Rachel's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 26 Mar 2025 20:59:48 -0700 60 Rachel's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Reformatory 62919847 A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

Gracetown, Florida
June 1950

Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.

Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.

The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.]]> 576 Tananarive Due 1982188340 Rachel 0 currently-reading 4.44 2023 The Reformatory
author: Tananarive Due
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> The Last One at the Wedding 203579177 From the bestselling author of Hidden Pictures comes a breathtaking work of suspense about a father trying to save his daughter from a life-altering decision that will put everything he loves on the line.

Frank Szatowski is shocked when his daughter, Maggie, calls him for the first time in three years. He was convinced that their estrangement would become permanent. He’s even more surprised when she invites him to her upcoming wedding in New Hampshire. Frank is ecstatic, and determined to finally make things right.

He arrives to find that the wedding is at a private estate—very secluded, very luxurious, very much out of his league. It seems that Maggie failed to mention that she’s marrying Aidan Gardner, the son of a famous tech billionaire. Feeling desperately out of place, Frank focuses on reconnecting with Maggie and getting to know her new family. But it’s difficult: Aidan is withdrawn and evasive; Maggie doesn’t seem to have time for him; and he finds that the locals are disturbingly hostile to the Gardners. Frank needs to know more about this family his daughter is marrying into, but if he pushes too hard, he could lose Maggie forever.

An edge-of-your-seat thriller that delves deep into the heart of one family, The Last One at the Wedding is a work of brilliant suspense from a true modern master.]]> 338 Jason Rekulak 1250895782 Rachel 0 currently-reading 3.62 2024 The Last One at the Wedding
author: Jason Rekulak
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> A Grotesque Animal: A Memoir 203093912
A Grotesque Animal explores the making, unmaking, and making again of a woman with an undiagnosed disorder. How did a working-­ class background and a deep-rooted Midwest culture of silence lead to hiding in plain sight for decades? How did sexuality and anger hide the roots of trauma among the women in her family? And what does it mean to be a queer, disabled, aging woman, a descendent of wild but tamed mothers and a survivor of the things patriarchy inflicts?

Through wide-ranging styles and a combination of personal storytelling and cultural analysis, Lillard dissects anger, sexuality, autistic masking, bodies, punk, and female annihilation to create a new picture of modern women.]]> 168 Amy Lee Lillard 1609389573 Rachel 0 currently-reading 4.24 A Grotesque Animal: A Memoir
author: Amy Lee Lillard
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.24
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> American Rapture 203579244 370 C.J. Leede 1250857929 Rachel 0 currently-reading 4.07 2024 American Rapture
author: C.J. Leede
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![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 Rachel 0 3.98 2024 Someone You Can Build a Nest In
author: John Wiswell
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
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]]> Theory of Bastards 36462021
As Francine learns more about her fascinating subjects, we slowly discover that she has access to the most advanced technology: “bodyware,� the lifelike devices that have replaced cellphones, computers, watches, television—most every means of communication. This near-future world is utterly dependent on these little understood mechanisms and implants.

And so when the terrible, dry winds sweep out of the abandoned places in America, silencing all devices, Francine and the man she has grown to love make a decision that will determine if they’ll face a premature ending or, maybe, find a chance to start life over.

This superb literary novel can’t be characterized as dystopian or science fiction. Audrey Schulman has written an absorbing, recognizable story, a book that is humane, generous and surprising. Readers will shiver as they keep turning the pages.]]> 416 Audrey Schulman 1609454383 Rachel 0 3.96 2018 Theory of Bastards
author: Audrey Schulman
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
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]]> Blob: A Love Story 212994452 'A modern-day Mrs. Caliban, BLOB is a book that looks at identity and desire in profoundly interesting ways'
Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here

A hilarious and moving debut novel about a young woman who decides to turn a sentient blob into her perfect boyfriend...

The daughter of a Taiwanese father and white mother, Vi Liu has never quite fit into her Midwestern college town. Now at twenty-three, after getting dumped and dropping out of college, Vi works as a front desk attendant at a hotel where she refills cucumber water samovars and fends off overtures of friendship from her bubbly blond coworker, Rachel. But when Vi decides to accompany Rachel to a local drag show, her life changes forever. In the alley outside the bar, next to a trash can, is a blob with beady black eyes. Unable to leave it behind, Vi picks up the creature and, in a moment of drunken desperation, takes it home with her.

As her pet blob becomes sentient, Vi realizes it obeys her commands and she decides to mold the blob into her ideal partner. She feeds it sugary cereal and a stream of pop culture, and soon the creature transforms into a movie-star handsome white man. But as Vi's desire to be loved unconditionally threatens to spiral out of control, she is forced to confront her lonely childhood, the ex-boyfriend who has unfriended her, and the racial marginalization that has defined her relationships. Ultimately, Vi embarks on a journey of self-discovery and learns that it's impossible to control those you love.

Blending the familiar with the fantastical, BLOB tells a witty, heartfelt story of what it means to be human.

'An inventive, utterly unique debut'
Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light]]> 256 Maggie Su 0063358646 Rachel 0 3.43 2025 Blob: A Love Story
author: Maggie Su
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Intention Obsession: Rituals and Witchcraft for Every Season]]> 212217963 Conjure an intention-filled life with this practical guidebook of magickal rituals for every season of the zodiac, from Erica Feldmann, owner and founder of the Salem-based store, HausWitch.

Let’s face it, we could all use a bit more magick in our lives. Even if you’re not ready to commit to a black velvet cloak or join a coven (yet), Intention Obsession is a book for all types of seekers, sharing practical magick and self-care rituals for any kind of lifestyle. Think of the magick in this book as an antidote to our world of relentless productivity, oppression, and estrangement.

As the owner of the popular HausWitch store in “Witch City� Salem, Massachusetts, Erica Feldmann knows firsthand that many people are curious about witchcraft, but don’t quite know where to start. This book is her invitation into a new, enchanting realm, where you can learn to create exactly the life you want to live by working with intention.

Organized by the seasons of the zodiac, from Aries to Pisces, this guide will showcase the archetypal powers of each season and teach you how to create a ritual regimen you can honor all year long. Filled with fun spells and DIY projects, like:
- Planting a pleasure garden for indulgent Taurus season
- Creating a DIY Shower Salt Scrub for watery Cancer season
- Mixing up magickal sun tea recipes to celebrate the sun in Leo
- Throwing a super-organized dinner party for type-A Virgo season

This book will empower you to craft a life of intention; defy oppressive structures like capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy; and connect deeply with the energies of the universe. Just let each page awaken your intuition and empower you to manifest your most intentional life.]]> 304 Erica Feldmann 0063353334 Rachel 0 3.97 Intention Obsession: Rituals and Witchcraft for Every Season
author: Erica Feldmann
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.97
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
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This book seems great but unfortunately, I won’t be able to read the whole thing before I lose access to it. This is the type of book that I would read throughout the year rather than in a few sittings. From what I have read, it seems accessible, fun, and filled with cool info. The photos are nice. Thanks to the publisher and Net Gallery for letting me check it out.
]]> When We Were Animals 27161821
When Lumen Fowler looks back on her childhood, she wouldn't have guessed she would become a kind suburban wife, a devoted mother. In fact, she never thought she would escape her small and peculiar hometown. When We Were Animals is Lumen's confessional: as a well-behaved and over-achieving teenager, she fell beneath the sway of her community's darkest, strangest secret. For one year, beginning at puberty, every resident "breaches" during the full moon. On these nights, adolescents run wild, destroying everything in their path.

Lumen resists. Promising her father she will never breach, she investigates the mystery of her community's traditions and the stories erased from the town record. But the more we learn about the town's past, the more we realize that Lumen's memories are harboring secrets of their own.

A gothic coming-of-age tale for modern times, When We Were Animals is a dark, provocative journey into the American heartland.]]> 336 Joshua Gaylord 0316297909 Rachel 0 to-read 3.64 2015 When We Were Animals
author: Joshua Gaylord
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Lamb 216867498
But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a beautiful, white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires, and make her own bid for freedom.

With this gothic coming-of-age tale, novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire, and animal instincts—and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.]]> 336 Lucy Rose 1399619713 Rachel 0 3.96 2025 The Lamb
author: Lucy Rose
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
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]]> The Unmothers 201632539 In this emotionally raw and propulsive folk horror-mystery, a journalist goes to a small town and unravels a dark secret that the women have been keeping for generations.

Marshall is still trying to put the pieces together after the death of her husband. After she is involved in a terrible accident, her editor sends her to the small, backwards town of Raeford to investigate a clearly ridiculous rumor: that a horse has given birth to a healthy, human baby boy.

When Marshall arrives in Raeford, she finds an insular town that is kinder to the horses they are famous for breeding than to their own people. But when two horribly mangled bodies are discovered in a field—one a horse, one a human—she realizes that there might be a real story here.

As she’s pulled deeper into the town and its guarded people, her sense of reality is tipped on its head. Is she losing her grip? Or is this impossible story the key to a dark secret that has haunted the women of Raeford for generations?

Unbearably tense and utterly gripping, this atmospheric tale of female rage, bodily autonomy, and generational trauma hails the arrival of a masterful storyteller.]]> 320 Leslie J. Anderson 1683694295 Rachel 0 3.32 2024 The Unmothers
author: Leslie J. Anderson
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
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]]> We Used to Live Here 199798006
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.

As soon as the strangers enter their home, inexplicable things start happening, including the family’s youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?

This unputdownable and spine-tingling novel “is like quicksand: the further you delve into its pages, the more immobilized you become by a spiral of terror. We Used to Live Here will haunt you even after you have finished it� (Agustina Bazterrica, author of Tender Is the Flesh).]]> 312 Marcus Kliewer 1982198788 Rachel 0 3.67 2024 We Used to Live Here
author: Marcus Kliewer
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> Arcadia 11866694
Arcadia follows this lyrical, rollicking, tragic, and exquisite utopian dream from its hopeful start through its heyday and after. The story is told from the point of view of Bit, a fascinating character and the first child born in Arcadia.]]> 291 Lauren Groff 1401340873 Rachel 0 3.69 2012 Arcadia
author: Lauren Groff
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> Anxious People 49127718 A poignant, charming novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined

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

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

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

Includes short story - The Last Round of Golf]]> 336 Fredrik Backman 198216963X Rachel 0 4.17 2019 Anxious People
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead]]> 42983724 WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind . . .

A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is worthy of a voice?]]> 274 Olga Tokarczuk 0525541330 Rachel 5 3.92 2009 Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
author: Olga Tokarczuk
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> The Unmaking of June Farrow 66087062 A woman risks everything to end her family’s centuries-old curse, solve her mother’s disappearance, and find love in this mesmerizing novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Spells for Forgetting.

In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm—and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow’s disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors.

It’s been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere—the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own.

After her grandmother’s death, June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother’s decades-old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer she’s been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart in an epic star-crossed love.

With The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young delivers a brilliant novel of romance, mystery, and a touch of the impossible—a story you will never forget.]]> 320 Adrienne Young 0593598679 Rachel 0 4.13 2023 The Unmaking of June Farrow
author: Adrienne Young
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating]]> 8303977 Neohelix albolabris —a common woodland snail.

While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater understanding of her own confined place in the world.

Intrigued by the snail’s molluscan anatomy, cryptic defenses, clear decision making, hydraulic locomotion, and mysterious courtship activities, Bailey becomes an astute and amused observer, providing a candid and engaging look into the curious life of this underappreciated small animal.

Told with wit and grace, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is a remarkable journey of survival and resilience, showing us how a small part of the natural world illuminates our own human existence and provides an appreciation of what it means to be fully alive.]]> 208 Elisabeth Tova Bailey 1565126068 Rachel 1 4.15 2010 The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating
author: Elisabeth Tova Bailey
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2010
rating: 1
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
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I’m disgusted by the author’s choices. I’m not even convinced she felt companionship. Seems like she came up with a book idea that hadn’t been done before and didn’t care about the harm she was causing to pursue her desire to be a writer. Gaining attention and money by keeping another sentient being captive is exploitation. I’m actually not surprised this got favorable reviews as we do live in a society in which people buy parrots, reptiles, and other wild animals and see nothing wrong with the immense suffering the animals experience in captivity. This book is a study in selfishness.
]]> Lone Women 60460704
Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women� taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.]]> 275 Victor LaValle 052551208X Rachel 0 3.68 2023 Lone Women
author: Victor LaValle
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
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]]> Biophilia 153268 157 Edward O. Wilson 0674074424 Rachel 0 to-read 4.30 1984 Biophilia
author: Edward O. Wilson
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> Follow Me to Ground 52220595 A haunted, surreal debut novel about an otherworldly young woman, her father, and her lover that culminates in a shocking moment of betrayal - one that upends our understanding of power, predation, and agency.

Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals—or “Cures”—by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson. When they strike up an affair, to the displeasure of her father and Samson’s widowed, pregnant sister, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with her lover—and eventually comes to a decision that will forever change Samson, the town, and the Ground itself.

Follow Me to Ground is fascinating and frightening, urgent and propulsive. In Ada, award-winning author Sue Rainsford has created an utterly bewitching heroine, one who challenges conventional ideas of womanhood and the secrets of the body. Slim but authoritative, Follow Me to Ground lingers long after its final page, pulling the reader into a dream between fairytale and nightmare, desire and delusion, folktale and warning.]]> 208 Sue Rainsford 1982133635 Rachel 5 3.52 2018 Follow Me to Ground
author: Sue Rainsford
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/10
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves:
review:
I won this book in a ŷ giveaway and just never had the words to review it. I still don’t. All I can say is that I think of it fondly and often and I’m ready for a re-read. Maybe I’ll have a more impressive review after the second time around.
]]> Smothermoss 199215100
Ferns grow knee-deep along the shoulder, laced with briars and unripe raspberries, so thick they could hide a bear. Could hide anything, really.

In 1980s Appalachia, life isn’t easy for Sheila. She endures relentless taunting and bullying at the hands of her classmates; she takes care of her great-aunt, the garden and home, and the rabbits; and forages for mushrooms in the forest, all while her mother works long, back-breaking shifts at the nearby state asylum. But it’s her peculiar little sister, Angie, who worries her the most. Angie is obsessed with nuclear war, Rambo, zombies, a Russian invasion of their community, and the ominous, tarot-like cards that she creates that somehow speak to her. As if all that weren’t enough, Sheila feels an unexplainable weight around her neck. Is it the ancient and strange mountain that they live on that casts its shadow on her, or something or someone else unknown? Unseen?

When a pair of female hikers are brutally murdered on the nearby Appalachian trail, Sheila and Angie find themselves inexorably drawn into the hunt for the killer. As the ever-present threat of violence looms larger, the mountain might be the only thing that can save them from the darkness consuming their home and their community.

Unsettling, propulsive, and chillingly atmospheric, Alisa Alering’s Smothermoss opens a hidden door into a world caught between rural gothic and fairytale, inviting the reader to renegotiate what is seen and unseen, what is real and what is haunted]]> 256 Alisa Alering 1959030582 Rachel 0 3.48 2024 Smothermoss
author: Alisa Alering
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> The September House 64623481 A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.

Margaret is not most people.

Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.]]> 352 Carissa Orlando 0593548612 Rachel 0 3.87 2023 The September House
author: Carissa Orlando
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> I'm Thinking of Ending Things 40605223 Now a Netflix original movie, this deeply scary and intensely unnerving novel follows a couple in the midst of a twisted unraveling of the darkest unease. You will be scared. But you won’t know why�

I’m thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It’s always there. Always.

Jake once said, “Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.�

And here’s what I’m thinking: I don’t want to be here.

In this smart and intense literary suspense novel, Iain Reid explores the depths of the human psyche, questioning consciousness, free will, the value of relationships, fear, and the limitations of solitude. Tense, gripping, and atmospheric, I’m Thinking of Ending Things pulls you in from the very first page…and never lets you go.]]> 241 Iain Reid Rachel 5 See the movie as well. It’s pretty different from the book so don’t compare - just appreciate each for what it is.
Stop with the “I don’t get it� reviews. Use your head. Think about what it means to you. There is no right answer when finding meaning in books ]]> 3.53 2016 I'm Thinking of Ending Things
author: Iain Reid
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2020/09/30
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves:
review:
Brilliant! A wonderful piece of artwork!
See the movie as well. It’s pretty different from the book so don’t compare - just appreciate each for what it is.
Stop with the “I don’t get it� reviews. Use your head. Think about what it means to you. There is no right answer when finding meaning in books
]]> Pink Slime 199797823
In a city ravaged by a mysterious plague, a woman tries to understand why her world is falling apart. An algae bloom has poisoned the previously pristine air that blows in from the sea. Inland, a secretive corporation churns out the only food anyone can afford—a revolting pink paste, made of an unknown substance. In the short, desperate breaks between deadly windstorms, our narrator stubbornly tends to her few remaining with her difficult but vulnerable mother; with the ex-husband for whom she still harbors feelings; with the boy she nannies, whose parents sent him away even as terrible threats loomed. Yet as conditions outside deteriorate further, her commitment to remaining in place only grows—even if staying means being left behind.

An evocative elegy for a safe, clean world, Pink Slime is buoyed by humor and its narrator’s resiliency. This unforgettable novel explores the place where love, responsibility, and self-preservation converge, and the beauty and fragility of our most intimate relationships.]]> 240 Fernanda Trías 1668049775 Rachel 0 3.37 2020 Pink Slime
author: Fernanda Trías
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves:
review:

]]> The Gathering 186872450 A detective investigating a grisly crime in rural Alaska finds herself caughtup in the dark secrets andsuperstitions of a small town in this riveting novel from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man

Deadhart, Alaska. 873. Living.

In a small Alaska town, a boy is found with his throat ripped out and all the blood drained from his body. The inhabitants of Deadhart haven’t seen a killing like this in twenty-five years. But they know who’s responsible: a member of the Colony, an ostracized community of vampyrs living in an old mine settlement deep in the woods.

Detective Barbara Atkins, a specialist in vampyr killings, is called in to officially determine if this is a Colony killing—and authorize a cull. Old suspicions die hard in a town like Deadhart, but Barbara isn’t so sure. Determined to find the truth, she enlists the help of a former Deadhart sheriff, Jenson Tucker, whose investigation into the previous murder almost cost him his life. Since then, Tucker has become a recluse. But he knows the Colony better than almost anyone.

As the pair delve into the town’s history, they uncover secrets darker than they could have imagined. And then another body is found. While the snow thickens and the nights grow longer, a killer stalks Deadhart, and two disparate communities circle each other for blood. Time is running out for Atkins and Tucker to find the truth: Are they hunting a bloodthirsty monster . . . or a twisted psychopath? And which is more dangerous?]]> 336 C.J. Tudor 0593356594 Rachel 0 3.86 2024 The Gathering
author: C.J. Tudor
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/13
date added: 2025/02/13
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]]> Incidents Around the House 199757490 A chilling horror novel about a haunting told from the perspective of a young girl whose troubled family is targeted by an entity she calls “Other Mommy,� from the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box

To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’sMommy,Daddo,and Grandma Ruth.But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”�

When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the same question, over and over . . . Bela understands that unless she says yes, soon her family must pay.

Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe but other incidents show cracks in her parents' marriage. The safety Bela relies on is on the brink of unraveling.

But Other Mommy needs an answer.

Incidents Around the House is a chilling, wholly unique tale of true horror told by the child Bela. A story about a family as haunted as their home.]]> 367 Josh Malerman 0593723120 Rachel 0 3.61 2024 Incidents Around the House
author: Josh Malerman
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves:
review:

]]> City of All Seasons 213131347 A vibrant and emotional science fantasy about cousins trapped in mirrored worlds � the resplendent and verdant summer city and the ice-carved wastes of the winter city. For fans of Every Heart a Doorway and This is How You Lose the Time War.

Welcome to Jamie Pike’s Fairharbour � a city stuck in perpetual winter, its windows and doorways bricked shut to keep out the freezing cold, its residents striving to survive in the arctic conditions.

Welcome to Esther Pike's Fairharbour � a city stuck in constant summer, its walls crumbling in the heat, its oppressive sunlight a relentless presence.

Winter and Summer alike, have both fallen under the yoke of oppressive powers, that have taken control after the cataclysm.

But both Fairharbours were once a single, united city. And in certain places, at certain times, one side can catch a glimpse of the other. As Jamie and Esther find a way to communicate across the divide, they set out to solve the mystery of what split their city in two, and what, if anything, might repair their fractured worlds.]]> 297 Oliver K. Langmead 1835411452 Rachel 0 currently-reading 3.71 2025 City of All Seasons
author: Oliver K. Langmead
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Once There Were Wolves 54860573 From the author of the beloved national bestseller Migrations, a pulse-pounding new novel set in the wild Scottish Highlands.

Inti Flynn arrives in Scotland with her twin sister, Aggie, to lead a team of biologists tasked with reintroducing fourteen gray wolves into the remote Highlands. She hopes to heal not only the dying landscape, but Aggie, too, unmade by the terrible secrets that drove the sisters out of Alaska.

Inti is not the woman she once was, either, changed by the harm she’s witnessed—inflicted by humans on both the wild and each other. Yet as the wolves surprise everyone by thriving, Inti begins to let her guard down, even opening herself up to the possibility of love. But when a farmer is found dead, Inti knows where the town will lay blame. Unable to accept her wolves could be responsible, Inti makes a reckless decision to protect them. But if the wolves didn’t make the kill, then who did? And what will Inti do when the man she is falling for seems to be the prime suspect?

Propulsive and spell-binding, Charlotte McConaghy's Once There Were Wolves is the unforgettable story of a woman desperate to save the creatures she loves—if she isn’t consumed by a wild that was once her refuge.]]> 258 Charlotte McConaghy 1250244145 Rachel 0 to-read 4.07 2021 Once There Were Wolves
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Shy Girl 224070664
For fans of Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder and Lisa Taddeo's Animal, Shy Girl is a harrowing tale of girlhood, survival, autonomy, and revenge.]]> 247 Mia Ballard Rachel 0 4.04 2025 Shy Girl
author: Mia Ballard
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves:
review:
I know it’s a metaphor relating to trauma human women experience but it also made me think about how non-humans kept as “pets� experience similar traumas yet never gain autonomy to rise above those experiences.
]]> How High We Go in the Dark 57850265
Among those adjusting to this new normal are an aspiring comedian, employed by a theme park designed for terminally ill children, who falls in love with a mother trying desperately to keep her son alive; a scientist who, having failed to save his own son from the plague, gets a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects-a pig-develops human speech; a man who, after recovering from his own coma, plans a block party for his neighbours who have also woken up to find that they alone have survived their families; and a widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter who must set off on cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.

From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead, How High We Go in the Dark follows a cast of intricately linked characters spanning hundreds of years as humanity endeavours to restore the delicate balance of the world. This is a story of unshakable hope that crosses literary lines to give us a world rebuilding itself through an endless capacity for love, resilience and reinvention. Wonderful and disquieting, dreamlike and all too possible.]]> 293 Sequoia Nagamatsu 0063072645 Rachel 0 3.81 2022 How High We Go in the Dark
author: Sequoia Nagamatsu
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/11
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]]> Survive the Night 55628983
Behind the wheel is Josh Baxter, a stranger Charlie met by the college ride share board, who also has a good reason for leaving university in the middle of term. On the road they share their stories, carefully avoiding the subject dominating the news - the Campus Killer, who's tied up and stabbed three students in the span of a year, has just struck again.

Travelling the lengthy journey between university and their final destination, Charlie begins to notice discrepancies in Josh's story.

As she begins to plan her escape from the man she is becoming certain is the killer, she starts to suspect that Josh knows exactly what she's thinking.

Meaning that she could very well end up as his next victim.]]> 336 Riley Sager 0593183169 Rachel 0 3.51 2021 Survive the Night
author: Riley Sager
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Scary Stories for Young Foxes (Scary Stories for Young Foxes, #1)]]> 40864887
When Mia and Uly are separated from their litters, they discover a dangerous world full of monsters. In order to find a den to call home, they must venture through field and forest, facing unspeakable things that dwell in the darkness: a zombie who hungers for their flesh, a witch who tries to steal their skins, a ghost who hunts them through the snow . . . and other things too scary to mention.]]> 314 Christian McKay Heidicker 1250181429 Rachel 0 4.25 2019 Scary Stories for Young Foxes (Scary Stories for Young Foxes, #1)
author: Christian McKay Heidicker
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Double Bird 39696864 232 Bud Smith Rachel 0 to-read 4.61 2018 Double Bird
author: Bud Smith
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Worm and His Kings (The Worm and His Kings, #1)]]> 55120033
Only after the disappearances of several other impoverished women does Monique hear the rumors. A taloned monster stalks the city’s underground and snatches victims into the dark.

Donna isn’t missing. She was taken.

To save the woman she loves, Monique must descend deeper than the known underground, into a subterranean world of enigmatic cultists and shadowy creatures. But what she finds looms beyond her wildest fears—a darkness that stretches from the dawn of time and across the stars.]]> 116 Hailey Piper 057877979X Rachel 0 3.71 2020 The Worm and His Kings (The Worm and His Kings, #1)
author: Hailey Piper
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves:
review:

]]> The Dangers of Smoking in Bed 53215250 Following the "propulsive and mesmerizing" ( New York Times Book Review ) Things We Lost in the Fire comes a new collection of singularly unsettling stories, by an Argentine author who has earned comparisons to Shirley Jackson and Jorge Luis Borges.

Mariana Enriquez has been critically lauded for her unconventional and sociopolitical stories of the macabre: populated by unruly teenagers, crooked witches, homeless ghosts, and hungry women, they walk the uneasy line between urban realism and horror. The stories in her next collection are as terrifying as they are socially conscious, and press into being the unspoken -- fetish, illness, the female body, the darkness of human history -- with unsettling urgency. A woman is sexually obsessed with the human heart; a lost, rotting baby crawls out of a backyard and into a bedroom; a pair of teenage girls can't let go of their idol; an entire neighborhood is cursed to death by a question of morality they fail to answer correctly.

Written against the backdrop of contemporary Argentina, and with resounding tenderness towards those in pain, in fear, and in limbo, this new collection from one of Argentina's most exciting writers finds Enriquez at her most sophisticated, and most chilling.]]> 208 Mariana Enríquez 0593134079 Rachel 0 3.78 2009 The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
author: Mariana Enríquez
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves:
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]]> Brother Brontë 211934958 Two women fight to save their dystopian border town—and literature—in this gonzo near-future adventure.

The year is 2038, and the formerly bustling town of Three Rivers, Texas, is a surreal wasteland. Under the authoritarian thumb of its tech industrialist mayor, Pablo Henry Crick, the town has outlawed reading and forced most of the town’s mothers to work as indentured laborers at the Big Tex Fish Cannery, which poisons the atmosphere and lines Crick’s pockets.

Scraping by in this godforsaken landscape are best friends Prosperina and Neftalí—the latter of whom, one of the town’s last literate citizens, hides and reads the books of the mysterious renegade author Jazzmin Monelle Rivas, whose last novel, Brother Brontë, is finally in Neftalí’s possession. But after a series of increasingly violent atrocities committed by Crick’s forces, Neftalí and Prosperina, with the help of a wounded bengal tigress, three scheming triplets, and an underground network of rebel tías, rise up to reclaim their city—and in the process, unlock Rivas’s connection to Three Rivers itself.

An adventure that only the acclaimed Fernando A. Flores could dream up, Brother Brontë is a mordant, gonzo romp through a ruined world that, in its dysfunction, tyranny, and disparity, nonetheless feels uncannily like our own. With his most ambitious book yet, Flores once again bends what fiction can do, in the process crafting a moving and unforgettable story of perseverance.]]> 352 Fernando A. Flores 0374604169 Rachel 0 The audiobook narrator was the perfect voice for this book! Thanks to the publishers and NetGallery for letting me listen! ]]> 3.57 2025 Brother Brontë
author: Fernando A. Flores
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves:
review:
I’m glad I went with my gut and decided to check this out. The title didn’t catch my attention so I almost passed it up before reading the description. There are a bunch of characters and a lot going on but it’s written in way that’s lively, exciting and far from overwhelming. I felt hopeful and refreshed after listening.
The audiobook narrator was the perfect voice for this book! Thanks to the publishers and NetGallery for letting me listen!
]]> Dengue Boy 212808263 Close to Cronenberg and deeply indebted to Kafka, this gaucho-punk novel offers an explosive interpretation of an ultra-capitalistic society at the grips with climate collapse.

The protagonist of this story has no understanding of the words “winter�, "cold�, or "snow" because he has never experienced the phenomena they describe. We find ourselves in Victorica, a province of La Pampa, Argentina, some time after 2197 � the year in which the last of the Antarctic icecaps melted and an unprecedented climate catastrophe ensued, radically transforming the landscape of the region into a Caribbean Pampas. It is here that the Dengue Child grows up, a mutant mix of child and mosquito, the result of crazy experimenting driven by ultra-capitalistic corporations racing against each other to own viruses and their cures, destroying even their very own children’s existence to cash in on the stock exchange.

Another of the surprising effects of the thaw is the appearance of powerful telepathic pebbles from the bowels of the earth that seem to encapsulate the world's original wisdom, and which are the subject of lucrative smuggling. Meanwhile, the wealthy of the region chose to cruise around on ships where they can experience ice-skating and hand carve ice from valuable remains of glaciers. In their ultra-air conditioned homes, their kids play Indians vs Christians, a brutal video game set in the historical 19th century.

The future according to Michel Nieva looks frenetic and shocking. He counts among the rising voices of Argentina, packing punches in a deeply intelligent, informed, and humorful prose which takes root in Latin American storytelling and sci-fi tradition.]]> 224 Michel Nieva 1662602650 Rachel 0 Thanks to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me read! ]]> 3.62 2023 Dengue Boy
author: Michel Nieva
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves:
review:
This was trippy! Unique voice and style. I had to keep stopping to assess what was going on. I’m sure some things went over my head but all in all it was an entertaining read. I think I would have enjoyed it more as an audiobook.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me read!
]]> Victorian Psycho 213395480 From the acclaimed author of Mrs. March comes the riveting tale of a bloodthirsty governess who learns the true meaning of vengeance.

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

Patience. Winifred must have patience, for Christmas is coming, and she has very special gifts planned for the dear souls of Ensor House. Brimming with sardonic wit and culminating in a shocking conclusion, Victorian Psycho plunges readers into the chilling mind of an iconic new literary psychopath.]]> 208 Virginia Feito 1631498630 Rachel 0 Thanks to NetGallery and the publisher for letting me listen!]]> 3.63 2025 Victorian Psycho
author: Virginia Feito
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves:
review:
This had me laughing out loud at the absurdity. Anyone who would take this seriously and not find it amusing needs to lighten up. Some things don’t need to be overanalyzed. I listened to the audiobook and found the narrator delightful to listen to. Her voice made me like the book even more. Depraved, twisted, and darkly funny.
Thanks to NetGallery and the publisher for letting me listen!
]]> <![CDATA[Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng]]> 218185743
These days nobody can reach Cora: not her aunt, who wants her to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival; not her weird colleagues; and especially not the slack-jawed shadow lurking around her door frame. After all, it can't be real—can it? After a series of unexplained killings in Chinatown, Cora believes someone might be targeting East Asian women, and something might be targeting Cora herself.]]> 304 Kylie Lee Baker 0778368459 Rachel 5 The audiobook narration kept me dialed in and brought the story to life.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me listen! ]]> 4.29 2025 Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng
author: Kylie Lee Baker
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves:
review:
This was not what I was expecting but in a good way. I’m glad I didn’t judge a book by its cover. While the cover is awesome I worried it would be like some of the books lately that are marketed as horror but end up being tame thrillers. This was not that. It delivers the horror in the form of ghostly folklore and gore. There are some heavy messages that had potential to be preachy but the unique execution nailed it.
The audiobook narration kept me dialed in and brought the story to life.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me listen!
]]> The Unworthy 214151601 The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.]]> 192 Agustina Bazterrica 1668051885 Rachel 5 The writing style succeeded in making me feel detached from what was happening. I felt numb and because I never connected with the characters when they meet with their cruel demises it was just another thing that happened. It’s kind of like how desensitized we often are when hearing about atrocities in current events. They often don’t feel real until they happen to us. So, this book is a gift to us all - will we open our eyes and our ears to heed its warning?
Thank you to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me read!]]> 3.67 2023 The Unworthy
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves:
review:
Bazterrica has the skills to pull us into worlds that feel drastically different from our own but once you step back from her novels you’ll begin to see them as reflections and portents. Here we have another novel that’s a mirror being held up for us to see what’s happening to us whether we realize it or not. We live in a society that is often just as bleak and cruel as the world that the unworthy inhabit.
The writing style succeeded in making me feel detached from what was happening. I felt numb and because I never connected with the characters when they meet with their cruel demises it was just another thing that happened. It’s kind of like how desensitized we often are when hearing about atrocities in current events. They often don’t feel real until they happen to us. So, this book is a gift to us all - will we open our eyes and our ears to heed its warning?
Thank you to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me read!
]]> At Dark, I Become Loathsome 210906882 From Eric LaRocca—Bram Stoker Award–nominated and Splatterpunk Award–winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke—cdz At Dark, I Become Loathsome, a grim yet gentle, horrifying yet hopeful, intense tale of death, trauma, and love.

“If you’re reading this, you’ve likely thought that the world would be a better place without you.�

A single line of text, glowing in the darkness of the internet. Written by Ashley Lutin, who has often thought the same—and worse—in the years since his wife died and his young son disappeared. But the peace of the grave is not for him—it’s for those he can help. Ashley has constructed a peculiar ritual for those whose desire to die is at war with their yearning to live a better life.

Struggling to overcome his own endless grief, one night Ashley finds connection with Jinx—a potential candidate for Ashley’s next ritual—who spins a tale both revolting and fascinating. Thus begins a relationship that traps the two men in an ever-tightening spiral of painful revelations, where long-hidden secrets are dragged, kicking and screaming, into the light.

Only through pain can we find healing. Only through death can we find new life.]]> 178 Eric LaRocca Rachel 0 3.36 2025 At Dark, I Become Loathsome
author: Eric LaRocca
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/30
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves:
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]]> A Sweet Sting of Salt 186872566 Once a young woman uncovers a dark secret about her neighbor and his mysterious new wife, she’ll have to fight to keep herself—and the woman she loves—safe in this stunning queer reimagining of the classic folktale The Selkie Wife.

When a sharp cry wakes Jean in the middle of the night during a terrible tempest, she’s convinced it must have been a dream. But when the cry comes again, Jean ventures outside and is shocked by what she discovers—a young woman in labor, already drenched to the bonein the freezing cold and barely able to speak a word of English.

Although Jean is the only midwife in the village and for miles around, she’s at a loss as to who this woman is or where she’s from; Jean can only assume she must be the new wife of the neighbor up the road, Tobias. And when Tobias does indeed arrive at her cabin in search of his wife, Muirin, Jean’s questions continue to grow. Why has he kept his wife’s pregnancy a secret? And why does Muirin’s open demeanor change completely the moment she’s in his presence?

Though Jean learned long ago that she should stay out of other people’s business, her growing concern—and growing feelings—for Muirin mean she can’t simply set her worries aside. But when the answers she finds are more harrowing than she ever could have imagined, she fears she may have endangered herself, Muirin, and the baby. Will she be able to put things right and save the woman she loves before it’s too late, or will someone have to pay for Jean’s actions with their life?]]> 352 Rose Sutherland 0593594592 Rachel 0 3.84 2024 A Sweet Sting of Salt
author: Rose Sutherland
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves:
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]]> The Willows 1335601
"The Willows" is one of Algernon Blackwood's best known short stories. American horror author H.P. Lovecraft considered it to be the finest supernatural tale in English literature. "The Willows" is an example of early modern horror and is connected within the literary tradition of weird fiction.]]> 105 Algernon Blackwood 1587156520 Rachel 0 4.09 1907 The Willows
author: Algernon Blackwood
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1907
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves:
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]]> Don't Let the Forest In 200982373 Once upon a time, Andrew had cut out his heart and given it to this boy, and he was very sure Thomas had no idea that Andrew would do anything for him. Protect him. Lie for him.

Kill for him.

High school senior Andrew Perrault finds refuge in the twisted fairytales that he writes for the only person who can ground him to reality―Thomas Rye, the boy with perpetually ink-stained hands and hair like autumn leaves. And with his twin sister, Dove, inexplicably keeping him at a cold distance upon their return to Wickwood Academy, Andrew finds himself leaning on his friend even more.

But something strange is going on with Thomas. His abusive parents have mysteriously vanished, and he arrives at school with blood on his sleeve. Thomas won't say a word about it, and shuts down whenever Andrew tries to ask him questions. Stranger still, Thomas is haunted by something, and he seems to have lost interest in his artwork―whimsically macabre sketches of the monsters from Andrew's wicked stories.

Desperate to figure out what's wrong with his friend, Andrew follows Thomas into the off-limits forest one night and catches him fighting a nightmarish monster―Thomas's drawings have come to life and are killing anyone close to him. To make sure no one else dies, the boys battle the monsters every night. But as their obsession with each other grows stronger, so do the monsters, and Andrew begins to fear that the only way to stop the creatures might be to destroy their creator...]]> 336 C.G. Drews 1250895669 Rachel 0 4.12 2024 Don't Let the Forest In
author: C.G. Drews
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves:
review:

]]> Listen to Your Sister 211004179 For fans of Jordan Peele’s films, Stranger Things, and The Other Black Girl, Listen To Your Sister is a laugh-out-loud, deeply terrifying, and big-hearted speculative horror novel from electrifying debut talent Neena Viel.

Twenty-five year old Calla Williams is struggling since becoming guardian to her brother, Jamie. Calla is overwhelmed and tired of being the one who makes sacrifices to keep the family together. Jamie, full of good-natured sixteen-year-old recklessness, is usually off fighting for what matters to him or getting into mischief, often at the same time. Dre, their brother, promised he would help raise Jamie–but now the ink is dry on the paperwork and in classic middle-child fashion, he’s off doing his own thing. And through it all, The Nightmare never stops haunting Calla: recurring images of her brothers dying that she is powerless to stop.

When Jamie’s actions at a protest spiral out of control, the siblings must go on the run. Taking refuge in a remote cabin that looks like it belongs on a slasher movie poster rather than an AirBNB, the siblings now face a new threat where their lives–and reality–hang in the balance. Their sister always warned them about her nightmares. They really should have listened.]]> 352 Neena Viel 1250906326 Rachel 5 Thanks to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me listen! ]]> 3.28 2025 Listen to Your Sister
author: Neena Viel
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/27
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What a ride! Heartfelt, spooky, and even funny! I definitely did not expect the book to be as deep and unique as it is. The cover, while cool, does not let the reader know what they’re in for. The audiobook narrators really upped the creep factor which I loved! I can definitely see this being made into a movie - kinda gave me Us vibes at times. The characters felt real and down to earth. I laughed out loud a bunch of times. A fresh new horror voice! I’m looking forward to reading more from this author!
Thanks to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me listen!
]]> Dark Matter: A Ghost Story 8350864 246 Michelle Paver 1409123782 Rachel 0 3.97 2010 Dark Matter: A Ghost Story
author: Michelle Paver
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Harder I Fight the More I Love You: A Memoir]]> 214175247 An unforgettable portrait of an extraordinary life—one forged through a poverty-stricken childhood in “slummy, one-horse towns�; obsessive desire; bursts of comedy; and indispensable friendships, reflecting on the way art, music, and a deep connection to nature helped her on a singular journeyto become a beloved, Grammy-nominated artist.

Neko Case has long been revered as one of music’s most influential artists, whose authenticity, lyrical storytelling, and sly wit have endeared her to a legion of critics, musicians, and lifelong fans.InThe Harder I Fight, the More I Love You,Casebrings her trademarkcandor andprecisionto a memoir that traces her evolution from an invisiblegirl “raised by two dogs and a space heater� in rural Washington state toher improbable emergence as an internationally-acclaimed talent. In luminous, sharp-edged prose, Caseshows readers what it’s like to be left alone for hours and hours as a child, to take refuge in the woods around her home, and to channel themonotony and loneliness and joy that comes from music, camaraderie, and shared experience into art.

The Harder I Fight, the More I Love Youis a rebellious meditation on identity and corruption, and a manifesto on how to make space for ourselves in this world, despite the obstacles we face.


]]> 288 Neko Case 1538710501 Rachel 0 The only thing I had hoped was that Neko, being a horse lover, and dedicating portions of the book to talking about her love for horses, would also have mentioned a bit about how horses as sentient beings do not exist for humans to use.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me listen! ]]> 4.10 2025 The Harder I Fight the More I Love You: A Memoir
author: Neko Case
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
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A raw down to earth celebrity memoir. I felt really connected to Neko Case while listening and the fact that she narrated the audiobook really helped. I had fun looking up some of the musical artists she mentioned along the way and taking breaks from the book to listen to them.
The only thing I had hoped was that Neko, being a horse lover, and dedicating portions of the book to talking about her love for horses, would also have mentioned a bit about how horses as sentient beings do not exist for humans to use.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me listen!
]]> <![CDATA[Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice, and Finding Hope]]> 208891684 An inspiring collection of essays, personal and political, from the leading environmental justice activist of our time, that frames the challenges we face as a society and—with grace, generosity, and hope—charts the way toward equity, respect, and a brighter future.

Described by Bryan Stevenson as “the center of the quest for environmental justice in America,� Catherine Coleman Flowers has dedicated her life to fighting for the most vulnerable communities—rural, poor, of color—who have been deprived of the basic civil right to a clean, safe, and sustainable environment. Both deeply personal and urgently political, the essays in Holy Ground draw on history to illuminate and contextualize the most pressing issues of this moment: from climate change to human rights, from rural poverty to reproductive justice, from the notorious history of Lowndes County, Alabama, to the broader crisis of racialized disinvestment in the South. Flowers maps the distance and direction toward justice, examining her own diverse ancestry as evidence of our interconnectedness. She reflects on trailblazers who have fought for social and environmental justice. She writes about her mother, a civil rights activist who lost her life to gun violence, and her own deeply personal experience with reproductive justice. And in a remarkably candid and moving piece, she writes about a traumatic attack that occurred at a moment of collective triumph, in which she weighs her fight for the common good against her own well-being. Flowers’s faith shines throughout the collection, guiding her work and inspiring her vision of our responsibility to one another and to our shared home.

Drawn from a lifetime of organizing, activism, and change-making, Holy Ground equips us with clarity, lights a way forward, and rouses us to action—for ourselves and for each other, for our communities, and, ultimately, for our planet.]]> 247 Catherine Coleman Flowers 1954118694 Rachel 0 Thank you to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me listen! ]]> 4.43 Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice, and Finding Hope
author: Catherine Coleman Flowers
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.43
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
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Interesting read in which the author’s determination shines through. The audiobook narration is smooth and kept me focused. Whenever I see content mention “environmental justice� I always hope to hear about how animal agriculture is killing our planet. I only got to about 30% of this book and there was much mention of eating animal products. I was disappointed because I was on board with the author up until that point. Regrettably, I just couldn’t bring myself to listen anymore. Please check out The Food Empowerment Project for more information on total environmental justice that includes everyone, regardless of species.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me listen!
]]> <![CDATA[The Honey Trap: How the Good Intentions of Urban Beekeepers Risk Ecological Disaster]]> 209784539 Exposing the misguided assumptions behind an altruistic trend



The last decade has seen an explosion of urban beekeeping in the US, Canada, and Europe, a well-intentioned response to perceived threats to the global honey bee population. Many thousands of people have taken up this seemingly environmentally friendly hobby, tending backyard and rooftop hives (or paying a company to do so) and encouraging honey bees to make honey and pollinate flowers. What could be wrong with that?



Quite a lot, in fact. In The Honey Trap, scientist and author Dana Church demonstrates that despite reports to the contrary, honey bees are nowhere near extinction. Rather, their nurturing by urban beekeepers is having far-reaching and potentially devastating consequences for the 19,999 other species of bees on the planet, with knock-on effects for plants, both cultivated and wild, and our ecosystems more generally.



With engaging storytelling and a wealth of knowledge about bees and their ways, Church unravels the complexities of human interactions with our winged friends and demonstrates how dangerously selfish our thinking can be. It's a wake-up call for humanity to embrace sustainable practices and protect these vital pollinators before it's too late.]]> 200 Dana Church 1990823858 Rachel 0 I’ve actually never been interested in beekeeping as it is an exploitative practice. Bees do not exist for humans beings to use. Their honey is made for themselves and their children. I wanted to listen to this book because I often discuss with people why I do not eat animals or their secretions (including honey, of course) and I’m always looking for information about bees to add to the discussion.
As I was listening to the audiobook I could feel how deeply connected the author feels to bees and her great desire to share her knowledge to help them. I enjoyed learning about bees as sentient beings and appreciated hearing about the author’s experiences with bees. The audiobook narrator has a soothing, kind voice that brought me back to my grade school days of loving to learn new things.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me listen! ]]> 4.18 The Honey Trap: How the Good Intentions of Urban Beekeepers Risk Ecological Disaster
author: Dana Church
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
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Are you a victim of beewashing? If you read this book, you’ll discover that you likely are and you don’t even know it! Long story short, you’re actually hurting bees when you take up backyard beekeeping so don’t do it.
I’ve actually never been interested in beekeeping as it is an exploitative practice. Bees do not exist for humans beings to use. Their honey is made for themselves and their children. I wanted to listen to this book because I often discuss with people why I do not eat animals or their secretions (including honey, of course) and I’m always looking for information about bees to add to the discussion.
As I was listening to the audiobook I could feel how deeply connected the author feels to bees and her great desire to share her knowledge to help them. I enjoyed learning about bees as sentient beings and appreciated hearing about the author’s experiences with bees. The audiobook narrator has a soothing, kind voice that brought me back to my grade school days of loving to learn new things.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me listen!
]]> <![CDATA[What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees]]> 63231062 Although their brains are incredibly small—just one million neurons compared to humans� 100 billion—bees have remarkable abilities to navigate, learn, communicate, and remember. In What a Bee Knows, entomologist Stephen Buchmann explores a bee’s way of seeing the world and introduces the scientists who make the journey possible. We travel into the field and to the laboratories of noted bee biologists who have spent their careers digging into the questions most of us never thought to ask (for example: Do bees dream? And if so, why?). With each discovery, Buchmann’s insatiable curiosity and sense of wonder is infectious.
What a Bee Knows will challenge your idea of a bee’s place in the world—and perhaps our own. This lively journey into a bee’s mind reminds us that the world is more complex than our senses can tell us.]]> 363 Stephen Buchmann 1642831247 Rachel 0 to-read 4.10 What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees
author: Stephen Buchmann
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.10
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]]> The Mind of a Bee 59149209
Most of us are aware of the hive mind―the power of bees as an amazing collective. But do we know how uniquely intelligent bees are as individuals? In The Mind of a Bee , Lars Chittka draws from decades of research, including his own pioneering work, to argue that bees have remarkable cognitive abilities. He shows that they are profoundly smart, have distinct personalities, can recognize flowers and human faces, exhibit basic emotions, count, use simple tools, solve problems, and learn by observing others. They may even possess consciousness.

Taking readers deep into the sensory world of bees, Chittka illustrates how bee brains are unparalleled in the animal kingdom in terms of how much sophisticated material is packed into their tiny nervous systems. He looks at their innate behaviors and the ways their evolution as foragers may have contributed to their keen spatial memory. Chittka also examines the psychological differences between bees and the ethical dilemmas that arise in conservation and laboratory settings because bees feel and think. Throughout, he touches on the fascinating history behind the study of bee behavior.

Exploring an insect whose sensory experiences rival those of humans, The Mind of a Bee reveals the singular abilities of some of the world’s most incredible creatures.]]> 272 Lars Chittka 0691180474 Rachel 0 to-read 4.11 The Mind of a Bee
author: Lars Chittka
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.11
book published:
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date added: 2025/01/26
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]]> Grey Dog 198385737
The year is 1901, and Ada Byrd � spinster, schoolmarm, amateur naturalist � accepts a teaching post in isolated Lowry Bridge, grateful for the chance to re-establish herself where no one knows her secrets. She develops friendships with her neighbors, explores the woods with her students, and begins to see a future in this tiny farming community. Her past � riddled with grief and shame � has never seemed so far away.

But then, Ada begins to witness strange and grisly a swarm of dying crickets, a self-mutilating rabbit, a malformed faun. She soon believes that something ancient and beastly � which she calls the grey dog � is behind these visceral offerings, which both beckon and repel her. As her confusion deepens, her grip on what is real, what is delusion, and what is traumatic memory begins to fail. Ada takes on the wildness of the woods, and begins to wonder which is more dangerous: the grey dog, or herself.]]> 400 Elliott Gish 177041732X Rachel 0 3.86 2024 Grey Dog
author: Elliott Gish
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
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]]> The Midwich Cuckoos 161846 220 John Wyndham 0345299116 Rachel 0 3.91 1957 The Midwich Cuckoos
author: John Wyndham
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1957
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/26
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]]> A Fig For All The Devils 59234975
An abused, grief-stricken, and impoverished Sonny has all but given up on life. That is, until he meets death, by way of the Grim Reaper. The Reaper, a junk food loving, poetry reading, cigarette-addicted entity, has no time to waste as he searches for a suitable successor who would become "Death" for the next millennium. By training the boy in the ways of death and dying, Reaper grooms his young apprentice and through suspenseful and horror-laced events, he unknowingly gives Sonny something he never intended: A reason to live.]]> 260 C.S. Fritz Rachel 0 3.90 2021 A Fig For All The Devils
author: C.S. Fritz
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/24
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]]> Bright Young Women 101124639
The survivors, including key witness Pamela Schumacher, will be forever changed by this night. They have all become victims. But they tell their perspectives here, they remain masters of their stories. And they hunt the perpetrator on their own - against resistance from the justice system and the police; against public opinion, which idolizes the serial killer.]]> 384 Jessica Knoll 1501153226 Rachel 0 3.99 2023 Bright Young Women
author: Jessica Knoll
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/24
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]]> <![CDATA[The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish]]> 40663721
The girls, grieving and homesick, are at first wary of their father’s affection, but soon Mae and Edie’s close relationship begins to fall apart—Edie remains fiercely loyal to Marianne, convinced that Dennis is responsible for her mother’s downfall, while Mae, suffocated by her striking resemblances to her mother, feels pulled toward their father. The girls move in increasingly opposing and destructive directions as they struggle to cope with outsized pain, and as the history of Dennis and Marianne’s romantic past clicks into focus, the family fractures further.

Moving through a selection of first-person accounts and written with a sinister sense of humor, The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish powerfully captures the quiet torment of two sisters craving the attention of a parent they can’t, and shouldn’t, have to themselves. In this captivating debut, Katya Apekina disquietingly crooks the lines between fact and fantasy, between escape and freedom, and between love and obsession.]]> 353 Katya Apekina 1937512754 Rachel 0 4.12 2018 The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish
author: Katya Apekina
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/21
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fall of the House of Usher]]> 175516
"The Fall .. " recounts the terrible events that befall the last remaining members of the once-illustrious Usher clan before it is -- quite literally -- rent asunder. With amazing economy, Poe plunges the reader into a state of deliciously agonizing suspense. It's a must-read for fans of the golden era of horror writing. "The Fall .." is one of Poe's best known short stories - if not the best.

Librarian's note: this entry is for the short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher." Collections of short stories by the author, such as "The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales," can be found elsewhere on ŷ.]]> 36 Edgar Allan Poe 1594561796 Rachel 0 3.90 1839 The Fall of the House of Usher
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1839
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/21
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]]> The Dry (Aaron Falk, #1) 27824826 A small town hides big secrets in this atmospheric, page-turning debut mystery by award-winning author Jane Harper.

In the grip of the worst drought in a century, the farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily when three members of a local family are found brutally slain.

Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk reluctantly returns to his hometown for the funeral of his childhood friend, loath to face the townsfolk who turned their backs on him twenty years earlier.

But as questions mount, Falk is forced to probe deeper into the deaths of the Hadler family. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret. A secret Falk thought was long buried. A secret Luke's death now threatens to bring to the surface in this small Australian town, as old wounds bleed into new ones.

]]> 336 Jane Harper Rachel 0 4.04 2016 The Dry (Aaron Falk, #1)
author: Jane Harper
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/18
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]]> The Night Sister 24040551
Now adult, Piper and Margot have tried to forget what they found that fateful summer, but their lives are upended when Piper receives a panicked midnight call from Margot, with news of a horrific crime for which Amy stands accused. Suddenly, Margot and Piper are forced to relive the time that they found the suitcase that once belonged to Silvie Slater, the aunt that Amy claimed had run away to Hollywood to live out her dream of becoming Hitchcock's next blonde bombshell leading lady. As Margot and Piper investigate, a cleverly woven plot unfolds—revealing the story of Sylvie and Rose, two other sisters who lived at the motel during its 1950s heyday. Each believed the other to be something truly monstrous, but only one carries the secret that would haunt the generations to come.]]> 322 Jennifer McMahon 0385538510 Rachel 0 3.69 2015 The Night Sister
author: Jennifer McMahon
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/16
date added: 2025/01/16
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]]> Beta Vulgaris 213395442 A young woman’s seasonal job takes a dark, surreal turn in this vivid and surprising debut.

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

As crewmembers vanish, Elise obsesses over Tom’s closeness with their charismatic coworker Cee and falls back on self-destructive patterns of disordered eating and dissociation. Against the horrors of her uncertain future, is the siren song of the beet pile almost . . . appealing? Biting and eerie, Beta Vulgaris harnesses an audacious premise to undermine straightforward narratives of class, trauma, consumption, and redemption.]]> 296 Margie Sarsfield 1324078731 Rachel 0 Thank you to NetGallery and W.W. Norton & Company for letting me read! ]]> 3.58 2025 Beta Vulgaris
author: Margie Sarsfield
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves:
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Weird, just like I like ‘em! I read this during a depressing winter which was a perfect time to make it feel really real. Being inside Elise’s head was not a fun place to be but it was intriguing. The author did an incredible job of making me feel as if I were experiencing what Elise was experiencing. I loved the ending but I was hoping for a bit more action before the big finale. I’m eagerly looking forward to more from Margie Sarsfield!
Thank you to NetGallery and W.W. Norton & Company for letting me read!
]]> Bliss Montage 65215711
In Bliss Montage, Ling Ma brings us eight wildly different tales of people making their way through the madness and reality of our collective delusions: love and loneliness, connection and possession, friendship, motherhood, the idea of home. A woman lives in a house with all her ex-boyfriends. A toxic friendship grows up around a drug that makes you invisible. An ancient ritual might heal you of anything—if you bury yourself alive.

These and other scenarios investigate the ways that the outlandish and the ordinary are shockingly, deceptively, heart-breakingly alike.]]> 228 Ling Ma 1250893542 Rachel 0 3.80 2022 Bliss Montage
author: Ling Ma
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/01/14
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]]> An Unkindness of Ghosts 34381254
Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship’s leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve her lot—if she’s willing to sow the seeds of civil war.]]> 351 Rivers Solomon 1617755885 Rachel 0 3.95 2017 An Unkindness of Ghosts
author: Rivers Solomon
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/01/14
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]]> Something in the Walls 211004350
Then she meets journalist Sam Hunter at the grief group one day, and he has a proposition for her: Thirteen-year-old Alice Webber claims a witch is haunting her. Living with her family in the remote village of Banathel, Alice finds her symptoms are getting increasingly disturbing. Taking this job will give Mina some experience and much-needed money; Sam will get the scoop of a lifetime; and Alice will get better—Mina is sure of it.

But instead of improving, Alice’s behavior becomes inexplicable and intense. The town of Banathel has a deep history of superstition and witchcraft. They believe there is evil in the world. They believe there are ways of…dealing with it. And they don’t expect outsiders to understand.]]> 304 Daisy Pearce 1250334381 Rachel 0 Thank you to NetGallery and the publisher for allowing me to listen. ]]> 3.41 2025 Something in the Walls
author: Daisy Pearce
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
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The title and cover made me think this wouldn’t be as good as it was. A unique witchy possession story that was perfectly paced. The audiobook narrator gave the main character a believable voice that fit very well with how she was written.
Thank you to NetGallery and the publisher for allowing me to listen.
]]> The Descent (Descent, #1) 239065 We are not alone�

In a cave in the Himalayas, a guide discovers a self-mutilated body with the warning "Satan exists".

In the Kalahari Desert, a nun unearths evidence of a proto-human species and a deity called Older-than-Old.

In Bosnia,somethinghas been feeding upon the dead in a mass grave.

So begins mankind’s most shocking realization: that the underworld is a vast geological labyrinth populated by another race of beings. Some call them "devils" or "demons." But they are real. They are down there. And they are waiting for us to find them…]]> 572 Jeff Long 051513175X Rachel 0 to-read 3.94 1999 The Descent (Descent, #1)
author: Jeff Long
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> Bent Heavens 44281013
But Liv is done with childhood fantasies. Done pretending she believes her father's absurd theories. Done going through the motions for Doug's sake. However, on the very day she chooses to destroy the traps, she discovers in one of them a creature so inhuman it can only be one thing. In that moment, she's faced with a painful realization: her dad was telling the truth. And no one believed him.

Now, she and Doug have a choice to make. They can turn the alien over to the authorities...or they can take matters into their own hands.]]> 291 Daniel Kraus 1250151678 Rachel 0 3.34 2020 Bent Heavens
author: Daniel Kraus
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/11
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]]> Ask Again, Yes 42201996
Ask Again, Yes is a moving novel about two families, the bond between their children, a tragedy that reverberates over four decades, the daily intimacies of marriage, and the power of forgiveness.]]> 388 Mary Beth Keane 1982106980 Rachel 0 3.92 2019 Ask Again, Yes
author: Mary Beth Keane
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
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]]> Let the Right One In 943402
But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. A new girl has moved in next door—a girl who has never seen a Rubik's Cube before, but who can solve it at once. There is something wrong with her, though, something odd. And she only comes out at night....]]> 513 John Ajvide Lindqvist 1847241697 Rachel 0 4.08 2004 Let the Right One In
author: John Ajvide Lindqvist
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre]]> 52454426
But the journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town’s bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing—and too earth-shattering in its implications—to be forgotten.

In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate’s extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the legendary beasts behind it.

Kate’s is a tale of unexpected strength and resilience, of humanity’s defiance in the face of a terrible predator’s gaze, and inevitably, of savagery and death.

Yet it is also far more than that.

Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us—and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity.

Part survival narrative, part bloody horror tale, part scientific journey into the boundaries between truth and fiction, this is a Bigfoot story as only Max Brooks could chronicle it—and like none you’ve ever read before.]]> 286 Max Brooks 1984826786 Rachel 0 3.88 2020 Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre
author: Max Brooks
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/06
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]]> Bird Box (Bird Box, #1) 44646576
Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remains, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it's time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children's trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster?

Interweaving past and present, Bird Box is a snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page.]]> 272 Josh Malerman 0062259652 Rachel 0 4.07 2014 Bird Box (Bird Box, #1)
author: Josh Malerman
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/06
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]]> Organ Meats 59982802
Best friends Anita and Rainie find refuge by an old sycamore tree with its neighboring lot of stray dogs who have a mysterious ability to communicate with humans. The girls learn that they are preceded by generations of dog-headed women and woman-headed dogs whose bloodlines bind them together. Anita convinces Rainie to become a dog with her, tying a collar of red string around each of their necks to preserve their kinship forever. But when the two girls are separated, Anita sinks into a dreamworld that only Rainie knows how to rescue her from. As Anita’s body begins to rot, it is up to Rainie to rebuild Anita’s body and keep her friend from being lost forever.

Filled with ghosts and bodily entrails, this is a story about the horror and beauty of intimacy, written in K-Ming Chang’s signature poetic and visceral lore.]]> 288 K-Ming Chang 0593447344 Rachel 0 3.32 2023 Organ Meats
author: K-Ming Chang
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/05
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]]> Starve Acre 45890523
Starve Acre is a devastating new novel by the author of the prize-winning bestseller The Loney. It is a novel about the way in which grief splits the world in two and how, in searching for hope, we can so easily unearth horror.]]> 256 Andrew Michael Hurley Rachel 0 3.69 2019 Starve Acre
author: Andrew Michael Hurley
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
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]]> Your Shadow Half Remains 127281430 One look can kill.

Riley has not seen a single human face in longer than she can reckon. No faces, no eyes. Not if you want to survive.

But when a new neighbor moves in down the road, Riley’s overwhelming need for human contact makes her throw caution to the wind. Somehow, in this world where other people can mean a gruesome, bloody death, Ellis makes her feel safe. As they grow closer, Riley’s grip on reality begins to slip and she can no longer fight her deepest desires.

All Riley wants to do is look.]]> 163 Sunny Moraine 1250892201 Rachel 0 3.35 2024 Your Shadow Half Remains
author: Sunny Moraine
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves:
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]]> Road of Bones 57693175 A stunning supernatural thriller set in Siberia, where a film crew is covering an elusive ghost story about the Kolyma Highway, a road built on top of the bones of prisoners of Stalin's gulag.

Kolyma Highway, otherwise known as the Road of Bones, is a 1200 mile stretch of Siberian road where winter temperatures can drop as low as sixty degrees below zero. Under Stalin, at least eighty Soviet gulags were built along the route to supply the USSR with a readily available workforce, and over time hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in the midst of their labors. Their bodies were buried where they fell, plowed under the permafrost, underneath the road.

Felix Teigland, or "Teig," is a documentary producer, and when he learns about the Road of Bones, he realizes he's stumbled upon untapped potential. Accompanied by his camera operator, Teig hires a local Yakut guide to take them to Oymyakon, the coldest settlement on Earth. Teig is fascinated by the culture along the Road of Bones, and encounters strange characters on the way to the Oymyakon, but when the team arrives, they find the village mysteriously abandoned apart from a mysterious 9-year-old girl. Then, chaos ensues.

A malignant, animistic shaman and the forest spirits he commands pursues them as they flee the abandoned town and barrel across miles of deserted permafrost. As the chase continues along this road paved with the suffering of angry ghosts, what form will the echoes of their anguish take? Teig and the others will have to find the answers if they want to survive the Road of Bones.]]> 230 Christopher Golden 1250274303 Rachel 5 This was everything I wanted in a winter book! ❄️]]> 3.36 2022 Road of Bones
author: Christopher Golden
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves:
review:
Wonderful winter read! This was my first Golden book and won’t be my last! I get the lower reviews but only because I tend to like things other people hate lol
This was everything I wanted in a winter book! ❄️
]]> Two-Step Devil 197239494
It's 2014 in Lookout Mountain, Alabama, where the Prophet—a 70-year-old man who paints his visions—lives off the grid in a cabin near the Georgia border. While scrounging for materials at the local dump, the Prophet sees a car pull up to an abandoned gas station. In the back seat is a teenage girl with zip ties on her wrists, a girl he realizes he must rescue from her current life. Her name is Michael and the Prophet feels certain that she is his Big Fish, a messenger sent by God to take his apocalyptic warnings to the White House. Michael finds herself in the Prophet’s remote, art-filled cabin, and as their uncertain dynamic evolves into tender friendship, she is offered a surprising opportunity to escape her past—and perhaps change her future.

Moving through the worlds of the Prophet, the girl, and a beguiling devil figure who dances in the corner of their lives, Two-Step Devil is a propulsive, philosophical examination of fate and faith that dares to ask what salvation, if any, can be found in our modern world.]]> 269 Jamie Quatro 0802163130 Rachel 5 Thank you to NetGallery and the publisher for letting me listen! ]]> 3.76 2024 Two-Step Devil
author: Jamie Quatro
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves:
review:
Wow wee! I was not expecting that! I don’t even know how to write a review for it. I listened to the audiobook and was just mesmerized the entire time. When I finished, I had to look up who narrated because they were just so spot on. The author is the narrator! One of the best audiobook narrations I’ve heard and I listen to a lot of audiobooks. From her writing along with her narration, I could tell how deeply connected she felt to her characters as she wrote this work of art. The subject matter wasn’t joyful - I actually cried a few times while listening - but it was so wonderfully refreshing to read something so unique! I’m going to be nominating this for my book club read choice!
Thank you to NetGallery and the publisher for letting me listen!
]]> Dearest 204593562 B&N Best Horror of 2024
A Golden Poppy Octavia E. Butler Award Finalist
A Book of the Month Club Pick

A new mom in need of help opens her door to her long-estrangedmother—only to invite something much darker inside—in this "fast-paced and frightening debut" (Rachel Harrison) about the long shadows cast by family secrets, perfect for readers of Grady Hendrix or Ashley Audrain.

Flora is a new mom enamored of her baby girl, Iris, even if she arrived a few weeks early. With her husband still deployed, Flora navigates the newborn stage alone. But as the sleepless nights pass in the loneliness of their half-empty home, the edges of her reality begin to blur.

Just as Flora becomes convinced she is losing her mind, a surprising guest shows up: Flora’s own mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken in years. Can they mend their fraught relationship? Or is there more Flora’s mother isn’t telling her about the events that led to their estrangement?

As stranger and scarier events unfold, Flora begins to suspect the house is not as empty as she once thought. She must determine: is her hold on reality slipping dangerously away? Or is she, in fact, the only thing standing between a terrifying visitor and her baby?]]> 297 Jacquie Walters 0316580295 Rachel 0 3.50 2024 Dearest
author: Jacquie Walters
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/27
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]]> Water Shall Refuse Them 43789029
Reminiscent of the suspense of Shirley Jackson and soaked in the folk horror of the British landscape, Water Shall Refuse Them is an atmospheric coming-of-age novel and a thrilling debut.]]> 257 Lucie McKnight Hardy 1911585568 Rachel 0 to-read 3.44 2019 Water Shall Refuse Them
author: Lucie McKnight Hardy
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> Lost in the Garden 208159162 "Like an old wives� tale, like a piece of wisdom passed down through generations which no one questioned or even thought about too hard. Like folklore. It was just something everyone knew, a rule to be followed:

Don’t go to Almanby."

Heather, Rachel and Antonia are going to Almanby. Heather needs to find her boyfriend who, like so many, went and never came back. Rachel has a mysterious package to deliver, and her life depends on it. And Antonia—poor, lovestruck Antonia just wants the chance to spend the day with Heather.

So off they set through the idyllic yet perilous English countryside, in which nature thrives in abundance and summer lasts forever. And as they travel through ever-shifting geography and encounter strange voices in the fizz of shortwave radio, the harder it becomes to tell friend from foe.

Creepy, dreamlike, unsettling and unforgettable—you are about to join the privileged few who come to understand exactly why we don't go to Almanby.]]> 446 Adam S. Leslie 1915368480 Rachel 0 to-read 3.61 2024 Lost in the Garden
author: Adam S. Leslie
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
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]]> The Luminous Dead 36117102 The Martian and Gravity and the creeping dread of Annihilation, in which a caver on a foreign planet finds herself on a terrifying psychological and emotional journey for survival.

When Gyre Price lied her way into this expedition, she thought she’d be mapping mineral deposits, and that her biggest problems would be cave collapses and gear malfunctions. She also thought that the fat paycheck—enough to get her off-planet and on the trail of her mother—meant she’d get a skilled surface team, monitoring her suit and environment, keeping her safe. Keeping her sane.

Instead, she got Em.

Em sees nothing wrong with controlling Gyre’s body with drugs or withholding critical information to “ensure the smooth operation� of her expedition. Em knows all about Gyre’s falsified credentials, and has no qualms using them as a leash—and a lash. And Em has secrets, too . . .

As Gyre descends, little inconsistencies—missing supplies, unexpected changes in the route, and, worst of all, shifts in Em’s motivations—drive her out of her depths. Lost and disoriented, Gyre finds her sense of control giving way to paranoia and anger. On her own in this mysterious, deadly place, surrounded by darkness and the unknown, Gyre must overcome more than just the dangerous terrain and the Tunneler which calls underground its home if she wants to make it out alive—she must confront the ghosts in her own head.

But how come she can't shake the feeling she’s being followed?]]> 432 Caitlin Starling Rachel 0 3.64 2019 The Luminous Dead
author: Caitlin Starling
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> <![CDATA[I Think We've Been Here Before]]> 198190462
In the same week, Marlen and Hilda’s family receives two significant pieces of news: One, Marlen has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Two, a cosmic blast is set to render humanity extinct within a matter of months. It seems the coming Christmas on their Saskatchewan farm could be everyone’s last.

Preparing for the inevitable, they navigate the time they have left together. Marlen and Hilda channel their energy into improbably prophetic works of art. Hilda’s elderly father receives a longed-for visitor from his past. Hilda’s preteen nephew goes missing, and his mother refuses to believe the world is ending. All the while, Hilda’s daughter struggles to find her way home from Berlin with the help of an oddly familiar stranger. For everyone, there’s an unsettling feeling that this unprecedented reality is somehow something they all remember.

As the planet holds its collective breath to see what happens next, the family—amid chaos, denial, acceptance, and hope—determines to live every moment as if it is their last. Because, well, it just might be.]]> 310 Suzy Krause 166251753X Rachel 0 to-read 4.04 2024 I Think We've Been Here Before
author: Suzy Krause
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> The Church Beneath the Roots 210333639 Long before the events of Stolen Tongues�

On the Cold Valley Indian Reservation, in the shadow of Pale Peak, Onwé Lopez struggles with the past as much as the present. By day, he watches his people abandon the Old Way as they flock to the local church. By night, he dreams of his childhood friend Akántha, who vanished from the rez decades prior.

Then, catastrophe a horrific accident brings a stranger to town with stories of unfathomable death. A ghastly figure wanders the night, peering into houses and terrorizing a tribal elder. Hideous whispers emanate from the nearby caves, beckoning Onwé inside - and promising to return everyone he’s lost.

The Church Beneath the Roots is the story of a town ravaged by memory, riven by change, and haunted by a sinister presence as old as the mountain itself.

�

�Church revisits the world of Stolen Tongues - but instead of quietly tapping on the cabin door, it bursts through and drags the reader into an abyss of torment. Blackwell has crafted a mysterious town, rich with historical detail and complex characters, and has unleashed his nightmares upon it.�

-Nick Roberts, bestselling author of The Exorcist’s House]]> 345 Felix Blackwell Rachel 0 4.15 2024 The Church Beneath the Roots
author: Felix Blackwell
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/25
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]]> 25 Days 217538341 25 days, 25 chapters. This December, the countdown to Christmas will chill you to the bone.

Hoping to bring his family closer together, Adam Gray arranges a vacation in a remote cabin on a snowy mountain. Things take a dark turn, however, when someone starts leaving gifts in the Christmas stocking mounted on the barn door.

Each morning brings something new, and with every passing day, the contents become more terrifying. Soon, the family makes a spine-chilling they’ve been dragged into a deranged game of Secret Santa, and if they want to survive, they will have to fight.]]> 360 Per Jacobsen 8794319308 Rachel 0 3.65 25 Days
author: Per Jacobsen
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.65
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/24
date added: 2024/12/24
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]]> Gods of Want: Stories 57485174 Startling stories that center the bodies, memories, myths, and relationships of Asian American women, from the National Book Award �5 Under 35� honoree and author of Bestiary

In “Auntland,� a steady stream of aunts adjust to American life by sneaking surreptitious kisses from women at temple, buying tubs of vanilla ice cream to prepare for citizenship tests, and hatching plans to name their daughter “Dog.� In “The Chorus of Dead Cousins,� ghost-cousins cross space, seas, and skies to haunt their live-cousin, wife to a storm-chaser. In “Xífù,� a mother-in-law tortures a wife in increasingly unsuccessful attempts to rid the house of her. In “Mariela,� two girls explore one another’s bodies for the first time in the belly of a plastic shark while in “Virginia Slims,� a woman from a cigarette ad comes to life. And in “Resident Aliens,� a former slaughterhouse serves as a residence to a series of widows, each harboring her own calamitous secrets.

With each tale, K-Ming Chang gives us her own take on a surrealism that mixes myth and migration, corporeality and ghostliness, queerness and the quotidian. Stunningly told in her feminist fabulist style, these are uncanny stories peeling back greater questions of power and memory.]]> 224 K-Ming Chang 0593241584 Rachel 0 3.70 2022 Gods of Want: Stories
author: K-Ming Chang
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/24
date added: 2024/12/24
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]]> This Animal Body 181695107
While Frankie’s new friends may not have her highly evolved, state-of-the-art, exalted human brain, they do know things that she doesn’t—poems, scientific facts, and what happened in the forgotten years before her adoption. Frankie can’t dismiss her conversations with these animals as mere dreams, but she also can’t accept them as real. To prove she’s still sane, she investigates her past and conducts scientific experiments to test how much animals are capable of communicating. But just when Frankie uncovers the truth, she has to make an impossible choice: betray the animals she’s fallen in love with—or give up her dream of neuroscience, her last chance at success, and everything she thought she knew.]]> 360 Meredith Walters 1684632420 Rachel 0 to-read 4.12 This Animal Body
author: Meredith Walters
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Fright Before Christmas: Surviving Krampus and Other Yuletide Monsters, Witches, and Ghosts]]> 123164629
Christmas time is truly the darkest and creepiest time of the year filled with devilish creatures lurking in the shadows waiting to get us. Best known is the Krampus who has been the subject of films and songs. There was a time in the late 1800s when people sent Krampus cards, not holiday greetings. There are other violent and dangerous monsters from all over northern climes who have been hunting naughty children for centuries. From shapeshifters to mountain trolls, to elves, to heavy-handed cohorts of Saint Nicholas, the Christmas holiday has been filled with ghosts and monsters ready to dole out punishment to those who need it.

The Fright Before Christmas will delve into the folklore of Krampus and his friends with the elf-like Tomten and the goblinesque Karakoncolas. The Belsnickel is ready to hit us with his switch of sticks and Gryla may drag you back to her mountain lair. And watch out for the Yule Cat ready to pounce!These are just a few of the yuletide beasties coming for us in The Fright Before Christmas in the hope they can save us from ourselves.

The folklore roots of Christmas under its many other guises (Yule, the Winter Solstice, Saturnalia) is examined in a different, darker light.The Winter Solstice is a time to be afraid. It’s the shortest day of the year. The longest night. In some parts of the world, the sun doesn’t rise at all. It’s dark, and we have to wonder if the sun will ever come back at all. Christmas has always been creepy and with The Fright Before Christmas you'll see the other side. This is a book for everyone who loves a little darkness around the holidays.

Be good or the Krampus will get you!]]> 200 Jeff Belanger 1637480156 Rachel 0 4.14 The Fright Before Christmas: Surviving Krampus and Other Yuletide Monsters, Witches, and Ghosts
author: Jeff Belanger
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/21
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]]> Eat the Ones You Love 203579211
During a grocery run to her local shopping center, Shell Pine sees a ‘HELP NEEDED� sign in a flower shop window. She’s just left her fiancé, lost her job, and moved home to her parents� house. She has to make a change and bring some good into her life, so she goes inside and takes a chance. Shell realizes right away that flowers are just the good thing she's been looking for, as is Neve, the beautiful florist who wrote the sign asking for help. The thing is, Neve needs help more than Shell could possibly imagine.

An orchid growing out of sight in the heart of the mall is watching them closely. His name is Baby, and the beautiful florist belongs to him. He’s young, he’s hungry, and he’ll do just about anything to make sure he can keep growing big and strong. Nothing he eats � nobody he eats � can satisfy him, except the thing he most desires. Neve. He adores her and wants to consume her, and will stop at nothing to eat the one he loves.

This is a story about possession, and monstrosity, and working retail. It is about hunger and desire, and other terrible things that grow.]]> 288 Sarah Maria Griffin 1250910692 Rachel 0 to-read 4.05 2025 Eat the Ones You Love
author: Sarah Maria Griffin
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stay in the Light (The Watchers, #2)]]> 203579112
When Mina encounters a stranger near her home, she fears the worst - for she knows the figure is not what it seems. Soon, people she has encountered start to disappear.

Mina knows the Watchers' power is growing. She flees for her life, but when she reports her fears she finds her sanity questioned. Can she convince people that the Watchers are real, and ready to strike - or will she suffer the fate she has dreaded since she first encountered those malevolent beings?

A chilling modern twist on the Gothic horror novel, perfect for fans of Kealan Patrick Burke, T. Kingfisher and classic horror.]]> 320 A.M. Shine 180454793X Rachel 0
Thanks to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me read!]]> 3.90 2024 Stay in the Light (The Watchers, #2)
author: A.M. Shine
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves:
review:
I very much enjoyed the magic and mystery of The Watchers and was hoping for more of that feel but it didn’t happen. While Shine is definitely a talented writer, I just didn’t feel as invested in this book as I did the first. It wasn't creepy and felt a bit slow and repetitive. That being stated, it wasn’t a bad book I just had the tendency to keep comparing it to The Watchers which I loved. Looking forward to the book three!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me read!
]]> We Do Not Part 61121126 Han Kang’s most revelatory book since The Vegetarian, We Do Not Part tells the story of a friendship between two women while powerfully reckoning with a hidden chapter of Korean history.

One winter morning, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at a hospital in Seoul. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama.

A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. Lost in a world of snow, she doesn't yet suspect the vertiginous plunge into the darkness that awaits her at her friend's house.

Blurring the boundaries between dream and reality, We Do Not Part powerfully illuminates a forgotten chapter in Korean history, buried for decades—bringing to light the lost voices of the past to save them from oblivion. Both a hymn to an enduring friendship and an argument for remembering, it is the story of profound love in the face of unspeakable violence—and a celebration of life, however fragile it might be.]]> 272 Han Kang Rachel 0 Thanks to NetGallery and the publisher for letting me read!]]> 4.04 2021 We Do Not Part
author: Han Kang
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2024/12/18
shelves:
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Han Kang’s The Vegetarian is a favorite of mine so I was eager to read this new book. I was engaged at first and then I was so upset by the animal death that I had a hard time returning to the story. I was so depressed reading the book that I decided to take a break. Every time I thought about going back to it I just didn’t want to. I managed to start pick it up again once but it was bringing me down too much even though I tend to like melancholy stories. The writing is top notch but I just didn’t want to be in the world that was created, it’s too bleak even for me.
Thanks to NetGallery and the publisher for letting me read!
]]> Mexican Gothic 52873094
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

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

And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.]]> 304 Silvia Moreno-Garcia Rachel 0 3.76 2020 Mexican Gothic
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/07/25
date added: 2024/12/18
shelves:
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]]> The Stranger 49552 The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."]]> 123 Albert Camus Rachel 0 4.04 1942 The Stranger
author: Albert Camus
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1942
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/17
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]]> Root Rot 219874871 Nine children travel with their families to their Grandfather's vacation property, where strange things begin to happen: eyes blink from the bottom up, mushrooms ooze blood, people's faces don't hang right anymore-except they do, once you look more closely. Transformations warp the children's sense of time and place, the very land itself seeming to encroach upon them.
As The Liar watches the children succumb one by one to an unknown fate, she must make sense of absent stars in the night sky, vials of amber liquid that taste of milk, a funny little rope tied in knots. She's faced with a choice: join or resist, only the choice is not so simple.
Set in The Grandfather's Lake House as he continues to extend his property lines and told in the eerie we of the children, Root Rot explores predatory family dynamics, the boundaries of bodies and home, and how individuals choose to participate in or push back against structures that would harm them.]]> 142 Saskia Nislow 1951971256 Rachel 0 Some of the lower reviews don’t seem to get that some of the issues they had with the book were done purposely to achieve the desired effect. The author did a wonderful job of exploring family dynamics in a unique fever dream way. The characters were not meant to be developed they were meant to meld together. The naming of the character’s accomplishes exactly what the author intended. ]]> 3.71 2025 Root Rot
author: Saskia Nislow
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/03
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves:
review:
Definitely a lovely little weird one! I feel like this is meant to be read straight through and pondered at the end.
Some of the lower reviews don’t seem to get that some of the issues they had with the book were done purposely to achieve the desired effect. The author did a wonderful job of exploring family dynamics in a unique fever dream way. The characters were not meant to be developed they were meant to meld together. The naming of the character’s accomplishes exactly what the author intended.
]]> Folklorn 54864318 A genre-defying, continents-spanning saga of Korean myth, scientific discovery, and the abiding love that binds even the most broken of families.

Elsa Park is a particle physicist at the top of her game, stationed at a neutrino observatory in the Antarctic, confident she's put enough distance between her ambitions and the family ghosts she's run from all her life. But it isn't long before her childhood imaginary friend—an achingly familiar, spectral woman in the snow—cdz to claim her at last.

Years ago, Elsa's now-catatonic mother had warned her that the women of their line were doomed to repeat the narrative lives of their ancestors from Korean myth and legend. But beyond these ghosts, Elsa also faces a more earthly fate: the mental illness and generational trauma that run in her immigrant family, a sickness no less ravenous than the ancestral curse hunting her.

When her mother breaks her decade-long silence and tragedy strikes, Elsa must return to her childhood home in California. There, among family wrestling with their own demons, she unravels the secrets hidden in the handwritten pages of her mother’s dark stories: of women’s desire and fury; of magic suppressed, stolen, or punished; of the hunger for vengeance.

From Sparks Fellow, Tin House alumna, and Harvard graduate Angela Mi Young Hur,Folklornis a wondrous and necessary exploration of the myths we inherit and those we fashion for ourselves.]]> 416 Angela Mi Young Hur 1645660168 Rachel 0 3.60 2021 Folklorn
author: Angela Mi Young Hur
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves:
review:
I loved living inside this book even though it was a rather melancholy read. At times when the main character was talking about her research I got a little lost and kind of zoned out. I read every word but it went over my head a bit. At times it felt like I was in a dream so for me it had an effect that I appreciated. The overall story, message, and writing are stellar!
]]> Weyward 127280850
2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.]]> 392 Emilia Hart 1250842727 Rachel 0 4.02 2023 Weyward
author: Emilia Hart
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/17
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]]> Feeding Lucy 219482512
But after a strange caller informs her of her mother’s sudden death, she’s reluctantly drawn back to the mountains for the first time in a decade.

Arriving days before the Scandinavian tradition of Sankta Lucia, the town is aglow with holiday lights and cheer—and the townspeople can’t stop talking about the annual Feast of St. Lucy.

When an unexpected blizzard rolls through, revealing the true nature of the feast—and the evil that resides in the mountains—the darkness of her mother’s past is brought to light once again.

Caught between tradition and terror, Frankie quickly learns that her mother’s overbearing influence won’t be stopped by her death alone.

Taking elements from The Night of the Witches in Polish folklore, and the real tradition of Sankta Lucia, Feeding Lucy is a story of grief, tradition, and the darkness that lives inside of us all.]]> 132 Mo Medusa Rachel 0 4.25 Feeding Lucy
author: Mo Medusa
name: Rachel
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/16
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review:

]]> Made for Love 32600556 307 Alissa Nutting 0062280554 Rachel 0 3.48 2017 Made for Love
author: Alissa Nutting
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves:
review:
I had to stop listening about 35-40% into the book because there was a man going into detail about being sexually attracted to a dolphin. It was making me physically ill. That’s my limit. Can’t read about something so depraved.
]]> Amatka 16004181
Vanja skickas till det avlägsna samhället Amatka. De människor hon möter där ruskar om i hennes sorg och ensamhet. Hon gör häpnadsväckande upptäckter, som förändrar inte bara henne, personligen. I en instabil värld kan en förändring spridas hur långt som helst.

Amatka är Karin Tidbecks makalöst välskrivna debutroman. Tidigare har hon utkommit med novellsamlingen Vem är Arvid Pekon?.]]> 224 Karin Tidbeck 9186843540 Rachel 0 3.77 2012 Amatka
author: Karin Tidbeck
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> Anathema 50991884 226 Nick Roberts Rachel 0 3.91 2020 Anathema
author: Nick Roberts
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/12
date added: 2024/12/12
shelves:
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]]> The Nesting 50996769 The woods are creeping in on a nanny and two young girls in this chilling modern Gothic thriller.

Architect Tom Faraday is determined to finish the high-concept, environmentally friendly home he's building in Norway � in the same place where he lost his wife, Aurelia, to suicide. It was their dream house, and he wants to honor her with it.

Lexi Ellis takes a job as his nanny and immediately falls in love with his two young daughters, especially Gaia. But something feels off in the isolated house nestled in the forest along the fjord. Lexi sees mysterious muddy footprints inside the home. Aurelia's diary appears in Lexi's room one day. And Gaia keeps telling her about seeing the terrifying Sad Lady�

Soon Lexi suspects that Aurelia didn't kill herself and that they are all in danger from something far more sinister lurking around them.]]> 416 C.J. Cooke Rachel 0 3.51 2020 The Nesting
author: C.J. Cooke
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves:
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]]> The Girl Who Died 54860498 Teacher Wanted At the Edge of the World

Una wants nothing more than to teach, but she has been unable to secure steady employment in Reykjavík. Her savings are depleted, her love life is nonexistent, and she cannot face another winter staring at the four walls of her shabby apartment. Celebrating Christmas and ringing in 1986 in the remote fishing hamlet of Skálar seems like a small price to pay for a chance to earn some teaching credentials and get her life back on track.

But Skálar isn't just one of Iceland's most isolated villages, it is home to less than a dozen people. Una's only students are two girls aged seven and nine. Teaching them only occupies so many hours in a day and the few adults she interacts with are civil but distant. She only seems to connect with Thór, a man she shares an attraction with but who is determined to keep her at arm's length.

As darkness descends throughout the bleak winter, Una finds herself more often than not in her rented attic space - the site of a local legendary haunting - drinking her loneliness away. She is plagued by nightmares of a little girl in a white dress singing a lullaby. And when a sudden tragedy echoes an event long buried in Skálar's past, the villagers become even more guarded, leaving a suspicious Una seeking to uncover a shocking truth that's been kept secret for generations.]]> 320 Ragnar Jónasson 1250793734 Rachel 0 3.37 2018 The Girl Who Died
author: Ragnar Jónasson
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/09
date added: 2024/12/09
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]]> My Darling Girl 101145269
Alison has never been a fan of Christmas. But with it right around the corner and her husband busily decorating their cozy Vermont home, she has no choice but to face it. Then she gets the call.

Mavis, Alison’s estranged mother, has been diagnosed with cancer and has only weeks to live. She wants to spend her remaining days with her daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters. But Alison grew up with her mother’s alcoholism and violent abuse and is reluctant to unearth these traumatic memories. Still, she eventually agrees to take in Mavis, hoping that she and her mother could finally heal and have the relationship she’s always dreamed of.

But when mysterious and otherworldly things start happening upon Mavis’s arrival, Alison begins to suspect her mother is not quite who she seems. And as the holiday festivities turn into a nightmare, she must confront just how far she is willing to go to protect her family.]]> 320 Jennifer McMahon 166801906X Rachel 0 3.71 2023 My Darling Girl
author: Jennifer McMahon
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/08
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review:

]]> 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 Rachel 0 3.69 2023 Big Swiss
author: Jen Beagin
name: Rachel
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/07
date added: 2024/12/07
shelves:
review:

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