en-US Mon, 07 Apr 2025 05:55:11 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 216247552 An incendiary, deeply reported exposé of Johnson & Johnson, one of America’s oldest and most trusted pharmaceutical companies—from award-winning investigative journalist Gardiner Harris

One day in 2004, Gardiner Harris, early for a flight, sat down at an airport bar and started talking to the woman on the bar stool beside him. She was a drug sales rep for Johnson & Johnson, and her horrific story about unethical sales practices and the devastating impact they’d had on her family fundamentally changed the nature of how Harris covered the company—and the entire pharmaceutical industry—for The New York Times. His subsequent investigations and ongoing research since that conversation led to new federal laws and ultimately to No More Tears, a blistering exposé of a trusted American institution and the largest healthcare conglomerate in the world.

Harris takes us light years away from the company’s image as the child-friendly “baby company�� as he uncovers reams of evidence showing decades of deceitful and dangerous corporate practices that have threatened the lives of millions. He covers multiple disasters: lies and cover-ups regarding baby powder’s link to cancer; the surprising dangers of Tylenol; a criminal campaign to sell dangerous anti-psychotics to children; a popular drug for cancer patients that increases the risk of tumor growth. Deceptive marketing efforts that accelerated opioid addictions rival even those of the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma. All told, Johnson & Johnson's products have helped cause drug crises that have contributed to the deaths of as many as two million people and counting.

Filled with shocking, infuriating, but utterly necessary revelations, No More Tears is a landmark work of investigative journalism that lays bare the deeply rooted corruption behind the image of babies bathing with a smile.]]> 464 Gardiner Harris 059322986X K 0 to-read 4.40 2025
author: Gardiner Harris
name: K
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 95659 Book Details: Format: Paperback Publication Date: 10/5/2005 Pages: 256 Reading Level: Age 12 and Up ]]> 252 Lisi Harrison 0316701343 K 0 to-read 3.76 2005
author: Lisi Harrison
name: K
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36348525
Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?

A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale and satire.]]> 291 Ling Ma 0374261598 K 5 3.90 2018
author: Ling Ma
name: K
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2019/03/23
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: favorites, internet-novels, lit-fic, currently-reading
review:
This book will be one of my favorites of the year. After reading Parable of the Sower, I guess I was on a dystopian kick? Severance was the critique of capitalism I needed, combined with a touching story of familial love. Ling Ma perfectly captures just how lonely it can feel to live in New York, despite it being one of the busiest places in the world, and reading this book helped me get through a tough week. Ling Ma's writing style is wild, I don't see any dryness at all. I see someone smartly stating the facts, someone who manages to leave me pondering the meaning of all "this" after what seems to be a simple observation by Candace. I couldn't put this book down and found myself thinking about it all day. Shen Fever is so realistic that sometimes I found myself laughing out of discomfort. A phenomenal book that was right on time for me, so so creative, and so just...smart.
]]> 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach K 0 divorce, lit-fic
Second time reading and I found more imperfections which isn’t surprising (a lot of soldier analogies) but still perfect distraction bait]]> 4.11 2024
author: Alison Espach
name: K
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: divorce, lit-fic
review:
Given how massively popular this book is I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it this much. Sure there are some normie elements/lines but the overall story is very endearing. There are some smart and funny characters in this book and I chuckled quite a bit. I rooted hardcore for Phoebe and saw so much of myself in her as she navigated divorce and the deep ache within her that it caused. Im excited for the movie because knowing me I will become unhealthily attached to it and I fear this book may end up being a comfort read.

Second time reading and I found more imperfections which isn’t surprising (a lot of soldier analogies) but still perfect distraction bait
]]> 205478771
This engrossing deep dive exposes how the shadowy global system of offshore finance fuels economic crises and austerity while also undermining democracy and the rule of law. Sociologist Brooke Harrington trained as an offshore wealth manager then spent years immersed in tax havens around the world, observing and interviewing the experts who keep the secrets and protect the fortunes of the global ultra-rich. She shows what offshore finance costs all of us, and how it has colonized the world—not on behalf of any one country, but to benefit a largely invisible empire of a few thousand billionaires who help themselves to the best society has to offer while sticking us with the bill. As politicians struggle to address the deepening economic and political inequality destabilizing the world, Harrington’s exposé of the offshore system is a vital resource for understanding the most pressing crises of our time.]]> 176 Brooke Harrington 1324064943 K 0 to-read 3.93 2024
author: Brooke Harrington
name: K
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56160395
If she's being honest, Sammie Lucas is scared of her son. Working from home in the close quarters of their Florida house, she lives with one wary eye peeled on Samson, a sullen, unknowable boy who resists her every attempt to bond with him. Uncertain in her own feelings about motherhood, she tries her best—driving, cleaning, cooking, prodding him to finish projects for school—while growing increasingly resentful of Monika, her confident but absent wife. As Samson grows from feral toddler to surly teenager, Sammie's life begins to deteriorate into a mess of unruly behavior, and her struggle to create a picture-perfect queer family unravels. When her son's hostility finally spills over into physical aggression, Sammie must confront her role in the mess—and the possibility that it will never be clean again.

Blending the warmth and wit of Arnett's breakout hit, Mostly Dead Things, with a candid take on queer family dynamics, With Teeth is a thought-provoking portrait of the delicate fabric of family—and the many ways it can be torn apart.]]> 304 Kristen Arnett 0593191501 K 4 3.49 2021
author: Kristen Arnett
name: K
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/30
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: weird-books, sapphic, internet-novels, sapphlitfic, lit-fic, divorce
review:
A good book, but a stressful one. Though the main character is unlikeable, she forces you to sit through her uncomfortable feelings as a lesbian mother who does not seem to enjoy the presence of her kid. Makes you wonder what you would do in her situation, and is also an interesting book for people with mommy issues. Part of getting older is trying to piece together why your parents showed up the way they did, and the stress within this book reminded me of my own relationship with my mother.
]]> 65961539 From the international bestselling author of You Had Me at Hola and A Lot Like Adiós comes a steamy love story of a divorced schoolteacher who discovers that her perfect no-strings fling is anything but��

No strings

After Ava Rodriguez’s now-ex-husband declares he wants to “follow his dreams”—which no longer include her—she’s left questioning everything she thought she wanted. So when a handsome hotelier flirts with her, Ava vows to stop overthinking and embrace the opportunity for an epic one-night-stand complete with a penthouse suite, rooftop pool, and buckets of champagne.

No feelings

Roman Vasquez’s sole focus is the empire he built from the ground up. He lives and dies by his schedule, but the gorgeous stranger grimacing into her cocktail glass inspires him to change his plans for the evening. At first, it’s easy for Roman to agree to Ava’s rules: no strings, no feelings. But one night isn’t enough, and the more they meet, the more he wants.

No falling in love

Roman is the perfect fling, until Ava sees him at her cousin’s engagement party—as the groom’s best man, no less! Suddenly, maintaining her boundaries becomes a lot more complicated as she tries to hide the truth of their relationship from her family. However, Roman isn’t content being her dirty little secret, and he doesn’t just want more, he wants everything. With her future uncertain and her family pressuring her from all sides, Ava will have to decide if love is worth the risk—again.]]> 512 Alexis Daria 0062960008 K 0 to-read, 2025, divorce 4.21 2025
author: Alexis Daria
name: K
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read, 2025, divorce
review:

]]> 199393033 A powerful work of reportage and American history that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation’s earliest days, and a small-town murder in the 1990s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land more than a century later

Before 2020, American Indian reservations made up roughly 55 million acres of land in the United States. Nearly 200 million acres are reserved for National Forests—in the emergence of this great nation, our government set aside more land for trees than for Indigenous peoples.

In the 1830s, Muscogee people were rounded up by the US military at gunpoint and forced into exile halfway across the continent. At the time, they were promised this new land would be theirs for as long as the grass grew and the waters ran. But that promise was not kept. When Oklahoma was created on top of Muscogee land, the new state claimed their reservation no longer existed. Over a century later, a Muscogee citizen was sentenced to death for murdering another Muscogee citizen on tribal land. His defense attorneys argued the murder occurred on the reservation of his tribe, and therefore Oklahoma didn’t have the jurisdiction to execute him. Oklahoma asserted that the reservation no longer existed. In the summer of 2020, the Supreme Court settled the dispute. Its ruling that would ultimately underpin multiple reservations covering almost half the land in Oklahoma, including Nagle’s own Cherokee Nation.

Here Rebecca Nagle recounts the generations-long fight for tribal land and sovereignty in eastern Oklahoma. By chronicling both the contemporary legal battle and historic acts of Indigenous resistance, By the Fire We Carry stands as a landmark work of American history. The story it tells exposes both the wrongs that our nation has committed and the Native-led battle for justice that has shaped our country.]]> 352 Rebecca Nagle 0063112043 K 0 to-read 4.45 2024
author: Rebecca Nagle
name: K
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217206125 The Spellshop is Sarah Beth Durst’s romantasy debut–a lush cottagecore tale full of stolen spellbooks, unexpected friendships, sweet jams, and even sweeter love.

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

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

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

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

Like a Hallmark rom-com full of mythical creatures and fueled by cinnamon rolls and magic, The Spellshop will heal your heart and feed your soul.]]> 377 Sarah Beth Durst 1250333970 K 0 to-read 3.99 2024
author: Sarah Beth Durst
name: K
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220160476 Spanning across twenty years and one life-altering summer in Croatia, Slanting Towards the Sea is at once an unforgettable love story and a powerful exploration of what it means to come of age in a country younger than oneself.

Ivona divorced the love of her life, Vlaho, a decade ago. They met as students at the turn of the new millennium, when democratic Croatia was alive with hope and promise. But the challenges of living in a burgeoning country extinguished Ivona’s dreams one after another—and a devastating secret forced her to set him free.

Now Vlaho is remarried and a proud father of two, while Ivona’s life has taken a downward turn. In her thirties, she has returned to her childhood home to care for her ailing father. Bewildered by life’s disappointments, she finds solace in reconnecting with Vlaho and is welcomed into his family by his spirited new wife, Marina. But when a new man enters Ivona’s life, the carefully cultivated dynamic between the three is disrupted, forcing a reckoning for all involved.

Set against the mesmerizing Croatian coastline, Slanting Towards the Sea is a cinematic, emotionally searing debut about the fragile nature of potential and the transcendence of love.]]> 336 Lidija Hilje 1668078678 K 0 to-read, divorce 4.79
author: Lidija Hilje
name: K
average rating: 4.79
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read, divorce
review:

]]> 56816422 An insightful exploration that unveils the lesser-known dimensions of this legendary writer and her legacy, revealing the cultural icon’s profound impact as a visionary editor who helped define an important period in American publishing and literature.

A multifaceted genius, Toni Morrison transcended her role as an author, helping to shape an important period in American publishing and literature as an editor at one of the nation’s most prestigious publishing houses. While Toni Morrison's literary achievements are widely celebrated, her editorial work is little known. Drawing on extensive research and firsthand accounts, this comprehensive study discusses Morrison's remarkable journey from her early days at Random House to her emergence as one of its most important editors. During her tenure in editorial, Morrison refashioned the literary landscape, working with important authors, including Toni Cade Bambara, Leon Forrest, and Lucille Clifton, and empowering cultural icons such as Angela Davis and Muhammad Ali to tell their stories on their own terms.

Toni Morrison herself requested that Dana Williams be the one to tell this story, even giving her the book’s title. From the manuscripts she molded, the authors she nurtured, and the readers she inspired, Toni at Random demonstrates how Toni Morrison has influenced American culture beyond the individual titles or authors she published. Morrison’s contribution as an editor transformed the broader literary landscape and deepened the cultural conversation. With unparalleled insight and sensitivity, Toni at Random charts this editorial odyssey.]]> 320 Dana A. Williams 0063012006 K 0 to-read 0.0
author: Dana A. Williams
name: K
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222377141 A gorgeous, atmospheric debut fantasy that reimagines the Jewish myth of golem in a tale rooted in history, folklore, and sapphic romance—perfect for fans of Katherine Arden, Ava Reid, Hannah Whitten, and Naomi Novik.

The forest eats the girls who wander out after dark.

As the healer’s daughter, Malka has seen how the curse of the woods has plagued her village, but when the Ozmini Church comes to collect their tithes, they don’t listen to the warnings about a monster lurking in the trees. After a clergy girl wanders too close to the forest and Malka’s mother is accused of her murder, Malka strikes a bargain with a zealot Ozmini priest. If she brings him the monster, he will spare her mother from execution.

When she ventures into the blood-soaked woods, Malka finds a monster, though not the one she expects: an inscrutable, disgraced golem who agrees to implicate herself, but only after Malka helps her free the imprisoned rabbi who created her.

But a deal easily made is not easily kept. And as their bargain begins to unravel a much more sinister threat, protecting her people may force Malka to endanger the one person she left home to save—and face her growing feelings for the very creature she was taught to fear.]]> 352 Maddie Martinez 1250367751 K 0 to-read 3.56 2025
author: Maddie Martinez
name: K
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220175493 288 Michelle Tea 1541606779 K 0 to-read 0.0 2000
author: Michelle Tea
name: K
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216730623 Historian Sarah E. Bond retells the traditional story of Ancient Rome, revealing how groups of ancient workers unified, connected, and protested as they helped build an empire
��
From plebeians refusing to join the Roman army to bakers withholding bread, this is the first book to explore how Roman workers used strikes, boycotts, riots, and rebellion to get their voices—and their labor—acknowledged. Sarah E. Bond explores Ancient Rome from a new angle to show that the history of labor conflicts and collective action goes back thousands of years, uncovering a world far more similar to our own than we realize.
��
Workers often turned to their associations for solidarity and shared identity in the ancient world. Some of these groups even negotiated contracts, wages, and work conditions in a manner similar to modern labor unions. As the world begins to consider the value—and indeed the necessity—of unionization to protect workers, this book demonstrates that we can learn valuable lessons from ancient laborers and from attempts by the Roman government to limit their freedom.]]> 272 Sarah E. Bond 0300273142 K 0 to-read 3.50
author: Sarah E. Bond
name: K
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218559595 Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]> 384 Emily Henry 059344129X K 0 romance, currently-reading 4.26 2025
author: Emily Henry
name: K
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: romance, currently-reading
review:

]]> 45700393
Astley served as a sergeant major in the British Army where he learned his horse-riding skills, before becoming a brilliant innovator of equestrian tricks and spectacles. Astley’s first displays of trick horse-riding were in the open air at Half Penny Hatch just south of Westminster Bridge in London. His wife Patty provided musical accompaniment on a drum and also performed on horseback. Astley’s Amphitheatre of Equestrian Arts - the world’s first circus - opened 9 January, 1768. Astley’s circus performers included a strongman called Signor Colpi and a clown called Mr Merryman. He established the still-standard diameter of the circus ring as 42-ft. He was invited to perform before King Louis XV of France in 1772, and built France’s first purpose-built circus building, the Amphitheatre Anglais, in Paris. In fact, he established circuses in 20 European cities. At home, Astley’s Amphitheatre was mentioned in books by Charles Dickens and Jane Austen, and his namje is commemorated in popular songs of the time. He died on 27 January 1814 and was buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris. His life is a wonderful story of perseverance and flair on the way to achieving fame.]]> 296 Karl Shaw 1445695499 K 0 to-read 4.00
author: Karl Shaw
name: K
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

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

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

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

Sharp, relentless, and darkly funny, She’s a Lamb! is a cutting satire about the grotesque pall patriarchy casts over one woman’s delusional quest to achieve her dreams and the depths she will sink to for a chance at the life she’s convinced she deserves.]]> 312 Meredith Hambrock 1770417893 K 0 to-read 4.09 2025
author: Meredith Hambrock
name: K
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 79352 The Six Pillars Of Self-Esteem is essential reading for anyone with a personal or professional interest in self-esteem. The book demonstrates compellingly why self-esteem is basic to psychological health, achievement, personal happiness, and positive relationships.����Branden introduces the six pillars—six action-based practices for daily living that provide the foundation for self-esteem—and explores the central importance of self-esteem in five areas: the workplace, parenting, education, psychotherapy, and the culture at large.����The work provides concrete guidelines for teachers, parents, managers, and therapists who are responsible for developing the self-esteem of others.����And it shows why-in today's chaotic and competitive world-self-esteem is fundamental to our personal and professional power.]]> 341 Nathaniel Branden 0553374397 K 0 to-read 4.12 1994
author: Nathaniel Branden
name: K
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 215570667
Years later Tom makes a decision that ripples through their families' lives in ways he could not have foreseen. As the consequences of that fateful choice unfold, two women's paths become irrevocably intertwined. But when old love clashes with new, who will be left standing? And what happens when your secrets come back to haunt you?]]> 336 Loretta Rothschild 1250381827 K 0 to-read 4.12 2025
author: Loretta Rothschild
name: K
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25817440 Private Citizens is a brainy, irreverent debut��This Side of Paradise for a new era.

Capturing the anxious, self-aware mood of young college grads in the aughts,��Private Citizens��embraces the contradictions of our new century: call it a loving satire. A gleefully rude comedy of manners. Middlemarch��for Millennials. The novel's four whip-smart narrators—idealistic Cory, Internet-lurking Will, awkward Henrik, and vicious Linda—are torn between fixing the world and cannibalizing it. In boisterous prose that ricochets between humor and pain, the four estranged friends��stagger through the Bay Area’s maze of tech startups, protestors, gentrifiers, karaoke bars, house parties, and cultish self-help seminars, washing up in each other’s lives once again.��

A wise and searching depiction of a generation grappling with privilege and finding grace in failure, Private Citizens is as expansively intelligent as it is full of heart.]]> 372 Tony Tulathimutte 0062399101 K 0 lit-fic, library 3.38 2016
author: Tony Tulathimutte
name: K
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: lit-fic, library
review:
Reading Rejection first was interesting, I'm not really sure I saw much growth between these two books in terms of writing, and the subject matter seems a little similar too. But I think that's fine because I think Tulathimutte is a pretty good writer. My only issue is that the plot felt a little muddied throughout the last quarter. I'm not really sure what is going on with Linda, too much happened to her character and I couldn't really even keep up. The flashbacks also seemed disjointed. I listened to this on audio which I think added to my confusion but it was hard to get things straight. There were some really funny moments and great prose, even during some of the (confusing) diatribes that characters go on. Something surprising that stood out to me were his descriptions of nature. They were not a central part of the book at all but the way that he wrote about the outdoor scenery was descriptive in a way that really resonated with me as a granola babe.
]]> 211003884 Armed with a terminal diagnosis, a grudge, and a rental car, Hester sets out to fulfill her lifelong dream of killing her father in this brilliantly subversive and bleakly funny novel.

When Hester is diagnosed with terminal cancer on her fortieth birthday, she knows immediately what she must do: abandon her possessions and drive to California to kill her estranged father. With no friends or family tying her to the life she’s built in New York City, she quits her wildly lucrative job in corporate law and starts driving west. She hasn’t made it far when she runs into John, an environmental activist in need of a ride to different superfund sites across the United States. From five-star Midwestern hotels to cultish Southwestern compounds, the two slowly make their way across the country. But will the revelations they make along the way dissuade Hester from her goal?

Ragingly singular and surprisingly moving, Bad Nature is a story of stunning detours and twists until its final destination. Part road-trip novel, part revenge tale, part lament of our ongoing ecological crisis, it’s ultimately a deft examination of the indulgence of holding grudges, moral ambivalence, and the eternal possibility of redemption.]]> 304 Ariel Courage 1250360889 K 0 to-read 3.81 2025
author: Ariel Courage
name: K
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217387935 Naomi Novik's Scholomance series meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy by instant national and international bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.

"Look at you, eating magic like you're one of us."

Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood Academy and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school's boundaries from demonic incursions.

Walden is good at her job―no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from―is herself.]]> 432 Emily Tesh 1250835011 K 0 to-read 4.31 2025
author: Emily Tesh
name: K
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22716641 Reclaiming the legacy of the Paris Commune for the twenty-first century

Kristin Ross’s highly acclaimed work on the thought and culture of the Communard uprising of 1871 resonates with the motivations and actions of contemporary protest, which has found its most powerful expression in the reclamation of public space. Today’s concerns—internationalism, education, the future of labor, the status of art, and ecological theory and practice—frame and inform her carefully researched restaging of the words and actions of individual Communards. This original analysis of an event and its centrifugal effects brings to life the workers in Paris who became revolutionaries, the significance they attributed to their struggle, and the elaboration and continuation of their thought in the encounters that transpired between the insurrection’s survivors and supporters like Marx, Kropotkin, and William Morris.

The Paris Commune was a laboratory of political invention, important simply and above all for, as Marx reminds us, its own “working existence.�� Communal Luxury allows readers to revisit the intricate workings of an extraordinary experiment.]]> 156 Kristin Ross 1781688397 K 0 to-read 4.03 2015
author: Kristin Ross
name: K
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222636366 A sweeping fantasy about a witch who must navigate a ruthless marriage competition—and try not to fall in love along the way. Part twisting mystery, part thrilling romance, The Weaver Bride is an unputdownable romantasy steeped in a lush magical world.

Lovett Tamerlane is a silkwitch. Like all girls of her kind, she holds a rare magic—a magic that can be harnessed only through marriage to a Weaver. But finding a Weaver husband requires status, refinement, and money, all of which Lovett sadly lacks. Her one secret ability, to open any door, is her saving grace. Hidden in plain sight, Lovett spends her days using her gift to steal from wealthy families and her nights avoiding the fate imposed on all unwed silkwitches: a life confined to the cloisters.

But opening doors can be dangerous, and when Lovett steals from the wrong person, she finds herself face to face with Eliot Lear, the notorious son of a prominent Weaver. It turns out Eliot’s been watching Lovett. He knows she’s a silkwitch, and he offers her a life-altering opportunity: entrance to the Vainglory, a competition with the ultimate prize—marriage to Noé Alaire, heir to generations of Weaver wealth. The catch? Last year, the Vainglory ended in tragedy. The winner died. And the winner was Eliot’s sister.

The arrangement is simple: If Lovett solves the mystery of Ophelia Lear’s death and unmasks her killer, Eliot will ensure she has her pick of Weaver suitors, regardless of who wins the competition. Yet unraveling Ophelia’s murder proves far more complicated than either of them anticipated. And Lovett should know better than to take a Weaver at his word.

After all . . . what is love without betrayal?]]> 480 Lydia Gregovic 0593572416 K 0 to-read 4.18 2025
author: Lydia Gregovic
name: K
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217223450 Three middle-aged best friends turn to murder in order to collect on their husbands�� life insurance policies…but are unaware that their husbands have a devious plan of their own, in this darkly funny debut—perfect for fans of��The Thursday Murder Club��and��Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone.

Three wives wanting a new life, three husbands in their way��

After thirty years of friendship, Pam dreams of her perfect retirement with Nancy, Shalisa, Marlene, and their husbands—until their husbands pool their funds for an investment that goes terribly wrong, and their dreams of beachfront condos and a sunny, carefree retirement vanish. The golden years are looking as dreary as their marriages.

But when one husband dies in a freak accident, the other three women are shocked to see his widow rebound with a huge life insurance payout and a new life in Florida. In the aftermath, the women discover that their husbands have identical, seven-figure life insurance policies. A new dream forms, and this time, it involves a hitman.

Meanwhile, their husbands have a secret retirement plan of their own. So, when things begin to go awry, they fear their own scheme may have backfired…with deadly consequences. The husbands scramble to stay alive, but they may not be fast enough to outmaneuver their wives.

What follows is a high-stakes tale of cat and mouse, both laugh-out-loud funny and unbearably tense, while ultimately a bighearted look at marriage, friendship, and middle-age.��


]]> 336 Sue Hincenbergs 006339801X K 0 to-read 4.00
author: Sue Hincenbergs
name: K
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1058564
But she soon finds herself intrigued by Nina, a young mother on the beach, eventually striking up a conversation with her. After Nina confides a dark secret, one seemingly trivial occurrence leads to events that could destroy Nina’s family.]]> 140 Elena Ferrante 1933372427 K 0 to-read, divorce 3.70 2006
author: Elena Ferrante
name: K
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: to-read, divorce
review:

]]> 75739729 Radical alternatives to consent and trauma.

Arguing that we have become culturally obsessed with healing trauma, Sexuality Beyond Consent calls attention to what traumatized subjects do with their pain. The erotics of racism offers a paradigmatic example of how what is proximal to violation may become an unexpected site of flourishing. Central to the transformational possibilities of trauma is a queer form of consent, limit consent, that is not about guarding the self but about risking experience. Saketopoulou thereby shows why sexualities beyond consent may be worth risking-and how risk can solicit the future.

Moving between clinical and cultural case studies, Saketopoulou takes up theatrical and cinematic works such as Slave Play and The Night Porter, to chart how trauma and sexuality join forces to surge through the aesthetic domain. Putting the psychoanalytic theory of Jean Laplanche in conversation with queer of color critique, performance studies, and philosophy, Sexuality Beyond Consent proposes that enduring the strange in ourselves, not to master trauma but to rub up against it, can open us up to encounters with opacity. The book concludes by theorizing currents of sadism that, when pursued ethically, can animate unique forms of interpersonal and social care.]]> 272 Avgi Saketopoulou K 0 to-read 4.53 2023
author: Avgi Saketopoulou
name: K
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 11296327
Drawing on extensive historical research as well as interviews with former members of the Black Panther Party, Nelson argues that the Party’s focus on health care was both practical and ideological. Building on a long tradition of medical self-sufficiency among African Americans, the Panthers�� People’s Free Medical Clinics administered basic preventive care, tested for lead poisoning and hypertension, and helped with housing, employment, and social services. In 1971, the party launched a campaign to address sickle-cell anemia. In addition to establishing screening programs and educational outreach efforts, it exposed the racial biases of the medical system that had largely ignored sickle-cell anemia, a disease that predominantly affected people of African descent.

The Black Panther Party’s understanding of health as a basic human right and its engagement with the social implications of genetics anticipated current debates about the politics of health and race. That legacy—and that struggle—continues today in the commitment of health activists and the fight for universal health care.]]> 289 Alondra Nelson 0816676488 K 0 to-read, disability-justice 4.28 2011
author: Alondra Nelson
name: K
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read, disability-justice
review:

]]> 208430621
In this fresh take on love and trouble in America, Brock Hobson, an insurance salesman and Sunday-school teacher, finds his equilibrium disturbed by the results of a predictive blood test. Baxter, a master storyteller, brings us a gradually building rollercoaster narrative, and a protagonist who is impertinent, searching, and hilariously relatable. From his good-as-gold, gentle girlfriend to the excessively macho subcontractor guy his ex-wife left him for, not to mention his well-raised teenage kids, now exploring sex and sexuality, the secondary characters in Brock's life all contribute meaningfully to the drama, as increasing challenges to his sense of self and purpose crash over him. The final battle—no spoilers, but there is one—couldn't be more delightful, as this quick and bracing novel reminds us to choose the best people to love, accept the ones we love even if we didn’t choose them, and love them all well.]]> 224 Charles Baxter 0593700856 K 0 to-read 3.07 2024
author: Charles Baxter
name: K
average rating: 3.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

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

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

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

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

Warm and generous, unflinchingly human, and ultimately joyful and empowering, SLEEP is about the cycles of motherhood and childhood, the cost of secrets and the burden of love, and what’s on the other side of the world, rich in possibility.]]> 272 Honor Jones 0593851986 K 0 to-read, divorce 4.09 2025
author: Honor Jones
name: K
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read, divorce
review:

]]> 150778765 In Help Wanted, Adelle Waldman brings her unparalleled wit and knack for social observation to the world of work.

At a big-box store in a small town in upstate New York, the members of Team Movement clock in every morning at 3:55. Under the eye of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the day’s truck of merchandise, stock the shelves, and scatter before customers arrive. When a golden opportunity for a promotion presents itself, the diverse members of Movement―among them a comedy-obsessed oddball who acts half his age, a young woman clinging to her “cool kid�� status from high school, a college football hopeful trying to find a new path―band together and set a just-so-crazy-it-might-work plot into motion. A darkly comic workplace caper that explores the aches and uses of solidarity, Help Wanted is a deeply human portrait of people trying, against increasingly long odds, to make a living.]]> 288 Adelle Waldman 132402044X K 0 to-read 3.57 2024
author: Adelle Waldman
name: K
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 44285784 A paradigm-shifting study of neurodivergent women—those with ADHD, autism, synesthesia, high sensitivity, and sensory processing disorder—exploring why these traits are overlooked in women and how society benefits from allowing their unique strengths to flourish.

As a successful Harvard and Berkeley-educated writer, entrepreneur, and devoted mother, Jenara Nerenberg was shocked to discover that her “symptoms��--only ever labeled as anxiety-- were considered autistic and ADHD. Being a journalist, she dove into the research and uncovered neurodiversity—a framework that moves away from pathologizing “abnormal�� versus “normal�� brains and instead recognizes the vast diversity of our mental makeups.��

When it comes to women, sensory processing differences are often overlooked, masked, or mistaken for something else entirely. Between a flawed system that focuses on diagnosing younger, male populations, and the fact that girls are conditioned from a young age to blend in and conform to gender expectations, women often don’t learn about their neurological differences until they are adults, if at all. As a result, potentially millions live with undiagnosed or misdiagnosed neurodivergences, and the misidentification leads to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and shame. Meanwhile, we all miss out on the gifts their neurodivergent minds have to offer.

Divergent Mind is a long-overdue, much-needed answer for women who have a deep sense that they are “different.�� Sharing real stories from women with high sensitivity, ADHD, autism, misophonia, dyslexia, SPD and more, Nerenberg explores how these brain variances present differently in women and dispels widely-held misconceptions (for example, it’s not that autistic people lack sensitivity and empathy, they have an overwhelming excess of it).

Nerenberg also offers us a path forward, describing practical changes in how we communicate, how we design our surroundings, and how we can better support divergent minds. When we allow our wide variety of brain makeups to flourish, we create a better tomorrow for us all.]]> 244 Jenara Nerenberg 0062876813 K 0 to-read 3.83 2020
author: Jenara Nerenberg
name: K
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 188046 288 June Jordan 0465036821 K 0 to-read 4.22 2000
author: June Jordan
name: K
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55224246
For the poet and activist June Jordan, neither poetry nor activism could easily be disentangled from the other. Her storied career came to chronicle a living, breathing history of the struggles that defined the USA in the latter half of the twentieth century; and her poetry, accordingly, put its dazzling stylistic range to use in exploring issues of gender, race, immigration, representation and much else besides.

Here, above all, are sinuous, lashing and passionate lines, virtuosic in their musicality and always bearing the stamp of Jordan's irrepressible personality. Here are poems of suffusing light and profound anger: poems moved as much by political animus as by a deep love for the observation of human life in all its foibles, eccentricities, strengths and weaknesses.

With a foreword by Pulitzer Prize winner Jericho Brown, The Essential June Jordan allows new readers to discover - and old fans to rediscover - the vital work of this endlessly surprising poet who, in the words of Adrienne Rich, believed that 'genuine, up-from-the-bottom revolution must include art, laughter, sensual pleasure, and the widest possible human referentiality.']]> 272 June Jordan 0241508711 K 0 to-read 4.52 2021
author: June Jordan
name: K
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 32886 272 bell hooks 0060938293 K 5 4.36 2002
author: bell hooks
name: K
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: 2025, divorce, favorites, currently-reading, black-feminism
review:
This book completely cracked me open and was a balm for me this week. I connected with this 20x more than I did All About Love and that is saying a lot. So oddly relevant to everything right now (divorce, friendship breakup, developing more confidence, moving) etc. bell writes with so much clarity it's a shame that her views about the value of self-love are often over simplified, but of course that happens to everything she said. I will re-read this book again and again, I highlighted my copy so much. Gosh. I'm so thankful for her words, if anyone asks me about my views about love I will just hand them this book. A new favorite.
]]> 56554628 From funny and fearless entertainment journalist Sesali Bowen, Bad Fat Black Girl combines rule-breaking feminist theory, witty and insightful personal memoir, and cutting cultural analysis for an unforgettable, genre-defining debut.

Growing up on the south side of Chicago, Sesali Bowen learned early on how to hustle, stay on her toes, and champion other Black women and femmes as she navigated Blackness, queerness, fatness, friendship, poverty, sex work, and self-love.��

Her love of trap music led her to the top of hip-hop journalism, profiling game-changing artists like Megan Thee Stallion, Lizzo, and Janelle Monae.��But despite all the beauty, complexity, and general badassery she saw, Bowen found none of that nuance represented in mainstream feminism. Thus, she coined Trap Feminism, a contemporary framework that interrogates where feminism and hip-hop intersect.

Notes from a Trap Feminist��offers a new, inclusive feminism for the modern world. Weaving together searing personal essay and cultural commentary, Bowen interrogates sexism, fatphobia, and capitalism all within the context of race and hip-hop. In the process, she continues a Black feminist legacy of unmatched sheer determination and creative resilience.

Bad bitches: this one’s for you.]]> 272 Sesali Bowen 0063028700 K 4 black-feminism 4.43 2021
author: Sesali Bowen
name: K
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/10/12
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: black-feminism
review:

]]> 17601
In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are—whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. But toxic masculinity punishes those fundamental emotions, and it’s so deeply ingrained in our society that it’s hard for men to not comply—but hooks wants to help change that.

With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting back in touch with the emotionally open part of themselves—and lay claim to the rich and rewarding inner lives that have historically been the exclusive province of women. A brave and astonishing work, The Will to Change is designed to help men reclaim the best part of themselves.]]> 208 bell hooks 0743456084 K 0 4.38 2003
author: bell hooks
name: K
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/11
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: feminism, favorites, relationships, black-feminism
review:

]]> 4437428 176 John Markakis 0714632953 K 0 to-read 3.75 1986
author: John Markakis
name: K
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218671853 A damning indictment of the private equity industry told through the stories of four American workers whose lives and communities were upended by the ruinous effects of private equity takeovers.

Private equity runs our country, yet few Americans have any idea how ingrained it is in their lives.��Private equity controls hospitals, daycare centers, supermarket chains, voting machine manufacturers, local newspapers, nursing home operators, fertility clinics, and prison service providers. The industry manages highways, municipal water systems, fire departments, emergency medical services, and owns a growing swath of commercial and residential real estate.

Private equity executives, meanwhile, are not only among the wealthiest people in American society, but also modern-day barons with outsized influence on our politics and legislation. Yet their firms have to disclose almost nothing about how they operate, leaving workers and communities on the hook when a company begins to flounder without warning. Twenty percent of companies acquired through private equity buyouts go bankrupt within ten years, accounting for forty percent of all U.S. bankruptcies and putting millions�� of workers jobs at risk. How did private equity firms become so good at making money for themselves and so damaging for the rest of society?

Acclaimed journalist Megan Greenwell’s Bad Company tells the hidden story of private equity through the experiences of four American workers who watched as private equity upended their employers and a Toys R Us floor supervisor, a rural doctor, a local newspaper journalist, and a public housing organizer.��

In the tradition of deeply human reportage like Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, Megan Greenwell pulls back the curtain on shadowy multibillion dollar companies like Apollo Global Management, Bain Capital, and KKR, telling a larger story about how private equity is reshaping the economy, disrupting communities, and hollowing out the very idea of the American dream itself. Timely and masterfully told, Bad Company is a forceful rebuke of America’s most consequential, yet least understood economic forces.]]> 320 Megan Greenwell 0063299356 K 0 to-read, for-work 5.00
author: Megan Greenwell
name: K
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read, for-work
review:

]]> 215805795 Two strangers find themselves stranded at sea together in this epic new love story by bestselling author Beth O’Leary.

What if you were lost at sea…with your one-night stand?

Zeke and Lexi thought it would just be a night of fun. They had no intentions of seeing each other again. Zeke is only in town for the weekend to buy back his late father’s houseboat. Lexi has no time for dating when she needs to help take care of her best friend's daughter.

Going back home with a stranger seems like a perfect escape from their problems. But a miscommunication in the dark, foggy night means no one tied the houseboat to the dock. The next morning, Zeke and Lexi realize all they can see is miles and miles of water.

With just a few provisions on the idle boat, Zeke and Lexi must figure out how to get back home. But aside from their survival, they’re facing another challenge. Because when you’re stuck together for days on end, it gives you a lot of time to get to know someone—and to fall in love with them.]]> 384 Beth O'Leary 0593640144 K 0 to-read 3.72 2025
author: Beth O'Leary
name: K
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217453516 From beloved author Hannah Orenstein, this love letter to lake life is “the Parent Trap for adults,�� the story of two half-sisters who meet for the first time at their father’s cabin in Maine after his unexpected death.

Every summer, Vivian Levy and Lucy Webster spend a month with their father at his lake house �� separately. Raised in New York City, Vivian is an ambitious sommelier with a secret that could derail her future. Lucy grew up in a tiny Maine town, where she now teaches high school English while watching her marriage unravel. They’ve never met. While Lucy envied her half-sister from afar, their father kept Vivian in the dark.

When Vivian arrives at the lake to spread his ashes and sell his cabin, she's shocked to find Lucy there, awaiting his return. In an ideal world, they’d help each other through their grief. Instead, forced to spend the summer together, they fight through a storm of suspicion and hostility to untangle the messy truth about their parents�� pasts. While Lucy is desperate to hold onto the house, Vivian is scrambling after a betrayal. After thirty years apart, is it too late for them to be a family?

For fans of Carley Fortune and Elin Hilderbrand, this sister story set on a lush lake brims with the undeniable heart, depth, charm, and humor that have endeared Hannah Orenstein to legions of readers.]]> 400 Hannah Orenstein 0593851552 K 0 to-read 3.70 2025
author: Hannah Orenstein
name: K
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 200547569 480 Isabelle Bonnet 0500297908 K 0 to-read 4.50
author: Isabelle Bonnet
name: K
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 28214365
Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.

When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.

Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.]]> 322 Ann Patchett 0062491792 K 0 to-read, divorce 3.81 2016
author: Ann Patchett
name: K
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read, divorce
review:

]]> 32620332
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ��80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501139231 K 4 4.39 2017
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: K
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2021/09/25
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: lgbtq, sapphic, sapphlitfic, historical-fiction, divorce
review:
Ugh this is really good !! But I don’t think TJR has the range to write characters of color sksksk
]]> 60568471
It couldn’t save their marriage.

Yasmen wasn’t prepared for how her life fell apart, but she is finally starting to find joy again. She and Josiah have found a new rhythm, co-parenting their two kids and running a thriving business together. Yet like magnets, they’re always drawn back to each other, and now they’re beginning to wonder if they’re truly ready to let go of everything they once had.

Soon, one stolen kiss leads to another…and then more. It's hot. It's illicit. It's all good—until old wounds reopen. Is it too late for them to find forever? Or could they even be better, the second time around?

Award-winning and bestselling "powerhouse" author Kennedy Ryan is at her absolute best in this compelling, scorching novel about hope and healing, and what it truly means to love for a lifetime (USA Today).]]> 391 Kennedy Ryan 1538706792 K 0 divorce 4.32 2022
author: Kennedy Ryan
name: K
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: divorce
review:

]]> 214986266 A joyfully unhinged story of money, marriage, sex, and revenge unspools when a billionaire crashes his hot air balloon into the middle of a post-pandemic first date.

Joannie hasn’t been on a date in seven years when Johnny invites Joannie and her daughter to dinner. His house is beautiful, his son is sweet, and their first kiss is, well, it’s not the best, but Joannie could convince herself it was nice enough. But when Joannie’s childhood crush, a summer camp fling turned famous billionaire, crash lands his hot air balloon in Johnny’s swimming pool, Joannie dives in.��

Soon she finds herself alighting on a lost weekend with Johnny the bad kisser, Jonathan the billionaire, and Julia his smart, stunning wife. Does Joannie want Jonathan? Does Julia want her husband? Or Joannie? Or Joannie’s beautiful little girl? Does Johnny want Julia? Does Jonathan want Joannie, or Julia, or maybe, his much younger personal assistant, Vivian, who is tasked to fix it all? A tale of lust and money and lust for money, Hot Air is as astonishing as it is blisteringly funny, a delirious, delicious story for our billionaire era.]]> 208 Marcy Dermansky 0593320905 K 0 to-read, lit-fic, divorce 3.48 2025
author: Marcy Dermansky
name: K
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read, lit-fic, divorce
review:

]]> 210456560
At the Golden Yarrow, the most respectable of Reno’s famous “divorce ranches,�� Lois finds herself living with half a dozen other would-be divorcées, all in Reno for the six weeks�� residency that is the state’s only divorce requirement. They spend their days riding horses and their nights flirting with cowboys, and it’s as wild and fun as Lake Forest, Illinois, is prim and stifling. But it isn’t until Greer Lang arrives that Lois’s world truly cracks open. Gorgeous, beguiling, and completely indifferent to societal convention, Greer is unlike anyone Lois has ever met―and she sees something in Lois that no one else ever has. Under her influence, Lois begins to push against the limits that have always restrained her. But how much can she really trust her mysterious new friend? And how far will she go to forge her independence, on her own terms?]]> 273 Rowan Beaird 1786583658 K 0 to-read, divorce 3.16 2024
author: Rowan Beaird
name: K
average rating: 3.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read, divorce
review:

]]> 44305735 The Not Wives traces the lives of three women as they navigate the Occupy Wall Street movement and each other. Stevie is a nontenured professor and recently divorced single mom; her best friend Mel is a bartender, torn between her long-term girlfriend and a desire to explore polyamory; and Johanna is a homeless teenager trying to find her way in the world.

In the midst of economic collapse and class conflict, late-night hookups and long-suffering exes, the three characters piece together a new American identity founded on resistance--against the looming shadow of financial precarity, the gentrification of New York, and the traditional role of a wife.]]> 368 Carley Moore 1936932687 K 0 to-read, divorce 4.08 2019
author: Carley Moore
name: K
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read, divorce
review:

]]> 2142191
It's 1924, and Peter and Patricia have what looks to be a very modern marriage. Both drink. Both smoke. Both work, Patricia as a head copywriter at a major department store. When it comes to sex with other people, both believe in “the honesty policy.�� Until they don‘t. Or, at least, until Peter doesn‘t—and a shell-shocked, lovesick Patricia finds herself starting out all over again, but this time around as a different kind of single the ex-wife.

An instant bestseller when it was published anonymously in 1929, Ex-Wife captures the speakeasies, night clubs, and parties that defined Jazz Age New York—alongside the morning-after aspirin and calisthenics, the lunch-hour visits to the gym, the girl-talk, and the freedoms and anguish of solitude. It also casts a cool eye on the bedrooms and the doctor’s offices where, despite rising hemlines, the men still call the shots. The result is a unique view of what its author Ursula Parrott called “the era of the one-night stand��: an era very much like our own.]]> 224 Ursula Parrott 0452262240 K 0 to-read, divorce 4.16 1929
author: Ursula Parrott
name: K
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1929
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read, divorce
review:

]]> 77810 The Days of Abandonment shocked and captivated its Italian public when first published. It is the gripping story of a woman's descent into devastating emptiness after being abandoned by her husband with two young children to care for. When she finds herself literally trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal.]]> 188 Elena Ferrante 1933372001 K 0 to-read, divorce 3.92 2002
author: Elena Ferrante
name: K
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read, divorce
review:

]]> 45289222 Euphoria, Lily King returns with an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman.

Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfil her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.

Writers & Lovers follows Casey--a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist--in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King's trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.]]> 320 Lily King K 0 to-read, divorce 3.98 2020
author: Lily King
name: K
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read, divorce
review:

]]> 122205 How Stella Got Her Groove Back is full of Terry McMillan's signature humor, heart, and insight. More than a love story, it is ultimately a novel about how a woman saves her own life--and what she must risk to do it.

Stella Payne is forty-two, divorced, a high-powered investment analyst, mother of eleven-year-old Quincy- and she does it all. In fact, if she doesn't do it, it doesn't get done, from Little League carpool duty to analyzing portfolios to folding the laundry and bringing home the bacon. She does it all well, too, if her chic house, personal trainer, BMW, and her loving son are any indication. So what if there's been no one to share her bed with lately, let alone rock her world? Stella doesn't mind it too much; she probably wouldn't have the energy for love--and all of love's nasty fallout--anyway.

But when Stella takes a spur-of-the-moment vacation to Jamaica, her world gets rocked to the core--not just by the relaxing effects of the sun and sea and an island full of attractive men, but by one man in particular. He's tall, lean, soft-spoken, Jamaican, smells of citrus and the ocean--and is half her age. The tropics have cast their spell and Stella soon realizes she has come to a cataclysmic juncture: not only must she confront her hopes and fears about love, she must question all of her expectations, passions, and ideas about life and the way she has lived it.]]> 401 Terry McMillan 0451209141 K 0 to-read, divorce 3.82
author: Terry McMillan
name: K
average rating: 3.82
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read, divorce
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]]> 221179051 Luster meets The Idiot in this riveting debut novel about a volatile friendship between two outsiders who escape their bleak childhoods and enter the glamorous early '90s art world in New York City, where only one of them can make it.

Ruth, an only child of recent immigrants to New England, lives in an emotionally cold home and attends the local Catholic girl’s school on a scholarship. Maria, a beautiful orphan whose Panamanian mother dies by suicide and is taken care of by an ill, unloving aunt, is one of the only other students attending the school on a scholarship. Ruth is drawn forcefully into Maria’s orbit, and they fall into an easy, yet intense, friendship. Her devotion to her charming and bright new friend opens up her previously sheltered world.

While Maria, charismatic and aware of her ability to influence others, eases into her full self, embracing her sexuality and her desire to be an artist, Ruth is mostly content to follow her around: to college and then into the early-nineties art world of New York City. There, ambition and competition threaten to rupture their friendship, while strong and unspoken forces pull them together over the years. Whereas Maria finds early success in New York City as an artist, Ruth stumbles along the fringes of the art world, pulled toward a quieter life of work and marriage. As their lives converge and diverge, they meet in one final and fateful confrontation.

Ruth and Maria's decades-long friendship interrogates the nature of intimacy, desire, class and time. What does it mean to be an artist and to be true to oneself? What does it mean to give up on an obsession? Marking the arrival of a sensational new literary talent, Lonely Crowds challenges us to reckon honestly with our own ambitions and the lives we hope to lead.]]> 304 Stephanie Wambugu 031658133X K 0 to-read 4.78
author: Stephanie Wambugu
name: K
average rating: 4.78
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220239023 When a young book publicist finds herself in an all-consuming workplace affair with her literary idol, she learns that the things you love most can sometimes be the very things that tear you apart in this intoxicating and moving debut novel.

Charlie hasn’t always had high hopes for herself. But now at twenty-three, she’s landed her dream job��as an assistant��at a historic��London��publishing house, moved into a stunning townhome with two of the most glamorous, kind and generous��people she’s ever met, and her favorite author, the award-winning, generation-defining,��charming��Richard Aveling, is about to publish his magnum opus—and Charlie is going to be working with him.

She couldn’t be more excited to help publish the man whose writing has inspired her since she was a teenager. When Charlie bumps into Richard while having a smoke in the rain, the attraction is immediate,��and the moment feels nothing short of cinematic.

So��when the Richard Aveling begins to take her advice over that of more senior staff, Charlie finds herself drawn to him despite their thirty-year age gap, his marriage, and the disparity in their power at the publishing house. Once Richard makes it clear that he’s drawn to her as well, they begin an affair that Charlie never saw coming;��it is a relationship founded in control and silence.

Too soon, she can’t imagine her life without Richard, and too late, she understands that losing him will unravel more than just their relationship…it might also unravel her.

Tender and poignant, Bitter Sweet is an intimate exploration��of power, of vulnerability, of what it means to love another person, and of what it means to love yourself.]]> 304 Hattie Williams 059387420X K 0 to-read 4.30
author: Hattie Williams
name: K
average rating: 4.30
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218671843 An unexpected��road trip across America brings a family together, in this raucous and moving new novel from the bestselling author of Nothing to See Here.

Ever since��her dad left them twenty years ago,��it’s just been Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While she sometimes admits it’s a bit lonely and a less exciting life than she imagined for herself, it’s mostly OK. Mostly.

Then one day Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and informs Madeline that he believes she’s his half sister. Reuben—left behind by their dad thirty years ago—has hired a detective to track down their father and a string of other half siblings.��And he wants Mad to leave her home and join him for the craziest kind of road trip imaginable to find them all.

As Mad and Rube—and eventually the others—share stories of their father, who behaved so differently in each life he created, they begin to question what he was looking for with each new incarnation. Who are they to one another? What kind of man will they find? And how will these new relationships change Mad’s previously solitary life on the farm?

Infused with deadpan wit, zany hijinks, and enormous heart, Run for the Hills is a sibling story like no other—a novel about a family forged under the most unlikely circumstances and united by hope in an unknown future.]]> 256 Kevin Wilson 0063317516 K 0 to-read 4.08 2025
author: Kevin Wilson
name: K
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220114865 A Cosmopolitan book to look out for in 2025
'An immersive story about love and the softening borders around what family can be' Sheena Patel
'An intimate and tender exploration of love's possibilities' Sophie Mackintosh

Jules has been divorced from her ex-husband Leon for five years, but she still works alongside him at Gunk, the grotty student nightclub he owns in central Brighton. She spends her nights serving shots and watching, from behind the bar, as Leon flirts with students on the dancefloor. In the early hours of the morning, she paces home to sleep.

But then Leon hires nineteen-year-old Nim to work the bar with Jules �� Nim, with her shaved head and steady pour, her disarming sweetness and sudden distance �� and Jules finds herself jolted awake. When Nim discovers she's pregnant, Jules agrees to help. As the months pass, and the relationship between the two women grows increasingly intimate and perplexing, it emerges that Nim has her own unexpected gifts to give.

Now, alone in her small flat, Jules is holding a baby, just twenty-four-hours old, who still smells of Nim. But no one knows where Nim is, or if she's coming back. What could the future �� for Jules, Nim, and this unnamed baby �� possibly look like?

Raw, exhilarating, tender and wise, Gunk is an electrifying debut novel exploring love and desire, safety and destruction, chaos and control �� and family in all its forms.

Praise for Saba Sams
'Sams is the real deal' LUCY KIRKWOOD, GUARDIAN
'A bold new talent' STYLIST
'I can't wait to see what she writes next' PANDORA SYKES]]> Saba Sams 1526621819 K 0 to-read 3.92
author: Saba Sams
name: K
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53244193
Dream and reality overlap in Divorcing, a book in which divorcing is not just a matter of marital collapse but names a rift that runs right through the inner and outer worlds of Sophie Blind, its brilliant but desperate protagonist. Can the rift be mended? Perhaps in the form of a novel, one that goes back from present-day New York to Sophie's childhood in pre-World War II Budapest, that revisits the divorce between her Freudian father and her fickle mother, and finds a place for a host of further tensions and contradictions of her life now. The question that haunts Divorcing, however, is whether any novel can be fleet and bitter and true and light enough to gather up all the darkness of a given life.

Susan Taubes's startlingly original novel was published in 1969 but largely ignored; after the author's tragic early death, it was forgotten. Its republication presents a chance to rediscover a dazzlingly intense and inventive writer whose work in many ways anticipates the fragmentary, glancing, lyrical novels that Renata Adler and Elizabeth Hardwick would write in the 1970s.]]> 288 Susan Taubes K 0 to-read, divorce 3.70 1969
author: Susan Taubes
name: K
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1969
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read, divorce
review:

]]> 189187278
This small bomb of a novel, not remotely pastoral, builds to a howling crescendo of social despair, leaving us at the mercy of Eva Baltasar’s wild voice.������]]> 103 Eva Baltasar 1916751008 K 0 to-read 3.66 2022
author: Eva Baltasar
name: K
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 30407998
A young woman has agreed with her faithless husband: it's time for them to separate. For the moment it's a private matter, a secret between the two of them. As she begins her new life, she gets word that Christopher has gone missing in a remote region in the rugged south of Greece; she reluctantly agrees to go and search for him, still keeping their split to herself. In her heart, she's not even sure if she wants to find him. Adrift in the wild landscape, she traces the disintegration of their relationship, and discovers she understands less than she thought about the man she used to love.

A story of intimacy and infidelity, A Separation is about the gulf that divides us from the lives of others and the narratives we create for ourselves. As the narrator reflects upon her love for a man who may never have been what he appeared, Kitamura propels us into the experience of a woman on the brink of catastrophe. A Separation is a riveting stylistic masterpiece of absence and presence that will leave the reader astonished, and transfixed.]]> 231 Katie Kitamura 039957610X K 0 to-read, divorce 2.99 2017
author: Katie Kitamura
name: K
average rating: 2.99
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: to-read, divorce
review:

]]> 125479580
"Erin Williams' What's Wrong? is an utterly riveting, deeply moving, absolutely molecule-rearranging exploration of pain--individual and collective--suffused with wit, wonder, and mourning; textured by compassion and curiosity, and vibrating with the humanity of its dynamic subjects. Williams' sharp, nimble, tender prose, and her searing art--humming with insight and imagination--speak to veins of human experience so difficult to articulate we often shy away from speaking them at all. But in these dark places, she finds vitality, collectivity, and hope. This book and its subjects will live inside me forever." Leslie Jamison, author The Empathy Exams

What’s Wrong? is author, illustrator, and scientific researcher Erin Williams’s graphic exploration of how the American health-care system fails us. Focusing on four raw and complex firsthand accounts, plus Williams’s own story, this book examines the consequences of living with interconnected illnesses and conditions Western medicine, which intends to cure illness and minimize pain, often causes more loss, abuse, and suffering for those Americans who don’t fit within the narrow definition of who the system was built to serve—cis, white, heterosexual men. The book explores the many ways in which those receiving medical care are often overlooked, unseen, and doubted by the very clinicians who are supposed to heal them. What’s Wrong? is also a beautiful celebration of nontraditional modes of healing, of how we become whole not because of health care but despite it.]]> 256 Erin Williams 1419747347 K 0 to-read 4.04 2024
author: Erin Williams
name: K
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 48890225 A whipsmart debut about three women—transgender and cisgender—whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires around gender, motherhood, and sex.

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?

This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.]]> 337 Torrey Peters 0593133374 K 5
EDIT: Upon re-read i like it for such different reasons! this book hits different once you are getting divorced. ]]> 3.94 2021
author: Torrey Peters
name: K
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: lgbtq, fiction, favorites, sapphlitfic, lit-fic, divorce
review:
This book confirmed for me that I’m old gay. I loved it so so much. Beautiful prose, I loved the pacing, I loved the multiple viewpoints, the drama, the witty analysis of sex and gender. I think people fully immersed in gay culture with gay friends will really deeply understand this book. I love how the characters are all deliciously flawed. Ugh. Reading this book made bed rest slightly more bearable. Probably one of my new favorites.

EDIT: Upon re-read i like it for such different reasons! this book hits different once you are getting divorced.
]]> 217387999 A smart and thought-provoking memoir, history, and cultural critique about the turmoil and complexity of female friendship

Our culture today is inundated with narratives about the strength of female friendship, whether through images of girl power, BFFs, or work wives. Yet cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith has always found her own life much messier. She has had dramatic friend breakups, friendships that felt like too much or not enough, friendships that drifted into silence, and friendships built on convenience rather than a meeting of minds. And there are older cultural scripts to contend the competitive rival, the jealous backstabber, the underminer, the fair-weather friend.

We have all been bad friends. It’s impossible to be a perfect one; as Watt Smith points out, women’s friendships have long been magnified, scrutinized, praised, and admonished, creating a legacy of impossible ideals. In Bad Friend, Watt Smith reflects on her own experience and thoroughly mines the rich cultural history of female friendship to look for a new paradigm that might encompass the struggles along with the joy.]]> 304 Tiffany Watt Smith 1250870216 K 0 to-read 4.20
author: Tiffany Watt Smith
name: K
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 177185976
Javier Perez is a hustler from a family of hustlers. He learns from an early age how to play the game to his own advantage, how his background—murdered drug dealer dad, single cash-strapped mom, best friend serving time for gang activity—can be a key to doors he didn’t even know existed. This kind of story, molded in the right way, is just what college admissions committees are looking for, and a full academic scholarship to a prestigious university brings Javi one step closer to his dream of becoming a famous writer.

As a college student, Javi embellishes his life story until there’s not even a kernel of truth left. The only real connection to his past is the occasional letter he trades with his childhood best friend, Gio, who doesn’t seem to care about Javi’s newfound awareness of white privilege or the school-to-prison pipeline. Soon after Javi graduates, a viral essay transforms him from a writer on the rise to a journalist at a legendary magazine where the editors applaud his “unique perspective.�� But Gio more than anyone knows who Javi really is, and sees through his game. Once Gio’s released from prison and Javi offers to cut him in on the deal, will he play along with Javi’s charade, or will it all come crumbling down?

A satirical sendup of tear-jerking trauma plots with a tender portrait of friendship at its core, Victim asks what real diversity looks like and how far one man is willing to go to make his story hit the right notes.]]> 276 Andrew Boryga 0385549970 K 0 to-read 3.83 2024
author: Andrew Boryga
name: K
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 215217589 Darkly funny and provocative, this edge-of-your-seat thrill ride follows two unlikely fugitives—an SAT tutor who finds her rich employers brutally murdered and the bound woman she frees from their mansion—an irresistible debut novel perfect for fans of��The Guest��and��My Sister, the Serial Killer

A scholarship kid with straight As and big dreams, Evie Gordon always thought she was special, that she’d be someone. But after graduating from an elite university, she finds herself drowning in debt and working as an SAT tutor for the super-rich of Los Angeles.

Everything changes one Sunday, when she arrives for her weekly lesson at the Victors�� Beverly Hills estate and, in lieu of a bored teenager, finds the bloody remains of the parents strewn through their beautiful back garden, and a woman crying for help within a closet. As Evie works to free her, the two are spotted—and within moments, they go from bystanders to suspects to fugitives.

Suddenly at the heart of a manhunt and accompanied by a mysterious woman who refuses to speak, Evie knows the only way to clear her name is to find the real killer. But first she’ll have to break down the barriers of her companion, who is quickly becoming the most important person in Evie’s upside-down life. Their breathless spree takes them across the U.S. as developments in the case shock the nation and the press runs wild with Evie’s a gifted kid turned killer. She's now on the cover of every magazine and newspaper—anointed the new Charles Manson, a bloodthirsty ninety-nine percenter looking to start a class war. Evie is finally��someone.

By turns cuttingly hilarious and deeply insightful,��Killer Potential��is a strikingly original debut. A literary novel with the page-turning intensity of a thriller that asks timely questions about our belief in the romance of social mobility, and how the stories we’re sold about our potential can shape the course of our lives.]]> 320 Hannah Deitch 0063356481 K 0 to-read 3.54 2025
author: Hannah Deitch
name: K
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 215362444 336 Katy Hays 0593875559 K 0 to-read 3.68 2025
author: Katy Hays
name: K
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214151565 A read-in-one-night suspense thriller narrated by a compulsive liar whose little white lies allow her to enter into the life and comfort of a wealthy married couple who are harboring much darker secrets themselves. For the millions of us still chasing those gone girls, this is perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell, Lucy Foley, and Laura Dave.

Sloane Caraway is a liar.

Harmless lies, mostly, to make her self-proclaimed sad, little life a bit more interesting.

So when Sloane sees a young girl in tears at a park one afternoon, she can't help herself—she tells the girl's (very attractive) dad she's a nurse and helps him pull a bee stinger from the girl's foot.

With this lie, and chance encounter, Sloane becomes the nanny for the wealthy, and privileged Jay and Violet Lockhart. The perfect New York couple, with a brownstone, a daughter in private school, and summers on Block Island.

But maybe Sloane isn't the only one lying, and all that's picture-perfect harbors a much more dangerous truth. To say anything more is to spoil the most exciting, twisty, and bitingly smart suspense novel to come out in years.

The thing about lies is that they add up, form their own truth and a twisted prison of a world. And in Count My Lies, Sophie Stava spins a breakneck, unputdownable thriller about the secrets we keep, and the terrifying dangers that lurk just under the images we spend so much time trying to maintain.

Careful what you lie for.]]> 336 Sophie Stava 1668079348 K 0 to-read 3.75 2025
author: Sophie Stava
name: K
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222376682 A life-affirming novel of family, mending, and how we learn to love, from the award-winning Bryan Washington.

In Tokyo, the son works as an English tutor, drinking his nights away with friends at a gay bar. He’s entangled in a sexual relationship with a married man, and while he has built a chosen family in Japan, he is estranged from his family in Houston, particularly his mother, whose preference for the son’s oft-troubled homophobic brother, Chris, pushed him to leave home. Then, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, ten years since they’ve last seen each other, the mother arrives uninvited on his doorstep.

Separated only by the son’s cat, Taro, the two of them bristle against each other immediately. The mother, wrestling with memories of her youth in Jamaica and her own complicated brother, works to reconcile her good intentions with her missteps. The son struggles to forgive. But as life begins to steer them in unexpected directions�� the mother to a tentative friendship with a local bistro owner, and the son to cautiously getting to know a new patron of the bar—the two of them begin to see each other more clearly. Sharing meals and conversations and an eventful trip to Nara, both mother and son try the best they can to define where “home�� really is—and whether they can find it even in each other.

Written with understated humor and an open heart, moving through past and present and across Houston, Jamaica, and Japan, Bryan Washington’s Palaver is an intricate story of family, love, and the beauty of a life among others.]]> 336 Bryan Washington 0374609071 K 0 to-read 3.91
author: Bryan Washington
name: K
average rating: 3.91
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211003937 The long-awaited follow-up from one of the most original and hilarious voices writing today.

Scaachi Koul’s first book was a collection of raw, perceptive, and hilarious essays reckoning with the issues of race, body image, love, friendship, and growing up the daughter of immigrants. When the time came to start writing her next book, Scaachi assumed she’d be updating her story with essays about her elaborate four-day wedding, settling down to domestic bliss, and continuing her never-ending arguments with her parents. Instead, the Covid pandemic hit, the world went into lockdown, Scaachi’s marriage fell apart, she lost her job, and her mother was diagnosed with cancer.

Sucker Punch is about what happens when the life you thought you’d be living radically changes course, everything you thought you knew about the world and yourself has tilted on its axis, and you have to start forging a new path forward. Scaachi employs her signature humor and fierce intelligence to interrogate her previous belief that fighting is the most effective tool for progress. She examines the fights she’s had—with her parents, her ex-husband, her friends, online strangers, and herself—all in an attempt to understand when a fight is worth having, and when it's better to walk away.]]> 272 Scaachi Koul 1250270502 K 0 divorce 4.07 2025
author: Scaachi Koul
name: K
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: divorce
review:
A little straighter than I typically read and I didn’t pay attention to the religious aspects and I fear some of the humor may seem dated BUT overall affirming and healing and some relatable parts about being an Online Person. Will def read her first book, this review sounds harsh but if I still rated books it would’ve gotten 4 stars. Thank you to NetGalley.
]]> 199797799
Everyone knows Judy Blume.

Her books have garnered her fans of all ages for decades and sold tens of millions of copies. But why were people so drawn to them? And why are we still talking about them now in the 21st century?

In The Genius of Judy , her remarkable story is revealed as never before, beginning with her as a mother of two searching for purpose outside of her home in 1960s suburban New Jersey. The books she wrote starred regular children with genuine thoughts and problems. But behind those deceptively simple tales, Blume explored the pillars of the growing women’s rights movement, in which girls and women were entitled to careers, bodily autonomy, fulfilling relationships, and even sexual pleasure. Blume wasn’t trying to be a revolutionary—she just wanted to tell honest stories—but in doing so, she created a cohesive, culture-altering vision of modern adolescence.

Blume’s bravery provoked backlash, making her the country’s most-banned author in the mid-1980s. Thankfully, her works withstood those culture wars and it’s no coincidence that Blume has resurfaced as a cultural touchstone now. Young girls are still cat-called, sex education curricula are getting dismissed as pornography, and entire shelves of libraries are being banned. As we face these challenges, it’s only natural we look to Blume, the grand dame of so-called dirty books. This is the story of how a housewife became a groundbreaking artist, and how generations of empowered fans are her legacy, today more than ever.]]> 288 Rachelle Bergstein 1668010909 K 0 to-read 3.80 2024
author: Rachelle Bergstein
name: K
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214565614 A chilling historical horror novel set in the American west in 1912 following a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice.

A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.]]> 448 Stephen Graham Jones 1668075083 K 0 to-read 4.30 2025
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: K
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59019775 256 Lauren Berlant 1478015810 K 0 to-read 4.00 2022
author: Lauren Berlant
name: K
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> 220161319 The “masterful, inspiring, and full of heart�� (Ali Hazelwood, New York Times bestselling author) Jackie Lau returns with a thoroughly unique love story about a woman reliving the same Friday over and over again—and the intriguing man who can’t quite remember her.

Noelle Tom really shouldn’t have eaten those dumplings at the night market. But the old lady at the stall said they’d give her what she needed most, and what Noelle desperately needed after another long workweek was food.

Except now she’s reliving the same Friday over and over. Every morning her alarm goes off at 6:45 no matter what, the Wordle answer is always “happy,�� and she watches a silly squirrel video go viral day after day. And no matter how much she works on the same proposal, it’s always erased when she wakes up. It seems Monday will never come in this workaholic’s worst nightmare.

Noelle has no idea how being trapped in a time loop is the “thing she needed most,�� especially now that everything seems meaningless. Sure, three fancy meals in a row is a fun treat, but it’s getting repetitive. Noelle’s not sure what lesson the old lady was trying to impart. Even a trip to the dumpling stall doesn’t help…because there’s no sign of it.

But then she meets a young woman who also ate the dumplings, and good-looking Cam, who appears in multiple places on her Friday. While he seems to have no memory of their encounters, there are signs he might be the key to getting un-stuck. But Noelle will have to put work aside and live a little in order to make him notice her. As their flirtation progresses, Noelle begins to worry that if she ever gets to turn the calendar page, Cam won’t know who she is and her life may never return to what it was before that fateful Friday…]]> 352 Jackie Lau 1668030799 K 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: Jackie Lau
name: K
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211004172 Meryl Wilsner's spicy f/nb romance, where two lifelong best friends go on a nonrefundable honeymoon together and discover sometimes to find a happily ever after, you just have to ask.

Elsie Hoffman has been engaged to her college boyfriend for a year and a half. Ginny Holtz has been in love with Elsie for almost a decade and a half.

When Elsie discovers her fiancé already planned their wedding and honeymoon as a surprise and she’s expected to be in a white dress in seven days, she swiftly realizes she’s let herself become too comfortable with a future she never wanted. She breaks things off, and a week later is on a plane to the Caribbean for her non-refundable honeymoon with her best friend Ginny instead.

Ginny thinks it’s high time Elsie learned how to speak up for herself. So, they make a deal with her. For the next week, Elsie can have whatever she wants, wherever, however, and whenever she wants it, as long as she asks. They never expected Elsie to want them.

What starts as choosing activities and taking selfies soon turns to toe-curling kisses and much, much more. But what happens when the honeymoon is over?

Meryl Wilsner’s My Best Friend’s Honeymoon is about not only learning to ask for what you want, but for the happiness you deserve.]]> 304 Meryl Wilsner 1250873320 K 0 to-read 3.43 2025
author: Meryl Wilsner
name: K
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/19
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]]> 214986196 From the New York Times bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things, a sparkling and funny new novel of entertainment, ambition, art, and love.

Cherry Hendricks might be down on her luck, but she can write the book on what makes something funny: she’s a professional clown who creates raucous, zany fun at gigs all over Orlando. Between her clowning and her shifts at an aquarium store for extra cash, she’s always hustling. Not to mention balancing her judgmental mother, her messy love life, and her equally messy community of fellow performers.

Things start looking up when Cherry meets Margot the Magnificent—a much older lesbian magician—who seems to have worked out the lines between art, business, and life, and has a slick, successful career to prove it. With Margot’s mentorship and industry connections, Cherry is sure to take her art to the next level. Plus, Margot is sexy as hell. It’s not long before Cherry must decide how much she’s willing to risk for Margot and for her own explosive new act—and what kind of clown she wants to be under her suit.

Equal parts bravado, tenderness, and humor, and bursting with misfits, magicians, musicians, and mimes, Stop Me If You've Heard This One is a masterpiece of comedic fiction that asks big questions about art and performance, friendship and community, and the importance of timing in jokes and in life.]]> 272 Kristen Arnett 0593719778 K 0 to-read 3.71 2025
author: Kristen Arnett
name: K
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> 54493401
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]> 476 Andy Weir 0593135202 K 0 to-read 4.49 2021
author: Andy Weir
name: K
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61340204 Francisco��"profoundly underappreciated" (NY Times) has long been out of print and impossible to find. Written in her early twenties in a “fluently funky mix of standard and nonstandard English" (Harryette Mullen), Mills Newman tells the vibrant story of a young black woman's love affair with an indie filmmaker, Francisco. Described as "a portrait of the artist as a young black woman trying to find a way back to herself" in the new foreword by Saidiya Hartman, Francisco unfolds like an on-the-road diary of a young actress and musician as she becomes increasingly disillusioned with success in Hollywood. She chronicles her bohemian life with her filmmaker lover, visiting friends and family up and down California, and her involvement in the 1970s Black Arts Movement. Angela Davis, Muhammad Ali, Pharoah Sanders, Melvin Van Peebles, Frank Silvera, and Amiri Baraka make appearances, along with other artists and writers like Ishmael Reed and Joe Overstreet. Love and friendship, long revealing conversations, parties and dancing in Berkeley and LA��Francisco celebrates “the workins of a positive alive life that is good value, quality, carin, truth �� the gift of art for the survival of the human heart.”]]> 117 Alison Mills Newman 0811232395 K 0 to-read 3.82 2023
author: Alison Mills Newman
name: K
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/17
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]]> 216412645 From the National Book Award finalist and author of Pet comes a novel set in a magical West African world, about a teen girl who must save her missing twin while learning to navigate her own terrifying new powers.

Somadina and her twin brother, Jayaike, are practically the same person: they finish each other's sentences and make each other whole. When the twins come of age, their magical gifts begin to develop, but while Jayaike's powers enchant, Somadina's cause fear to ripple through her town.

Always an outsider, Somadina now faces blatant--and dangerous--hostility. And things go from bad to worse when her brother—the one person she trusted—vanishes. Somadina knows that no matter the dangers, she must track him down. Even if it means entering the Sacred Forest. Even if it means grueling, otherworldly travel she may not survive. Even if it means finding the hidden places where those closest to the spirit world don't dare to go. Does Somadina have the strength --within both her body and her soul -- for the trying journey ahead?

National Book Award finalist Akwaeke Emezi masterfully weaves a tale of family, identity, and the power of the past, in a world where the extraordinary is ordinary.]]> 300 Akwaeke Emezi 0593309073 K 0 to-read 4.46 2025
author: Akwaeke Emezi
name: K
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 209141112 What if all Palestinians vanished from their homeland overnight?

Alaa, a young Palestinian, is haunted by his grandmother’s memories of being displaced from Jaffa and becoming a refugee in her homeland. Ariel, Alaa’s neighbour and friend, is a liberal Zionist, critical of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza yet faithful to the project of Israel. When he wakes up one morning to find that all Palestinians have suddenly vanished, Ariel begins searching for clues to the secret of the collective disappearance; that search, and his reaction to it, intimately reveal the fissures at the heart of the Palestinian question. Between the stories of Alaa and Ariel are the people of Jaffa and Tel Aviv against whose ordinary lives these fissures and questions play out.

Critically acclaimed in Arabic, spare yet evocative, intensely intelligent in its interplay of perspectives, The Book of Disappearance is an unforgettable glimpse into contemporary Palestine.]]> 224 Ibtisam Azem 1916751024 K 0 to-read 4.25 2014
author: Ibtisam Azem
name: K
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218460337
All of you are young, all beautiful, all keen to escape the grinding poverty, political unrest and environmental catastrophe of the outside world.

You realise that cameras are tracking your every move, broadcasting to millions of reality TV fans.

Soon, ten men will arrive on foot �� if they all survive the journey.

What will you have to do to win?

And what happens to the losers?

LORD OF THE FLIES meets LOVE ISLAND in this explosive, addictive debut novel, as bingeable as the best reality TV, with dark undercurrents of literary dystopia and consumerist satire. ]]> 304 Aisling Rawle 0593977270 K 0 to-read 3.97 2025
author: Aisling Rawle
name: K
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 215514839 From award-winning author and creative writing teacher at Tulane University comes an intimate and powerful memoir exploring inherited trauma, family secrets, and the enduring bonds of love between mothers and daughters.

On her second birthday in 1967, Bernice McFadden died in a car crash near Detroit, only to be resuscitated after her mother pulled her from the flaming wreckage. Firstborn Girls traces her remarkable life from that moment up to the publication of her first novel, Sugar.

Growing up in 1980s Brooklyn, Bernice finds solace in books, summer trips to Barbados, and boarding school to escape her alcoholic father. Discovering the works of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, she finally sees herself and her loved ones reflected in their stories of “messy, beautiful, joyful Black people.��

Interwoven with Bernice's personal journey is her family's history, beginning with her four-times enslaved great-grandmother Louisa Vicey Wilson in 1822 Hancock County, Georgia. Her descendants survived Reconstruction and Jim Crow, joined the Great Migration, and mourned Dr. King’s assassination during the Civil Rights Movement. These women's wisdom, secrets, and fierce love are passed down like Louisa's handmade quilt.

A memoir of many threads, Firstborn Girls is an extraordinarily moving portrait of a life shaped by family, history, and the drive to be something more.]]> 400 Bernice L. McFadden 0593184971 K 0 to-read 4.55 2025
author: Bernice L. McFadden
name: K
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 34225567 Set in the post-martial-law era of 1990s Taipei, Notes of a Crocodile depicts the coming-of-age of a group of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan s most prestigious university. Told through the eyes of an anonymous lesbian narrator nicknamed Lazi, Qiu Miaojin s cult classic novel is a postmodern pastiche of diaries, vignettes, mash notes, aphorisms, exegesis, and satire by an incisive prose stylist and countercultural icon.
Afflicted by her fatalistic attraction to Shui Ling, an older woman who is alternately hot and cold toward her, Lazi turns for support to a circle of friends that includes the devil-may-care, rich-kid-turned-criminal Meng Sheng and his troubled, self-destructive gay lover Chu Kuang, as well as the bored, mischievous overachiever Tun Tun and her alluring slacker artist girlfriend Zhi Rou.
Bursting with the optimism of newfound liberation and romantic idealism despite corroding innocence, Notes of a Crocodile is a poignant and intimate masterpiece of social defiance by a singular voice in contemporary Chinese literature."]]> 256 Qiu Miaojin 1681370778 K 0 to-read 3.64 1994
author: Qiu Miaojin
name: K
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43297216
One evening, Mother tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman’s body. She was called Hu Gu Po, and she hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterwards, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her grandmother; a visiting aunt arrives with snakes in her belly; a brother tests the possibility of flight. All the while, Daughter is falling for Ben, a neighborhood girl with strange powers of her own. As the two young lovers translate the grandmother’s letters, Daughter begins to understand that each woman in her family embodies a myth–and that she will have to bring her family’s secrets to light in order to change their destiny.

With a poetic voice of crackling electricity, K-Ming Chang is an explosive young writer who combines the wit and fabulism of Helen Oyeyemi with the subversive storytelling of Maxine Hong Kingston. Tracing one family’s history from Taiwan to America, from Arkansas to California, Bestiary is a novel of migration, queer lineages, and girlhood.]]> 259 K-Ming Chang 0593132580 K 0 to-read 3.46 2020
author: K-Ming Chang
name: K
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220062546 A girl takes on a series of identities to survive, shrouding herself in layer upon layer of secrets, until one morning years later when she is forced to reckon with her past.

"This debut is a beautiful, if sometimes harrowing, exploration of one woman’s journey. . . to a life built by her own grit and determination." -Library Journal, Starred Review.

"A coming-of-age story that is at once shocking and necessary. . . the story is too important and gripping to put down." - Kirkus

"A powerful story of resilience and reinvention... this satisfies." - Publisher's Weekly

On an ordinary day in an upscale Atlanta suburb, Maya is making breakfast for her two sons, when her husband drops a red-and-blue striped envelope on the counter and asks a devastating question: Who is Sunny?

Maya is sent reeling back to her childhood in Guyana—a time when Sunny was her only name. Unbeknownst to her husband, Maya is not who she claims to be. The letter, from her long-lost sister Roshi, now threatens to expose her true identity and shatter the seemingly perfect existence Maya worked so hard to build.

As she frantically weighs the impact of the truth on her future, Maya relives the harrowing details of her past—her journey to America on the “backtrack,�� the shock of being delivered into the hands of an abusive family while being severed from her own, and her many evolutions of self as she struggles to find a path forward against all odds.

Steeped in sensory detail, this striking debut transports the reader from the sugar cane fields of Guyana to the world of immigrant laborers in Miami to the affluent suburbs of Atlanta. Nanda Reddy takes us on a wrenching journey of assimilation, survival, and reinvention that explores the very construct of identity—all the while underscoring the strength of chosen family, love, and the resilience of the human spirit.]]> 384 Nanda Reddy K 0 to-read 4.29 2025
author: Nanda Reddy
name: K
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 15862392 272 Clifford Ando 0748620516 K 0 to-read 3.58 2012
author: Clifford Ando
name: K
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62257


She moves back to the city of her childhood where she befriends two black women who are also suffering from depression. With their support she confronts the traumatic childhood events—sexual abuse, neglect, and loss—that lie beneath her grief. This is not simply a memoir about depression, it is a powerful meditation on courage and a litany for survival.]]> 266 Meri Nana-Ama Danquah 0345432134 K 5 favorites, memoir 4.28 1998
author: Meri Nana-Ama Danquah
name: K
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: favorites, memoir
review:
I read this book for class in undergrad, and it truly changed my life. It was my first time reading a book about a person that looked like me, who suffered from depression. It's a relatively sad story, but it really sums up the bleakness and hopelessness that comes with mental illness. It's a favorite, because it made me feel so much less alone.
]]> 214151232 A highly anticipated, sweeping debut set in a unified Korea that tells the story of three estranged siblings—two human, one robot—as they collide against the backdrop of a murder investigation to settle old scores and make sense of their shattered childhood, perfect for fans of Klara and the Sun and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

In a reunified Korea of the future, robots have been integrated into society as surrogates, servants, children, and even lovers. Though boundaries between bionic and organic frequently blur, these robots are decidedly second-class citizens. Jun and Morgan, two siblings estranged for many years, are haunted by the memory of their lost brother, Yoyo, who was warm, sensitive, and very nearly human.

Jun, a war veteran turned detective of the lowly Robot Crimes Unit in Seoul, becomes consumed by an investigation that reconnects him with his sister Morgan, now a prominent robot designer working for a top firm, who is, embarrassingly, dating one of her creations in secret.

On the other side of Seoul in a junkyard filled with abandoned robots, eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through scraps looking for robotic parts that might support her failing body. When she discovers a robot boy named Yoyo among the piles of trash, an unlikely bond is formed since Yoyo is so lifelike, he’s unlike anything she’s seen before.

While Morgan prepares to launch the most advanced robot-boy of her career, Jun’s investigation sparks a journey through the underbelly of Seoul, unearthing deeper mysteries about the history of their country and their family. The three siblings must find their way back to each other to reckon with their pasts and the future ahead of them in this poignant and remarkable exploration of what it really means to be human.]]> 400 Silvia Park 1668021668 K 0 to-read 4.01 2025
author: Silvia Park
name: K
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218293592
Monogamy has played a central role in modernity, shaping our concepts of love, relationships, and family. In Monogamous Mind, Polyamorous Terror, Spanish writer Brigitte Vasallo explores how mechanisms of love are deeply rooted in societal and individual norms, rather than being freely chosen.

Originally published in Spanish and now a global bestseller, this groundbreaking text reveals how the notions of state, nation, and identity �� founded on codes of exclusivity, possession, and hierarchy �� are intertwined with monogamy. Drawing on extensive historical research through the lens of social and affective organisation, Vasallo challenges one of the most entrenched pillars of Western society. She unveils the potential for a radical transformation in our relationships �� whether erotic, familial, or communal �� pointing towards a new, inclusive approach for a different world.

Translation by Larry Goldsmith]]> 242 Brigitte Vasallo 1915743591 K 0 to-read, polyamory 4.44 2018
author: Brigitte Vasallo
name: K
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read, polyamory
review:

]]> 217092607
Crossing borders of language, nation, ethnicity, sexuality and art, The Naked Eye is a cinematic, incandescent novel that anticipates and embodies our twenty-first century nightmares and dreams.]]> 176 Yōko Tawada 1803511737 K 0 to-read 3.67 2004
author: Yōko Tawada
name: K
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 16151 128 Kathy Acker 0802131557 K 0 to-read 3.65 1982
author: Kathy Acker
name: K
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58506264
We all go through times when it feels like the ground is being pulled out from under us. What we relied on as steady and solid may change or even appear to vanish. In this era of global disruption, threats to our individual, social, and planetary safety abound, and at times life can feel overwhelming. Not only are loss and separation painful, but even positive changes can cause great stress.

Yet life is full of change: birth, death, marriage, divorce; a new relationship; losing or starting a job; beginning a new phase in life or ending one. Change is stressful, even when it is much desired or anticipated—the unknown can feel scary and threatening. In We Were Made for These Times, the extraordinary mindfulness teacher Kaira Jewel Lingo imparts accessible advice on navigating difficult times of transition, drawing on Buddhist teachings on impermanence to help you establish equanimity and resilience.

Each chapter in We Were Made for These Times holds an essential teaching and meditation, unfolding a step-by-step process to nurture deeper freedom and stability in daily life. Time-honored teachings will help you develop ease, presence, and self-compassion, supporting you to release the fear and doubt that hold you back.]]> 176 Kaira Jewel Lingo 1946764922 K 0 to-read 4.41 2021
author: Kaira Jewel Lingo
name: K
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 123250262
In Pixie Lighthorse's most personal work yet, The Wound Makes the Medicine , we are invited to embark on a journey of self-acceptance. This intricate tapestry of prose illuminates the paths we often avoid—the hidden corridors of suffering—and beckons us to walk them courageously, armed with a gentle understanding that we can withstand and learn from our pain.

Each page reveals a profound prescription for the soul, a remedy curated from the unique synthesis of Lighthorse's wisdom as an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation and the transformative insights gained from a life courageously lived. The Wound Makes the Medicine isn't a call for immediate transformation but a guide to embracing our wounds as teachers that reveal our strength, resilience, and capacity to heal. Lighthorse assures us that while wounds may create fractures, they also serve as openings for medicine.]]> 208 Pixie Lighthorse 1955905436 K 0 to-read 4.34
author: Pixie Lighthorse
name: K
average rating: 4.34
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> 28446947 Autumn. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. That's what it felt like for Keats in 1819.

How about Autumn 2016?

Daniel is a century old. Elisabeth, born in 1984, has her eye on the future. The United Kingdom is in pieces, divided by a historic once-in-a-generation summer.

Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand in hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever.

Ali Smith's new novel is a meditation on a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, on what harvest means. This first in a seasonal quartet casts an eye over our own time. Who are we? What are we made of? Shakespearian jeu d'esprit, Keatsian melancholy, the sheer bright energy of 1960s Pop art: the centuries cast their eyes over our own history-making.

Here's where we're living. Here's time at its most contemporaneous and its most cyclic.

From the imagination of the peerless Ali Smith comes a shape-shifting series, wide-ranging in timescale and light-footed through histories, and a story about ageing and time and love and stories themselves.

Here comes Autumn.]]> 264 Ali Smith 0241207002 K 0 to-read 3.67 2016
author: Ali Smith
name: K
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 34017010 Iconic couples�� therapist and bestselling author of��Mating in Captivity��Esther Perel returns with a provocative look at relationships through the lens of infidelity.

An affair: it can rob a couple of their relationship, their happiness, their very identity. And yet, this extremely common human experience is so poorly understood. What are we to make of this time-honored taboo—universally forbidden yet universally practiced? Why do people cheat—even those in happy marriages? Why does an affair hurt so much? When we say infidelity, what exactly do we mean? Do our romantic expectations of marriage set us up for betrayal? Is there such a thing as an affair-proof marriage? Is it possible to love more than one person at once? Can an affair ever help a marriage? Perel weaves real-life case stories with incisive psychological and cultural analysis in this fast-paced and compelling book.

For the past ten years, Perel has traveled the globe and worked with hundreds of couples who have grappled with infidelity. Betrayal hurts, she writes, but it can be healed. An��affair��can even be the doorway to a new marriage—with the same person. With the right approach, couples can grow and learn from these tumultuous experiences, together or apart.

Affairs, she argues, have a lot to teach us about modern relationships—what we expect, what we think we want, and what we feel entitled to. They offer a unique window into our personal and cultural attitudes about love, lust, and commitment. Through examining illicit love from multiple angles, Perel invites readers into an honest, enlightened, and entertaining exploration of modern marriage in its many variations.

Fiercely intelligent,��The��State��of��Affairs��provides a daring framework for understanding the intricacies of love and desire. As Perel observes, “Love is messy; infidelity more so. But it is also a window, like no other, into the crevices of the human heart.”]]> 352 Esther Perel 0062322605 K 0 to-read 4.35 2017
author: Esther Perel
name: K
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 3679 On Beauty is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, Massachusetts, whose misadventures in the culture wars-on both sides of the Atlantic-serve to skewer everything from family life to political correctness to the combustive collision between the personal and the political. Full of dead-on wit and relentlessly funny, this tour de force confirms Zadie Smith's reputation as a major literary talent.]]> 445 Zadie Smith 0143037749 K 0 to-read 3.79 2005
author: Zadie Smith
name: K
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222600270 144 Mia Arias Tsang K 0 to-read 4.53 2025
author: Mia Arias Tsang
name: K
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61385615
One slip on the rug. That’s all it took for Louise Wilt’s daughter to demand that Louise have a full-time nanny living with her. Never mind that she can still walk fine, finish her daily crossword puzzle, and pour the two fingers of vodka she drinks every afternoon. Bottom line -- Louise wants a caretaker even less than Tanner wants to be one.

The two start off their living arrangement happily ignoring each other until Tanner starts to notice things—weird things. Like, why does Louise keep her garden shed locked up tighter than a prison? And why is the local news fixated on the suspect of one of the biggest jewelry heists in American history who looks eerily like Louise? And why does Louise suddenly appear in her room, with a packed bag at 1 a.m. insisting that they leave town immediately?

Thus begins the story of a not-to-be-underestimated elderly woman and an aimless young woman who—if they can outrun the mistakes of their past—might just have the greatest adventure of their lives.]]> 337 Colleen Oakley 0593200802 K 0 to-read 4.00 2023
author: Colleen Oakley
name: K
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 204811915 People) of a novel about new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world.

With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?��

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known—“unrecorded lives,�� Olive calls them—reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.”]]> 326 Elizabeth Strout 0593446097 K 0 to-read 4.00 2024
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]]> 9712 348 Gabriel García Márquez 140003468X K 0 to-read 3.92 1985
author: Gabriel García Márquez
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average rating: 3.92
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As celebrated New York Times reporter Ali Watkins reveals in this exquisitely reported nonfiction thriller, the conflict in Northern Ireland might have gone very differently had it not been for a small, ragtag band of carpenters, family men, and fugitives in the United States. The Philadelphia Five, as they came to be known, supplied the Irish Republican Army at its moment of greatest need, bolstering the fight for a united Ireland but fueling the Troubles at an untold cost. This small group of Irish nationalists smuggled hundreds of rifles, rocket launchers, explosives, and armor-piercing bullets across the Atlantic Ocean and into Northern Ireland. Whether they were skimming money from innocuous-seeming charities, coolly slipping weapons into hidden compartments of vans and houses, or scouring local graveyards for the names of dead Irishmen to use on federal firearm forms, the gunrunners approached their mission—to unite Ireland under one flag, by any means necessary—with ruthless poise, even as European and American investigators closed in, members of their own movement began to turn on them, and bodies stacked up on all sides.]]> 336 Ali Watkins 0316538272 K 0 to-read 4.28 2025
author: Ali Watkins
name: K
average rating: 4.28
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]]> 347413 Sleepless Nights a woman looks back on her life—the parade of people, the shifting background of place—and assembles a scrapbook of memories, reflections, portraits, letters, wishes, and dreams. An inspired fusion of fact and invention, this beautifully realized, hard-bitten, lyrical book is not only Elizabeth Hardwick's finest fiction but one of the outstanding contributions to American literature of the last fifty years.]]> 176 Elizabeth Hardwick 0940322722 K 0 to-read 3.69 1979
author: Elizabeth Hardwick
name: K
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1979
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