific method, Anja rushes to treat Snow, but nothing seems to work. That is, until she finds a secret world, hidden inside a magic mirror. This dark realm may hold the key to what is making Snow sick.

Or it might be the thing that kills them all.]]> 368 T. Kingfisher 1250342031 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.32 2025 Hemlock & Silver
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> Swordheart 218624103 448 T. Kingfisher 1250400228 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.09 2018 Swordheart
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/06
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]]> As You Wish 219520676 They say be careful what you wish for�

For Lydia, Jenny, and Selene, au pairing in Seoul is the opportunity of a lifetime. Lydia wants nothing more than to transform into a leading lady; Jenny is determined to swear off love for good 5,955 miles away from her ex; and Selene is convinced working in Korea will finally lead her to her biological mother.

During a combined family vacation with their host families, the women visit an enchanted waterfall on Jeju Island and make a wish under a full moon. Overnight, everything changes. Suddenly, Lydia is the girl everyone wants—except, strangely, her mysterious art class partner from Spain. Jenny is having secret, no-strings-attached fun with her host mom’s irresistible younger brother. And Selene is finally getting somewhere in her search for her mother thanks to a research-savvy photographer.

But when Jenny’s romantic feelings begin to deepen, she realizes her wish is standing in the way of true, lasting love. Her decision to return to the waterfall will have unexpected consequences and force the au pairs to confront a new question altogether: Could it be that their friendship was the real magic all along?]]> 368 Leesa Cross-Smith 0593476182 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.79 As You Wish
author: Leesa Cross-Smith
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.79
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/03
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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 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.06 2025 Stag Dance
author: Torrey Peters
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.06
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date added: 2025/02/22
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]]> Woodworking 217311813 An unforgettable and heartwarming debut following a trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other trans woman she knows: one of her students.

Erica Skyberg is thirty-five years old, recently divorced—and trans. Not that she's told anyone yet. Mitchell, South Dakota, isn't exactly bursting with other trans women. Instead, she keeps to herself, teaching by day and directing community theater by night. That is, until Abigail Hawkes enters her orbit.

Abigail is seventeen, Mitchell High’s resident political dissident and Only Trans Girl. It’s a role she plays faultlessly, albeit a little reluctantly. She's also annoyed by the idea of spending her senior year secretly guiding her English teacher through her transition. But Abigail remembers the uncertainty—and loneliness—that comes with it. Besides, Erica isn’t the only one struggling to shed the weight of others� expectations.

As their unlikely friendship evolves under the increasing scrutiny of their community, both women—and those closest to them—will come to realize that sometimes there is nothing more radical than letting the world see who you really are.

Detransition Baby meets Fleishman is in Trouble in this remarkable debut novel from an incisive contemporary voice. A story about the awkwardness of growing up and the greatest love story of all, that between us and our friends, Woodworking is a tonic for the moment and a celebration of womanhood in all its multifaceted joy.]]> 351 Emily St. James 163893147X Alyssa 0 to-read 4.42 2025 Woodworking
author: Emily St. James
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers, #3)]]> 32802595
Tessa chose to stay home when her brother Ashby left for the stars, but has to question that decision when her position in the Fleet is threatened.

Kip, a reluctant young apprentice, itches for change but doesn't know where to find it.

Sawyer, a lost and lonely newcomer, is just looking for a place to belong.

When a disaster rocks this already fragile community, those Exodans who still call the Fleet their home can no longer avoid the inescapable question:

What is the purpose of a ship that has reached its destination?]]> 359 Becky Chambers 1473647606 Alyssa 4 4.10 2018 Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers, #3)
author: Becky Chambers
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/02/20
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]]> In Case You Read This 217896236
Arden isn’t excited about moving. Los Angeles was an easy place to fit in and find a supportive queer community. But Winifred, Michigan? That sounds like a much more difficult place to exist.

Pasadena, California, is the perfect city for Gabe’s reinvention. Everyone knew everything about him in small-town Shelby, Illinois. Gabe, who wants to be out and proud, can’t wait to relocate.

When Arden and Gabe randomly meet in the lobby of a motel in Nebraska, it feels like fate. Both are trans, but more importantly, both are huge fans of the band Damaged Pixie Dream Boi. Clearly, the universe is trying to tell them something. Right?

But after an incredible evening of hanging out, the pair part ways only knowing the other’s first name. And as both boys struggle to adjust to their new homes, their thoughts keep being drawn back to their time together. Is one perfect night enough to bring Arden and Gabe back to each other, or will the boys need some help to find each other again?]]> 368 Edward Underhill 0063373777 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.81 2025 In Case You Read This
author: Edward Underhill
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> A Sharp Endless Need 214537791
“Brilliant � so alive and vibrating that it took my breath away.”—Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here

Star point guard Mack Morris’s senior year of high school begins with twin cataclysms: the death of Mack’s father and the arrival of transfer student Liv Cooper. Playing side by side for their high school basketball team, Mack and Liv discover an electrifying, game-winning chemistry on the court. Off the court, they fall into an equally intoxicating more-than-friendship—one that feels out-of-bounds in their small Pennsylvania town. Mack teeters on the precipice of adulthood as desire and grief collide with drugs, sex, and the looming college signing deadline. Caught between the dual impulses of ambition and self-destruction, Mack must decide what kind of life they want to fight for.

Written with the lush longing of Andre Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name,the obsessive attention of Jean Kyoung Frazier’s Pizza Girl, and with all the romance and feeling of the beloved 2000 movie Love & Basketball, A Sharp Endless Need is a stunning testament to the big feelings of coming-of-age, falling in love, and, of course, playing sports.]]> 272 Marisa Crane 0593733649 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.18 A Sharp Endless Need
author: Marisa Crane
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.18
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
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]]> <![CDATA[A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1)]]> 40864002 ASIN B08H831J18 moved to the more recent edition

Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend.

Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a lot. Chambers' series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?]]> 151 Becky Chambers Alyssa 4 4.25 2021 A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1)
author: Becky Chambers
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/01/31
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]]> To Be Taught, If Fortunate 43190272
Ariadne is one such explorer. As an astronaut on an extrasolar research vessel, she and her fellow crewmates sleep between worlds and wake up each time with different features. Her experience is one of fluid body and stable mind and of a unique perspective on the passage of time. Back on Earth, society changes dramatically from decade to decade, as it always does.

Ariadne may awaken to find that support for space exploration back home has waned, or that her country of birth no longer exists, or that a cult has arisen around their cosmic findings, only to dissolve once more by the next waking. But the moods of Earth have little bearing on their mission: to explore, to study, and to send their learnings home.

Carrying all the trademarks of her other beloved works, including brilliant writing, fantastic world-building and exceptional, diverse characters, Becky's first audiobook outside of the Wayfarers series is sure to capture the imagination of listeners all over the world.]]> 153 Becky Chambers 0062936018 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.19 2019 To Be Taught, If Fortunate
author: Becky Chambers
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/25
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]]> Skye Falling 39298276 A woman who's used to going solo discovers that there's one relationship she can't run away from in this buoyant novel from the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of The Summer We Got Free

Twenty-six and broke, Skye didn't think twice before selling her eggs and happily pocketing the cash. Now approaching forty, Skye moves through life entirely--and unrepentantly--on her own terms, living out of a suitcase and avoiding all manner of serious relationships. Her personal life might be a mess, and no one would be surprised if she died alone in a hotel room, but at least she's free to do as she pleases.

But then a 12-year-old girl shows up during one of Skye's brief visits to her hometown of Philadelphia, and tells Skye that she's "her egg." Skye's life is thrown into sharp relief and she decides that it might be time to actually try to have a meaningful relationship with another human being. Spoiler alert: It's not easy.
Things gets even more complicated when Skye realizes that the woman she tried and failed to pick up the other day is the girl's aunt and now it's awkward.

All the while, her brother is trying to get in touch, her problematic mother is being bewilderingly kind, and the West Philly pool halls and hoagie shops of her youth have been replaced by hipster cafes.

Told in a fresh, lively voice, this novel is a relentlessly clever, deeply moving portrait of a woman and the relationships she thought she could live without.]]> 320 Mia McKenzie 1984801600 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.80 2021 Skye Falling
author: Mia McKenzie
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> Water Moon 211479192 A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets, and then embarks on a magical journey when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop, in this dreamlike and enchanting fantasy novel.

On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.

Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it.

Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds.

But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.]]> 384 Samantha Sotto Yambao 0593724992 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.80 2025 Water Moon
author: Samantha Sotto Yambao
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself]]> 60679392
Kris is a Shadester and a new mother to a baby born with a second shadow of her own. Grieving the loss of her wife and thoroughly unprepared for the reality of raising a child alone, Kris teeters on the edge of collapse, fumbling in a daze of alcohol, shame, and self-loathing. Yet as the kid grows, Kris finds her footing, raising a child whose irrepressible spark cannot be dampened by the harsh realities of the world.

With a first-person register reminiscent of the fierce self-disclosure of Sheila Heti and the poetic precision of Ocean Vuong, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself is a bold debut novel that examines the long shadow of grief, the hard work of parenting, and the power of queer resistance.]]> 352 Marisa Crane 164622129X Alyssa 0 to-read 3.89 2023 I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself
author: Marisa Crane
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/24
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]]> Amphibian 209328277 “I couldn’t put it down and feel haunted by every moment, every sentence� Joanna Rakoff

“Wetherall’s prose is thick with the terror and wonder of those turbulent years of physical change, and comes laced with mythic, mystic resonances� The Times (UK)

"Haunting and visceral as a fairytale" Lilly Dancyger

"Brims with sex and violence and threat, and moves to a crescendo of strange and magical beauty" Rebecca Stott

Sissy is used to being on the outside. The new girl in her West Country school, she recently arrived with her troubled mother, prone to letting Sissy fend for herself.

But from the day Sissy fights a boy in front of Tegan, she's no longer alone. Bonded by violence, they grow so close they feel like one wrapped around each other in bed at sleepovers, sending photographs to men they meet online, and scaring each other with reports of the girls being snatched at night in their town.

Over the course of the school year, they find themselves on the threshold of girlhood, with threats gathering thick and fast around them. And as their make-believe worlds bleed into their daily lives, Sissy feels herself transforming into something strange and terrifying.

With deft notes of magical realism and a constant psychological acuity, Amphibian is a tender, haunting coming-of-age debut, about desire, precocity and the intensity of early friendships that have the power to upend our lives.]]> 300 Tyler Wetherall 1632462079 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.27 Amphibian
author: Tyler Wetherall
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.27
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date added: 2025/01/24
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]]> Devil Is Fine 195391724
Vercher deftly blurs the lines between real and imagined, past and present, tragedy and humor, and fathers and sons in this story of discovering and reclaiming a painful past. With the wit and rawness of Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, Devil Is Fine is a gripping, surreal, and brilliantly crafted dissection of the legacies we leave behind and those we inherit.]]> 272 John Vercher 1250894484 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.93 2024 Devil Is Fine
author: John Vercher
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Big Swiss 60701439
One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss’s voice in town and they quickly become enmeshed. While Big Swiss is unaware Greta has eavesdropped on her most intimate exchanges, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she’ll do anything to sustain the relationship…]]> 336 Jen Beagin 1982153083 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.69 2023 Big Swiss
author: Jen Beagin
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/24
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]]> There Are Rivers in the Sky 202468422 From the Booker Prize finalist author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two rivers, all under the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time.

In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.

In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his interest: Nineveh and Its Remains.

In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.

In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.

A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend fate: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.�]]> 464 Elif Shafak 0593801717 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.39 2024 There Are Rivers in the Sky
author: Elif Shafak
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Making It So: A Memoir 214152173
From his acclaimed stage triumphs to his legendary onscreen work in the Star Trek and X-Men franchises, Sir Patrick Stewart has captivated audiences around the world and across multiple generations with his indelible command of stage and screen. Now, he presents his long-awaited memoir, Making It So, a revealing portrait of an artist whose astonishing life—from his humble beginnings in Yorkshire, England, to the heights of Hollywood and worldwide acclaim—proves a story as exuberant, definitive, and enduring as the author himself.]]> 480 Patrick Stewart 1982167742 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.35 2023 Making It So: A Memoir
author: Patrick Stewart
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> Deep Cuts 214269394
Joe asks Percy for feedback on one of his songs—and the results kick off a partnership that will span years, ignite new passions in them both, and crush their egos again and again. Is their collaboration worth its cost? Or is it holding Percy back from finding her own voice?

Moving from Brooklyn bars to San Francisco dance floors, Deep Cuts examines the nature of talent, obsession, belonging, and above all, our need to be heard.]]> 277 Holly Brickley 0593799089 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.78 2025 Deep Cuts
author: Holly Brickley
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.78
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rating: 0
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]]> The Vegetarian 25489025
Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.]]> 188 Han Kang 0553448188 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.61 2007 The Vegetarian
author: Han Kang
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/21
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]]> The Last Bookstore on Earth 214490415 This searing YA debut follows two teen girls as they fall in love and fight for survival in an abandoned bookstore, just weeks before another cataclysmic storm threatens to bring about the end of the world. Perfect for fans of Station Eleven and The Last of Us!

The world is about to end. Again.

Ever since the first Storm wreaked havoc on civilization as we know it, seventeen-year-old Liz Flannery has been holed up in an abandoned bookstore in suburban New Jersey where she used to work, trading books for supplies with the few remaining survivors. It’s the one place left that feels safe to her.

Until she learns that another earth-shattering Storm is coming . . . and everything changes.

Enter Maeve, a prickly and potentially dangerous out-of-towner who breaks into the bookstore looking for shelter one night. Though the two girls are immediately at odds, Maeve has what Liz needs—the skills to repair the dilapidated store before the next climate disaster strikes—and Liz reluctantly agrees to let her stay.

As the girls grow closer and undeniable feelings spring up between them, they realize that they face greater threats than the impending Storm. And when Maeve’s secrets and Liz’s inner demons come back to haunt them both, they find themselves fighting for their lives as their world crumbles around them.]]> 320 Lily Braun-Arnold 0593899482 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.43 2025 The Last Bookstore on Earth
author: Lily Braun-Arnold
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Elric of Melniboné (The Elric Saga, #1)]]> 30036
The youthful Elric is a cynical and melancholy king, heir to a nation whose 100,000-year rule of the world ended less than 500 years hence. More interested in brooding contemplation than holding the throne, Elric is a reluctant ruler, but he also realizes that no other worthy successor exists and the survival of his once-powerful, decadent nation depends on him alone. Elric's nefarious, brutish cousin Yrkoon has no patience for his physically weak kinsman, and he plots constantly to seize Elric's throne, usually over his dead body. Elric of Melniboné follows Yrkoon's scheming, reaching its climax in a battle between Elric and Yrkoon with the demonic runeblades Stormbringer and Mournblade. In this battle, Elric gains control of the soul-stealing Stormbringer, an event that proves pivotal to the Elric saga. --Paul Hughes]]> 181 Michael Moorcock 0441203981 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.90 1972 Elric of Melniboné (The Elric Saga, #1)
author: Michael Moorcock
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1972
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/15
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]]> Save the Date 212431564 "Whip-smart, subversive, and infinitely charming. An ode to the beautifully messy work of falling in love on purpose." —Becky Albertalli, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

You are cordially invited to the wedding of Emma Moskowitz and…someone�

When couples therapist Emma Moskowitz is unceremoniously dumped by her fiancé six months before their wedding, her world comes crashing down: her thriving private practice, her status as a popular online creator, even her book deal all hinge on the fact that Emma is an expert when it comes to romantic relationships. Not to mention her heart is ripped in half.

It isn't fair. She worked so hard to be ready for marriage. If only Emma could find a different groom by her planned wedding day, nothing would have to change....

So commences Operation: Save My Date.

As Emma publicly shares her untraditional journey to the altar online, things get complicated quickly. She finds herself caught between Will, a charismatic podcast producer who is not interested in being a replacement groom; and Matt, a sweet, recent divorcee eagerly looking to settle down.

As the wedding day approaches, Emma must decide what future she truly wants for herself. After all, her family, her book editor, and a large portion of the internet are watching...]]> 304 Allison Raskin 1335081321 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.66 2025 Save the Date
author: Allison Raskin
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/15
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]]> Notes from a Regicide 211004138 Notes from a Regicide is a heartbreaking story of trans self-discovery with a rich relatability and a science-fictional twist from award-winning author Isaac Fellman.

When your parents die, you find out who they really were.

Griffon Keming’s second parents saved him from his abusive family. They taught him how to be trans, paid for his transition, and tried to love him as best they could. But Griffon’s new parents had troubles of their own � both were deeply scarred by the lives they lived before Griffon, the struggles they faced to become themselves, and the failed revolution that drove them from their homeland. When they died, they left an unfillable hole in his heart.

Griffon’s best clue to his parents� lives is in his father’s journal, written from a jail cell while he awaited execution. Stained with blood, grief, and tears, these pages struggle to contain the love story of two artists on fire. With the journal in hand, Griffon hopes to pin down his relationship to these wonderful and strange people for whom time always seemed to be running out.

In Notes from a Regicide, a trans family saga set in a far-off, familiar future, Isaac Fellman goes beyond the concept of found family to examine how deeply we can be healed and hurt by those we choose to love.]]> 336 Isaac Fellman 1250329108 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.80 2025 Notes from a Regicide
author: Isaac Fellman
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.80
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date added: 2025/01/13
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]]> Hum 195791689 From the National Book Award–longlisted author of The Need comes an extraordinary novel about a wife and mother who—after losing her job to AI—undergoes a procedure that renders her undetectable to surveillance…but at what cost?

In a city addled by climate change and populated by intelligent robots called “hums,� May loses her job to artificial intelligence. In a desperate bid to resolve her family’s debt and secure their future for another few months, she becomes a guinea pig in an experiment that alters her face so it cannot be recognized by surveillance.

Seeking some reprieve from her recent hardships and from her family’s addiction to their devices, she splurges on passes that allow them three nights� respite inside the Botanical Garden: a rare green refuge where forests, streams, and animals flourish. But her insistence that her son, daughter, and husband leave their devices at home proves far more fraught than she anticipated, and the lush beauty of the Botanical Garden is not the balm she hoped it would be. When her children come under threat, May is forced to put her trust in a hum of uncertain motives as she works to restore the life of her family.

Written in taut, urgent prose, Hum is a work of speculative fiction that unflinchingly explores marriage, motherhood, and selfhood in a world compromised by global warming and dizzying technological advancement, a world of both dystopian and utopian possibilities. As New York Times bestselling author Jeff VanderMeer says, “Helen Phillips, in typical bravura fashion, has found a way to make visible uncomfortable truths about our present by interrogating the near-future.”]]> 262 Helen Phillips 1668008831 Alyssa 3 3.49 2024 Hum
author: Helen Phillips
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
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]]> Anywhere You Go 216750978
A small-town waitress and a big-city Broadway press agent swap homes to escape the messiness of their personal lives, only to find new purpose—and new love.

Tatum Ward and Eleanor Chapman lead totally opposite lives. Tatum’s never left her Midwestern hometown. She resides in a quaint guest cottage on her parents� property while working part-time as a waitress, where she spends most shifts ignoring her feelings for a beautiful regular named June. Eleanor dedicates every waking hour to her high-profile press career, sacrificing personal relationships for professional success, save for the occasional hookup to fight off her loneliness. When both women’s lives unexpectedly blow up at the exact same time, they each need an escape, and fast.

In Tatum’s hometown, Eleanor expects a quiet hideaway where she can recharge. Instead she gets wrapped up in the family drama that Tatum left town to avoid, pulled in by Tatum’s charismatic older sibling, Carson, who charms Eleanor at every turn. Tatum ends up in Eleanor’s New York high-rise apartment with June. One week together in the big city might make it impossible for Tatum to avoid not just her true feelings for June, but her real dreams for her life.

Amid a friendship with a reclusive Hollywood actress and a complicated family reunion, Tatum and Eleanor each discover much more than they bargained for away from home. Their house swap won’t last forever, but it might be just long enough for both women to surrender their defenses and finally fight for the life—and love—they deserve.]]> 352 Bridget Morrissey 0593817125 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.01 2025 Anywhere You Go
author: Bridget Morrissey
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar]]> 220160852 A Chinese American woman spins tragedy into comedy when her life falls apart in a taut, wry debut novel that grapples with grief, motherhood, and myths—perfect for fans of Joan Is Okay and Crying in H Mart.

A man and a woman walk into a restaurant. The woman expects a lovely night filled with endless plates of samosas. Instead, she finds out her husband is having an affair with a woman named Maggie.

A short while after, her chest starts to ache. She walks into an examination room, where she finds out the pain in her breast isn’t just heartbreak—it’s cancer. She decides to call the tumor Maggie.

Unfolding in fragments over the course of the ensuing months, Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar follows the narrator as she embarks on a journey of grief, healing, and reclamation. She starts talking to Maggie (the tumor), getting acquainted with her body’s new inhabitant. She overgenerously creates a “Guide to My A User’s Manual� for Maggie (the other woman), hoping to ease the process of discovering her ex-husband’s whims and quirks. She turns her children’s bedtime stories into retellings of Chinese folklore passed down by her own mother, in an attempt to make them fall in love with their shared culture—and to maybe save herself in the process.

In the style of Jenny Offill and the tradition of Nora Ephron’s hilarious and devastating writing on heartbreak and womanhood, Maggie is a master class in transforming personal tragedy into a form of defiant comedy.]]> 208 Katie Yee 166808421X Alyssa 0 to-read 4.20 2025 Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar
author: Katie Yee
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/04
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]]> Great Big Beautiful Life 218559595 Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]> 432 Emily Henry Alyssa 0 to-read 4.22 2025 Great Big Beautiful Life
author: Emily Henry
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/04
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]]> Adult Human Male 198717033 90 Oliver Radclyffe Alyssa 0 to-read 4.75 Adult Human Male
author: Oliver Radclyffe
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.75
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/03
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]]> Frighten the Horses: A Memoir 197525486 A textured, sharply written memoir about coming of age in the fourth decade of one’s life and embracing one's truest self in a world that demands gender fit in neat boxes

From the outside, Oliver Radclyffe spent four decades living an immensely privileged, beautifully composed life. As the daughter of two well-to-do British parents and the wife of a handsome, successful man from an equally privileged family, Oliver played the parts expected of him. He checked off every box—marriage, children (four), a white-picket fence surrounding a stately home in Connecticut, and a golden retriever named Biscuit.

But beneath the shiny veneer, Oliver was desperately trying to stay afloat as he struggled to maintain a facade of normalcy—his hair was falling out in clumps, he couldn’t eat, and his mood swings often brought him to tears. And then, on an otherwise unremarkable afternoon in September, Oliver Radclyffe woke up and realized the life of a trapped housewife was not one he was ever meant to live. In fact, Oliver had spent his entire life denying the deepest, truest parts of himself. In the wake of this realization, he began the challenging, messy journey toward self-acceptance and living a truer life, knowing he risked the life he’d built to do so.

That journey was fraught, as Oliver navigated leaving a marriage and reintroducing himself to his children. And despite the challenges he faced, Oliver realized there was no way for him to go back to the beautiful lie of his previous life. Not if he wanted to survive.

Frighten the Horses is a trans man’s coming of age story, about a housewife who comes out as a lesbian and tentatively, at first, steps into the world of queerness. With growing courage and the support of his newfound community, Oliver is finally able to face the question of his gender identity and become the man he is supposed to be. The story of a flawed, fascinating, gorgeously queer man, Frighten the Horses introduces Oliver Radclyffe as a witty, arresting, unforgettable voice.]]> 352 Oliver Radclyffe 0802163157 Alyssa 5 4.32 2024 Frighten the Horses: A Memoir
author: Oliver Radclyffe
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/01/03
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]]> The Spellshop 199269577 The Spellshop is Sarah Beth Durst’s romantasy debut–a lush cottagecore tale full of stolen spellbooks, unexpected friendships, sweet jams, and even sweeter love.

Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she and her assistant, Caz—a magically sentient spider plant—have spent the last decade sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite.

When a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz flee with all the spellbooks they can carry and head to a remote island Kiela never thought she’d see again: her childhood home. Taking refuge there, Kiela discovers, much to her dismay, a nosy—and very handsome—neighbor who can’t take a hint and keeps showing up day after day to make sure she’s fed and to help fix up her new home.

In need of income, Kiela identifies something that even the bakery in town doesn’t have: jam. With the help of an old recipe book her parents left her and a bit of illegal magic, her cottage garden is soon covered in ripe berries.

But magic can do more than make life a little sweeter, so Kiela risks the consequences of using unsanctioned spells and opens the island’s first-ever and much needed secret spellshop.

Like a Hallmark rom-com full of mythical creatures and fueled by cinnamon rolls and magic, The Spellshop will heal your heart and feed your soul.]]> 384 Sarah Beth Durst Alyssa 5 4.05 2024 The Spellshop
author: Sarah Beth Durst
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> I Might Be in Trouble 210331628 A suspenseful, satirical dark comedy about a struggling writer who wakes up to find his date from the night before dead—and must then decide how far he’s willing to go to spin the misadventure into his next big book.

A few years ago, David Alvarez had it all: a six-figure book deal, a loving boyfriend, and an exciting writing career. His debut novel was a resounding success, which made the publication of his second book—a total flop—all the more devastating. Now, David is single, lonely, and desperately trying to come up with the next great idea for his third manuscript, one that will redeem him in the eyes of readers, reviewers…and maybe even his ex-boyfriend.

The issue is, good ideas are hard to come by, and the mounting pressure of a near-empty bank account isn’t helping. But when David connects with a sexy stranger on a dating app, he figures a wild night out in New York City may be just what he needs to find inspiration. Lucky for him, his date turns out to be handsome, confident, and wealthy, not to mention the perfect distraction from yet another evening staring at a blank screen.

After one of the best nights of his life, David wakes up hungover but giddy—only to find prince charming dead next to him in bed. Horrified, completely confused, and suddenly faced with the implausible-but-somehow-plausible idea that he may have actually killed his date, David calls the only person he can trust in a moment of crisis: his literary agent, Stacey.

Together, David and Stacey must untangle the events of the previous night, cover their tracks, and spin the entire misadventure into David’s career-defining novel—if only they can figure out what to do with the body first.]]> 329 Daniel Aleman 1538766345 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.60 2024 I Might Be in Trouble
author: Daniel Aleman
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore]]> 201751300 An affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cultural life, from department stores to indies, from highbrow dealers trading in first editions to sidewalk vendors, and from chains to special-interest community destinations

Bookstores have always been unlike any other kind of store, shaping readers and writers, and influencing our tastes, thoughts, and politics. They nurture local communities while creating new ones of their own. Bookshops are powerful spaces, but they are also endangered ones. In The Bookshop, we see those stakes: what has been, and what might be lost.

Evan Friss’s history of the bookshop draws on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, and interviews with leading booksellers to offer a fascinating look at this institution beloved by so many. The story begins with Benjamin Franklin’s first bookstore in Philadelphia and takes us to a range of booksellers including The Strand, Chicago’s Marshall Field & Company, Gotham Book Mart, specialty stores like Oscar Wilde and Drum and Spear, sidewalk sellers of used books, Barnes & Noble, Amazon Books, and Parnassus. The Bookshop is also a history of the leading figures in American bookselling, often impassioned eccentrics, and a history of how books have been marketed and sold over more than two centuries—including, for example, a 3,000-pound elephant who appeared to sign books at Marshall Field’s in 1944.

The Bookshop is a love letter to bookstores, a charming chronicle for anyone who cherishes these sanctuaries of literature, and essential reading to understand how these vital institutions have shaped American life—and why we still need them.]]> 416 Evan Friss 0593299922 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.93 2024 The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore
author: Evan Friss
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science]]> 208580608 The acclaimed Pulitzer Prize finalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Galileo’s Daughter crafts a luminous chronicle of the life and work of the most famous woman in the history of science, and the untold story of the many young women trained in her laboratory who were launched into stellar scientific careers of their own

“Even now, nearly a century after her death, Marie Curie remains the only female scientist most people can name,� writes Dava Sobel at the opening of her shining portrait of the sole Nobel laureate decorated in two separate fields of science—Physics in 1903 with her husband Pierre and Chemistry by herself in 1911. And yet, Sobel makes clear, as brilliant and creative as she was in the laboratory, Marie Curie was equally passionate outside it. Grieving Pierre’s untimely death in 1906, she took his place as professor of physics at the Sorbonne; devotedly raised two brilliant daughters; drove a van she outfitted with x-ray equipment to the front lines of World War I; befriended Albert Einstein and other luminaries of twentieth-century physics; won support from two U.S. presidents; and inspired generations of young women the world over to pursue science as a way of life.

As Sobel did so memorably in her portrait of Galileo through the prism of his daughter, she approaches Marie Curie from a unique angle, narrating her remarkable life of discovery and fame alongside the women who became her legacy—from France’s Marguerite Perey, who discovered the element francium, and Norway’s Ellen Gleditsch, to Mme. Curie’s elder daughter, Irène, winner of the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. For decades the only woman in the room at international scientific gatherings that probed new theories about the interior of the atom, Marie Curie traveled far and wide, despite constant illness, to share the secrets of radioactivity, a term she coined. Her two triumphant tours of the United States won her admirers for her modesty even as she was mobbed at every stop; her daughters, in Ève’s later recollection, “discovered all at once what the retiring woman with whom they had always lived meant to the world.�

With the consummate skill that made bestsellers of Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter, and the appreciation for women in science at the heart of her most recent The Glass Universe, Dava Sobel has crafted a radiant biography and a masterpiece of storytelling, illuminating the life and enduring influence of one of the most consequential figures of our time.]]> 318 Dava Sobel 0802163823 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.94 2024 The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science
author: Dava Sobel
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/15
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]]> The Third Gilmore Girl 207298106 Brought to you by Penguin.

Beloved award-winning actress Kelly Bishop, famous for playing the iconic Emily Gilmore in Gilmore Girls , finally tells the whole story of her six decades in show business.

Kelly Bishop’s storied career has been defined by landmark achievements, from winning a Tony Award for her turn in the original Broadway cast of A Chorus Line to her memorable performance as Jennifer Grey’s mother in Dirty Dancing, but it is probably her role as matriarch Emily in the modern classic Gilmore Girls that cemented her legacy.
Now, Bishop reflects on her remarkable life and looks towards the future, sharing some of her greatest stories and the life lessons she’s learned on her journey. From her early transition from dance to drama, to marrying young to a compulsive gambler, to the losses and achievements she experienced—among them marching for women’s rights and losing her second husband to cancer—Bishop offers a rich, genuine celebration of her life.
Full of witty insights, The Third Gilmore Girl is a warm, unapologetic, and powerful memoir from a woman who has left indelible impressions on her audiences for decades.

]]> 256 Kelly Bishop 1668023776 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.35 2024 The Third Gilmore Girl
author: Kelly Bishop
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/15
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]]> Cinema Love 196929949
For over thirty years, Old Second and his wife, Bao Mei, have cobbled together a meager existence in New York City’s Chinatown. But unlike other couples, these two aren’t in love. In rural China, before they emigrated, they frequented the Workers� Cinema: a rundown theater where gay men cruised without fear for intimacy and conversation.

While classic war films played, Old Second and his countrymen found privacy—and love—in the screening rooms. In the box office, Bao Mei sold tickets to closeted men; guarding their secrets, guiding them in their relationships, and even finding her own happiness with the theater’s projectionist. But when Old Second’s passion for his lover is discovered, a series of haunting events unfold, propelling these characters toward an uncertain future in America.

As we follow these characters from China to New York, from first love to old age, we bear witness to the tensions of immigration—and how memory forever weighs down the present. Cinema Love is a big-hearted and heart-shattering novel about desire, secrets, grief, how we care for one another, and how we survive.]]> 304 Jiaming Tang 0593474333 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.75 2024 Cinema Love
author: Jiaming Tang
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Hampton Heights: One Harrowing Night in the Most Haunted Neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin]]> 199743722
On a cold winter’s evening in 1987, six middle-school paperboys wander an unfamiliar Milwaukee neighborhood, selling newspaper subscriptions, fueled by their manager Kevin’s promises of cash bonuses and dinner at Burger King. But the freaks come out at night in Hampton Heights. Sent out into the neighborhood in pairs, the boys will encounter a host of primordial monsters—and triumph over them.

Sigmone, who is bussed to a white school, is stuck with Joel, a white kid who idolizes Black culture. Mark, who's wrestling with his sexuality, joins his secret crush, Ryan. Nishu and Al are outsiders; one is a second-generation immigrant, the other a poor kid in a rich school. Over the course of one eventful evening, the three pairs will encounter the wild things of Hampton Heights—werewolves, witches with a centuries-old story to tell, and a creepy, ancient monster who feeds on memories. Meanwhile, Kevin is having an adventure of his own, seducing a beautiful woman in the neighborhood’s tavern . . . but who is actually in control? As the night nears its end, everyone will reunite for a cataclysmic finale.

Funny, thrilling, outrageous, and sneakily beautiful, Dan Kois’s Hampton Heights captures without sentimentality the dreams and fears of teenage boys in a tender horror-comedy about camaraderie, bravery, vulnerability, and the terrifying prospect of growing up.]]> 208 Dan Kois 0063358751 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.44 2024 Hampton Heights: One Harrowing Night in the Most Haunted Neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
author: Dan Kois
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/11
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]]> Dawn (Xenogenesis, #1) 60929
The Oankali survive by genetically merging with primitive civilizations—whether their new hosts like it or not. For the first time since the nuclear holocaust, Earth will be inhabited. Grass will grow, animals will run, and people will learn to survive the planet’s untamed wilderness. But their children will not be human. Not exactly.]]> 248 Octavia E. Butler 0446603775 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.15 1987 Dawn (Xenogenesis, #1)
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Ten Bridges I've Burnt: A Memoir in Verse]]> 127282684 Ten Bridges I've Burnt, I felt tucked-in with him, along for the intimate ride, and paused only once to write down a part I’d been looking for my whole life." ―Miranda July

From the beloved author of 100 Boyfriends, a wrenching, sexy, and exhilaratingly energetic memoir in verse.

In Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt, Brontez Purnell―the bard of the underloved and overlooked―turns his gaze inward. A storyteller with a musical eye for the absurdity of his own existence, he is peerless in his ability to find the levity within the stormiest of crises. Here, in his first collection of genre-defying verse, Purnell reflects on his peripatetic life, whose ups and downs have nothing on the turmoil within. “The most high-risk homosexual behavior I engage in,� Purnell writes, “is simply existing.�

The thirty-eight autobiographical pieces pulsing in Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt find Purnell at his no-holds-barred best. He remembers a vicious brawl he participated in at a poetry conference and reckons with packaging his trauma for TV writers� rooms; wrestles with the curses, and gifts, passed down from generations of family members; and chronicles, with breathless verve, a list of hell-raising misadventures and sexcapades. Through it all, he muses on everything from love and loneliness to capitalism and Blackness to jogging and the ethics of art, always with unpredictable clarity and movement.

With the same balance of wit and wisdom that made 100 Boyfriends a sensation, Purnell unleashes another collection of boundary-pushing writing with Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt, a book as original and thrilling as the author himself.]]> 144 Brontez Purnell 0374612692 Alyssa 4 4.13 Ten Bridges I've Burnt: A Memoir in Verse
author: Brontez Purnell
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.13
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
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]]> 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 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.06 2023 Idlewild
author: James Frankie Thomas
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/29
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]]> City of Laughter 128713487 A rich and riveting debut spanning four generations of Eastern European Jewish women bound by blood, half-hidden secrets, and the fantastical visitation of a shapeshifting stranger over the course of 100 years.

An ambitious, delirious novel that tangles with queerness, spirituality, and generational silence, City of Laughter announces Temim Fruchter as a fresh and assured new literary voice. The tale of a young queer woman stuck in a thicket of generational secrets, the novel follows her back to her family’s origins, where ancestral clues begin to reveal a lineage both haunted and shaped by desire.

Ropshitz, Poland, was once known as the City of Laughter. As this story opens, an 18th century badchan, a holy jester whose job is to make wedding guests laugh, receives a visitation from a mysterious stranger—bringing the laughter the people of Ropshitz desperately need, and triggering a sequence of events that will reverberate across the coming century.

In the present day, Shiva Margolin, recovering from the heartbreak of her first big queer love and grieving the death of her beloved father, struggles to connect with her guarded mother, who spends most of her time at the local funeral home. A student of Jewish folklore, Shiva seizes an opportunity to visit Poland, hoping her family’s mysteries will make more sense if she walks in the footsteps of her great-grandmother Mira, about whom no one speaks.

What she finds will make her question not only her past and her future, but also her present. Electric and sharply intimate, City of Laughter zigzags between our universe and a tapestry of real and invented Jewish folklore, asking how far we can travel from the stories that have raised us without leaving them behind.]]> 384 Temim Fruchter 0802161286 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.75 2024 City of Laughter
author: Temim Fruchter
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Someone You Can Build a Nest In]]> 182506390 Discover this creepy, charming monster-slaying fantasy romance—from the perspective of the monster—by Nebula Award-winning debut author John Wiswell

Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she's fallen in love.

Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by hunters intent on murdering her, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth.

However, the hunters chase Shesheshen out of her home and off a cliff. Badly hurt, she’s found and nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human, who has mistaken Shesheshen as a fellow human. Homily is kind and nurturing and would make an excellent co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young could devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, she realizes humans don’t think about love that way.

Shesheshen hates keeping her identity secret from Homily, but just as she’s about to confess, Homily reveals why she’s in the area: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?

Eating her girlfriend isn’t an option. Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, but to give herself and Homily a chance at happiness, she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As the hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, Shesheshen must unearth the truth quickly, or soon both of their lives will be at risk.

And the bigger challenge remains: surviving her toxic in-laws long enough to learn to build a life with, rather than in, the love of her life.]]> 310 John Wiswell 0756418852 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.97 2024 Someone You Can Build a Nest In
author: John Wiswell
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/29
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]]> <![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 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.47 2024 Some Strange Music Draws Me In
author: Griffin Hansbury
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/29
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]]> 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 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.83 2022 Disorientation
author: Elaine Hsieh Chou
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/29
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]]> Cold Enough for Snow 58730649 Cold Enough for Snow questions whether any of us speak a common language, which dimensions can contain love, and what claim we have to truly know another's inner world.

Selected from more than 1,500 entries, Cold Enough for Snow won the Novel Prize, a new, biennial award offered by Fitzcarraldo Editions, New Directions (US) and Giramondo (Australia), for any novel written in English that explores and expands the possibilities of the form.]]> 99 Jessica Au 1913097765 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.79 2022 Cold Enough for Snow
author: Jessica Au
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/29
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]]> Juliet Takes a Breath 28648863 Inga Muscio, author of Cunt

Juliet Milagros Palante is leaving the Bronx and headed to Portland, Oregon. She just came out to her family and isn’t sure if her mom will ever speak to her again. But Juliet has a plan, sort of, one that’s going to help her figure out this whole “Puerto Rican lesbian� thing. She’s interning with the author of her favorite Harlowe Brisbane, the ultimate authority on feminism, women’s bodies, and other gay-sounding stuff.

Will Juliet be able to figure out her life over the course of one magical summer? Is that even possible? Or is she running away from all the problems that seem too big to handle?

With more questions than answers, Juliet takes on Portland, Harlowe, and most importantly, herself.]]> 276 Gabby Rivera 1626012504 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.16 2016 Juliet Takes a Breath
author: Gabby Rivera
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/29
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]]> Lab Girl 25733983
Lab Girl is a book about work, love, and the mountains that can be moved when those two things come together. It is told through Jahren’s stories: about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom’s labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and learned to perform lab work done “with both the heart and the hands�; and about the inevitable disappointments, but also the triumphs and exhilarating discoveries, of scientific work.

Yet at the core of this book is the story of a relationship Jahren forged with a brilliant, wounded man named Bill, who becomes her lab partner and best friend. Their sometimes rogue adventures in science take them from the Midwest across the United States and back again, over the Atlantic to the ever-light skies of the North Pole and to tropical Hawaii, where she and her lab currently make their home.]]> 290 Hope Jahren 1101874937 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.95 2016 Lab Girl
author: Hope Jahren
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/29
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]]> Real Americans 62929342 Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.

In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can't shake the sense she's hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than answers.

In immersive, moving prose, Rachel Khong weaves a profound tale of class and striving, race and visibility, and family and inheritance—a story of trust, forgiveness, and finally coming home.

Exuberant and explosive, Real Americans is a social novel par excellence that asks: Are we destined, or made, and if so, who gets to do the making? Can our genetic past be overcome?

From the award-winning author of Goodbye, Vitamin: How far would you go to shape your own destiny? An exhilarating novel of American identity that spans three generations in one family, and asks: What makes us who we are? And how inevitable are our futures? ]]> 399 Rachel Khong 0593537254 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.94 2024 Real Americans
author: Rachel Khong
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/29
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]]> When We Were Sisters 60279775 An orphan grapples with gender, siblinghood, family, and coming-of-age as a Muslim in America in this lyrical debut novel from the acclaimed author of If They Come For Us

In this heartrending, lyrical debut work of fiction, Fatimah Asghar traces the intense bond of three orphaned siblings who, after their parents die, are left to raise one another. The youngest, Kausar, grapples with the incomprehensible loss of her parents as she also charts out her own understanding of gender; Aisha, the middle sister, spars with her crybaby younger sibling as she desperately tries to hold on to her sense of family in an impossible situation; and Noreen, the eldest, does her best in the role of sister-mother while also trying to create a life for herself, on her own terms.

As Kausar grows up, she must contend with the collision of her private and public worlds, and choose whether to remain in the life of love, sorrow, and codependency she's known or carve out a new path for herself. When We Were Sisters tenderly examines the bonds and fractures of sisterhood, names the perils of being three Muslim American girls alone against the world, and ultimately illustrates how those who've lost everything might still make homes in each other.]]> 352 Fatimah Asghar 0593133463 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.92 2022 When We Were Sisters
author: Fatimah Asghar
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Wonders of the Invisible World]]> 19370974
Aidan Lockwood lives in a sleepy farming town, day after unremarkable day. But when Jarrod, his former best friend, suddenly moves back home, Aidan begins to see clearly for the first time—not only to feelings that go beyond mere friendship, but to a world that is haunted by the stories of his past. Visions from this invisible world come to him unbidden: a great-grandfather on the field of battle; his own father, stumbling upon an unspeakable tragedy; and a mysterious young boy, whose whispered words may be at the heart of the curse that holds Aidan’s family in its grip.

Now, Aidan must find his way between the past and the present to protect those he loves, and to keep the invisible world at bay.]]> 352 Christopher Barzak 0385392796 Alyssa 0 to-read 3.77 2015 Wonders of the Invisible World
author: Christopher Barzak
name: Alyssa
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian)]]> 46161306 200 Hazel Jane Plante 0994047193 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.26 2019 Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian)
author: Hazel Jane Plante
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> Small Beauty 30326596 Small Beauty tells the story of Mei, who in coping with the death of her cousin abandons her life in the city to live in his now empty house in a small town. There she connects with his history as well as her own, learns about her aunt’s long-term secret relationship, and reflects on the trans women she left behind. She also brushes up against some local trans mysteries and gets advice from departed loved ones with a lot to say.]]> 160 Jia Qing Wilson-Yang 0994047126 Alyssa 0 to-read 4.06 2016 Small Beauty
author: Jia Qing Wilson-Yang
name: Alyssa
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/28
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