Jenni's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 09 Mar 2025 12:58:02 -0700 60 Jenni's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Heart in Winter 199656534 Award-winning writer Kevin Barry’s first novel set in America, a savagely funny and achingly romantic tale of young lovers on the lam in 1890s Montana.

October 1891. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city of Butte, Montana is rich on copper mines and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers. Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and ballad-maker of the town, but also a doper, a drinker, and a fearsome degenerate. Just as he feels his life is heading nowhere fast, Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the extremely devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington. A thunderbolt love affair takes spark between Tom and Polly and they strike out west on a stolen horse, moving through the badlands of Montana and Idaho, and briefly an idyll of wild romance perfects itself. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunmen are soon in hot pursuit and closing in fast. With everything to lose and the safety and anonymity of San Francisco still a distant speck on their horizon, the choices they make will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

In this love story for the ages—lyrical, profane and propulsive—Kevin Barry has once again demonstrated himself to be a master stylist, an unrivalled humourist, and a true poet of the human heart.]]> 256 Kevin Barry 038555060X Jenni 4 3.92 2024 The Heart in Winter
author: Kevin Barry
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Vicomte de Bragelonne (The d'Artagnan Romances, #3.1)]]> 6329048
The Vicomte de Bragelonne opens an epic adventure which continues with Louise de la Valliere and reaches its climax in The Man in the Iron Mask. This new edition is the only one in print and is fully annotated with an introduction that sets Dumas's saga in its historical and cultural context.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.]]> 658 Alexandre Dumas 0199538476 Jenni 3 read-finished-in-2012 4.02 The Vicomte de Bragelonne (The d'Artagnan Romances, #3.1)
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2012/04/24
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: read-finished-in-2012
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Louise de la Vallière (The d'Artagnan Romances, #3.3)]]> 6329053 Louise de la Valliere is the middle section of The Vicomte de Bragelonne, or, Ten Years After. Against a tender love story, Dumas continues the suspense which began with The Vicomte de Bragelonne and will end with The Man in the Iron Mask. Set during the reign of Louis XIV and filled with behind-the-scenes intrigue, the novel brings the aging Musketeers and d'Artagnan out of retirement to face an impending crisis within the royal court of France. This new edition of the classic English translation is richly annotated and places Dumas's invigorating tale in its historical and cultural context.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
"]]> 733 Alexandre Dumas 019953845X Jenni 4 read-finished-in-2012 3.77 1849 Louise de la Vallière (The d'Artagnan Romances, #3.3)
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1849
rating: 4
read at: 2012/09/22
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: read-finished-in-2012
review:
This one leaned more towards a complicated love story than a tale of adventure and intrigue like the those that came before. You get a taste here and there as to what Armis is up to but other than that the story focuses mainly on Louise de la Vallerie and the king. And of course d'artangan's artful hand is weaves through out. I much quicker read for me that twenty years after and le viscomte de bragleonne, but there were portions that dragged.
]]> <![CDATA[Blood of Dragons (Rain Wild Chronicles, #4)]]> 24427052
Dragons will fly over Kelsingra once more

Attacked by hunters, Tintaglia is dying of her wounds. If she perishes, her ancestral memories will die with her and the dragons in the ancient city of Kelsingra will lose the secret knowledge they need to survive.

The dragon keepers immerse themselves in the dangerously addictive memory-stone records of the city in the hope of recovering the lost Elderling magic that once allowed humans and dragons to co-exist.

But war is coming: war between dragons and those who would destroy them.]]> 535 Robin Hobb 0008154465 Jenni 5 4.07 2013 Blood of Dragons (Rain Wild Chronicles, #4)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2017/08/08
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[City of Dragons (Rain Wild Chronicles #3)]]> 26841446
The dragon keepers and fledgling dragons have discovered a route to the lost city of Kelsingra but there is one problem: they need to be able to fly to cross the treacherous waters and enter the fabled city. At first, only a few dragons are willing to try � the others are either too ashamed of their deformed wings and feeble muscles or too proud to risk failure and humiliation.

But the rewards waiting at Kelsingra for those brave enough to take to the air are worth more than they could possibly imagine. This was a city built for dragons and their keepers. Alise Finbok is overwhelmed by the treasures she finds there, and spends hours carefully uncovering wonder after wonder, recording her findings for posterity. She knows the knowledge will change everything the world thought about dragons and the Elderlings.

Yet rumours of the city’s discovery have floated down the Rain Wild River and reached envious ears in Bingtown and beyond. Adventurers, pirates and fortune hunters are coming in droves to pillage what they can from the city. Will the dragons, only just finding their strength, and their keepers, who are changing in their own mysterious ways, be able to fend them off?

And what has happened to Tintaglia, the dragon-mother who started it all? Has she really abandoned her offspring forever? Or will she too return to seek the riches of Kelsingra…]]> 425 Robin Hobb 0008154414 Jenni 5 3.97 2011 City of Dragons (Rain Wild Chronicles #3)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2017/07/27
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dragon Keeper (Rain Wild Chronicles #1)]]> 26841427
One of the most gifted fantasy authors writing today, New York Times bestselling author Robin Hobb has dazzled readers with brilliantly imaginative, emotionally resonant, and compulsively readable tales set in far-flung realms not unlike our own. In this enthralling new novel, she returns to the territory of her beloved Liveship Traders and Tawny Man trilogies with a story of dragons and humans, return and rebirth, and the search for meaning, belonging, and home.

For years, the Trader cities valiantly battled their enemies, the Chalcedeans. But they could not have staved off invasion without the powerful dragon Tintaglia. In return, the Traders promised to help her serpents migrate up the Rain Wild River after a long exile at sea--to find a safe haven and, Tintaglia hopes, to restore her species. But too much time has passed, and the newly hatched dragons are damaged and weak, and many die. The few who survive cannot use their wings; earthbound, they are powerless to hunt and vulnerable to human predators willing to kill them for the fabled healing powers of dragon flesh.

But Tintaglia has vanished and the Traders are weary of the labor and expense of tending useless dragons. The Trader leadership fears that if it stops providing for the young dragons, the hungry and neglected creatures will rampage--or die along the river's acidic muddy banks. To avert catastrophe, the dragons decree a move even farther up the treacherous river to Kelsingra, their ancient, mythical homeland whose mysterious location is locked deep within the dragons' uncertain ancestral memories.

To ensure their safe passage, the Traders recruit a disparate group of young people to care for the damaged creatures and escort them to their new home. Among them is Thymara, an unschooled forest girl of sixteen, and Alise, a wealthy Trader's wife trapped in a loveless marriage, who attaches herself to the expedition as a dragon expert. The two women share a deep kinship with the Thymara can instinctively communicate with them, and Alise, captivated by their beauty and majesty, has devoted her life to studying them.

Embarking on an arduous journey that holds no promise of return, the band of humans and dragons must make their way along the toxic and inhospitable Rain Wild River--an extraordinary odyssey that will teach them lessons about themselves and one another, as they experience hardships, betrayals, and joys beyond their wildest dreams.]]> 560 Robin Hobb 0008154392 Jenni 3 3.89 2009 Dragon Keeper (Rain Wild Chronicles #1)
author: Robin Hobb
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2017/07/15
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves:
review:
3.5 Stars on this one. It's still good, but it's a lot of setup and basically a series of pissing contests between a whole set of new character. I'm enjoying learning more about the dragons and I'm excited to see what this book has set up for us to learn in the next three
]]> Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3) 209668781
Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust.

Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything.

They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth.

But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.]]> 758 Rebecca Yarros 1649376944 Jenni 5 4.43 2025 Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves:
review:

]]> The Garden Party 37119750 'They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden-party if they had ordered it.'

A windless, warm day greets the Sheridan family on the day of their garden party. As daughter Laura takes the reins on party preparations the news of a neighbour's demise casts a cloud over the host and threatens the entire celebration.

The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.]]> 181 Katherine Mansfield 0241341647 Jenni 3 3.65 1921 The Garden Party
author: Katherine Mansfield
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1921
rating: 3
read at: 2019/07/31
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves:
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]]> Mansfield Park 15990657 'We have all been more or less to blame ... every one of us, excepting Fanny'

Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle's absence in Antigua, the Crawford's arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation. Mansfield Park is considered Jane Austen's first mature work and, with its quiet heroine and subtle examination of social position and moral integrity, one of her most profound.]]> 512 Jane Austen 0141199873 Jenni 4 3.70 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1814
rating: 4
read at: 2019/01/21
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands]]> 154629339 For fans of Piranesi and The Midnight Library, a stunning historical fantasy novel set on a grand express train, about a group of passengers on a dangerous journey across a magical landscape

It is said there is a price that every passenger must pay. A price beyond the cost of a ticket.

There is only one way to travel across the Wastelands: on the Trans-Siberian Express, a train as famous for its luxury as for its danger. The train is never short of passengers, eager to catch sight of Wastelands creatures more miraculous and terrifying than anything they could imagine. But on the train's last journey, something went horribly wrong, though no one seems to remember what exactly happened. Not even Zhang Weiwei, who has spent her life onboard and thought she knew all of the train’s secrets.

Now, the train is about to embark again, with a new set of passengers. Among them are Marya Petrovna, a grieving woman with a borrowed name; Henry Grey, a disgraced naturalist looking for redemption; and Elena, a beguiling stowaway with a powerful connection to the Wastelands itself. Weiwei knows she should report Elena, but she can’t help but be drawn to her. As the girls begin a forbidden friendship, there are warning signs that the rules of the Wastelands are changing and the train might once again be imperiled. Can the passengers trust each other, as the wildness outside threatens to consume them all?]]> 310 Sarah Brooks Jenni 3 3.99 2024 The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands
author: Sarah Brooks
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/18
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves:
review:

]]> Starter Villain 62326571 Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place.

Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 264 John Scalzi 0765389231 Jenni 4 4.31 2023 Starter Villain
author: John Scalzi
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/02
date added: 2024/11/02
shelves:
review:

]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Jenni 5 4.16 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/25
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Wild Robot (The Wild Robot, #1)]]> 28436714
Heartwarming and full of action, Peter Brown's middle-grade debut raises thought-provoking questions about the environment, the role technology plays in our world, and what it means to be alive.
]]> 288 Peter Brown Jenni 4 4.46 2016 The Wild Robot (The Wild Robot, #1)
author: Peter Brown
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/20
date added: 2024/10/20
shelves:
review:

]]> A Thousand Ships 48768043 This was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of all of them�

In the middle of the night, Creusa wakes to find her beloved Troy engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of brutal conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over, and the Greeks are victorious. Over the next few hours, the only life she has ever known will turn to ash...

The devastating consequences of the fall of Troy stretch from Mount Olympus to Mount Ida, from the citadel of Troy to the distant Greek islands, and across oceans and sky in between. These are the stories of the women embroiled in that legendary war and its terrible aftermath, as well as the feud and the fatal decisions that started it all�

Powerfully told from an all-female perspective, A Thousand Ships gives voices to the women, girls and goddesses who, for so long, have been silent.]]> 348 Natalie Haynes 1509836217 Jenni 5 4.09 2019 A Thousand Ships
author: Natalie Haynes
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2020/12/31
date added: 2024/10/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Last Boyfriends Rules for Revenge]]> 198705880
Ezra Hayes has always felt like a background character compared to BFFs Lucas and Finley. He would do anything to be seen as a romantic lead, even if it means keeping a secret summer boyfriend, Presley. But when he discovers that Presley is a lying cheater, and his best friends are having boy problems of their own, they want revenge.

Their plans to get even involve sabotaging the largest party of the year, entering a drag competition, and having Ezra run against his ex for Winter Formal King. Then the school district starts to actively censor queer voices with their Watch What You Say initiative. Taking to TikTok to vent frustrations, Ezra begins “The Last Boyfriends Student Rebellion.�

Between ex-boyfriend drama and navigating viral TikTok fame, Ezra realizes this rebellion is about something more important than revenge. It’s a battle cry to fight back against outdated opinions and redefine what it means to be queer in a small town.]]> 368 Matthew Hubbard 0593707192 Jenni 4 4.40 2024 The Last Boyfriends Rules for Revenge
author: Matthew Hubbard
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/18
date added: 2024/08/18
shelves:
review:

]]> The Kudzu Queen 79329796 320 Mimi Herman 1646033116 Jenni 4 4.21 2023 The Kudzu Queen
author: Mimi Herman
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/13
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)]]> 333424
While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others.

In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret -- and an explosive historical truth -- will be lost forever.]]> 16 Dan Brown 0739313126 Jenni 4 3.77 2003 The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)
author: Dan Brown
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2004/11/01
date added: 2024/08/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hum If You Don't Know the Words]]> 28264701 Perfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy.

Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a ten-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred...until the Soweto Uprising, in which a protest by black students ignites racial conflict, alters the fault lines on which their society is built, and shatters their worlds when Robin’s parents are left dead and Beauty’s daughter goes missing.

After Robin is sent to live with her loving but irresponsible aunt, Beauty is hired to care for Robin while continuing the search for her daughter. In Beauty, Robin finds the security and family that she craves, and the two forge an inextricable bond through their deep personal losses. But Robin knows that if Beauty finds her daughter, Robin could lose her new caretaker forever, so she makes a desperate decision with devastating consequences. Her quest to make amends and find redemption is a journey of self-discovery in which she learns the harsh truths of the society that once promised her protection.

Told through Beauty and Robin's alternating perspectives, the interwoven narratives create a rich and complex tapestry of the emotions and tensions at the heart of Apartheid-era South Africa. Hum If You Don’t Know the Words is a beautifully rendered look at loss, racism, and the creation of family.]]> 432 Bianca Marais 0399575073 Jenni 5 4.24 2017 Hum If You Don't Know the Words
author: Bianca Marais
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2017/09/15
date added: 2024/08/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Twenty Years After (The D'Artagnan Romances, #2)]]> 6380015 The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas produced a sequel worthy in every respect of the original. In Twenty Years After the much beloved D'Artaganan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis reunite to fight the forces of evil. In the original novel they defeated Milady, a formidable foe; now they need to face her vengeful son Mordaunt, as well as countering the machinations of the sinister Cardinal Mazarin. Their adventures also take them to England, where Cromwell is about to topple Charles I. Meanwhile, they must overcome the obstacles which the passing of time has placed between them. Rediscovering strength in unity, they fight for Queen and country.

The Musketeer novels were a huge success in Dumas' own lifetime, and have lost none of their original appeal. Translated into many languages and adapted for cinema and television, they have helped to make Dumas arguably the most successful exporter of French culture to the wider world.]]> 686 Alexandre Dumas 1840221631 Jenni 3 read-finished-in-2011 4.17 1845 Twenty Years After (The D'Artagnan Romances, #2)
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1845
rating: 3
read at: 2011/10/20
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: read-finished-in-2011
review:
I enjoyed this book, but not nearly as much as the three musketeers. While the characters are of course rich and interesting there were spans of the book that felt like they dragged on. In true Dumas style, however, everything has meaning and it was very interesting to see the events of the three musketeers still playing out their effects 20 years later... Even down to the last page.
]]> Dinosaurs 58706017 A Children’s Bible (“a blistering little classic”—Ron Charles, Washington Post), tells the story of an Arizona man’s relationship with the family next door, whose house has one wall made entirely out of glass. The story delivers attraction and love, friendship and grief. But Millet also evokes the uncanny. Through close observation of human and animal life in the desert, she captures the daunting scale of human society without losing sight of the real difference one person can make in the world. Written with humor and benevolence, Dinosaurs asks big questions. Can a person be good? Can a man be good? Compellingly told, emotionally moving, intellectually rich, Dinosaurs may be Millet’s finest novel yet.]]> 240 Lydia Millet 1324021470 Jenni 4 3.99 2022 Dinosaurs
author: Lydia Millet
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/03
date added: 2024/08/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles (The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti, #2)]]> 126918676 Investigator Mossa and Scholar Pleiti reunite to solve a brand-new mystery in the follow-up to the fan-favorite cozy space opera detective mystery The Mimicking of Known Successes that Hugo Award-winning author Charlie Jane Anders called “an utter triumph.�

Mossa has returned to Valdegeld on a missing person’s case, for which she’ll once again need Pleiti’s insight.

Seventeen students and staff members have disappeared from Valdegeld University—yet no one has noticed. The answers to this case could be found in the outer reaches of the Jovian system—Mossa’s home—and the history of Jupiter’s original settlements. But Pleiti’s faith in her life’s work as scholar of the past has grown precarious, and this new case threatens to further destabilize her dreams for humanity’s future, as well as her own.]]> 200 Malka Ann Older Jenni 3 4.18 2024 The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles (The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti, #2)
author: Malka Ann Older
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/06
date added: 2024/06/06
shelves:
review:

]]> River East, River West 128201223 Set against the backdrop of developing modern China, this mesmerizing literary debut is part coming-of-age tale, part family and social drama, as it follows two generations searching for belonging and opportunity in a rapidly changing world.

Shanghai, 2007: Fourteen-year-old Alva has always longed for more. Raised by her American expat mother, she’s never known her Chinese father, and she is certain a better life awaits them in America. But when her mother announces her engagement to their wealthy Chinese landlord, Lu Fang, Alva’s hopes are dashed. She plots for the next best thing: the American School in Shanghai. Upon admission, though, Alva is surprised to discover an institution run by an exclusive community of expats and the ever-wilder thrills of a city where foreigners can ostensibly act as they please.

1985: In the seaside city of Qingdao, Lu Fang is a young married man and a lowly clerk in a shipping yard. Although he once dreamed of a bright future, he is now one of many casualties in his country’s harsh political reforms. So when China opens its doors to the first wave of foreigners in decades, Lu Fang’s world is split wide open after he meets an American woman who makes him confront difficult questions about his current status in life and how much will ever be enough.

In a stunning reversal of the east-to-west immigrant narrative and set against China’s political history and economic rise, River East, River West is an intimate family drama and a sharp social novel. Alternating between Alva and Lu Fang’s points of view, this is a profoundly moving exploration of race and class, cultural identity and belonging, and the often-false promise of the American Dream.]]> 348 Aube Rey Lescure 0063257874 Jenni 4 4.07 2024 River East, River West
author: Aube Rey Lescure
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/16
date added: 2024/05/16
shelves:
review:

]]> Western Lane 60827698
A taut, enthralling first novel about grief, sisterhood, and a young athlete’s struggle to transcend herself.

Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket. When her mother dies, her father enlists her in a quietly brutal training regimen, and the game becomes her world. Slowly, she grows apart from her sisters. Her life is reduced to the sport, guided by its the serve, the volley, the drive, the shot and its echo.

But on the court, she is not alone. She is with her pa. She is with Ged, a thirteen-year-old boy with his own formidable talent. She is with the players who have come before her. She is in awe.

An indelible coming-of-age story, Chetna Maroo’s first novel captures the ordinary and annihilates it with beauty. Western Lane is a valentine to innocence, to the closeness of sisterhood, to the strange ways we come to know ourselves and each other.]]> 149 Chetna Maroo 0374607508 Jenni 4 3.82 2023 Western Lane
author: Chetna Maroo
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/11
date added: 2024/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]> Land of Milk and Honey 125072098 The award-winning author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold returns with a rapturous and revelatory novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world

A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world’s troubles.

There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global elite, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her own body.

In this atmosphere of hidden wonders and cool, seductive violence, the chef’s boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion. Soon she is pushed to the center of a startling attempt to reshape the world far beyond the plate.

Sensuous and surprising, joyous and bitingly sharp, told in language as alluring as it is original, Land of Milk and Honey lays provocatively bare the ethics of seeking pleasure in a dying world. It is a daringly imaginative exploration of desire and deception, privilege and faith, and the roles we play to survive. Most of all, it is a love letter to food, to wild delight, and to the transformative power of a woman embracing her own appetite.]]> 240 C Pam Zhang 0593538269 Jenni 5 3.68 2023 Land of Milk and Honey
author: C Pam Zhang
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/11
date added: 2024/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ăngeles y Demonios (Robert Langdon, #1)]]> 966
La eterna pugna entre ciencia y religiĂłn se ha convertido en una guerra muy real.

En un laboratorio de máxima seguridad, aparece asesinado un científico con un extraño símbolo grabado a fuego en su pecho. Para el profesor Robert Langdon no hay los Illuminati, los hombres enfrentados a la Iglesia desde los tiempos de Galileo, han regresado. Y esta vez disponen de la más mortífera arma que ha creado la humanidad, un artefacto con el que pueden ganar la batalla final contra su eterno enemigo. Acompañado de una joven científica y un audaz capitán de la Guardia Suiza, Langdon comienza una carrera contra reloj, en una búsqueda desesperada por los rincones más secretos de El Vaticano. Necesitará todo su conocimiento para descifrar las claves ocultas que los Illuminati han dejado a través de los siglos en manuscritos y templos, y todo su coraje para vencer al despiadado asesino que siempre parece llevarle la delantera.

El autor de El CĂłdigo Da Vinci nos arrastra a una espiral de acciĂłn sin pausa, un impactante thriller donde se suceden las sorpresas y se revelan algunos de los más oscuros enigmas de la historia. Fuerzas que han permanecido ocultas durante siglos y que ahora planean destruir la Iglesia... literalmente.]]> 10 Dan Brown 0972859896 Jenni 4 3.65 2000 Ăngeles y Demonios (Robert Langdon, #1)
author: Dan Brown
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2005/01/01
date added: 2024/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]> That Mad Ache 5547739 That Mad Ache, set in high-society Paris in the mid-1960’s, recounts the emotional battle unleashed in the heart of Lucile, a sensitive but rootless young woman who finds herself caught between her carefree, tranquil love for 50-year-old Charles, a gentle, reflective, and well-off businessman, and her sudden wild passion for 30-year-old Antoine, a hot-blooded, impulsive, and struggling editor. As Lucile explores these two versions of love, she vacillates in confusion, but in the end she must choose, and her heart’s instinct is surprising and poignant. Originally published under the title La Chamade, this new translation by Douglas Hofstadter returns a forgotten classic to English.

In Translator, Trader, Douglas Hofstadter reflects on his personal act of devotion in rewriting Françoise Sagan’s novel La Chamade in English, and on the paradoxes that constantly plague any literary translator on all scales, ranging from the humblest of commas to entire chapters. Flatly rejecting the common wisdom that translators are inevitably traitors, Hofstadter proposes instead that translators are traders, and that translation, like musical performance, deserves high respect as a creative act. In his view, literary translation is the art of making subtle trades in which one sometimes loses and sometimes gains, often both losing and gaining at the same time. This view implies that there is no reason a translation cannot be as good as the original work, and that the result inevitably bears the stamp of the translator, much as a musical performance inevitably bears the stamp of its artists. Both a companion to the beloved Sagan novel and a singular meditation on translation, Translator, Trader is a witty and intimate exploration of words, ideas, communication, creation, and faithfulness.]]> 311 Françoise Sagan Jenni 3 3.96 1965 That Mad Ache
author: Françoise Sagan
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1965
rating: 3
read at: 2018/08/24
date added: 2024/01/04
shelves:
review:
Didn’t read the translators essay, so this is only for the novel.
]]> <![CDATA[The Golem and the Jinni (The Golem and the Jinni, #1)]]> 18148202
Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic and dies at sea on the voyage from Poland. Chava is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York harbor in 1899.

Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert, trapped in an old copper flask, and released in New York City, though still not entirely free.

Ahmad and Chava become unlikely friends and soul mates with a mystical connection. Marvelous and compulsively readable, Helene Wecker's debut novel The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical fable, into a wondrously inventive and unforgettable tale.]]> 484 Helene Wecker 0062110845 Jenni 5 read-finished-in-2015 4.20 2013 The Golem and the Jinni (The Golem and the Jinni, #1)
author: Helene Wecker
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/01/02
shelves: read-finished-in-2015
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent]]> 638399 320 Anthony Rapp 0743269764 Jenni 3 read-finished-in-2015
This is definitely a story about two things mainly. His experiences surrounding RENT and his relationship with his mom and the time surrounding her death. I really striking picture of grief for sure. And the chapter about Johnathan Larson's death was just about the most heartbreaking thing I've read in a long time.

Not a must read, even for RENTheads.]]> 4.02 2006 Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent
author: Anthony Rapp
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2015/04/13
date added: 2023/11/17
shelves: read-finished-in-2015
review:
I don't know what to say about this book. I liked parts of it a great deal. I really enjoyed the parts about RENT, which I think was always my biggest reason for wanting to read this. And I did think it was a great real life perspective on many LGBTQ issues, but over all I just didn't find Anthony to be likable. Which is interesting considering I have actually met the guy and he's very funny and nice, and genuinely cares about his fans.

This is definitely a story about two things mainly. His experiences surrounding RENT and his relationship with his mom and the time surrounding her death. I really striking picture of grief for sure. And the chapter about Johnathan Larson's death was just about the most heartbreaking thing I've read in a long time.

Not a must read, even for RENTheads.
]]> <![CDATA[The Beekeeper's Apprentice (Mary Russell, #1)]]> 1024275 An Agatha Award Best Novel Nominee
Named One of the Century's Best 100 Mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association

From New York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King comes the book that introduced us to the ingenious Mary Russell–Sherlock Holmes mysteries

In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees in Sussex when a young woman literally stumbles into his lap on the Sussex downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern twentieth-century woman proves a deft protégée, and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective. This first book of the Mary Russell–Sherlock Holmes mysteries is full of brilliant deduction, disguises, and danger.]]> 346 Laurie R. King 0312427360 Jenni 5 3.92 1994 The Beekeeper's Apprentice (Mary Russell, #1)
author: Laurie R. King
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1994
rating: 5
read at: 2020/11/04
date added: 2023/08/02
shelves:
review:

]]> One Hundred Shadows 30967023
An oblique, hard-edged novel tinged with offbeat fantasy, One Hundred Shadows is set in a slum electronics market in central Seoul â€� an area earmarked for demolition in a city better known for its shiny skyscrapers and slick pop videos. Here, the awkward, tentative relationship between Eungyo and Mujae, who both dropped out of formal education to work as repair-shop assistants, is made yet more uncertain by their economic circumstances, while their matter-of-fact discussion of a strange recent development â€� the shadows of the slum’s inhabitants have started to â€riseâ€� â€� leaves the reader to make up their own mind as to the nature of this shape-shifting tale.

Hwang’s spare prose is illuminated by arresting images, quirky dialogue and moments of great lyricism, crafting a deeply affecting novel of perfectly calibrated emotional restraint. Known for her interest in social minorities, Hwang eschews the dreary realism usually employed for such issues, without her social criticism being any less keen. As well as an important contribution to contemporary working-class literature, One Hundred Shadows depicts the little-known underside of a society which can be viciously superficial, complicating the shiny, ultra-modern face which South Korea presents to the world.]]> 147 Hwang Jungeun 1911284029 Jenni 4 3.60 2010 One Hundred Shadows
author: Hwang Jungeun
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2017/04/02
date added: 2023/07/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Archive Undying (The Downworld Sequence, #1)]]> 61885010 The Archive Undying, national bestseller Emma Mieko Candon's bold entry into the world of mecha fiction.

WHEN AN AI DIES, ITS CITY DIES WITH IT
WHEN A CITY FALLS, IT LEAVES A CORPSE BEHIND
WHEN THAT CORPSE RUNS OFF, ONLY DEVOTION CAN BRING IT BACK

When the robotic god of Khuon Mo went mad, it destroyed everything it touched. It killed its priests, its city, and all its wondrous works. But in its final death throes, the god brought one thing back to its favorite child, Sunai. For the seventeen years since, Sunai has walked the land like a ghost, unable to die, unable to age, and unable to forget the horrors he's seen. He's run as far as he can from the wreckage of his faith, drowning himself in drink, drugs, and men. But when Sunai wakes up in the bed of the one man he never should have slept with, he finds himself on a path straight back into the world of gods and machines.

The Archive Undying is the first volume of Emma Mieko Candon's Downworld Sequence, a sci-fi series where AI deities and brutal police states clash, wielding giant robots steered by pilot-priests with corrupted bodies.

Come get in the robot.]]> 496 Emma Mieko Candon 1250821541 Jenni 0 to-read 3.32 2023 The Archive Undying (The Downworld Sequence, #1)
author: Emma Mieko Candon
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna's Counsel in Time of War]]> 91233 The Bhagavad-Gita has been an essential text of Hindu culture in India since the time of its composition in the first century A.D. One of the great classics of world literature, it has inspired such diverse thinkers as Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, and T.S. Eliot; most recently, it formed the core of Peter Brook's celebrated production of the Mahabharata.]]> 176 Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa 0553213652 Jenni 3 4.03 -400 The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna's Counsel in Time of War
author: Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.03
book published: -400
rating: 3
read at: 2004/11/01
date added: 2022/11/26
shelves:
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]]> Running 49484935 When fifteen-year-old Cuban American Mariana Ruiz’s father runs for president, Mari starts to see him with new eyes. A novel about waking up and standing up, and what happens when you stop seeing your dad as your hero—while the whole country is watching.

In this thoughtful, authentic, humorous, and gorgeously written novel about privacy, waking up, and speaking up, Senator Anthony Ruiz is running for president. Throughout his successful political career he has always had his daughter’s vote, but a presidential campaign brings a whole new level of scrutiny to sheltered fifteen-year-old Mariana and the rest of her Cuban American family, from a 60 Minutes–style tour of their house to tabloids doctoring photos and inventing scandals. As tensions rise within the Ruiz family, Mari begins to learn about the details of her father’s political positions, and she realizes that her father is not the man she thought he was.

But how do you find your voice when everyone’s watching? When it means disagreeing with your father—publicly? What do you do when your dad stops being your hero? Will Mari get a chance to confront her father? If she does, will she have the courage to seize it?]]> 336 Natalia Sylvester 0358124352 Jenni 0 to-read 4.00 2020 Running
author: Natalia Sylvester
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> Some Girls Do 56692357 Hot Dog Girl, an openly gay track star falls for a closeted, bisexual teen beauty queen with a penchant for fixing up old cars.

Morgan, an elite track athlete, is forced to transfer high schools late in her senior year after it turns out being queer is against her private Catholic school's code of conduct. There, she meets Ruby, who has two hobbies: tinkering with her baby blue 1970 Ford Torino and competing in local beauty pageants, the latter to live out the dreams of her overbearing mother. The two are drawn to each other and can't deny their growing feelings. But while Morgan—out and proud, and determined to have a fresh start—doesn't want to have to keep their budding relationship a secret, Ruby isn't ready to come out yet. With each girl on a different path toward living her truth, can they go the distance together?]]> 336 Jennifer Dugan Jenni 0 to-read 3.69 2021 Some Girls Do
author: Jennifer Dugan
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Feeling of Falling in Love]]> 58719208 From the bestselling author of I Wish You All the Best, comes a new kind of love story, about the bad decisions we sometimes make... and the people who help get us back on the right path.

Perfect for fans of Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston and What If It's Us by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli.

Just days before spring break, Neil Kearney is set to fly across the country with his childhood friend (and current friend-with-benefits) Josh, to attend his brother's wedding—until Josh tells Neil that he's in love with him and Neil doesn't return the sentiment.

With Josh still attending the wedding, Neil needs to find a new date to bring along. And, almost against his will, roommate Wyatt is drafted.

At first, Wyatt (correctly) thinks Neil is acting like a jerk. But when they get to LA, Wyatt sees a little more of where it's coming from. Slowly, Neil and Wyatt begin to understand one another� and maybe, just maybe, fall in love for the first time…]]> 343 Mason Deaver 1338777661 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.77 2022 The Feeling of Falling in Love
author: Mason Deaver
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
review:

]]> The Illusion (Animorphs, #33) 302871
Now what? The Animorphs and Ax realize they have to get rid of the device—or be captured by the Yeerks. And the risk of getting caught is very high. That's when Tobias comes up with the only possible plan. Someone has to acquire Ax. . . .]]> 156 K.A. Applegate 0439070333 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.97 1999 The Illusion (Animorphs, #33)
author: K.A. Applegate
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
review:

]]> The Mutation (Animorphs, #36) 363360
Jake, the other Animorphs, and Ax acquire additional deep-sea morphs in order to stop the visser's plan. But while trying to destroy the Yeerk ship, the kids make a startling discovery: an underwater civilization. Have the kids discovered Atlantis . . . or is it just another trap?]]> 142 K.A. Applegate 0439106753 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.60 1999 The Mutation (Animorphs, #36)
author: K.A. Applegate
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)]]> 20518872 472 Liu Cixin Jenni 0 physical-tbr 4.08 2006 The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)
author: Liu Cixin
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Unexpected (Animorphs, #44)]]> 343182
Cassie doesn't have any idea where she's going, or if she can even survive the rugged terrain. But she does know she has to get to a town or village and contact her family and friends. Because she just realized that there's someone else who is also new to the Outback.

Visser Three.]]> 160 K.A. Applegate 0439115183 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.61 2000 The Unexpected (Animorphs, #44)
author: K.A. Applegate
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Beginning (Animorphs, #54)]]> 125344
But those days are over.

It's come down to the final battle between the Yeerks and Animorphs. And no one knows who will win, lose, or live. . . .]]> 176 K.A. Applegate 0439115280 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 4.04 2001 The Beginning (Animorphs, #54)
author: K.A. Applegate
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
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]]> The Proposal (Animorphs, #35) 363393
Meanwhile, the Animorphs and Ax have other things to worry about. It seems the Yeerks are trying harder than ever to get people into The Sharing. Now the kids have to find a way to slow down recruitment. But Marco's personal stress is causing him to morph into creatures that don't exist. Creatures the Yeerks are sure to notice . . . and attack. . . .]]> 147 K.A. Applegate 043907035X Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.72 1999 The Proposal (Animorphs, #35)
author: K.A. Applegate
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
review:

]]> The Weakness (Animorphs, #37) 125336
But there's no assigned leader. Now Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, Marco, and Ax have another problem: Who will be the best one for the job? Because being in charge isn't just guts and glory. It's about making decisions that will mean the difference between life . . . and death.]]> 144 K.A. Applegate 0439106761 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.51 2000 The Weakness (Animorphs, #37)
author: K.A. Applegate
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Visser (Animorphs Chronicles, #3)]]> 343187 208 K.A. Applegate 0439226775 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 4.16 1999 Visser (Animorphs Chronicles, #3)
author: K.A. Applegate
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Shards of Earth (The Final Architecture, #1)]]> 55278507 The Arthur C. Clarke award-winning author of Children of Time brings us an extraordinary space opera about humanity on the brink of extinction, and how one man's discovery will save or destroy us all.

The war is over. Its heroes forgotten. Until one chance discovery . . .

Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war. And one of humanity's heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers.

After earth was destroyed, mankind created a fighting elite to save their species, enhanced humans such as Idris. In the silence of space they could communicate, mind-to-mind, with the enemy. Then their alien aggressors, the Architects, simply disappeared—and Idris and his kind became obsolete.

Now, fifty years later, Idris and his crew have discovered something strange abandoned in space. It's clearly the work of the Architects—but are they returning? And if so, why? Hunted by gangsters, cults and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy hunting for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value, that many would kill to obtain.]]> Adrian Tchaikovsky 1549106392 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 4.09 2021 Shards of Earth (The Final Architecture, #1)
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
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]]> <![CDATA[My Autobiography of Carson McCullers: A Memoir]]> 50491301 My Autobiography of Carson McCullers is an audacious new form of nonfiction that remakes the boundaries between criticism, biography, and autobiography in search of two identities.


While working as an intern in the archives at the Harry Ransom Center, Jenn Shapland encounters the love letters of Carson and a woman named Annemarie—letters are that are tender, intimate, and unabashed in their feelings. Shapland recognizes herself in the letters� language—but does not see Carson as history has portrayed her.


And so, Shapland is compelled to undertake a recovery of the full narrative and language of Carson's life: She wades through the therapy transcripts; she stays at Carson’s childhood home, where she lounges in her bathtub and eats delivery pizza; she relives Carson’s days at her beloved Yaddo. As Shapland reckons with the expanding and collapsing distance between her and Carson, she sees the way Carson’s story has become a way to articulate something about herself. The results articulate something entirely new not only about this one remarkable, walleyed life, but about the way we tell queer love stories.


In genre-defying vignettes, Jenn Shapland interweaves her own story with Carson McCullers’s to create a vital new portrait of one of America’s most beloved writers, and shows us how the writers we love and the stories we tell about ourselves make us who we are.  

]]> 285 Jenn Shapland 1947793292 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 4.05 2020 My Autobiography of Carson McCullers: A Memoir
author: Jenn Shapland
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
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]]> Do You Dream of Terra-Two? 35436043
Have you ever hoped you could leave everything behind?
Have you ever dreamt of a better world?
Can a dream sustain a lifetime?

A century ago, an astronomer discovered an Earth-like planet orbiting a nearby star. She predicted that one day humans would travel there to build a utopia. Today, ten astronauts are leaving everything behind to find it. Four are veterans of the twentieth century’s space-race.

And six are teenagers who’ve trained for this mission most of their lives.

It will take the team twenty-three years to reach Terra-Two. Twenty-three years locked in close quarters. Twenty-three years with no one to rely on but each other. Twenty-three years with no rescue possible, should something go wrong.

And something always goes wrong.]]> 520 Temi Oh Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.61 2019 Do You Dream of Terra-Two?
author: Temi Oh
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
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]]> Diary of a Young Naturalist 48853063
These vivid, evocative and moving diary entries about his connection to wildlife and the way he sees the world are raw in their telling.

"I was diagnosed with Asperger's/autism aged five ... By age seven I knew I was very different, I had got used to the isolation, my inability to break through into the world of talking about football or Minecraft was not tolerated. Then came the bullying. Nature became so much more than an escape; it became a life-support system." Diary of a Young Naturalist portrays Dara's intense connection to the natural world, and his perspective as a teenager juggling exams and friendships alongside a life of campaigning. "In writing this book," Dara explains, "I have experienced challenges but also felt incredible joy, wonder, curiosity and excitement. In sharing this journey my hope is that people of all generations will not only understand autism a little more but also appreciate a child's eye view on our delicate and changing biosphere."]]> 224 Dara McAnulty 1908213795 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 4.25 2020 Diary of a Young Naturalist
author: Dara McAnulty
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
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]]> <![CDATA[Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line]]> 18142414
Told in second-person narrative, Sous Chef is an immersive, adrenaline-fueled run that offers a fly-on-the-wall perspective on the food service industry, allowing readers to briefly inhabit the hidden world behind the kitchen doors, in real time. This exhilarating account provides regular diners and food enthusiasts alike a detailed insider’s perspective, while offering fledgling professional cooks an honest picture of what the future holds, ultimately giving voice to the hard work and dedication around which chefs have built their careers.

In a kitchen where the highest standards are upheld and one misstep can result in disaster, Sous Chef conjures a greater appreciation for the thought, care, and focus that go into creating memorable and delicious fare. With grit, wit, and remarkable prose, Michael Gibney renders a beautiful and raw account of this demanding and sometimes overlooked profession, offering a nuanced perspective on the craft and art of food and service.]]> 240 Michael Gibney 0804177872 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.60 2014 Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line
author: Michael Gibney
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
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]]> A Snake Falls to Earth 56036276
Oli is a cottonmouth kid, from the land of spirits and monsters. Like all cottonmouths, he's been cast from home. He's found a new one on the banks of the bottomless lake.

Nina and Oli have no idea the other exists. But a catastrophic event on Earth, and a strange sickness that befalls Oli's best friend, will drive their worlds together in ways they haven't been in centuries.

And there are some who will kill to keep them apart.

Darcie Little Badger introduced herself to the world with Elatsoe. In A Snake Falls to Earth, she draws on traditional Lipan Apache storytelling structure to weave another unforgettable tale of monsters, magic, and family. It is not to be missed.]]> 377 Darcie Little Badger Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.90 2021 A Snake Falls to Earth
author: Darcie Little Badger
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
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]]> <![CDATA[The Women of Troy (Women of Troy, #2)]]> 55440232 A daring and timely feminist retelling of The Iliad from the perspective of the women of Troy who endured it—an extraordinary follow up to The Silence of the Girls from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy.

Troy has fallen and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless war—including the women of Troy themselves. They await a fair wind for the Aegean.

It does not come, because the gods are offended. The body of King Priam lies unburied and desecrated, and so the victors remain in suspension, camped in the shadows of the city they destroyed as the coalition that held them together begins to unravel. Old feuds resurface and new suspicions and rivalries begin to fester.

Largely unnoticed by her captors, the one time Trojan queen Briseis, formerly Achilles's slave, now belonging to his companion Alcimus, quietly takes in these developments. She forges alliances when she can, with Priam's aged wife the defiant Hecuba and with the disgraced soothsayer Calchas, all the while shrewdly seeking her path to revenge.]]> 307 Pat Barker 0385546696 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.81 2021 The Women of Troy (Women of Troy, #2)
author: Pat Barker
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
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]]> Greek Myths: A New Retelling 56246237 Charlotte Higgins reinterprets some of the most enduring stories of all time in this beautifully produced, spellbinding new collection, featuring original artworks by Chris Ofili.

Here are myths of the creation, of Heracles and Theseus and Perseus, the Trojan war and its origins and aftermaths, tales of Thebes and Argos and Athens. There are stories of love and desire, adventure and magic, destructive gods, helpless humans, fantastical creatures, resourceful witches and the origins of birds and animals. This is a world of extremes, and one that resonates deeply with our own: mysterious diseases devastate cities; environmental disasters tear lives apart; women habitually suffer violence at the hands of men.

Unlike in many previous collected myths, female characters take centre stage - Athena, Helen, Circe, Penelope and others weave these stories into elaborate imagined tapestries. In Charlotte Higgins's thrilling new interpretation, their tales combine to form a dazzling, sweeping epic of storytelling, and a magnificent work of scholarship and imagination.

'Startlingly fresh... This excellent book should delight many generations of story lovers to come.' Guardian]]> 336 Charlotte Higgins 1787331652 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.83 2021 Greek Myths: A New Retelling
author: Charlotte Higgins
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.83
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]]> Tarnished Are the Stars 43319680 The Lunar Chronicles meets Rook in this queer #OwnVoices science-fantasy novel, perfect for fans of Marissa Meyer and Sharon Cameron.

A secret beats inside Anna Thatcher's chest: an illegal clockwork heart. Anna works cog by cog -- donning the moniker Technician -- to supply black market medical technology to the sick and injured, against the Commissioner's tyrannical laws.

Nathaniel Fremont, the Commissioner's son, has never had to fear the law. Determined to earn his father's respect, Nathaniel sets out to capture the Technician. But the more he learns about the outlaw, the more he questions whether his father's elusive affection is worth chasing at all.

Their game of cat and mouse takes an abrupt turn when Eliza, a skilled assassin and spy, arrives. Her mission is to learn the Commissioner's secrets at any cost -- even if it means betraying her own heart.

When these uneasy allies discover the most dangerous secret of all, they must work together despite their differences and put an end to a deadly epidemic -- before the Commissioner ends them first.]]> 372 Rosiee Thor 1338312278 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.72 2019 Tarnished Are the Stars
author: Rosiee Thor
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2019
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]]> Daughters of Sparta 57423631 For millennia, men have told the legend of the woman whose face launched a thousand ships--but now it's time to hear her side of the story. Daughters of Sparta is a tale of secrets, love, and tragedy from the women behind mythology's most devastating war, the infamous Helen and her sister Klytemnestra.

As princesses of Sparta, Helen and Klytemnestra have known nothing but luxury and plenty. With their high birth and unrivaled beauty, they are the envy of all of Greece. But such privilege comes at a cost. While still only girls, the sisters are separated and married to foreign kings of their father's choosing--the powerful Agamemnon, and his brother Menelaos. Yet even as Queens, each is only expected to do two things: birth an heir and embody the meek, demure nature that is expected of women.

But when the weight of their husbands' neglect, cruelty, and ambition becomes too heavy to bear, Helen and Klytemnestra must push against the constraints of their society to carve new lives for themselves, and in doing so, make waves that will ripple throughout the next three thousand years.

Daughters of Sparta is a vivid and illuminating reimagining of the Siege of Troy, told through the perspectives of two women whose voices have been ignored for far too long.

Required reading for fans of Circe, and a remarkable, thrilling debut.
--Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue

"[A] gorgeous retelling of the classic Greek myth... Absolutely riveting!"
--Alka Joshi, New York Times bestselling author of The Henna Artist]]> 370 Claire Heywood 0593184378 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.86 2021 Daughters of Sparta
author: Claire Heywood
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]]> The Travelers 42732513
Claudia’s mother—Agnes Miller Christie—is a beautiful African American woman who survives a chance encounter on a Georgia road that propels her into a new life in the Bronx. Soon after, her husband, Eddie Christie, is called to duty on an air craft carrier in Vietnam, where Tom Stoppard’s play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead� becomes Eddie’s life anchor, as he grapples with mounting racial tensions on the ship and counts the days until he will see Agnes again.

These unforgettable characters� lives intersect with a cast of lovers and friends—the unapologetic black lesbian who finds her groove in 1970s Berlin; a moving man stranded in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, during a Thanksgiving storm; two half-brothers who meet as adults in a crayon factory; and a Coney Island waitress whose Prince Charming is too good to be true.

With piercing humor, exacting dialogue, and a beautiful sense of place, Regina Porter’s debut is both an intimate family portrait and a sweeping exploration of what it means to be American today.]]> 297 Regina Porter 0525576215 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.60 2019 The Travelers
author: Regina Porter
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.60
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]]> <![CDATA[Worlds of Exile and Illusion: Rocannon’s World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions (Hainish Cycle, #1-3)]]> 67999
Contents:
Rocannon's World [Hainish] (1966) / novel by Ursula K. Le Guin: A world shared by three native humanoid races, the cavern-dwelling Gdemiar, elvish Fiia, and warrior clan Liuar, is suddenly invaded and conquered by a fleet of ships from the stars. Earth scientist Rocannon is on that world, and he sees his friends murdered and his spaceship destroyed. Marooned among alien peoples, he leads the battle to free this new world -- and finds that legends grow around him even as he fights.
Planet of Exile [Hainish] (1966) / novel by Ursula K. Le Guin: The Earth colony of Landin has been stranded on Werel for ten years, and ten of Werel's years are over 600 terrestrial years. The lonely & dwindling human settlement is beginning to feel the strain. Every winter, a season that lasts for 15 years, the Earthmen have neighbors: the humanoid hilfs, a nomadic people who only settle down for the cruel cold spell. The hilfs fear the Earthmen, whom they think of as witches and call the farborns. But hilfs & farborns have common enemies: the hordes of ravaging barbarians called gaals and eerie preying snow ghouls. Will they join forces or be annihilated?
City of Illusions [Hainish] (1967) / novel by Ursula K. Le Guin: He was a fully grown man, alone in dense forest, with no trail to show where he had come from and no memory to tell who, or what, he was. His eyes were not the eyes of a human. The forest people took him in and raised him almost as a child, teaching him to speak, training him in forest lore, giving him all the knowledge they had. But they could not solve the riddle of his past, and at last he had to set out on a perilous quest to Es Toch, the City of the Shining, the Liars of Earth, the Enemy of Mankind. There he would find his true self...and a universe of danger.

Tor is pleased to return these previously unavailable works to print in this attractive new edition.]]> 370 Ursula K. Le Guin 0312862113 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 4.21 1966 Worlds of Exile and Illusion: Rocannon’s World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions (Hainish Cycle, #1-3)
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1966
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]]> The People We Keep 55711726 The People We Keep is about a young songwriter longing to find a home in the world.

Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a motorless motorhome that her father won in a poker game. Failing out of school, picking up shifts at Margo’s diner, she’s left fending for herself in a town where she’s never quite felt at home. When she “borrows� her neighbor’s car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to find a life that’s all hers.

As April moves through the world, meeting people who feel like home, she chronicles her life in the songs she writes and discovers that where she came from doesn’t dictate who she has to be.

This lyrical, unflinching tale is for anyone who has ever yearned for the fierce power of found family or to grasp the profound beauty of choosing to belong.]]> 368 Allison Larkin 1982171294 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 4.07 2021 The People We Keep
author: Allison Larkin
name: Jenni
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]]> <![CDATA[South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation]]> 55276620
We all think we know the South. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more complex than much of the country tends to acknowledge. In South to America, Imani Perry shows that the meaning of American is inextricably linked with the South, and that our understanding of its history and culture is the key to understanding the nation as a whole.

This is the story of a Black woman and native Alabaman returning to the region she has always called home and considering it with fresh eyes. Her journey is full of detours, deep dives, and surprising encounters with places and people. She renders Southerners from all walks of life with sensitivity and honesty, sharing her thoughts about a troubling history and the ritual humiliations and joys that characterize so much of Southern life.

Weaving together stories of immigrant communities, contemporary artists, exploitative opportunists, enslaved peoples, unsung heroes, her own ancestors, and her lived experiences, Imani Perry crafts a tapestry unlike any other. With uncommon insight and breathtaking clarity, South to America offers an assertion that if we want to build a more humane future for the United States, we must center our concern below the Mason-Dixon Line.]]> 410 Imani Perry 0062977407 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.96 2022 South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
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name: Jenni
average rating: 3.96
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]]> Of Women and Salt 53138197
From 19th-century cigar factories to present-day detention centers, from Cuba to Mexico, Gabriela Garcia's Of Women and Salt is a kaleidoscopic portrait of betrayals—personal and political, self-inflicted and those done by others—that have shaped the lives of these extraordinary women. A haunting meditation on the choices of mothers, the legacy of the memories they carry, and the tenacity of women who choose to tell their stories despite those who wish to silence them, this is more than a diaspora story; it is a story of America’s most tangled, honest, human roots.]]> 207 Gabriela Garcia 1250776686 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.68 2021 Of Women and Salt
author: Gabriela Garcia
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2021
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]]> <![CDATA[Patriarchy Blues: Reflections on Manhood]]> 57992951 In this personal and poignant collection, the author of the New York Times bestseller The Black Friend examines the culture of masculinity through the lens of a Black man.

What does it mean to be a man today? How does the pervasive yet elusive idea of "toxic masculinity" actually reflect men's experiences--particularly those of color--and how they navigate the world?

In this thought-provoking collection of essays, poems, and short reflections, Frederick Joseph contemplates these questions and more as he explores issues of masculinity and patriarchy from both a personal and cultural standpoint. From fatherhood, and "manning up" to abuse and therapy, he fearlessly and thoughtfully tackles the complex realities of men's lives today and their significance for society, lending his insights as a Black man.

Written in Joseph's unique voice, with an intelligence and raw honesty that demonstrates both his vulnerability and compassion, Patriarchy Blues forces us to consider the joys, pains, and destructive nature of manhood and the stereotypes it engenders.]]> 272 Frederick Joseph 0063138328 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 4.36 2022 Patriarchy Blues: Reflections on Manhood
author: Frederick Joseph
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.36
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]]> Open Water 53414230
At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the most essential British debut of recent years.]]> 145 Caleb Azumah Nelson 0241448778 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 4.03 2021 Open Water
author: Caleb Azumah Nelson
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
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]]> The School for Good Mothers 57846320 An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781982156121 can be found here.

In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents� sacrifices. What’s worse is she can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with their angelic daughter Harriet does Frida finally feel she’s attained the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she’s just enough.

Until Frida has a horrible day.

The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida � ones who check their phones while their kids are on the playground; who let their children walk home alone; in other words, mothers who only have one lapse of judgement. Now, a host of government officials will determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that she can live up to the standards set for mothers � that she can learn to be good.

This propulsive, witty page-turner explores the perils of “perfect� upper-middle-class parenting, the violence enacted upon women by the state and each other, and the boundless love a mother has for her daughter.]]> 336 Jessamine Chan Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.51 2022 The School for Good Mothers
author: Jessamine Chan
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.51
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]]> When We Were Birds 58065031 A mythic love story set in Trinidad and Tobago, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo's radiant debut introduces two unforgettable outsiders brought together by their connection with the dead.

You were never the smartest child, but even you should know that when a dead woman offers you a cigarette, the polite thing to do would be to take it. Especially when that dead woman is your mother.

The St. Bernard women have lived in Morne Marie, the house on top of a hill outside Port Angeles, for generations. Built from the ashes of a plantation that enslaved their ancestors, it has come to shelter a lineage that is bonded by much more than blood. One woman in each generation of St. Bernards is responsible for the passage of the city's souls into the afterlife. But Yejide's relationship with her mother, Petronella, has always been contorted by anger and neglect, which Petronella stubbornly carries to her death bed, leaving Yejide unprepared to fulfill her destiny.

Raised in the countryside by a devout Rastafarian mother, Darwin has always abided by the religious commandment not to interact with death. He has never been to a funeral, much less seen a dead body. But when his ailing mother can no longer work and the only job he can find is grave digging, he must betray the life she built for him in order to provide for them both. Newly shorn of his dreadlocks and his past and determined to prove himself, Darwin finds himself adrift in a city electric with possibility and danger.

Yejide and Darwin will meet inside the gates of Fidelis, Port Angeles's largest and oldest cemetery, where the dead lie uneasy in their graves and a reckoning with fate beckons them both. A masterwork of lush imagination and immersive lyricism, When We Were Birds is a spellbinding novel about inheritance, loss, and love's seismic power to heal.]]> 292 Ayanna Lloyd Banwo 0385547269 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.78 2022 When We Were Birds
author: Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.78
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]]> All the Horses of Iceland 57693432 The Fourth Island.

Everyone knows of the horses of Iceland, wild, and small, and free, but few have heard their story. All the Horses of Iceland tells the tale of a Norse trader, his travels through Central Asia, and the ghostly magic that followed him home to the land of fire, stone, and ice. His search for riches will take him from Helmgard, through Khazaria, to the steppes of Mongolia, where he will barter for horses and return with much, much more.

All the Horses of Iceland is a delve into the secret, imagined history of Iceland's unusual horses, brought to life by an expert storyteller.]]> 112 Sarah Tolmie 125080793X Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.47 2022 All the Horses of Iceland
author: Sarah Tolmie
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2022
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]]> Self-Portrait with Nothing 59807970 If a picture paints a thousand worlds...

Abandoned as an infant on the local veterinarian’s front porch, Pepper Rafferty was raised by two loving mothers, and now at thirty-six is married to the stable, supportive Ike. She’s never told anyone that at fifteen she discovered the identity of her biological mother.

That’s because her birth mother is Ula Frost, a reclusive painter famous for the outrageous claims that her portraits summon their subjects� doppelgangers from parallel universes.

Researching the rumors, Pepper couldn’t help but wonder:
Was there a parallel universe in which she was more confident, more accomplished, better able to accept love?
A universe in which Ula decided she was worth keeping?
A universe in which Ula’s rejection didn’t still hurt too much to share?

Sometimes living our best life means embracing the imperfect one we already have…]]> 295 Aimee Pokwatka 1250820847 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.47 2022 Self-Portrait with Nothing
author: Aimee Pokwatka
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2022
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]]> The Hand That First Held Mine 6939939
Lexie Sinclair is plotting an extraordinary life for herself.

Hedged in by her parents' genteel country life, she plans her escape to London. There, she takes up with Innes Kent, a magazine editor who wears duck-egg blue ties and introduces her to the thrilling, underground world of bohemian, post-war Soho. She learns to be a reporter, to know art and artists, to embrace her life fully and with a deep love at the center of it. She creates many lives--all of them unconventional. And when she finds herself pregnant, she doesn't hesitate to have the baby on her own.

Later, in present-day London, a young painter named Elina dizzily navigates the first weeks of motherhood. She doesn't recognize herself: she finds herself walking outside with no shoes; she goes to the restaurant for lunch at nine in the morning; she can't recall the small matter of giving birth. But for her boyfriend, Ted, fatherhood is calling up lost memories, with images he cannot place.

As Ted's memories become more disconcerting and more frequent, it seems that something might connect these two stories-- these two women-- something that becomes all the more heartbreaking and beautiful as they all hurtle toward its revelation.

Here Maggie O'Farrell brings us a spellbinding novel of two women connected across fifty years by art, love, betrayals, secrets, and motherhood. Like her acclaimed The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, it is a "breathtaking, heart-breaking creation." (The Washington Post Book World) and it is a gorgeous inquiry into the ways we make and unmake our lives, who we know ourselves to be, and how even our most accidental legacies connect us.]]> 341 Maggie O'Farrell 0547330790 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.96 2010 The Hand That First Held Mine
author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2010
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]]> Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk 29939353
As she traverses a grittier Manhattan, a city anxious after an attack by a still-at-large subway vigilante, she encounters bartenders, bodega clerks, chauffeurs, security guards, bohemians, criminals, children, parents, and parents-to-be—in surprising moments of generosity and grace. While she strolls, Lillian recalls a long and eventful life that included a brief reign as the highest-paid advertising woman in America—a career cut short by marriage, motherhood, divorce, and a breakdown.

A love letter to city life—however shiny or sleazy�Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney paints a portrait of a remarkable woman across the canvas of a changing America: from the Jazz Age to the onset of the AIDS epidemic; the Great Depression to the birth of hip-hop.]]> 287 Kathleen Rooney 1250113326 Jenni 0 wishlist-2018, physical-tbr 3.80 2017 Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
author: Kathleen Rooney
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2017
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]]> <![CDATA[Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents]]> 51152447 The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

“As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power—which groups have it and which do not.�

In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.

Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people’s lives and behavior and the nation’s fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people—including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others—she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.]]> 544 Isabel Wilkerson 0593230256 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 4.52 2020 Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
author: Isabel Wilkerson
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.52
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]]> We Need New Names 15852479
Darling is only ten years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad.

But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few. NoViolet Bulawayo's debut calls to mind the great storytellers of displacement and arrival who have come before her--from Junot Diaz to Zadie Smith to J.M. Coetzee--while she tells a vivid, raw story all her own.]]> 298 NoViolet Bulawayo 0316230812 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.74 2013 We Need New Names
author: NoViolet Bulawayo
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2013
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]]> The Stonewall Reader 42377825 For the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, an anthology chronicling the tumultuous fight for LGBTQ rights in the 1960s and the activists who spearheaded it, with a foreword by Edmund White.

June 28, 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which is considered the most significant event in the gay liberation movement, and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. Drawing from the New York Public Library's archives, The Stonewall Reader is a collection of first accounts, diaries, periodic literature, and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the riots. Most importantly the anthology spotlights both iconic activists who were pivotal in the movement, such as Sylvia Rivera, co-founder of Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR), as well as forgotten figures like Ernestine Eckstein, one of the few out, African American, lesbian activists in the 1960s. The anthology focuses on the events of 1969, the five years before, and the five years after. Jason Baumann, the NYPL coordinator of humanities and LGBTQ collections, has edited and introduced the volume to coincide with the NYPL exhibition he has curated on the Stonewall uprising and gay liberation movement of 1969.]]> 335 New York Public Library 052550530X Jenni 0 physical-tbr 4.36 2019 The Stonewall Reader
author: New York Public Library
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2019
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]]> <![CDATA[Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex]]> 52128695 An engaging exploration of what it means to be asexual in a world that's obsessed with sexual attraction, and what we can all learn about desire and identity by using an ace lens to see the world

What exactly is sexual attraction and what is it like to go through the world not experiencing it? What does asexuality reveal about consent, about compromise, about the structures of society? This exceedingly accessible guide to asexuality shows that the issues that aces face—confusion around sexual activity, the intersection of sexuality and identity, navigating different needs in relationships—are conflicts that all of us need to address as we move through the world.

Through interviews, cultural criticism, and memoir, ACE invites all readers to consider big-picture issues through the lens of asexuality, because every place that sexuality touches our world, asexuality does too.

Journalist Angela Chen uses her own journey of self-discovery as an asexual person to unpretentiously educate and vulnerably connect with readers, effortlessly weaving analysis of sexuality and societally imposed norms with interviews of ace people. Among those included are the woman who had blood tests done because she was convinced that "not wanting sex" was a sign of serious illness, and the man who grew up in an evangelical household and did everything "right," only to realize after marriage that his experience of sexuality had never been the same as that of others. Also represented are disabled aces, aces of color, non-gender-conforming aces questioning whether their asexuality is a reaction against stereotypes, and aces who don't want romantic relationships asking how our society can make room for them.]]> 210 Angela Chen 080701379X Jenni 0 physical-tbr 4.35 2020 Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
author: Angela Chen
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2020
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]]> <![CDATA[Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from an Ink-Stained Life]]> 59808253
Sullivan began her career at the Buffalo News , where she rose from summer intern to editor in chief. In Newsroom Confidential she chronicles her years in the trenches battling sexism and throwing elbows in a highly competitive newsroom. In 2012, Sullivan was appointed the public editor of The New York Times , the first woman to hold that important role. She was in the unique position of acting on behalf of readers to weigh the actions and reporting of the paper's staff, parsing potential lapses in judgment, unethical practices, and thorny journalistic issues. Sullivan recounts how she navigated the paper’s controversies, from Hillary Clinton's emails to Elon Musk's accusations of unfairness to the need for greater diversity in the newsroom. In 2016, having served the longest tenure of any public editor, Sullivan left for the Washington Post , where she had a front-row seat to the rise of Donald Trump in American media and politics.

With her celebrated mixture of charm, sharp-eyed observation, and nuanced criticism, Sullivan takes us behind the scenes of the nation's most influential news outlets to explore how Americans lost trust in the news and what it will take to regain it.]]> 288 Margaret Sullivan 1250281903 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.75 2022 Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from an Ink-Stained Life
author: Margaret Sullivan
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.75
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]]> The House on Mango Street 139253 The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero.

Told in a series of vignettes � sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous–it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.]]> 110 Sandra Cisneros 0679734775 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.69 1984 The House on Mango Street
author: Sandra Cisneros
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1984
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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 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 4.15 2010 The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating
author: Elisabeth Tova Bailey
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Family Firm: A Data-Driven Guide to Better Decision Making in the Early School Years (The ParentData Series)]]> 55997402
“Emily Oster dives into the data on parenting issues, cuts through the clutter, and gives families the bottom line to help them make better decisions.� –Good Morning America

“A targeted mini-MBA program designed to help moms and dads establish best practices for day-to-day operations." - The Washington Post

From the bestselling author of Expecting Better and Cribsheet , the next step in data driven parenting from economist Emily Oster.

In The Family Firm , Brown professor of economics and mom of two Emily Oster offers a classic business school framework for data-driven parents to think more deliberately about the key issues of the elementary school, health, extracurricular activities, and more.

Unlike the hourly challenges of infant parenting, the big questions in this age come up less frequently. But we live with the consequences of our decisions for much longer. What's the right kind of school and at what age should a particular kid start? How do you encourage a healthy diet? Should kids play a sport and how seriously? How do you think smartly about encouraging children's independence? Along with these bigger questions, Oster investigates how to navigate the complexity of day-to-day family logistics.

Making these decisions is less about finding the specific answer and more about taking the right approach. Parents of this age are often still working in baby mode, which is to say, under stress and on the fly. That is a classic management problem, and Oster takes a page from her time as a business school professor at the University of Chicago to show us that thoughtful business process can help smooth out tough family decisions.

The Family Firm is a smart and winning guide to how to think clearly--and with less ambient stress--about the key decisions of the elementary school years.

Parenting is a full-time job. It's time we start treating it like one.]]> 320 Emily Oster 1984881752 Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.71 2021 The Family Firm: A Data-Driven Guide to Better Decision Making in the Early School Years (The ParentData Series)
author: Emily Oster
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
review:

]]> The Marriage Portrait 60353768 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

The author of award-winning Hamnet brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life in this unforgettable fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de� Medici as she makes her way in a troubled court.

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.

Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now enter an unfamiliar court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?

As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court’s eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the Ferranese dynasty. Until then, for all of her rank and nobility, the new duchess’s future hangs entirely in the balance.

Full of the beauty and emotion with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell turns her talents to Renaissance Italy in an extraordinary portrait of a resilient young woman’s battle for her very survival.]]> 355 Maggie O'Farrell Jenni 0 physical-tbr 3.97 2022 The Marriage Portrait
author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/26
shelves: physical-tbr
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]]> The Heavens 41182168
London, 1593. Kate wakes as Emilia - the mistress of a nobleman - and finds the plague at her door. Afflicted by premonitions of a burnt and lifeless city, she sets out to save the world. Each decision she makes will change her life with Ben for ever.

A story of love and alternate universes, madness and time travel, The Heavens is a dream bound up in a strange awakening; it is a novel of what we have lost, and what we might yet be able to save.]]> 272 Sandra Newman 1783784849 Jenni 0 to-read 3.22 2019 The Heavens
author: Sandra Newman
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> The City Inside 58724607
Joey is a Reality Controller in near-future Delhi. Her job is to supervise the multimedia multi-reality livestreams of Indi, one of South Asia’s fastest rising online celebrities—who also happens to be her college ex. Joey’s job gives her considerable culture power, but she’s too caught up in day-to-day crisis handling to see this, or to figure out what she wants from her life.

Rudra is a recluse estranged from his wealthy and powerful family, now living in an impoverished immigrant neighborhood. When his father’s death pulls him back into his family’s orbit, an impulsive job offer from Joey becomes his only escape from the life he never wanted.

But as Joey and Rudra become enmeshed in multiple conspiracies, their lives start to spin out of control—complicated by dysfunctional relationships, corporate loyalty, and the never-ending pressures of surveillance capitalism. When a bigger picture begins to unfold, they must each decide how to do the right thing in a world where simply maintaining the status quo feels like an accomplishment. Ultimately, resistance will not—cannot—take the same shape for these two very different people.]]> 244 Samit Basu 1250827485 Jenni 0 to-read 3.20 2020 The City Inside
author: Samit Basu
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Amina al-Sirafi, #1)]]> 53183549 Shannon Chakraborty, the bestselling author of The City of Brass, spins a new trilogy of magic and mayhem on the high seas in this tale of pirates and sorcerers, forbidden artifacts and ancient mysteries, in one woman’s determined quest to seize a final chance at glory—and write her own legend.

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will.

Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.]]> 496 Shannon Chakraborty 0008381348 Jenni 0 to-read 4.27 2023 The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Amina al-Sirafi, #1)
author: Shannon Chakraborty
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/08/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> All Boys Aren’t Blue 44280883
Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson's emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.]]> 304 George M. Johnson 0374312710 Jenni 5 4.19 2020 All Boys Aren’t Blue
author: George M. Johnson
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/01/24
date added: 2021/08/01
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Women of Chateau Lafayette]]> 54584554 An epic saga from New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Dray based on the true story of an extraordinary castle in the heart of France and the remarkable women bound by its legacy in three of humanity's darkest hours

Most castles are protected by powerful men. This one by women...

A founding mother...
1774. Gently-bred noblewoman Adrienne Lafayette becomes her husband's political partner in the fight for American independence. But when their idealism sparks revolution in France and the guillotine threatens everything she holds dear, Adrienne must choose to renounce the complicated man she loves, or risk her life for a legacy that will inspire generations to come.

A daring visionary...
1914. Glittering New York socialite Beatrice Astor Chanler is a force of nature, daunted by nothing--not her humble beginnings, her crumbling marriage, or the outbreak of war. But after witnessing the devastation in France and delivering war-relief over dangerous seas, Beatrice takes on the challenge of a lifetime: convincing America to fight for what's right.

A reluctant resistor...
1940. French school-teacher and aspiring artist Marthe Simone has an orphan's self-reliance and wants nothing to do with war. But as the realities of Nazi occupation transform her life in the isolated castle where she came of age, she makes a discovery that calls into question who she is, and more importantly, who she is willing to become.

Intricately woven and beautifully told, The Women of Chateau Lafayette is a sweeping novel about duty and hope, love and courage, and the strength we find from standing together in honor of those who came before us.]]> 576 Stephanie Dray 1984802127 Jenni 0 to-read 4.25 2021 The Women of Chateau Lafayette
author: Stephanie Dray
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/05/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Escaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus, #1)]]> 38914991 Escaping Exodus is a story of a young woman named Seske Kaleigh, heir to the command of a biological, city-size starship carved up from the insides of a spacefaring beast. Her clan has just now culled their latest ship and the workers are busy stripping down the bonework for building materials, rerouting the circulatory system for mass transit, and preparing the cavernous creature for the onslaught of the general populous still in stasis. It’s all a part of the cycle her clan had instituted centuries ago—excavate the new beast, expand into its barely-living carcass, extinguish its resources over the course of a decade, then escape in a highly coordinated exodus back into stasis until they cull the next beast from the diminishing herd.

And of course there wouldn’t be much of a story if things didn’t go terribly, terribly wrong.

Escaping Exodus is scheduled to be in readers� orbit Summer 2019.]]> 300 Nicky Drayden 0062867733 Jenni 0 3.76 2019 Escaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus, #1)
author: Nicky Drayden
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2021/04/22
date added: 2021/04/22
shelves:
review:

]]> Some Girls Do 55198928 In this YA contemporary queer romance from the author of Hot Dog Girl , an openly gay track star falls for a closeted, bisexual teen beauty queen with a penchant for fixing up old cars.

Morgan, an elite track athlete, is forced to transfer high schools late in her senior year after it turns out being queer is against her private Catholic school's code of conduct. There, she meets Ruby, who has two hobbies: tinkering with her baby blue 1970 Ford Torino and competing in local beauty pageants, the latter to live out the dreams of her overbearing mother. The two are drawn to each other and can't deny their growing feelings. But while Morgan--out and proud, and determined to have a fresh start--doesn't want to have to keep their budding relationship a secret, Ruby isn't ready to come out yet. With each girl on a different path toward living her truth, can they go the distance together?]]> 324 Jennifer Dugan 0593112539 Jenni 0 to-read 3.78 2021 Some Girls Do
author: Jennifer Dugan
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> Sense and Sensibility 7481527
Like all of Austen's novels, Sense and Sensibility concerns the trials of making a suitable marriage. And like the others, it sparkles with wit and charm. -- borders.com]]> 304 Jane Austen 1587266008 Jenni 3 read-finished-in-2010 4.00 1811 Sense and Sensibility
author: Jane Austen
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1811
rating: 3
read at: 2010/12/23
date added: 2021/04/16
shelves: read-finished-in-2010
review:
I liked this book quite a bit. I loved the juxtaposition of the two sisters and I was very fond of Colonel Brandon's character. I could, actually, hardly put this one down.
]]> Juliet Takes a Breath 51637932
But Juliet has a plan--sort of. Her internship with legendary author Harlowe Brisbane, the ultimate authority on feminism, women's bodies, and other gay-sounding stuff, is sure to help her figure out this whole Puerto Rican lesbian thing. Except Harlowe's white. And not from the Bronx. And she definitely doesn't have all the answers . . .

In a summer bursting with queer brown dance parties, a sexy fling with a motorcycling librarian, and intense explorations of race and identity, Juliet learns what it means to come out--to the world, to her family, to herself.]]> 320 Gabby Rivera 0593108191 Jenni 0 to-read 3.99 2016 Juliet Takes a Breath
author: Gabby Rivera
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> She Drives Me Crazy 52515987 High school nemeses fall in love in this queer YA rom com perfect for fans of Becky Albertalli and Casey McQuiston.

After losing spectacularly to her ex-girlfriend in their first game since their break up, Scottie Zajac gets into a fender bender with the worst possible person: her nemesis, the incredibly beautiful and incredibly mean Irene Abraham. Things only get worse when their nosey, do-gooder moms get involved and the girls are forced to carpool together until Irene’s car gets out of the shop.

Their bumpy start the only gets bumpier the more time they spend together. But when an opportunity presents itself for Scottie to get back at her toxic ex (and climb her school’s social ladder at the same time), she bribes Irene into playing along. Hijinks, heartbreak, and gay fake-dating scheme for the ages. From author Kelly Quindlen comes a new laugh-out-loud romp through the ups and downs of teen romance.]]> 295 Kelly Quindlen 1250209153 Jenni 0 to-read 4.02 2021 She Drives Me Crazy
author: Kelly Quindlen
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating]]> 54860459
Despite their mutually beneficial pact, they start developing real feelings for each other. But relationships are complicated, and some people will do anything to stop two Bengali girls from achieving happily ever after.]]> 352 Adiba Jaigirdar 1645672573 Jenni 0 to-read 4.09 2021 Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating
author: Adiba Jaigirdar
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/03/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sisters of the Vast Black (Our Lady of Endless Worlds, #1)]]> 44581558 The sisters of the Order of Saint Rita captain their living ship into the reaches of space in Lina Rather's debut novella, Sisters of the Vast Black.

Years ago, Old Earth sent forth sisters and brothers into the vast dark of the prodigal colonies armed only with crucifixes and iron faith. Now, the sisters of the Order of Saint Rita are on an interstellar mission of mercy aboard Our Lady of Impossible Constellations, a living, breathing ship which seems determined to develop a will of its own.

When the order receives a distress call from a newly-formed colony, the sisters discover that the bodies and souls in their care—and that of the galactic diaspora—are in danger. And not from void beyond, but from the nascent Central Governance and the Church itself.]]> 176 Lina Rather 1250260264 Jenni 5 3.98 2019 Sisters of the Vast Black (Our Lady of Endless Worlds, #1)
author: Lina Rather
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2021/03/11
date added: 2021/03/11
shelves:
review:

]]> The Prophets 52576333 9780593085684

A novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence.

Isaiah was Samuel’s and Samuel was Isaiah’s. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favor by preaching the master’s gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel’s love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation’s harmony.

With a lyricism reminiscent of Toni Morrison, Robert Jones, Jr. fiercely summons the voices of slaver and the enslaved alike to tell the story of these two men; from Amos the preacher to the calculating slave-master himself to the long line of women that surround them, women who have carried the soul of the plantation on their shoulders. As tensions build and the weight of centuries—of ancestors and future generations to come—culminate in a climactic reckoning, The Prophets masterfully reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, but is also shot through with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of love.]]> 400 Robert Jones Jr. Jenni 5 3.91 2021 The Prophets
author: Robert Jones Jr.
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/03/06
date added: 2021/03/06
shelves:
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]]> Another Brooklyn 27213163
But beneath the hopeful veneer, there was another Brooklyn, a dangerous place where grown men reached for innocent girls in dark hallways, where ghosts haunted the night, where mothers disappeared. A world where madness was just a sunset away and fathers found hope in religion.]]> 192 Jacqueline Woodson 0062359983 Jenni 4 3.86 2016 Another Brooklyn
author: Jacqueline Woodson
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2021/03/03
date added: 2021/03/03
shelves:
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]]> Pride and Prejudice 84979 Another cover edition for this ISBN

Since its immediate success in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.]]> 334 Jane Austen 0553213105 Jenni 5 read-finished-in-2011 4.36 1813 Pride and Prejudice
author: Jane Austen
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1813
rating: 5
read at: 2011/01/01
date added: 2021/02/28
shelves: read-finished-in-2011
review:

]]> A Pho Love Story 54238295 fifth favorite employee. Not ideal.

If Linh Mai had to describe herself, she’d say she was a firecracker. Stable when unlit, but full of potential for joy and fire. She loves art and dreams pursuing a career in it. The only problem? Her parents rely on her in ways they’re not willing to admit, including working practically full-time at her family’s pho restaurant.

For years, the Mais and the Nguyens have been at odds, having owned competing, neighboring pho restaurants. Bao and Linh, who’ve avoided each other for most of their lives, both suspect that the feud stems from feelings much deeper than friendly competition.

But then a chance encounter brings Linh and Bao in the same vicinity despite their best efforts and sparks fly, leading them both to wonder what took so long for them to connect. But then, of course, they immediately remember.

Can Linh and Bao find love in the midst of feuding families and complicated histories?

When Dimple Met Rishi meets Ugly Delicious in this funny, smart romantic comedy, in which two Vietnamese-American teens fall in love and must navigate their newfound relationship amid their families� age-old feud about their competing, neighboring restaurants.]]> 402 Loan Le 153444193X Jenni 5 3.64 2021 A Pho Love Story
author: Loan Le
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2021/02/25
date added: 2021/02/25
shelves:
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]]> The List of Unspeakable Fears 56980419
Essie O’Neill is afraid of everything. She’s afraid of cats and electric lights. She’s afraid of the silver sick bell, a family heirloom that brings up frightening memories. Most of all, she’s afraid of the red door in her nightmares.

But soon Essie discovers so much more to fear. Her mother has remarried, and they must move from their dilapidated tenement in the Bronx to North Brother Island, a dreary place in the East River. That’s where Essie’s new stepfather runs a quarantine hospital for the incurable sick, including the infamous Typhoid Mary. Essie knows the island is plagued with tragedy. Years ago, she watched in horror as the ship General Slocum caught fire and sank near its shores, plummeting one thousand women and children to their deaths.

Now, something on the island is haunting Essie. And the red door from her dreams has become a reality, just down the hall from her bedroom in her terrifying new house. Convinced her stepfather is up to no good, Essie investigates. Yet to uncover the truth, she will have to face her own painful history—and what lies behind the red door.]]> 288 J. Kasper Kramer 1534480749 Jenni 0 to-read 3.82 2021 The List of Unspeakable Fears
author: J. Kasper Kramer
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Threat (Animorphs, #21) 363361 Literally.

At first, David joins the fight with a vengeance. But there is definitely something wrong. Because he's starting to break the rules. Taking risks that could get them all captured. Or killed. The Animorphs don't know what to do. Because there was a time when the Yeerks were their greatest enemy. That's about to change. . . .]]> 158 K.A. Applegate 0590762540 Jenni 3 3.94 1998 The Threat (Animorphs, #21)
author: K.A. Applegate
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at: 2021/02/17
date added: 2021/02/17
shelves:
review:

]]> Miss Meteor 49779755
Witty and heartfelt with characters that leap off the page, Miss Meteor is acclaimed authors Anna-Marie McLemore and Tehlor Kay Mejia’s first book together.]]> 390 Tehlor Kay Mejia 0062869914 Jenni 4 3.98 2020 Miss Meteor
author: Tehlor Kay Mejia
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/02/15
date added: 2021/02/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Everything: The Parent I Want to Be, The Children I Hope to Raise]]> 54816415
Einat Nathan is the mother of five children and a parenting expert and counselor with her own clinic. She first published her book ( Haimsheli , by top publisher Kinneret Zmora Bitan) in 2018, and it became the national bestseller of the year across all categories in Israel, making her a national celebrity.

My Everything resonated because mothers read it, cried and smiled, and discovered a way to look at their children as independent people, not solely as an extension of who they are or as a calling card. Now translated into English, My Everything is a beautiful and comforting read that reminds mothers how to be patient with their children, to try to remain calm in an age of constant fearmongering, and to appreciate and accept each child as an individual, with their own quirks, gifts, and flaws.

Einat writes, "Parenthood is like a bungee jump. It's scary and fun, it makes you fly and often lets you down." This book isn't so much a parenting guide as an exploration of the complex emotional journey of being a parent, reminding us of the courage and energy it requires as well as acknowledging that no parent is perfect and at the end of the day, this relationship is about connection.

My Everything is a compassionate, loving answer to The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother to teach children to be strong and independent. Part Conscious Parenting and part The Blessings of a Skinned Knee, this is a book that will transform how readers think about raising children, resonating across cultures.]]> 304 Einat Nathan 0306924048 Jenni 0 dnf 4.05 My Everything: The Parent I Want to Be, The Children I Hope to Raise
author: Einat Nathan
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.05
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/13
shelves: dnf
review:
I read 90 pages of this before deciding that the authors writing style was not enjoyable to me. I always feel like I learn something new even if I don't agree with or can't get on board with a person's particular parenting style. There were many page flag worthy moments in this book up to the point i put it down. Little parenting tidbits that I wanted to remember or that I found thought provoking. However, there were definitely moments where it felt like the author was saying that this way of doing things they were describing (ie: co-sleeping) was the only way and if you did it differently your child would suffer psychologically. That coupled with some of the weird comparisons that were made (ie. saying bringing home a new sibling was the equivalent of your partner bringing home a new partner to be part of the household without your consent) and I got to the point where I wasn't getting enough out of it to continue reading.
]]> The Beadworkers 44163348
Told with humor, subtlety, and beautiful spareness, the mixed-genre works of Beth Piatote's first collection find unifying themes in the strength of kinship, the pulse of longing, and the language of return.

A woman teaches her niece to make a pair of beaded earrings, while ruminating on a fractured relationship. An eleven-year-old girl narrates the unfolding of the Fish Wars in the 1960s, as her family is gradually drawn to the front lines of the conflict. In 1890, as tensions escalate at Wounded Knee, two young men at college, one French and the other Lakota, each contemplate a death in the family. In the final, haunting piece, a Nez Perce/Cayuse family is torn apart as they debate the fate of ancestral remains in a moving revision of the Greek tragedy Antigone.

Formally inventive, witty, and generous, the works in this singular debut collection draw on Indigenous aesthetics and forms to offer a powerful, sustaining vision of Native life in the Americas.]]> 208 Beth Piatote 1640092684 Jenni 0 4.10 2019 The Beadworkers
author: Beth Piatote
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2021/02/10
date added: 2021/02/10
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow]]> 50892004 Love & Gelato meets Don’t Date Rosa Santos in this charming, heartfelt story following a Miami girl who unexpectedly finds love—and herself—in a small English town.

For Lila Reyes, a summer in England was never part of the plan. The plan was 1) take over her abuela’s role as head baker at their panadería, 2) move in with her best friend after graduation, and 3) live happily ever after with her boyfriend. But then the Trifecta happened, and everything—including Lila herself—fell apart.

Worried about Lila’s mental health, her parents make a new plan for her: spend three months with family friends in Winchester, England, to relax and reset. But with the lack of sun, a grumpy inn cook, and a small town lacking Miami flavor (both in food and otherwise), what would be a dream trip for some feels more like a nightmare to Lila…until she meets Orion Maxwell.

A teashop clerk with troubles of his own, Orion is determined to help Lila out of her funk, and appoints himself as her personal tour guide. From Winchester’s drama-filled music scene to the sweeping English countryside, it isn’t long before Lila is not only charmed by Orion, but England itself. Soon a new future is beginning to form in Lila’s mind—one that would mean leaving everything she ever planned behind.]]> 320 Laura Taylor Namey 1534471243 Jenni 5 3.74 2020 A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow
author: Laura Taylor Namey
name: Jenni
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/02/07
date added: 2021/02/07
shelves:
review:

]]> Inside Suzie 49869493 Ginny Pettit Jenni 0 to-read 0.0 Inside Suzie
author: Ginny Pettit
name: Jenni
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Mysterious Planet of Captain Moreau (The Nemo Paradox, #2)]]> 43731564
Space. It's a family affair.

But that family has been scattered to the solar winds.

On Mars: Invisible to their ship after the crash of the Iron Wind, Gemma, Christophe, and Maggie are marooned on the Red Planet. Can they survive long enough to discover the mastermind behind the first Invasion� and prevent another one?

In Space: Believing their comrades dead with no way to retrieve their remains, the brave crew of the Fury begins the mournful journey home with Captain Pritchard in command. But with the Orestes in pursuit, will they make it to Earth?

On Earth: Resisting the restrictive might of the TIA, the globe has erupted into chaos. Admiral Thorvaldson is still missing in action, and Brightman has even darker games afoot. Can the proprietor of the Badger & Tentacle keep the forces of darkness at bay?]]> 378 K.T. Hunter 1732786305 Jenni 0 to-read 4.00 The Mysterious Planet of Captain Moreau (The Nemo Paradox, #2)
author: K.T. Hunter
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/02/05
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]]> <![CDATA[20 Million Leagues Over the Sea (The Nemo Paradox #1)]]> 26104548

More than fifty years after Captain Nemo sank into a watery grave -
Two decades after the last Martian Invader fell to pestilence -
Earth is ready to avenge her orphaned children.


Born to fly: The starship Thunder Child's Fury is the child of Nemo's ingenuity and Martian cunning. After a disastrous maiden voyage, can she sail the solar winds to Mars?


Born to lead: Christophe Moreau, her commander, has trained for this mission since childhood. He has mastered the sea. Can he tame the wilderness of space?


Born to spy: Gemma Llewellyn, member of the Scientific Cohort, has trained for an entirely different mission. Haunted by her past, will she obey her masters or follow her own path?


With dark forces aligning against the brave crew of the Fury and her mission, will they even survive the journey?


A romp in the combined universes of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, this novel also aims to be a bit of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters in space. I hope everyone will enjoy this tale, especially those readers who are new to the science fiction and steampunk genres.


This is the first book in a trilogy, "The Nemo Paradox".
Book 1 - "Twenty Million Leagues Over the Sea" - New Release
Book 2 - "The Mysterious Planet of Captain Moreau" - Planned
Book 3 - "The Invisible Woman" - Planned]]> 311 K.T. Hunter 098886357X Jenni 4 4.53 2015 20 Million Leagues Over the Sea (The Nemo Paradox #1)
author: K.T. Hunter
name: Jenni
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2021/02/05
date added: 2021/02/05
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review:

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