Amanda's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 27 Apr 2025 16:23:38 -0700 60 Amanda's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams]]> 44097158 327 Sylvia Plath Amanda 4 2025, i-am-i-am-i-am “It seems almost an incredible relief to know that there is someone outside oneself who is not happy all the time. We must be at low ebb when we are this far into the black: that everyone else, merely because they are ‘other,� is invulnerable. That is a damn lie.�

This book contains short stories (20), essays (5), and notebook entries (5) by Sylvia Plath. It also contains an introduction done by Ted Hughes, the man who put together the book and released it after her death. The version of the book I read was a second edition that contained way more than the original release did.

TED HUGHES BULLSHIT:

“Sylvia Plath herself had certainly rejected several of the stories here, so they are printed against her better judgement. That must be taken into account. But in spite of the obvious weaknesses, they seem interesting enough to keep, if only as notes toward her inner autobiography.�

I can’t hate the above because he is acknowledging that she may not have wanted any of this released, and that he made the decision to do so. I am including it here because I feel it is important to note it.

“Nothing refreshed her more than sitting for hours in front of some intricate pile of things laboriously delineating each one. But that was also a helplessness. The blunt fact killed any power or inclination to rearrange it or see it differently. This limitation to actual circumstances, which is the prison of so much of her prose, became part of the solidity and truth of her later poems.�

I do hate the above because what he saw as a weakness was a core part of her process. I do see the merit in her ways. I see that she saw the world in vivid detail, and that by noting every aspect of it and putting it on paper, she was bringing forth a different view of everyday life for all to see. I do not feel it imprisoned her and/or her writing abilities at all.

OVERALL FEELINGS OF LIKE:

I love how she describes things. Her choice of adjectives. It speaks to me on so many levels. I can easily visualize what is described, and it is done in a way that I would never think of doing on my own.

“You could always tell where the best shells were—at the rim of the last wave, marked by a mascara of tar.�

I love the raw emotion. The exploration of deeper feelings put out on display for all to see. Those things we say to ourselves that we would never admit to, but are all guilty of thinking and/or feeling. They are mostly momentary and are very exaggerated, but they are ours.

“I hated babies. I who for two and a half years had been the center of a tender universe felt the axis wrench and a polar chill immobilize my bones. I would be a bystander, a museum mammoth. Babies!�

It also speaks to me as a person who loves over describing things and comparing them to other things that are equally over described. I can easily go off on a description tangent that has those around me praying for an interruption.

FAVORITE STORIES/ESSAYS/NOTES:

“Rose and Percy B� � The thing that stuck out was the book placed under the chin of a dead body, and what happened to it later.

“The end, even of so marginal a man, a horror.�

“A relief; this is the hostage for death, we are safe for the time being.�

“Day of Success� � I felt strongly this was taken from Plath’s life, an interaction involving Ted Hughes. The ending broke my heart because it felt like it was how she wanted it to end, and not how it really ended.

“Please don’t let it change, she begged of whatever fates might be listening. Let the three of us stay happy as this forever.�

“Sweetie Pie and The Gutter Men� � A dark little read involving children and the strange things they say. It has layers involving motherhood and things that aren’t said.

“Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams� � Of course the title story would appear on my list. It was a glimpse into a world of fantasy that I desperately wanted to explore further. The loss of what might have been, is very much apparent with this one.

“I’m a wormy hermit in a country of prize pigs so corn-happy they can’t see the slaughterhouse at the end of the track. I’m Jeremiah vision-bitten in the Land of Cockaigne.�

“His love is the twenty-story leap, the rope at the throat, the knife at the heart. He forgets not his own.�

“Superman and Paula Brown’s New Snowsuit� � This one reminded me of a school playground swing story from my own youth. Kids suck. The ones who fuss first and/or fuss loudest beat the quiet ones to the adult listen.

“Among the Bumblebees� � A good dad will be your hero forever. The previous Plath (poetry) collection I read had an awesome closer, and this one is equal to that. Hughes had talent; I can’t argue that.

“She did not know then that in all the rest of her life there would be no one to walk with her, like him, proud and arrogant among the bumblebees.�

DARK QUOTES I LOVED:

“As from a star I saw, coldly and soberly, the separateness of everything. I felt the wall of my skin: I am I. That stone is a stone. My beautiful fusion with the things of this world was over.�

“The sun ran faster and faster around the world, and she knew that her grandparents would soon die, and that her mother would die, and that there would finally be left no familiar name to invoke against the dark.�

“Goodnight, sweet princess. You are still on your own; be stoic, don’t panic; get through this hell to the generous sweet overflowing giving love of spring.�

Four stars to a book that dipped a little into tedious at times, but not too deep.]]> 4.00 1977 Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1977
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: 2025, i-am-i-am-i-am
review:
“It seems almost an incredible relief to know that there is someone outside oneself who is not happy all the time. We must be at low ebb when we are this far into the black: that everyone else, merely because they are ‘other,� is invulnerable. That is a damn lie.�

This book contains short stories (20), essays (5), and notebook entries (5) by Sylvia Plath. It also contains an introduction done by Ted Hughes, the man who put together the book and released it after her death. The version of the book I read was a second edition that contained way more than the original release did.

TED HUGHES BULLSHIT:

“Sylvia Plath herself had certainly rejected several of the stories here, so they are printed against her better judgement. That must be taken into account. But in spite of the obvious weaknesses, they seem interesting enough to keep, if only as notes toward her inner autobiography.�

I can’t hate the above because he is acknowledging that she may not have wanted any of this released, and that he made the decision to do so. I am including it here because I feel it is important to note it.

“Nothing refreshed her more than sitting for hours in front of some intricate pile of things laboriously delineating each one. But that was also a helplessness. The blunt fact killed any power or inclination to rearrange it or see it differently. This limitation to actual circumstances, which is the prison of so much of her prose, became part of the solidity and truth of her later poems.�

I do hate the above because what he saw as a weakness was a core part of her process. I do see the merit in her ways. I see that she saw the world in vivid detail, and that by noting every aspect of it and putting it on paper, she was bringing forth a different view of everyday life for all to see. I do not feel it imprisoned her and/or her writing abilities at all.

OVERALL FEELINGS OF LIKE:

I love how she describes things. Her choice of adjectives. It speaks to me on so many levels. I can easily visualize what is described, and it is done in a way that I would never think of doing on my own.

“You could always tell where the best shells were—at the rim of the last wave, marked by a mascara of tar.�

I love the raw emotion. The exploration of deeper feelings put out on display for all to see. Those things we say to ourselves that we would never admit to, but are all guilty of thinking and/or feeling. They are mostly momentary and are very exaggerated, but they are ours.

“I hated babies. I who for two and a half years had been the center of a tender universe felt the axis wrench and a polar chill immobilize my bones. I would be a bystander, a museum mammoth. Babies!�

It also speaks to me as a person who loves over describing things and comparing them to other things that are equally over described. I can easily go off on a description tangent that has those around me praying for an interruption.

FAVORITE STORIES/ESSAYS/NOTES:

“Rose and Percy B� � The thing that stuck out was the book placed under the chin of a dead body, and what happened to it later.

“The end, even of so marginal a man, a horror.�

“A relief; this is the hostage for death, we are safe for the time being.�

“Day of Success� � I felt strongly this was taken from Plath’s life, an interaction involving Ted Hughes. The ending broke my heart because it felt like it was how she wanted it to end, and not how it really ended.

“Please don’t let it change, she begged of whatever fates might be listening. Let the three of us stay happy as this forever.�

“Sweetie Pie and The Gutter Men� � A dark little read involving children and the strange things they say. It has layers involving motherhood and things that aren’t said.

“Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams� � Of course the title story would appear on my list. It was a glimpse into a world of fantasy that I desperately wanted to explore further. The loss of what might have been, is very much apparent with this one.

“I’m a wormy hermit in a country of prize pigs so corn-happy they can’t see the slaughterhouse at the end of the track. I’m Jeremiah vision-bitten in the Land of Cockaigne.�

“His love is the twenty-story leap, the rope at the throat, the knife at the heart. He forgets not his own.�

“Superman and Paula Brown’s New Snowsuit� � This one reminded me of a school playground swing story from my own youth. Kids suck. The ones who fuss first and/or fuss loudest beat the quiet ones to the adult listen.

“Among the Bumblebees� � A good dad will be your hero forever. The previous Plath (poetry) collection I read had an awesome closer, and this one is equal to that. Hughes had talent; I can’t argue that.

“She did not know then that in all the rest of her life there would be no one to walk with her, like him, proud and arrogant among the bumblebees.�

DARK QUOTES I LOVED:

“As from a star I saw, coldly and soberly, the separateness of everything. I felt the wall of my skin: I am I. That stone is a stone. My beautiful fusion with the things of this world was over.�

“The sun ran faster and faster around the world, and she knew that her grandparents would soon die, and that her mother would die, and that there would finally be left no familiar name to invoke against the dark.�

“Goodnight, sweet princess. You are still on your own; be stoic, don’t panic; get through this hell to the generous sweet overflowing giving love of spring.�

Four stars to a book that dipped a little into tedious at times, but not too deep.
]]> Dark Tales 30303793 For the first time in one volume, a collection of Shirley Jackson's scariest stories, with a foreword by PEN/Hemingway Award winner Ottessa Moshfegh

After the publication of her short story "The Lottery" in the New Yorker in 1948 received an unprecedented amount of attention, Shirley Jackson was quickly established as a master horror storyteller. This collection of classic and newly reprinted stories provides readers with more of her unsettling, dark tales, including the "The Possibility of Evil" and "The Summer People." In these deliciously dark stories, the daily commute turns into a nightmarish game of hide and seek, the loving wife hides homicidal thoughts and the concerned citizen might just be an infamous serial killer. In the haunting world of Shirley Jackson, nothing is as it seems and nowhere is safe, from the city streets to the crumbling country pile, and from the small-town apartment to the dark, dark woods. There's something sinister in suburbia.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 195 Shirley Jackson 0241295424 Amanda 0 currently-reading, 2025 4.00 2016 Dark Tales
author: Shirley Jackson
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: currently-reading, 2025
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Inner Excellence: Train Your Mind for Extraordinary Performance and the Best Possible Life]]> 53442382
Discover the life guide that has developed world champions, empowered athletes to become world #1, and most importantly, transformed their hearts and minds. This step-by-step training manual from one of the world's top mental skills coaches will teach you how the mindset of some of the best performers and leaders on the planet allowed them to have freedom and confidence when so much was out of their control.

Whether you’re an athlete or entrepreneur, single mother or father of five, you’ll find exercises, techniques and tools in this book that will improve every area of your life. Your life will take on new meaning as you move beyond the pursuit of happiness to a life of purpose and fulfillment. Jim Murphy's complete program of proven mental techniques is based on the powerful principles of love, wisdom, and courage, that came from over six years of full-time research and writing (after his masters degree in Coaching Science).

“I read the first version of Inner Excellence six times. I recommend all my clients read it.� � Matt Killen, PGA Tour coach to Justin Thomas, Tiger Woods and many others

INNER EXCELLENCE WILL SHOW YOU HOW TO:

DEVELOP SELF-MASTERY—and let go of what you can’t control
OVERCOME ANXIETY—and build powerful mental habits
REMOVE MENTAL BLOCKS—and get out of your own way
TRAIN YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND—and release limiting beliefs

As professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization, Jim’s sense of worth and identity revolved around his performance. He was obsessed with fame but also afraid of failure, and that fear in his heart made him struggle under the pressure to perform. When he started coaching professional and Olympic athletes, he saw the same pattern over and over again: athletes had lost their joy and passion for life as the fear of failure engulfed their lives.

This book will share with you how some of the best athletes in the world have learned Inner Excellence, how it propelled them to extraordinary performance even when they were filled with doubt and uncertainty, and how you can excel in the same way in your life. The insights and exercises within will help you achieve higher levels of performance than you ever thought possible—and bring incredible peace and confidence.

“Inner Excellence changed how I see the world, how I think, and how I play golf.� - Vaughn Taylor, three-time PGA Tour winner

Jim Murphy is a Performance Coach (mental skills) to some of the best athletes and leaders in the world. The majority of his clients achieved the best year of their career their first year working with Jim (or their best year in the previous five years)]]> 360 Jim Murphy 1734654805 Amanda 1 2025, dull-jane Review to come. 4.23 2009 Inner Excellence: Train Your Mind for Extraordinary Performance and the Best Possible Life
author: Jim Murphy
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2009
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/27
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: 2025, dull-jane
review:
Review to come.
]]> Winter trees 3237379 Ariel poems were chosen. Her radio play Three Women, also included here, was written slightly earlier, in the transitional period between The Collosus and Ariel.

Winter Trees is the Poetry Book Society's Choice for Autmn 1971.]]> 55 Sylvia Plath 0571097391 Amanda 3 2025, i-am-i-am-i-am
“The poems in this volume are all out of the batch from which the Ariel poems were more less arbitrarily chosen and they were all composed in the last nine months of Sylvia Plath’s life.�

Most of the writing we know Plath for was produced during the final season of her life. I find this bit of information to be incredibly sad. I hate that she left the world without knowing the lasting impact she had on it. I hate that she had to experience all that dark for us to see her shine.

“Three Women, A Poem for Three Voices� was the only poem that stuck with me. Placing it at the end amplified its intensity and made it a poignant last thought. I am not sure if that was her desire or his choice.

Three stars to a collection that was almost, but not quite.]]> 4.00 1972 Winter trees
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1972
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: 2025, i-am-i-am-i-am
review:
This collection of poetry was published after Sylvia Plath’s death by Ted Hughes. He noted this at the beginning of the book:

“The poems in this volume are all out of the batch from which the Ariel poems were more less arbitrarily chosen and they were all composed in the last nine months of Sylvia Plath’s life.�

Most of the writing we know Plath for was produced during the final season of her life. I find this bit of information to be incredibly sad. I hate that she left the world without knowing the lasting impact she had on it. I hate that she had to experience all that dark for us to see her shine.

“Three Women, A Poem for Three Voices� was the only poem that stuck with me. Placing it at the end amplified its intensity and made it a poignant last thought. I am not sure if that was her desire or his choice.

Three stars to a collection that was almost, but not quite.
]]> Shock Induction 207299641 From the bestselling author of Fight Club comes a dark, satirical parable about a string of mysterious high school disappearances, the seedy underbellies of billionaires, and the tough choices we make in the face of an uncertain future. In Shock Induction, the best and brightest students at a seemingly reputable high school are disappearing. Every day it seems another overachiever is lost to an apparent suicide. But something far more sinister is lurking beneath the surface. These kids have been under surveillance since birth, monitored and measured by an online service called “Greener Pastures.� It’s here, in Greener Pastures, that billionaires observe and recruit the next generation of talent. The highest test scores, the best grades, and the most niche extracurriculars just might land these teenagers an enticing offer at auction. A couple billion dollars in exchange for the remainder of your life and intellectual labor sounds like a pretty fair deal—doesn’t it? In a high school only Chuck Palahniuk could imagine, students must choose between the risk of following their dreams or the security of money and a lifetime of servitude to the world’s wealthiest and most elite—but how much of a choice do they truly have?]]> 240 Chuck Palahniuk 1668021447 Amanda 3 2025, chuck-doesn-t-give-a Review to come. 3.15 2024 Shock Induction
author: Chuck Palahniuk
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.15
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: 2025, chuck-doesn-t-give-a
review:
Review to come.
]]> <![CDATA[The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes]]> 24815
This treasury collection contains a never-before-published full-color section, as well as the cartoons appearing in The Revenge of the Baby-Sat and Scientific Progress Goes "Boink." All Sunday cartoons are presented full-page and full-color.]]> 255 Bill Watterson 0751500283 Amanda 5 4.70 1992 The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes
author: Bill Watterson
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.70
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves:
review:

]]> Where the Wild Things Are 19543 38 Maurice Sendak 0099408392 Amanda 5 Review to come. 4.25 1963 Where the Wild Things Are
author: Maurice Sendak
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1963
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves:
review:
Review to come.
]]> In Bed Before Dark 4602176 128 Sue Porter 0789422182 Amanda 5 Review to come. 4.83 1997 In Bed Before Dark
author: Sue Porter
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.83
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves:
review:
Review to come.
]]> Can I Be Good? 756985 32 Livingston Taylor 0152015523 Amanda 5 Review to come. 4.17 1993 Can I Be Good?
author: Livingston Taylor
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves:
review:
Review to come.
]]> Walter the Farting Dog 366300
Over one million copies sold and countless giggles shared!

Meet Walter, a fine dog with flatulence. Despite his distinctive trait, he's loved by his siblings Billy and Betty. But Father has had enough! On the brink of being sent to the dog pound, Walter’s unexpected asset turns into his superpower when burglars break in. With a heroic toot, he saves the day and earns his place in the family’s heart.

This hilarious tale for children ages 4-8 (and adults who aren't afraid to laugh) features surreal illustrations by Audrey Colman and an absurdly comical storyline. Walter the Farting Dog is a timeless story about acceptance, love, and the incredible power of being oneself...farts and all.

Recommended by parents, librarians, and kids who know a thing or two about funny business, Walter the Farting Dog is more than just a book—it's a shared memory, a giggle-inducing classic, and a beloved family treasure. Join Walter on his windy adventure, penned by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray, and discover why this book has captured hearts for over two decades. Embrace the laughter and share this delightful read with the whole family!]]> 32 William Kotzwinkle 1583940537 Amanda 5 Review to come. 3.93 2001 Walter the Farting Dog
author: William Kotzwinkle
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves:
review:
Review to come.
]]> An Abundance of Katherines 215526423
Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl. Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.]]> 260 John Green Amanda 0 3.39 2006 An Abundance of Katherines
author: John Green
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: to-read, instead-of-a-20-on-my-nighstand
review:

]]> Looking for Alaska 99561 Before. Miles “Pudge� Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave “the Great Perhaps� even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then. . . .
After. Nothing is ever the same.]]> 221 John Green 1435249151 Amanda 0 3.97 2005 Looking for Alaska
author: John Green
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: to-read, instead-of-a-20-on-my-nighstand
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection]]> 220341389 John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.

Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.

In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.]]> 208 John Green 0525556575 Amanda 0 to-read 4.52 2025 Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
author: John Green
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Detransition, Baby 58395035
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.]]> 352 Torrey Peters 0593133382 Amanda 5 blind-date-with-a-book, 2025 “She knew that no matter how you self-identify ultimately, chances are that you succumb to becoming what the world treats you as.�

Reese, Ames, and Katrina are going through it. They have experienced life at its best and its worst, and the current spin cycle it has placed them in is a wild one.

“The past is past to everyone but ghosts.�

I loved this book because of the writing style. It was loud, it was candid, it was in your face, and it was awesome.

The characters were my next in line love. They felt real. I wanted to meet them and hang out with them. Reese was my favorite of the three. She reminded me of one of my friends who is equally blunt. Some people take offense, never me. I adore her and hope she never changes.

“In matters of the heart, Reese had one firm maxim: You don’t get to choose who you fuck, you get to choose from among those who want to fuck you.�

The story was unique and fascinating. It is one I feel many would enjoy if they could open their heart and mind to it.

Five stars to a book that will live rent free in my mind for years to come.

ALL THE QUOTES AND THEN SOME

“She didn’t make the rules of womanhood; like any other girl, she had inherited them.�

“She would do almost anything to never again be looked at the way those women had looked at her. It wasn’t that they had even been rude. They had simply seen her. Seen a true thing in her that she had spent her life making sure never to show to anyone.�

“It hurts to remember that first day. It hurts to remember hope like that. It hurts to think that such hope was the naivete and stupidity of youth, of a person she would never be again.�

“The ones who have seen how the narratives given to them since girlhood have failed them, and who know there is nothing to replace it all. But who still have to move forward without investing in new illusions or turning bitter—all with no plan to guide them.�

“Children make studies of their parents, decipher them, propose theories about their behavior, turn them this way and that, examining every flaw, and continue to do so long after the parents themselves are gone.�

“Would that all difficult women be loved so deeply.� ]]> 3.97 2021 Detransition, Baby
author: Torrey Peters
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: blind-date-with-a-book, 2025
review:
“She knew that no matter how you self-identify ultimately, chances are that you succumb to becoming what the world treats you as.�

Reese, Ames, and Katrina are going through it. They have experienced life at its best and its worst, and the current spin cycle it has placed them in is a wild one.

“The past is past to everyone but ghosts.�

I loved this book because of the writing style. It was loud, it was candid, it was in your face, and it was awesome.

The characters were my next in line love. They felt real. I wanted to meet them and hang out with them. Reese was my favorite of the three. She reminded me of one of my friends who is equally blunt. Some people take offense, never me. I adore her and hope she never changes.

“In matters of the heart, Reese had one firm maxim: You don’t get to choose who you fuck, you get to choose from among those who want to fuck you.�

The story was unique and fascinating. It is one I feel many would enjoy if they could open their heart and mind to it.

Five stars to a book that will live rent free in my mind for years to come.

ALL THE QUOTES AND THEN SOME

“She didn’t make the rules of womanhood; like any other girl, she had inherited them.�

“She would do almost anything to never again be looked at the way those women had looked at her. It wasn’t that they had even been rude. They had simply seen her. Seen a true thing in her that she had spent her life making sure never to show to anyone.�

“It hurts to remember that first day. It hurts to remember hope like that. It hurts to think that such hope was the naivete and stupidity of youth, of a person she would never be again.�

“The ones who have seen how the narratives given to them since girlhood have failed them, and who know there is nothing to replace it all. But who still have to move forward without investing in new illusions or turning bitter—all with no plan to guide them.�

“Children make studies of their parents, decipher them, propose theories about their behavior, turn them this way and that, examining every flaw, and continue to do so long after the parents themselves are gone.�

“Would that all difficult women be loved so deeply.�
]]> <![CDATA[Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures]]> 208430625 From the award-winning author Katherine Rundell comes a “rare and magical book� (Bill Bryson) reckoning with the vanishing wonders of our natural world.

The world is more astonishing, more miraculous, and more wonderful than our wildestimaginings. In this brilliant and passionately persuasive book, Katherine Rundell takes us on a globe-spanning tour of the world's most awe-inspiring animals currently facing extinction.

Consider the seahorse: couples mate for life and meet each morning for a dance, pirouetting and changing colors before going their separate ways, to dance again the next day. The American wood frog survives winter by allowing itself to freeze solid, its heartbeat slowing until it stops altogether. Come spring, the heart kick-starts itself spontaneously back to life. As for the lemur, it lives in matriarchal troops led by an alpha female (it’s not unusual for female ring-tailed lemurs to slap males across the face when they become aggressive). Whenever they are cold or frightened, they group together in what’s known as a lemur ball, paws and tails intertwined, to form a furry mass as big as a bicycle wheel.

But each of these extraordinary animals is endangered or holds a sub-species that is endangered. This urgent, inspiring book of essays dedicated to 23 unusual and underappreciated creatures is a clarion call insisting that we look at the world around us with new eyes—to see the magic of the animals we live among, their unknown histories and capabilities, and above all how lucky we are to tread the same ground as such vanishing treasures.

Beautifully illustrated, and full of inimitable wit and intellect, Vanishing Treasures is a chance to be awestruck and lovestruck, to reckon with the beauty of the world, its fragility, and its strangeness.]]> 224 Katherine Rundell 0385550820 Amanda 5 2025, time-to-get-real Review to come. 4.18 2024 Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures
author: Katherine Rundell
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/18
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: 2025, time-to-get-real
review:
Review to come.
]]> <![CDATA[George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle]]> 134696221
Despite being hailed as one of the best guitarists of his era, George Harrison, particularly in his early decades, battled feelings of inferiority. He was often the butt of jokes from his bandmates owing to his lower-class background and, typically, was allowed to contribute only one or two songs per Beatles album out of the dozens he wrote.

Now, acclaimed Beatles biographer Philip Norman examines Harrison through the lens of his numerous self-contradictions. Compared to songwriting luminaries John Lennon and Paul McCartney he was considered a minor talent, yet he composed such masterpieces as “While My Guitar Gently Weeps� and “Here Comes the Sun,� and his solo debut album “All Things Must Pass� achieved enormous success, appearing on many lists of the 100 best rock albums ever. Modern music critics place him in the pantheon of sixties guitar gods alongside Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, and Jimmy Page.

Harrison railed against the material world yet wrote the first pop song complaining about income tax. He spent years lovingly restoring his Friar Park estate as a spiritual journey, but quickly mortgaged the property to help rescue a film project that would be widely banned as sacrilegious, Monty Python’s Life of Brian . Harrison could be fiercely jealous, but not only did he stay friends with Eric Clapton when Clapton fell in love with Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd, the two men grew even closer after Clapton walked away with her.

Unprecedented in scope and filled with numerous color photos, this rich biography captures George Harrison at his most devoted friend, loyal son, master guitar player, brilliant songwriter, cocaine addict, serial philanderer, global philanthropist, student of Indian mysticism, self-deprecating comedian, and, ultimately, iconic artist and man beloved by millions.]]> 512 Philip Norman Amanda 4 2025, time-to-get-real Review to come. 3.82 George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle
author: Philip Norman
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.82
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/18
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: 2025, time-to-get-real
review:
Review to come.
]]> <![CDATA[Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It]]> 26156469 A former FBI hostage negotiator offers a new, field-tested approach to negotiating � effective in any situation.

After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a kidnapping negotiator brought him face-to-face with bank robbers, gang leaders and terrorists. Never Split the Difference takes you inside his world of high-stakes negotiations, revealing the nine key principles that helped Voss and his colleagues succeed when it mattered the most � when people’s lives were at stake.

Rooted in the real-life experiences of an intelligence professional at the top of his game, Never Split the Difference will give you the competitive edge in any discussion.]]> 274 Chris Voss 0062407805 Amanda 2 2025, dull-jane “The greatest obstacle to accurately identifying someone else’s style is what I call the ‘I am normal� paradox. That is, our hypothesis that the world should look to others as it looks to us.�

I am socially inept. I have no problem admitting this. I am fully (and very painfully) aware that how I am is not “normal�. I am not about changing my core self to fit that mold. But I do take into account that my “weird� is very off-putting (I have been told this), and that if I want to reduce discomfort in certain situations, I have to meet them more on their end of things than them on mine.

I read books like this in hopes that I can glean something useful to better my social interactions. What this book did was not that. To be honest, it made me feel icky.

“Negotiations serve two distinct, vital life functions—information gathering and behavior influencing—and includes almost any interaction where each party wants something from the other side.�

I do not want to be ruthless with my interactions. I like getting to know people on all levels for the sake of knowing each other. I am not only in it to get something from them. I do not look at a social interaction as an opportunity to terminator style analyze the other person so the interaction goes a certain way. If I were a hostage negotiator, I could see the benefit because it is saving a life. Not when I want to save five cents on an item marked a quarter at a garage sale.

Removing my personal BS from the review, the book itself was not the best. It was boring at times and repetitive. It would get lost in the sauce of the author detailing a personal story and then hammering in on a thing he felt was important past the point it needed to be said.

On to the two star rating “positives� of this book:

-I learned about Black Swan Theory which was cool.

“Black Swan theory tells us that things happen that were previously thought to be impossible—or never thought of it all.�

-I learned to change my mindset on how I thought I was helping others. In the past I would listen and suggest ways that they could change their situation. They would agree, and at that time I thought it was because they did agree. Then a week or so later, it would come up again. It really did confuse me. Now I realize that they only wanted to vent, and agreeing was just a nice way of shutting me up. One should listen to a vent, and one does not always have to offer anything more. With that said, the book did mention energy vampires. It is important to recognize when you are dealing with one, and it is okay to unsubscribe from the endless venting if it becomes a burden.

A QUOTE THAT MADE ME FEEL ICKY:

“That’s why I say there’s always leverage: as an essentially emotional concept, it can be manufactured whether it exists or not."

QUOTES THAT MADE ME FEEL LESS ICKY:

“To uncover these unknowns, we must interrogate our world, must put out a call, and intensely listen to the response. Ask lots of questions. Read nonverbal clues and always voice your observations with your counterpoint.�

“You have to feel for the truth behind the camouflage; you have to note the small pauses that suggest discomfort and lies.�

“Don’t look to verify what you expect. If you do, that’s what you’ll find. Instead, you must open yourself up to the factual reality that is in front of you.�

Two stars to a book that I would only recommend to people seeking to “negotiate� something in their interactions.]]> 4.35 2016 Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
author: Chris Voss
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: 2025, dull-jane
review:
“The greatest obstacle to accurately identifying someone else’s style is what I call the ‘I am normal� paradox. That is, our hypothesis that the world should look to others as it looks to us.�

I am socially inept. I have no problem admitting this. I am fully (and very painfully) aware that how I am is not “normal�. I am not about changing my core self to fit that mold. But I do take into account that my “weird� is very off-putting (I have been told this), and that if I want to reduce discomfort in certain situations, I have to meet them more on their end of things than them on mine.

I read books like this in hopes that I can glean something useful to better my social interactions. What this book did was not that. To be honest, it made me feel icky.

“Negotiations serve two distinct, vital life functions—information gathering and behavior influencing—and includes almost any interaction where each party wants something from the other side.�

I do not want to be ruthless with my interactions. I like getting to know people on all levels for the sake of knowing each other. I am not only in it to get something from them. I do not look at a social interaction as an opportunity to terminator style analyze the other person so the interaction goes a certain way. If I were a hostage negotiator, I could see the benefit because it is saving a life. Not when I want to save five cents on an item marked a quarter at a garage sale.

Removing my personal BS from the review, the book itself was not the best. It was boring at times and repetitive. It would get lost in the sauce of the author detailing a personal story and then hammering in on a thing he felt was important past the point it needed to be said.

On to the two star rating “positives� of this book:

-I learned about Black Swan Theory which was cool.

“Black Swan theory tells us that things happen that were previously thought to be impossible—or never thought of it all.�

-I learned to change my mindset on how I thought I was helping others. In the past I would listen and suggest ways that they could change their situation. They would agree, and at that time I thought it was because they did agree. Then a week or so later, it would come up again. It really did confuse me. Now I realize that they only wanted to vent, and agreeing was just a nice way of shutting me up. One should listen to a vent, and one does not always have to offer anything more. With that said, the book did mention energy vampires. It is important to recognize when you are dealing with one, and it is okay to unsubscribe from the endless venting if it becomes a burden.

A QUOTE THAT MADE ME FEEL ICKY:

“That’s why I say there’s always leverage: as an essentially emotional concept, it can be manufactured whether it exists or not."

QUOTES THAT MADE ME FEEL LESS ICKY:

“To uncover these unknowns, we must interrogate our world, must put out a call, and intensely listen to the response. Ask lots of questions. Read nonverbal clues and always voice your observations with your counterpoint.�

“You have to feel for the truth behind the camouflage; you have to note the small pauses that suggest discomfort and lies.�

“Don’t look to verify what you expect. If you do, that’s what you’ll find. Instead, you must open yourself up to the factual reality that is in front of you.�

Two stars to a book that I would only recommend to people seeking to “negotiate� something in their interactions.
]]> <![CDATA[Letters Home: Correspondence 1950-1963]]> 99382 502 Sylvia Plath 0060133724 Amanda 5 2025, i-am-i-am-i-am “The acid gossip of the caustic wind,
The wry pucker of the lemon-colored moon,
And the sour blinking of the jaundiced stars…�

My heart breaks for Sylvia Plath. It breaks every damn time I read something of hers or about her. I wish a thousand times over that things could have been different. That the one person she needed the most would have stepped up and matched her in all that she gave them. I cannot imagine the hell that was the last bit of her life. Abandoned by the one she loved the most, left to tend two small children, struggling to provide for herself and them, all while trying to start over again with so much extra baggage. I can’t. That last winter was brutal. I can’t.

This book was put together by Plath’s mom. She shares letters Sylvia sent her. She shares so much, and it hurts. The details of Sylvia’s life during that time, of beauty and pain as seen through her eyes with a rose-tinted filter applied to reduce her mom’s worry. The soul crushing moments occur when the filter falls away and her pain bleeds through into the letters. As a mother I could not imagine being that far away and unable to be there at a moment’s notice. Knowing that what I was reading was weeks after the fact. I can’t.

I highly recommend this book to:
-fans of Plath.
-fans of the man of the hour, Ted Hughes. (F that guy.)

Five stars to a book that will haunt me the rest of my life.

QUOTES FROM PLATH:

“I am afraid of getting older. I am afraid of getting married. Spare me from cooking three meals a day—spare me from the relentless cage of routine and rote. I want to be free—free to know people and their backgrounds—free to move to different parts of the world so I may learn that there are other morals and standards besides my own. I want, I think, to be omniscient... I think I would like to call myself ‘The girl who wanted to be God.� Yet if I were not in this body, where would I be—perhaps I am destined to be classified and qualified. But, oh, I cry out against it. I am I—I am powerful—but to what extent? I am I.�

“And now that I see how foolish I was in succumbing to what I thought were mental obstacles, I am determined to be as cheerful and constructive about my mental difficulties as I am going to be about this physical one. Naturally I will be a bit depressed and blue at times, and tired and uncomfortable, but there is that human principal which always finds that no matter how much is taken away, something is left to build against with.�

“…When he dies, his marks will not be written on his gravestone. If he has loved a book, been kind to someone, enjoyed a certain color in the sea—that is the thing that will show whether he has lived.�

“The thing about writing is not to talk, but to do it; no matter how bad or even mediocre it is, the process and production is the thing, not the sitting and theorizing about how one should write ideally, or how well one could write if one really wanted to or had the time.�

“I feel that all my life, all my pain and work has been for this one thing. All the blood spilt, the words written, the people loved, have been a work to fit me for loving…I see the power and voice in him that will shake the world alive. Even as he sees into my poems and will work with me to make me a woman poet like the world will gape at; even as he sees into my character and will tolerate no fallings away from my best right self.�

“I am so happy his book is accepted first. It will make it so much easier for me when mine is accepted—if only by the Yale Series, then by some other place. I can rejoice then, much more, knowing Ted is ahead of me. There is no question of rivalry, but only mutual joy and a sense of us doubling our price-winning and creative output.�

“…The next five months are grim ones. I always feel sorry to have the summertime change, with the dark evenings closing in in midafternoon, and will try to lay in some physical comforts this month—the best insurance against gloominess for me.�

A QUOTE FROM PLATH’S FRIEND:

“I am very proud of you, Sylvia. I love telling your story. Someone remarked to me after reading your poem in the Atlantic, ‘How intense.� Sometime write me a little poem that isn’t intense. A lamp turned too high might shatter its chimney. Please just glow sometimes.�

QUOTES FROM PLATH’S MOM:

“She did not pretend the male was superior; she sought out those who were, and her confidence in her husband’s genius was unshakable.�

“On February 12, 1963, my sister received a cablegram from Ted, telling us ‘Sylvia died yesterday� and giving details of the time and place of the funeral service.

Her physical energies had been depleted by illness, anxiety and overwork, and although she had for so long managed to be gallant and equal to the life-experience, some darker day than usual had temporarily made it seem impossible to pursue.� ]]> 4.22 1975 Letters Home: Correspondence 1950-1963
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1975
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: 2025, i-am-i-am-i-am
review:
“The acid gossip of the caustic wind,
The wry pucker of the lemon-colored moon,
And the sour blinking of the jaundiced stars…�

My heart breaks for Sylvia Plath. It breaks every damn time I read something of hers or about her. I wish a thousand times over that things could have been different. That the one person she needed the most would have stepped up and matched her in all that she gave them. I cannot imagine the hell that was the last bit of her life. Abandoned by the one she loved the most, left to tend two small children, struggling to provide for herself and them, all while trying to start over again with so much extra baggage. I can’t. That last winter was brutal. I can’t.

This book was put together by Plath’s mom. She shares letters Sylvia sent her. She shares so much, and it hurts. The details of Sylvia’s life during that time, of beauty and pain as seen through her eyes with a rose-tinted filter applied to reduce her mom’s worry. The soul crushing moments occur when the filter falls away and her pain bleeds through into the letters. As a mother I could not imagine being that far away and unable to be there at a moment’s notice. Knowing that what I was reading was weeks after the fact. I can’t.

I highly recommend this book to:
-fans of Plath.
-fans of the man of the hour, Ted Hughes. (F that guy.)

Five stars to a book that will haunt me the rest of my life.

QUOTES FROM PLATH:

“I am afraid of getting older. I am afraid of getting married. Spare me from cooking three meals a day—spare me from the relentless cage of routine and rote. I want to be free—free to know people and their backgrounds—free to move to different parts of the world so I may learn that there are other morals and standards besides my own. I want, I think, to be omniscient... I think I would like to call myself ‘The girl who wanted to be God.� Yet if I were not in this body, where would I be—perhaps I am destined to be classified and qualified. But, oh, I cry out against it. I am I—I am powerful—but to what extent? I am I.�

“And now that I see how foolish I was in succumbing to what I thought were mental obstacles, I am determined to be as cheerful and constructive about my mental difficulties as I am going to be about this physical one. Naturally I will be a bit depressed and blue at times, and tired and uncomfortable, but there is that human principal which always finds that no matter how much is taken away, something is left to build against with.�

“…When he dies, his marks will not be written on his gravestone. If he has loved a book, been kind to someone, enjoyed a certain color in the sea—that is the thing that will show whether he has lived.�

“The thing about writing is not to talk, but to do it; no matter how bad or even mediocre it is, the process and production is the thing, not the sitting and theorizing about how one should write ideally, or how well one could write if one really wanted to or had the time.�

“I feel that all my life, all my pain and work has been for this one thing. All the blood spilt, the words written, the people loved, have been a work to fit me for loving…I see the power and voice in him that will shake the world alive. Even as he sees into my poems and will work with me to make me a woman poet like the world will gape at; even as he sees into my character and will tolerate no fallings away from my best right self.�

“I am so happy his book is accepted first. It will make it so much easier for me when mine is accepted—if only by the Yale Series, then by some other place. I can rejoice then, much more, knowing Ted is ahead of me. There is no question of rivalry, but only mutual joy and a sense of us doubling our price-winning and creative output.�

“…The next five months are grim ones. I always feel sorry to have the summertime change, with the dark evenings closing in in midafternoon, and will try to lay in some physical comforts this month—the best insurance against gloominess for me.�

A QUOTE FROM PLATH’S FRIEND:

“I am very proud of you, Sylvia. I love telling your story. Someone remarked to me after reading your poem in the Atlantic, ‘How intense.� Sometime write me a little poem that isn’t intense. A lamp turned too high might shatter its chimney. Please just glow sometimes.�

QUOTES FROM PLATH’S MOM:

“She did not pretend the male was superior; she sought out those who were, and her confidence in her husband’s genius was unshakable.�

“On February 12, 1963, my sister received a cablegram from Ted, telling us ‘Sylvia died yesterday� and giving details of the time and place of the funeral service.

Her physical energies had been depleted by illness, anxiety and overwork, and although she had for so long managed to be gallant and equal to the life-experience, some darker day than usual had temporarily made it seem impossible to pursue.�
]]> Stories: All-New Tales 7637398 “The joy of fiction is the joy of the imagination…�

The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: “And then what happened?� The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.

Stories is a groundbreaking anthology that reinvigorates, expands, and redefines the limits of imaginative fiction and affords some of the best writers in the world—from Peter Straub and Chuck Palahniuk to Roddy Doyle and Diana Wynne Jones, Stewart O’Nan and Joyce Carol Oates to Walter Mosley and Jodi Picoult—the opportunity to work together, defend their craft, and realign misconceptions. Gaiman, a literary magician whose acclaimed work defies easy categorization and transcends all boundaries, and “master anthologist� (Booklist) Sarrantonio personally invited, read, and selected all the stories in this collection, and their standard for this “new literature of the imagination� is high. “We wanted to read stories that used a lightning-flash of magic as a way of showing us something we have already seen a thousand times as if we have never seen it at all.”�

Joe Hill boldly aligns theme and form in his disturbing tale of a man’s descent into evil in “Devil on the Staircase.� In “Catch and Release,� Lawrence Block tells of a seasoned fisherman with a talent for catching a bite of another sort. Carolyn Parkhurst adds a dark twist to sibling rivalry in “Unwell.� Joanne Harris weaves a tale of ancient gods in modern New York in “Wildfire in Manhattan.� Vengeance is the heart of Richard Adams’s “The Knife.� Jeffery Deaver introduces a dedicated psychologist whose mission in life is to save people in “The Therapist.� A chilling punishment befitting an unspeakable crime is at the dark heart of Neil Gaiman’s novelette “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains.�

As it transforms your view of the world, this brilliant and visionary volume—sure to become a classic—will ignite a new appreciation for the limitless realm of exceptional fiction.



“Introduction: Just Four Words� Neil Gaiman
“Blood� Roddy Doyle
“Fossil Figures� Joyce Carol Oates
“Wildfire in Manhattan� Joanne Harris
“The Thah Is a Cave in the Black Mountains� Neil Gaiman
“Unbelief� Michael Marshall Smith
“The Stars Are Falling� Joe R. Lansdale
“Juvenal Nyx� Walter Mosley
“The Knife� Richard Adams
“Weights and Measures� Jodi Picoult
“Goblin Lake� Michael Swanwick
“Mallon the Guru� Peter Straub
“Catch and Release� Lawrence Block
“Polka Dots and Moonbeams� Jeffrey Ford
“Loser� Chuck Palahniuk
“Samantha’s Diary� Diana Wynne Jones
“Land of the Lost� Stewart O’Nan
“Leif in the Wind� Gene Wolfe
“Unwell� Carolyn Parkhurst
“A Life in Fictions� Kat Howard
‘Let the Past Begin� Jonathan Carroll
“The Therapist� Jeffery Deaver
“Parallel Lines� Tim Powers
“The Cult of the Nose� Al Sarrantonio
“Human Intelligence� Kurt Andersen
“Stories� Michael Moorcock
“The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon� Elizabeth Hand
“The Devil on the Staircase� Joe Hill
About the Contributors]]> 428 Neil Gaiman 0061230928 Amanda 0 to-read 3.73 2010 Stories: All-New Tales
author: Neil Gaiman
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Birthday Letters 313277
The poems in Birthday Letters are addressed (with just two exceptions) to Plath, and were written over a period of more than twenty-five years, the first a few years after her suicide in 1963. Some are love letters, others haunted recollections and ruminations. In them, Hughes recalls his and Plath's time together, drawing on the powerful imagery of his work--animal, vegetable, mythological--as well as on Plath's famous verse.

Countless books have discussed the subject of this intense relationship from a necessary distance, but this volume--at last--offers us Hughes's own account. Moreover, it's a truly remarkable collection of poems in its own right.]]> 198 Ted Hughes 0374525811 Amanda 0 to-read 3.91 1998 Birthday Letters
author: Ted Hughes
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Devil All the Time 12992927 The Devil All the Time follows a cast of characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrifi­cial blood he pours on his “prayer log.� There’s Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial kill­ers, who troll America’s highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate. There’s the spider-handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso-guitar-playing sidekick, Theodore, running from the law. And caught in the middle of all this is Arvin Eugene Russell, Willard and Charlotte’s orphaned son, who grows up to be a good but also violent man in his own right.]]> 320 Donald Ray Pollock 0307744868 Amanda 5 2021
The story pulls you in on the first page and does not let go even after you finish the last page. (Two months later and I am still thinking about it.) It is a dark read with a full cast of captivating characters and the writing is phenomenal. I do recommend this book to others, but only if their reading tolerance rating goes past PG-13.]]> 4.16 2011 The Devil All the Time
author: Donald Ray Pollock
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2021/10/03
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: 2021
review:
I do not want to accidently give anything away, so I am going to keep this review short and sweet.

The story pulls you in on the first page and does not let go even after you finish the last page. (Two months later and I am still thinking about it.) It is a dark read with a full cast of captivating characters and the writing is phenomenal. I do recommend this book to others, but only if their reading tolerance rating goes past PG-13.
]]> Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves 63142008 At turns haunting and breathtaking, Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves explores legacies of love, family, and the ghostly imprint grief leaves behind as three women face the past to bring light to an old Southern town lost deep beneath the surface.

Years ago, yellow fever gripped the small lakeside town of Prosper, Arkansas. At the height of that summer swelter, in the wake of an unexpected storm, the dam failed and the valley flooded—drowning the town and everyone trapped inside.

The secrets of old Prosper drowned with them.

Now, decades later, when a mysterious locked box is pulled from the depths of the lake, three descendants of that long-ago tragedy are hurled into another feverish summer. Cassie: the reclusive sole witness to an impossible horror no one believes. Lark: a wide-eyed dreamer haunted by bizarre visions. June: caught between longing for a fresh start and bearing witness to the ghosts of the past. Bound together, all three must contend with their home’s complex history—and with the ruins of the town lost far beneath the troubled water.]]> 368 Quinn Connor 1728263875 Amanda 2 blind-date-with-a-book, 2025 A town rediscovers its flooded roots.

My husband surprised me for my birthday with a blind date with a book purchase from a local bookstore. This was the book. I was so beyond excited about the idea of it that he went back for Christmas and bought me all they had in stock which ended up being forty more. I am still glowing from it three months later.

One would hope that the first book from that truly awesome gift experience would be a great one. Sadly, that was not the case.

Thoughts:

The idea behind the story was interesting. I did a little research on the topic after I read the introduction and then again, when I finished the book. The plot was overloaded. Reducing some clutter (secondary stories) would have improved the core of the story. There were so many bits of the story that were never fully explained, and I was left holding so many loose threads at the end.

The writing style seemed weird. It took me reading the author bio page at the end of the book to figure out why. It was two people co-writing a book. I have read other books that have done this, and I did not notice because it was seamless. This one felt like two people in a room telling parts of a shared experience. As one person left the room midsentence to fetch something, the other person would pick up where they abruptly left off. Then the first person would come back in and interrupt the second one to finish the story that they had originally started. Two distinct voices poorly blended. Not a fan.

This was a character heavy read. The three primaries were women working through their own issues. They had some depth, but not enough to keep me from mixing up two of them (Lark and June). The secondaries were mostly men. The Mitch character irritated me. He was so simple, so two-dimensional. “See woman. Want woman. Protect woman. She is mine.� This is a caveman way of thinking, and I am not here for it. A male character can be so much more than that. What did he want out of life? What drove him to be the person that he was? Give me more or do not bother writing them.

Two stars to a book that has done nothing to take from the bestest gift experience ever.

LIVING THE QUOTES LIFE:

“It was all a line of solitary individuals weathering life.�

“They were getting up to go now, floating on the dark current of whiskey and beer and ready to close their eyes on the night.�

“Because hers was a guarded goodness, and few people were welcome.�

“He knew her, knew that sometimes she got exhausted with people.�

“Bolt didn’t know yet how complex an instrument the human heart was, the many ways it could love and resent and despise and cherish all in perfect symphony.�

“People are always gonna hurt you, let you down. Hell, you’ll let them down. But…keep the door open.� ]]> 3.25 2023 Cicadas Sing of Summer Graves
author: Quinn Connor
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: blind-date-with-a-book, 2025
review:
A town rediscovers its flooded roots.

My husband surprised me for my birthday with a blind date with a book purchase from a local bookstore. This was the book. I was so beyond excited about the idea of it that he went back for Christmas and bought me all they had in stock which ended up being forty more. I am still glowing from it three months later.

One would hope that the first book from that truly awesome gift experience would be a great one. Sadly, that was not the case.

Thoughts:

The idea behind the story was interesting. I did a little research on the topic after I read the introduction and then again, when I finished the book. The plot was overloaded. Reducing some clutter (secondary stories) would have improved the core of the story. There were so many bits of the story that were never fully explained, and I was left holding so many loose threads at the end.

The writing style seemed weird. It took me reading the author bio page at the end of the book to figure out why. It was two people co-writing a book. I have read other books that have done this, and I did not notice because it was seamless. This one felt like two people in a room telling parts of a shared experience. As one person left the room midsentence to fetch something, the other person would pick up where they abruptly left off. Then the first person would come back in and interrupt the second one to finish the story that they had originally started. Two distinct voices poorly blended. Not a fan.

This was a character heavy read. The three primaries were women working through their own issues. They had some depth, but not enough to keep me from mixing up two of them (Lark and June). The secondaries were mostly men. The Mitch character irritated me. He was so simple, so two-dimensional. “See woman. Want woman. Protect woman. She is mine.� This is a caveman way of thinking, and I am not here for it. A male character can be so much more than that. What did he want out of life? What drove him to be the person that he was? Give me more or do not bother writing them.

Two stars to a book that has done nothing to take from the bestest gift experience ever.

LIVING THE QUOTES LIFE:

“It was all a line of solitary individuals weathering life.�

“They were getting up to go now, floating on the dark current of whiskey and beer and ready to close their eyes on the night.�

“Because hers was a guarded goodness, and few people were welcome.�

“He knew her, knew that sometimes she got exhausted with people.�

“Bolt didn’t know yet how complex an instrument the human heart was, the many ways it could love and resent and despise and cherish all in perfect symphony.�

“People are always gonna hurt you, let you down. Hell, you’ll let them down. But…keep the door open.�
]]> Yellow Wife 58438537 Called “wholly engrossing� by New York Times bestselling author Kathleen Grissom, this “fully immersive� (Lisa Wingate, #1 bestselling author of Before We Were Yours) story follows an enslaved woman forced to barter love and freedom while living in the most infamous slave jail in Virginia.

Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother’s position as the estate’s medicine woman and cherished by the Master’s sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world.

She’d been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil’s Half Acre, a jail in Richmond, Virginia, where the enslaved are broken, tortured, and sold every day. There, Pheby is exposed not just to her Jailer’s cruelty but also to his contradictions. To survive, Pheby will have to outwit him, and she soon faces the ultimate sacrifice.]]> 288 Sadeqa Johnson 1982149116 Amanda 4 blind-date-with-a-book, 2025 “To survive this, I could not let my mind succumb to the misery that threatened to strangle me.�

Pheby Delores Brown is a powerhouse of a character. I can’t stop thinking about her and the decisions she had to make. Her fictional story is a reality we should all ponder.

Excellent writing style.

Excellent characters.

Excellent plot.

Not so excellent ending. That unmatched excellence is why it lost a star. I won’t go into the details because I do not want to spoil the whole reading experience for anyone else. I will just leave it with the ending needed more to match the effort that was spent on the rest of the book.

Four stars to a book I would recommend to others who are willing to explore stories that open doors to all sides of our shared human experience.

A QUOTE:

“You should select what makes your heart spin in circles.� ]]> 4.44 2021 Yellow Wife
author: Sadeqa Johnson
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: blind-date-with-a-book, 2025
review:
“To survive this, I could not let my mind succumb to the misery that threatened to strangle me.�

Pheby Delores Brown is a powerhouse of a character. I can’t stop thinking about her and the decisions she had to make. Her fictional story is a reality we should all ponder.

Excellent writing style.

Excellent characters.

Excellent plot.

Not so excellent ending. That unmatched excellence is why it lost a star. I won’t go into the details because I do not want to spoil the whole reading experience for anyone else. I will just leave it with the ending needed more to match the effort that was spent on the rest of the book.

Four stars to a book I would recommend to others who are willing to explore stories that open doors to all sides of our shared human experience.

A QUOTE:

“You should select what makes your heart spin in circles.�
]]> If We Were Villains 209616503
As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.]]> 362 M.L. Rio 1250289785 Amanda 2 blind-date-with-a-book, 2025 Seven actors discover what happens when the line between being a Shakespearean actor and real life becomes blurred.

This should have been an awesome read for me. I am beyond frustrated it was not.

What it was:

Interesting story idea.

Characters with potential.

Writing style with even more potential.

What it was not:

Balanced. More effort was spent on describing the environment than actually telling the story.

Well-paced. The story would briefly bring up something slightly interesting and then would drift off into lengthy periods of boredom. It needed either more engaging material for longer periods of time, or less boring gaps in between.

Exciting. This was labeled as a mystery and a thriller, and it was neither.

Two stars to a book that needed to get to the point.

QUOTES:

“One thing I’m sure Colborne will never understand is that I need language to live, like food—lexemes and morphemes and morsels of meaning nourish me with the knowledge that, yes, there is a word for this. Someone else has felt it before.�

“For us, everything was a performance.�

“I was seized by the strange unfounded idea that she was debating whether or not to say I love you. But the difference between us was that she assumed people just knew those sorts of things, while I was always worried that they didn’t.�

“Don’t worry. I love her, just like I’m supposed to. I just don’t like her very much.�

“Anything can feel like punishment if it’s taught poorly.�

“You can’t quantify humanity. You can’t measure it—not the way you mean to. People are passionate and flawed and fallible. They make mistakes. Their memories fade. Their eyes deceive them.� ]]> 4.16 2017 If We Were Villains
author: M.L. Rio
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/08
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: blind-date-with-a-book, 2025
review:
Seven actors discover what happens when the line between being a Shakespearean actor and real life becomes blurred.

This should have been an awesome read for me. I am beyond frustrated it was not.

What it was:

Interesting story idea.

Characters with potential.

Writing style with even more potential.

What it was not:

Balanced. More effort was spent on describing the environment than actually telling the story.

Well-paced. The story would briefly bring up something slightly interesting and then would drift off into lengthy periods of boredom. It needed either more engaging material for longer periods of time, or less boring gaps in between.

Exciting. This was labeled as a mystery and a thriller, and it was neither.

Two stars to a book that needed to get to the point.

QUOTES:

“One thing I’m sure Colborne will never understand is that I need language to live, like food—lexemes and morphemes and morsels of meaning nourish me with the knowledge that, yes, there is a word for this. Someone else has felt it before.�

“For us, everything was a performance.�

“I was seized by the strange unfounded idea that she was debating whether or not to say I love you. But the difference between us was that she assumed people just knew those sorts of things, while I was always worried that they didn’t.�

“Don’t worry. I love her, just like I’m supposed to. I just don’t like her very much.�

“Anything can feel like punishment if it’s taught poorly.�

“You can’t quantify humanity. You can’t measure it—not the way you mean to. People are passionate and flawed and fallible. They make mistakes. Their memories fade. Their eyes deceive them.�
]]> <![CDATA[The Butterfly Garden (The Collector, #1)]]> 29981261
In this garden grow luscious flowers, shady trees…and a collection of precious “butterflies”—young women who have been kidnapped and intricately tattooed to resemble their namesakes. Overseeing it all is the Gardener, a brutal, twisted man obsessed with capturing and preserving his lovely specimens.

When the garden is discovered, a survivor is brought in for questioning. FBI agents Victor Hanoverian and Brandon Eddison are tasked with piecing together one of the most stomach-churning cases of their careers. But the girl, known only as Maya, proves to be a puzzle herself.

As her story twists and turns, slowly shedding light on life in the Butterfly Garden, Maya reveals old grudges, new saviors, and horrific tales of a man who’d go to any length to hold beauty captive. But the more she shares, the more the agents have to wonder what she’s still hiding...]]> 288 Dot Hutchison 1503989712 Amanda 0 to-read 4.09 2016 The Butterfly Garden (The Collector, #1)
author: Dot Hutchison
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> King Sorrow 223420465
Trapped and desperate, Arthur turns to his closest friends for comfort and help. Together they dream up a wild, fantastical scheme to free Arthur from the cruel trap in which he finds himself. Wealthy, irrepressible Colin Wren suggests using the unnerving Crane journal (bound in the skin of its author) to summon a dragon to do their bidding. The others—brave, beautiful Alison Shiner; the battling twins Donna and Donovan McBride; and brainy, bold Gwen—don’t hesitate to join Colin in an effort to smash reality and bring a creature of the impossible into our world.

But there’s nothing simple about dealing with dragons, and their pact to save Arthur becomes a terrifying bargain in which the six must choose a new sacrifice for King Sorrow every year—or become his next meal.]]> 896 Joe Hill 0062200607 Amanda 0 to-read 4.50 2025 King Sorrow
author: Joe Hill
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Ultra 85 211143800
The bestselling author of Supermarket and platinum-selling hip-hop artist, Logic, returns to fiction with this gripping and propulsive sci-fi novel.]]> 304 Logic 1982158271 Amanda 1 blind-date-with-a-book, 2025 Two space peeps go on an epic accidental adventure.

There is not a single nice thing I can say about this one.

The characters were awful. Kai (the second to the main) was so freaking annoying. Like Jar Jar Binks level of annoying. His entire personality was built around 80s/90s pop culture movie bullshit. His dialogue was a regurgitation of it and no part of it was entertaining. Which brings me to the fact that the entire book was mostly dialogue. Bad dialogue. I would get lost in which jackass was saying what and would have to reread what irritated me on the first go, just to figure it out. AWFUL.

The story itself was lame. So much was left unexplained. Details were given to the extreme on things that did not matter, but the things that did, were rushed past. A world was introduced that I did not care about. What brought it to the point that the world had to exist, I did not care about. Characters were introduced that I did not care about. The past of those characters, I did not care about. The future of the characters, I did not care about. Get the point? AWFUL.

NO QUOTES:

Not a single one. That speaks volumes.

One star to a book that will be the biggest reading disappointment of the year, guaranteed.]]> 3.34 2024 Ultra 85
author: Logic
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: blind-date-with-a-book, 2025
review:
Two space peeps go on an epic accidental adventure.

There is not a single nice thing I can say about this one.

The characters were awful. Kai (the second to the main) was so freaking annoying. Like Jar Jar Binks level of annoying. His entire personality was built around 80s/90s pop culture movie bullshit. His dialogue was a regurgitation of it and no part of it was entertaining. Which brings me to the fact that the entire book was mostly dialogue. Bad dialogue. I would get lost in which jackass was saying what and would have to reread what irritated me on the first go, just to figure it out. AWFUL.

The story itself was lame. So much was left unexplained. Details were given to the extreme on things that did not matter, but the things that did, were rushed past. A world was introduced that I did not care about. What brought it to the point that the world had to exist, I did not care about. Characters were introduced that I did not care about. The past of those characters, I did not care about. The future of the characters, I did not care about. Get the point? AWFUL.

NO QUOTES:

Not a single one. That speaks volumes.

One star to a book that will be the biggest reading disappointment of the year, guaranteed.
]]> Boy, Snow, Bird 22571592 The widely acclaimed novel that brilliantly recasts the Snow White fairy tale as a story of family secrets, race, beauty, and vanity.

In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts, looking, she believes, for beauty—the opposite of the life she’s left behind in New York. She marries a local widower and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow Whitman.

A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she’d become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy’s daughter, Bird, exposes the Whitman family secret. Among them, Boy, Snow, and Bird confront the tyranny of the mirror to ask how much power surfaces really hold.

Dazzlingly inventive and powerfully moving,Boy, Snow, Birdis an astonishing and enchanting novel. With breathtaking feats of imagination, Helen Oyeyemi confirms her place as one of the most original and dynamic literary voices of our time.
]]> 316 Helen Oyeyemi 1594633401 Amanda 3 blind-date-with-a-book, 2025 Once upon a time, there was a woman named Boy�

The first half of the book was amazing. I was beyond lost in the sauce. The second half of the book was the opposite of amazing. I was beyond disappointed. What the hell happened? The exact moment I hit that point, I closed the book and tossed it to the side. It landed back cover up and that is when my eyes glimpsed the words “Snow White�. Bingo. Things that were occurring that I did not like were finally making sense. Had the story stuck with what it brought in the first half, it would have been perfection.

With that said, I did love the author’s voice. It was unique and much appreciated. The inner thoughts of Boy, her observations on life, and the dialogue between her and other characters was quite the reading treat.

Three stars to a book that tells a well-known story in a different way.

ALL THE QUOTES:

“You don’t return people’s smiles—it’s perfectly clear to you that people can smile and smile and still be villains.�

“He was sleeping so peacefully, with a half smile on his face. He didn’t know how rotten he was. He’ll never know, probably never even suspect it.�

“He studied me with narrowed eyes, selecting a nerve, the fat juicy nerve of mine he’d most like to get upon.�

“Yeah, your kind isn’t so rare. Spoiled brat. When he’s a bachelor, life’s tough because he has everything he needs except Miss Right, and when he finds a sweetheart with the full package—beauty, brains, sweet temper—she’s too much, she’s smothering him.�

“That’s the ideal meeting…once upon a time, only once, unexpectedly, then never again.�

“I thought she was terrific, and hoped she liked me, but she was clearly very precise in the allocation of her affections, so she probably didn’t.�

“What’s next is what happened before.�

“It was never ‘Will you buy me candy?� with her; she always wanted stuff that…I don’t know, stuff you always felt in danger of losing her to. Books, music. If you took her to one of those big art galleries, you wouldn’t be able to find her again until closing time.�

“These are the kind of dreams that show you you’re not doing so well, that you haven’t accepted what you thought you’d accepted, that you’re a mess, lying there like you’ve been hit by a bus, your heart and mind standing over you tutting and trying to figure out what even happened, never mind fixing it.� ]]> 3.37 2013 Boy, Snow, Bird
author: Helen Oyeyemi
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/22
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: blind-date-with-a-book, 2025
review:
Once upon a time, there was a woman named Boy�

The first half of the book was amazing. I was beyond lost in the sauce. The second half of the book was the opposite of amazing. I was beyond disappointed. What the hell happened? The exact moment I hit that point, I closed the book and tossed it to the side. It landed back cover up and that is when my eyes glimpsed the words “Snow White�. Bingo. Things that were occurring that I did not like were finally making sense. Had the story stuck with what it brought in the first half, it would have been perfection.

With that said, I did love the author’s voice. It was unique and much appreciated. The inner thoughts of Boy, her observations on life, and the dialogue between her and other characters was quite the reading treat.

Three stars to a book that tells a well-known story in a different way.

ALL THE QUOTES:

“You don’t return people’s smiles—it’s perfectly clear to you that people can smile and smile and still be villains.�

“He was sleeping so peacefully, with a half smile on his face. He didn’t know how rotten he was. He’ll never know, probably never even suspect it.�

“He studied me with narrowed eyes, selecting a nerve, the fat juicy nerve of mine he’d most like to get upon.�

“Yeah, your kind isn’t so rare. Spoiled brat. When he’s a bachelor, life’s tough because he has everything he needs except Miss Right, and when he finds a sweetheart with the full package—beauty, brains, sweet temper—she’s too much, she’s smothering him.�

“That’s the ideal meeting…once upon a time, only once, unexpectedly, then never again.�

“I thought she was terrific, and hoped she liked me, but she was clearly very precise in the allocation of her affections, so she probably didn’t.�

“What’s next is what happened before.�

“It was never ‘Will you buy me candy?� with her; she always wanted stuff that…I don’t know, stuff you always felt in danger of losing her to. Books, music. If you took her to one of those big art galleries, you wouldn’t be able to find her again until closing time.�

“These are the kind of dreams that show you you’re not doing so well, that you haven’t accepted what you thought you’d accepted, that you’re a mess, lying there like you’ve been hit by a bus, your heart and mind standing over you tutting and trying to figure out what even happened, never mind fixing it.�
]]> <![CDATA[The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (The Twilight Saga, #3.5)]]> 7937462 FANS OF THE TWILIGHT SAGA WILL BE ENTHRALLED BY THIS RIVETING STORY OF BREE TANNER, A CHARACTER FIRST INTRODUCED IN ECLIPSE, AND THE DARKER SIDE OF THE NEWBORN VAMPIRE WORLD SHE INHABITS.

BREE TANNER CAN BARELY REMEMBER LIFE before she had uncannily powerful senses, superhuman reflexes, and unstoppable physical strength. Life before she had a relentless thirst for blood... life before she became a vampire.

ALL BREE KNOWS IS THAT LIVING WITH HER fellow newborns has few certainties and even fewer rules: watch your back, don't draw attention to yourself, and above all, make it home by sunrise or die. What she doesn't know: her time as an immortal is quickly running out.

THEN BREE FINDS AN UNEXPECTED FRIEND in Diego, a newborn just as curious as Bree about their mysterious creator, whom they only know as her. As they come to realize that the newborns are pawns in a game larger than anything they could have imagined, Bree and Diego must choose sides and decide whom to trust. But when everything you know about vampires is based on a lie, how do you find the truth?

IN ANOTHER IRRESISTIBLE COMBINATION of danger, mystery, and romance, Stephenie Meyer tells the devastating story of the newborn army as they prepare to close in on Bella Swan and the Cullens, following their encounter to its unforgettable conclusion.]]> 178 Stephenie Meyer 031612558X Amanda 0 to-read 3.52 2009 The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (The Twilight Saga, #3.5)
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life]]> 125063314
The world’s greatest bodybuilder. The world’s highest-paid movie star. The leader of the world’s sixth-largest economy. That these are the same person sounds like the setup to a joke, but this is no joke. This is Arnold Schwarzenegger. And this did not happen by accident.

Arnold’s stratospheric success happened as part of a process. As the result of clear vision, big thinking, hard work, direct communication, resilient problem-solving, open-minded curiosity, and a commitment to giving back. All of it guided by the one lesson Arnold’s father hammered into him above be useful. As Arnold conquered every realm he entered, he kept his father’s adage close to his heart.

Written with his uniquely earnest, blunt, powerful voice, Be Useful takes readers on an inspirational tour through Arnold’s tool kit for a meaningful life. He shows us how to put those tools to work, in service of whatever fulfilling future we can dream up for ourselves. He brings his insights to vivid life with compelling personal stories, life-changing successes and life-threatening failures alike—some of them famous; some told here for the first time ever.

Too many of us struggle to disconnect from our self-pity and connect to our purpose. At an early age, Arnold forged the mental tools to build the ladder out of the poverty and narrow-mindedness of his rural Austrian hometown, tools he used to add rung after rung from there. Now he shares that wisdom with all of us. As he puts it, no one is going to come rescue you—you only have yourself. The good news, it turns out, is that you are all you need.]]> 288 Arnold Schwarzenegger 0593655958 Amanda 2 dull-jane, 2025 “We say, ‘I want to do this great, fantastic thing,� then we get the ball rolling, and we just expect it to keep rolling, simply because we want it to. As if hope and good intentions are worth anything.�

I had hopes that this book would be better. My intentions were to rate it five stars. My hopes and intentions did not do this book any favors.

If you want to know more about Arnold Schwarzenegger and his life, this book is for you. He talks about himself and the life experiences that got him to where he is today. No shame, brag on.

If you are looking for a book that will help you on your self-help journey, maybe not this one. It does deliver on the seven tools it promises, unfortunately those tools bring nothing new to the self-help book game. For example: The mental vision board piece of it is the only one that stuck with me, and it did not stick in a good way. I was like, “Are you kidding me? This is junior high level bullshit. Basic AF. Try again.�

A THING TO NOTE:

Arnold does mention Elon Musk. No thank you. Same thing I said with the last Neil Gaiman book I read (Summer 2024) when Gaiman mentioned Harvey Weinstein. The company that you keep and all that. I hated to hear it when I was a teenager, but hot damn, it proves itself.

Two stars to a book that was not useful.

QUOTES:

“If you can’t find what you’re looking for, at least give it a chance to find you.�

“You need to be all there, all in, every time.�

“And yet so many people are content to depend entirely on plans and systems, or to do the bare minimum asked of them, and then think to themselves, This is all set, I took care of it. No. Don’t be a lazy fuck. Do the work. The only time you are allowed to use the phrase ‘I took care of it� is when it is done. Completely.�

“This is the kind of headspace people are referring to when they talk about slipping into ‘flow state.� Time expands and collapses simultaneously. You get into something, you start making progress, then boom, the next thing you know, you look up and it’s the morning.�

“This is something you should think about. What is the value of trying to be someone you’re not? Of hiding from your true story and letting someone else tell it? Where do you think that gets you in the end? I promise you, it’s nowhere good. Embrace who you are! Own your story! Even if you don’t like it. Even if it’s bad, and you’re ashamed. If you run away and hide from your past, if you deny your story and try to sell a different one, even if you mean well, it just makes you seem like a con artist.� ]]> 4.09 2023 Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life
author: Arnold Schwarzenegger
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: dull-jane, 2025
review:
“We say, ‘I want to do this great, fantastic thing,� then we get the ball rolling, and we just expect it to keep rolling, simply because we want it to. As if hope and good intentions are worth anything.�

I had hopes that this book would be better. My intentions were to rate it five stars. My hopes and intentions did not do this book any favors.

If you want to know more about Arnold Schwarzenegger and his life, this book is for you. He talks about himself and the life experiences that got him to where he is today. No shame, brag on.

If you are looking for a book that will help you on your self-help journey, maybe not this one. It does deliver on the seven tools it promises, unfortunately those tools bring nothing new to the self-help book game. For example: The mental vision board piece of it is the only one that stuck with me, and it did not stick in a good way. I was like, “Are you kidding me? This is junior high level bullshit. Basic AF. Try again.�

A THING TO NOTE:

Arnold does mention Elon Musk. No thank you. Same thing I said with the last Neil Gaiman book I read (Summer 2024) when Gaiman mentioned Harvey Weinstein. The company that you keep and all that. I hated to hear it when I was a teenager, but hot damn, it proves itself.

Two stars to a book that was not useful.

QUOTES:

“If you can’t find what you’re looking for, at least give it a chance to find you.�

“You need to be all there, all in, every time.�

“And yet so many people are content to depend entirely on plans and systems, or to do the bare minimum asked of them, and then think to themselves, This is all set, I took care of it. No. Don’t be a lazy fuck. Do the work. The only time you are allowed to use the phrase ‘I took care of it� is when it is done. Completely.�

“This is the kind of headspace people are referring to when they talk about slipping into ‘flow state.� Time expands and collapses simultaneously. You get into something, you start making progress, then boom, the next thing you know, you look up and it’s the morning.�

“This is something you should think about. What is the value of trying to be someone you’re not? Of hiding from your true story and letting someone else tell it? Where do you think that gets you in the end? I promise you, it’s nowhere good. Embrace who you are! Own your story! Even if you don’t like it. Even if it’s bad, and you’re ashamed. If you run away and hide from your past, if you deny your story and try to sell a different one, even if you mean well, it just makes you seem like a con artist.�
]]> Before We Were Innocent 197792201
Ten years ago, after a sun-soaked summer spent in Greece, best friends Bess and Joni were cleared of having any involvement in their friend Evangeline’s death. But that didn’t stop the media from ripping apart their teenage lives like vultures.

While the girls were never convicted, Joni, ever the opportunist, capitalized on her newfound infamy to become a motivational speaker. Bess, on the other hand, resolved to make her life as small and controlled as possible so she wouldn’t risk losing everything all over again. And it almost worked. . . .

Except now Joni needs a favor, and when she turns up at her old friend's doorstep asking for an alibi, Bess has no choice but to say yes. She still owes her. But as the two friends try desperately to shake off their past, they have to face reality.

Can you ever be an innocent woman when everyone wants you to be guilty?]]> 400 Ella Berman 0593099559 Amanda 4 blind-date-with-a-book, 2025 A trio of friends experience a life-changing summer vacation.

If you are looking for a thriller genre, poolside read with writing that will trigger teenage memories, this is the book for you. It was an entertaining read. It checked a majority of the boxes needed to make it one I would mention to others. The writing style was above par, the characters were engaging, and the pacing of the story was done well. The one star reduction had to do with fluff and the ending.

Four stars to a book that reinforced my belief in using logic to make sense of other people and their actions.

QUOTES, QUOTES, AND MORE QUOTES:

“I began to feel mortified that I was even standing on the field, trying out for the role of some idealized version of myself I’d never become, with all these other girls just desperate to find another label, another shortcut with which to identify ourselves—daughter, dog lover, cheerleader.�

“Miscast, I think. Like an inadequate actor floundering onstage. From where I’m standing, the problem was never that we were miscast; it was that we were exposed.�

“People in your life will want to shame you, to keep you in your old habits and dysfunctions because you’re easier to predict that way. They’ll want to keep you trapped on autopilot, an eternal victim of your own trauma, because you’re easier to control that way.�

“He said that some people believe we choose our parents before we’re born, because they have something to teach us. And that doesn’t always look how you think it will, and it won’t always be a lesson taught intentionally by them, or even in good faith, but whatever we do learn is necessary for our souls to progress.�

“I thought I understood that the rest of it was all bravado, and that at her lowest moments, when she woke up at four a.m. and prayed for it to get light so that she might feel like herself again, she believed she was unwanted. Unloved. Maybe even unlovable.�

“I just kept on surviving, even when I wished I wasn’t.�

“I had learned how fragile it all was—that my entire life could be reduced to something smaller than a matchbox in the blink of an eye.�

“I had no control over what other people believed about me, and I barely even knew who I was anymore.�

“I think now that I’ve been doing a disservice to us all in blaming only myself for how things fell apart. Sometimes we could be cruel for sport, yes, but most of the time we hurt each other to hide our own gaping wounds. To find out not just if we were enough for each other but if we would ever be enough for anyone.� ]]> 3.44 2023 Before We Were Innocent
author: Ella Berman
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: blind-date-with-a-book, 2025
review:
A trio of friends experience a life-changing summer vacation.

If you are looking for a thriller genre, poolside read with writing that will trigger teenage memories, this is the book for you. It was an entertaining read. It checked a majority of the boxes needed to make it one I would mention to others. The writing style was above par, the characters were engaging, and the pacing of the story was done well. The one star reduction had to do with fluff and the ending.

Four stars to a book that reinforced my belief in using logic to make sense of other people and their actions.

QUOTES, QUOTES, AND MORE QUOTES:

“I began to feel mortified that I was even standing on the field, trying out for the role of some idealized version of myself I’d never become, with all these other girls just desperate to find another label, another shortcut with which to identify ourselves—daughter, dog lover, cheerleader.�

“Miscast, I think. Like an inadequate actor floundering onstage. From where I’m standing, the problem was never that we were miscast; it was that we were exposed.�

“People in your life will want to shame you, to keep you in your old habits and dysfunctions because you’re easier to predict that way. They’ll want to keep you trapped on autopilot, an eternal victim of your own trauma, because you’re easier to control that way.�

“He said that some people believe we choose our parents before we’re born, because they have something to teach us. And that doesn’t always look how you think it will, and it won’t always be a lesson taught intentionally by them, or even in good faith, but whatever we do learn is necessary for our souls to progress.�

“I thought I understood that the rest of it was all bravado, and that at her lowest moments, when she woke up at four a.m. and prayed for it to get light so that she might feel like herself again, she believed she was unwanted. Unloved. Maybe even unlovable.�

“I just kept on surviving, even when I wished I wasn’t.�

“I had learned how fragile it all was—that my entire life could be reduced to something smaller than a matchbox in the blink of an eye.�

“I had no control over what other people believed about me, and I barely even knew who I was anymore.�

“I think now that I’ve been doing a disservice to us all in blaming only myself for how things fell apart. Sometimes we could be cruel for sport, yes, but most of the time we hurt each other to hide our own gaping wounds. To find out not just if we were enough for each other but if we would ever be enough for anyone.�
]]> Blackouts 65215321 From the bestselling author of We the Animals, Blackouts mines lost histories--personal and collective.

Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly, but who has haunted the edges of his life. Juan Gay--playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized--has a project to pass along to this new narrator. It is inspired by a true artifact of a book, Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns, which contains stories collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried. As Juan waits for his end, he and the narrator trade stories--moments of joy and oblivion--and resurrect lost loves, lives, mothers, fathers, minor heroes. The past is with us, beside us, ahead of us; what are we to create from its gaps and erasures?

Inspired by Kiss of the Spider Woman, Pedro Páramo, Voodoo Macbeth, the book at its own center and the woman who created it, oral histories, and many more texts, images, and influences, Justin Torres's Blackouts is a work of fiction that sees through the inventions of history and narrative. An extraordinary work of creative imagination, it insists that we look long and steady at the world we have inherited and the world we have made--a world full of ghostly shadows and flashing moments of truth.]]> 306 Justin Torres 0374293570 Amanda 1 2025 WTF

I started this book with no clue what it was about. (It is a thing I am doing right now. Do not read the back cover. Do not read reviews. Go in with an open mind, read the book, and then read all that stuff.) Halfway through and I had a vague idea, but was very unsure why it was written the way it was written. By the end I was extremely disappointed. The writing style fell flat, the characters were blah, and the story was all over the place. I looked up the Amazon review when I finished it, and it told me more about the book than actually reading it did.

Final thoughts:

I want to know more about Jan Gray and the book that was referenced.

What 45 years of living has taught me: Winning an award is not a guarantee of excellence. Do not blindly trust shiny gold stickers.

One star to a book that left a lot to be desired.

A QUOTE:

“My hunch is that Mad Man gave that dog up. Either that or he finally broke her. Anyway, she’s old now, or else she’s dead. But I have this fantasy that she’s still chewing up the living room, still slamming against the limits of that cage, only now she’s vocalized, yapping and howling, and it’s a kind of music, and the whole neighborhood can hear her frustration and understand. And the song is a lament, something camp and bluesy, about how there ain’t no shame in being a bitch, but, Lord, be a bitch that barks.� ]]> 3.76 2023 Blackouts
author: Justin Torres
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
rating: 1
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: 2025
review:
WTF

I started this book with no clue what it was about. (It is a thing I am doing right now. Do not read the back cover. Do not read reviews. Go in with an open mind, read the book, and then read all that stuff.) Halfway through and I had a vague idea, but was very unsure why it was written the way it was written. By the end I was extremely disappointed. The writing style fell flat, the characters were blah, and the story was all over the place. I looked up the Amazon review when I finished it, and it told me more about the book than actually reading it did.

Final thoughts:

I want to know more about Jan Gray and the book that was referenced.

What 45 years of living has taught me: Winning an award is not a guarantee of excellence. Do not blindly trust shiny gold stickers.

One star to a book that left a lot to be desired.

A QUOTE:

“My hunch is that Mad Man gave that dog up. Either that or he finally broke her. Anyway, she’s old now, or else she’s dead. But I have this fantasy that she’s still chewing up the living room, still slamming against the limits of that cage, only now she’s vocalized, yapping and howling, and it’s a kind of music, and the whole neighborhood can hear her frustration and understand. And the song is a lament, something camp and bluesy, about how there ain’t no shame in being a bitch, but, Lord, be a bitch that barks.�
]]> Human Acts 34964181 From the internationally bestselling and Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Vegetarian, a “rare and astonishing� (The Observer) portrait of political unrest and the universal struggle for justice.

In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed. The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho’s best friend who meets his own fateful end to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother, their collective heartbreak and acts of hope tell the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice.

An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of a historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.]]> 226 Han Kang 9781101906 Amanda 5 2024, blind-date-with-a-book Dong-ho is a young person caught up in an uprising. This is the story of his experience and other people touched by his life.

This book. Wow. It was an excruciatingly hard read. These are the books that share things that need to be shared. That awaken historical knowledge and keep trying to pass it forward to future generations in hopes that history will not repeat.

Five starts to a book that made me research the Gwangju Uprising in South Korea, May of 1980.

QUOTES THAT HAUNT ME:

“You fix on her eyes, which have become hollow and shadowed, and think, whereabouts in the body is that bird when the person is still alive? In that furrowed brow, above the halolike crown of that head, in some chamber of the heart?�

“She wanted this damned, dreary life not to drag on too long.�

“She had no faith in humanity. The look in someone’s eyes, the beliefs they espoused, the eloquence with which they did so, were, she knew, no guarantee of anything. She knew that the only life left to her was one hemmed in by niggling doubts and cold questions.�

“After you died I could not hold a funeral,
And so my life became a funeral.�

“The first stage in a sequence which unfolded exactly the same way every time, the whole process seemingly designed to hammer home a single fact: that my body was no longer my own. That my life had been taken entirely out of my hands, and the only thing I was permitted to do now was to experience pain.�

“Is it true that human beings are fundamentally cruel? Is the experience of cruelty the only thing we share as a species? Is the dignity that we cling to nothing but self-delusion, masking from ourselves this single truth: that each one of us is capable of being reduced to an insect, a ravening beast, a lump of meat? To be degraded, damaged, slaughtered � is this the essential fate of humankind, one that history has confirmed as inevitable?� ]]> 4.27 2014 Human Acts
author: Han Kang
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/14
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: 2024, blind-date-with-a-book
review:
Dong-ho is a young person caught up in an uprising. This is the story of his experience and other people touched by his life.

This book. Wow. It was an excruciatingly hard read. These are the books that share things that need to be shared. That awaken historical knowledge and keep trying to pass it forward to future generations in hopes that history will not repeat.

Five starts to a book that made me research the Gwangju Uprising in South Korea, May of 1980.

QUOTES THAT HAUNT ME:

“You fix on her eyes, which have become hollow and shadowed, and think, whereabouts in the body is that bird when the person is still alive? In that furrowed brow, above the halolike crown of that head, in some chamber of the heart?�

“She wanted this damned, dreary life not to drag on too long.�

“She had no faith in humanity. The look in someone’s eyes, the beliefs they espoused, the eloquence with which they did so, were, she knew, no guarantee of anything. She knew that the only life left to her was one hemmed in by niggling doubts and cold questions.�

“After you died I could not hold a funeral,
And so my life became a funeral.�

“The first stage in a sequence which unfolded exactly the same way every time, the whole process seemingly designed to hammer home a single fact: that my body was no longer my own. That my life had been taken entirely out of my hands, and the only thing I was permitted to do now was to experience pain.�

“Is it true that human beings are fundamentally cruel? Is the experience of cruelty the only thing we share as a species? Is the dignity that we cling to nothing but self-delusion, masking from ourselves this single truth: that each one of us is capable of being reduced to an insect, a ravening beast, a lump of meat? To be degraded, damaged, slaughtered � is this the essential fate of humankind, one that history has confirmed as inevitable?�
]]> <![CDATA[Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships with Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People]]> 24611591 Have you ever been in a relationship with a psychopath? Chances are, even if you did, you would never know it. Psychopaths are cunning charmers and master manipulators, to the point where you start to accept the most extreme behaviors as normal�

Even if it hurts you.


All around us, every single day, human beings devoid of empathy are wreaking havoc and destroying lives in the coldest, most heartless ways imaginable. In constant pursuit of money, sex, influence, or simple entertainment, psychopaths will do whatever it takes to gain power over others. They hide behind a veil of normalcy, arranging their friends and partners like pawns in a game of chess.

Using false praise and flattery to get what they want, they can lure any unsuspecting target into a relationship. Once hooked, their charming promises spin into mind games and psychological torture. Victims are left devastated and confused, unable to recognize—or even put into words—the nightmare that just took place.

This significantly expanded edition of Psychopath Free contains new chapters, updated content, and real survivor experiences. Written from the heart, it is the first guide for survivors written by a survivor, offering hope for healing and thriving after psychopathic abuse. Say goodbye to the chaos, self-doubt, and victimization. You are free.
]]> 285 Jackson MacKenzie 0425279995 Amanda 2 2024, dull-jane It takes all kinds to make the world go round. Unfortunately, that means a handful of those kinds are of the toxic variety. This book was written as a guide for those who have to deal with them.

Reading this book and I was instantly reminded of that friend group that will talk hella shit on your ex like it is their job. Not a bad thing to have in the process of healing immediately after a toxic relationship ends, but not what I was looking for long term regarding educating myself on that type of person.

The book is also heavy on repetition. The first part of it, and the reader feels like there will be a lot more info ahead. The middle, and the reader realizes that the rest of the book is just the first part being rehashed. Not a bad thing to have when rebuilding someone’s self-esteem by reinforcement, but not at all what I was looking for regarding learning anything new or different on the topic.

Two stars to a book that hyped more than it helped.

SOME QUOTES:

“Here’s the most important thing to remember: defending yourself will only make things worse. Sometimes less is more, and this is one of those times. You think you have a perfect response to their ridiculous defamation? Yes, the psychopath is counting on that. In fact, they’ve carefully crafted their insults to make sure of it. They attack the things you value most, because those are the things in life you will defend most passionately.�

“You are probably not accustomed to having boundaries. In fact, many survivors never had boundaries to begin with. A strange gift from the psychopathic experience is that you begin to find these boundaries. Some call it healthy narcissism, but I think “self-respect� is a better term. The problem is, boundaries and self-respect are completely foreign to you at this point. So when you begin to manifest these things, you feel like a selfish, abrasive jerk. When I reality, you’ve just stopped playing the role of a selfless doormat.�

“You’re not psychopathic or narcissistic for having boundaries and expecting a decent level of respect in return. You’re just a regular human being with feelings.� ]]> 4.18 2013 Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships with Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People
author: Jackson MacKenzie
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: 2024, dull-jane
review:
It takes all kinds to make the world go round. Unfortunately, that means a handful of those kinds are of the toxic variety. This book was written as a guide for those who have to deal with them.

Reading this book and I was instantly reminded of that friend group that will talk hella shit on your ex like it is their job. Not a bad thing to have in the process of healing immediately after a toxic relationship ends, but not what I was looking for long term regarding educating myself on that type of person.

The book is also heavy on repetition. The first part of it, and the reader feels like there will be a lot more info ahead. The middle, and the reader realizes that the rest of the book is just the first part being rehashed. Not a bad thing to have when rebuilding someone’s self-esteem by reinforcement, but not at all what I was looking for regarding learning anything new or different on the topic.

Two stars to a book that hyped more than it helped.

SOME QUOTES:

“Here’s the most important thing to remember: defending yourself will only make things worse. Sometimes less is more, and this is one of those times. You think you have a perfect response to their ridiculous defamation? Yes, the psychopath is counting on that. In fact, they’ve carefully crafted their insults to make sure of it. They attack the things you value most, because those are the things in life you will defend most passionately.�

“You are probably not accustomed to having boundaries. In fact, many survivors never had boundaries to begin with. A strange gift from the psychopathic experience is that you begin to find these boundaries. Some call it healthy narcissism, but I think “self-respect� is a better term. The problem is, boundaries and self-respect are completely foreign to you at this point. So when you begin to manifest these things, you feel like a selfish, abrasive jerk. When I reality, you’ve just stopped playing the role of a selfless doormat.�

“You’re not psychopathic or narcissistic for having boundaries and expecting a decent level of respect in return. You’re just a regular human being with feelings.�
]]> <![CDATA[The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness]]> 203572184
Berani Tidak Disukai, yang sudah terjual lebih dari 3,5 juta eksemplar, mengungkap rahasia mengeluarkan kekuatan terpendam yang memungkinkan Anda meraih kebahagiaan yang hakiki dan menjadi sosok yang Anda idam-idamkan.

Apakah kebahagiaan adalah sesuatu yang Anda pilih? Berani Tidak Disukai menyajikan jawabannya secara sederhana dan langsung. Berdasarkan teori Alfred Adler, satu dari tiga psikolog terkemuka abad kesembilan belas selain Freud dan Jung, buku ini mengikuti percakapan yang menggugah antara seorang filsuf dan seorang pemuda. Dalam lima percakapan yang terjalin, sang filsuf membantu muridnya memahami bagaimana masing-masing dari kita mampu menentukan arah hidup kita, bebas dari belenggu trauma masa lalu dan beban ekspektasi orang lain.

Buku yang kaya kebijaksanaan ini akan memandu Anda memahami konsep memaafkan diri sendiri, mencintai diri, dan menyingkirkan hal-hal yang tidak penting dari pikiran. Cara pikir yang membebaskan ini memungkinkan Anda membangun keberanian untuk mengubah dan mengabaikan batasan yang mungkin Anda berlakukan bagi diri Anda.]]> 288 Ichiro Kishimi 1668065967 Amanda 5 2024, dull-jane A disgruntled with life person argues with a philosopher about life shenanigans.

I appreciate the hell out of the authors for presenting the information the way they did through a conversation between two people. It makes a complex thinker of a topic easier to digest. It gives a reader who wants to argue for and/or against the wisdom being shared (I argue to understand more, thank you very much) exactly what they need, a person doing the arguing for them.

THE QUOTE THAT SPOKE TO ME THE MOST:

“When one seeks recognition from others, and concerns oneself only with how one is judged by others, in the end, one is living other people’s live.�

Five stars to a book that was exactly what I needed at exactly the right time.]]> 3.93 2013 The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness
author: Ichiro Kishimi
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: 2024, dull-jane
review:
A disgruntled with life person argues with a philosopher about life shenanigans.

I appreciate the hell out of the authors for presenting the information the way they did through a conversation between two people. It makes a complex thinker of a topic easier to digest. It gives a reader who wants to argue for and/or against the wisdom being shared (I argue to understand more, thank you very much) exactly what they need, a person doing the arguing for them.

THE QUOTE THAT SPOKE TO ME THE MOST:

“When one seeks recognition from others, and concerns oneself only with how one is judged by others, in the end, one is living other people’s live.�

Five stars to a book that was exactly what I needed at exactly the right time.
]]> The Courage to be Happy 57570634 The Courage To Be Disliked return with the must-have companion volume. In The Courage To Be Happy, Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga again distil their wisdom into simple yet profound advice to show us how we, too, can use twentieth-century psychological theory to find true happiness.]]> 304 Ichiro Kishimi 1911630229 Amanda 3 2024, dull-jane A disgruntled with life person comes back to renew his arguments with a philosopher after three years of trying to live his life based off of their previous conversations.

The first book brought it. This one, not so much. I did like that it went deeper on certain aspects of the topic, but something about how it was done got to be a bit monotonous at the back end of the read. It also didn’t quite match the simplicity of the conversation style done previously. That style slapped the reader with a few powerful words while this one repetitively tapped.

TWO QUOTES THAT CAUGHT MY EYE:

“In other words, we are not creatures who are determined by past events. Rather, we determine our own lives according to the meaning we give to those events.�
“Though it may be putting it harshly, it could be said that one is getting drunk on the cheap wine of tragedy and trying to forget the bitterness of an unfortunate ‘now�.�

A QUOTE THAT MADE ME THINK OF THE MOVIE MYSTERY MEN:

“The past does not decide now. Is your now that decides the past.�

THREE CHOICES TO KEEP IN MIND MOVING FORWARD:

“That bad person.�
“Poor me.�
“What should I do from now on.�

Three stars to a book that was not as awesome as the firstborn.]]> 3.64 2016 The Courage to be Happy
author: Ichiro Kishimi
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: 2024, dull-jane
review:
A disgruntled with life person comes back to renew his arguments with a philosopher after three years of trying to live his life based off of their previous conversations.

The first book brought it. This one, not so much. I did like that it went deeper on certain aspects of the topic, but something about how it was done got to be a bit monotonous at the back end of the read. It also didn’t quite match the simplicity of the conversation style done previously. That style slapped the reader with a few powerful words while this one repetitively tapped.

TWO QUOTES THAT CAUGHT MY EYE:

“In other words, we are not creatures who are determined by past events. Rather, we determine our own lives according to the meaning we give to those events.�
“Though it may be putting it harshly, it could be said that one is getting drunk on the cheap wine of tragedy and trying to forget the bitterness of an unfortunate ‘now�.�

A QUOTE THAT MADE ME THINK OF THE MOVIE MYSTERY MEN:

“The past does not decide now. Is your now that decides the past.�

THREE CHOICES TO KEEP IN MIND MOVING FORWARD:

“That bad person.�
“Poor me.�
“What should I do from now on.�

Three stars to a book that was not as awesome as the firstborn.
]]> <![CDATA[The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II]]> 2072205
In December 1937, one of the most horrific atrocities in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking (what was then the capital of China), and within weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers were systematically raped, tortured, and murdered. In this seminal work, Iris Chang, whose own grandparents barely escaped the massacre, tells this history from three that of the Japanese soldiers, that of the Chinese, and that of a group of Westerners who refused to abandon the city and created a safety zone, which saved almost 300,000 Chinese.

Drawing on extensive interviews with survivors and documents brought to light for the first time, Iris Chang's classic book is the definitive history of this horrifying episode.]]> 315 Iris Chang 0465068367 Amanda 5 2025, time-to-get-real “I was suddenly in a panic that this terrifying disrespect for death and dying, this reversion in human social evolution, would be reduced to a footnote of history, treated like a harmless glitch in a computer program that might or might not again cause a problem, unless someone forced the world to remember it.�

One of the hardest reads of my life. It sent me down a path of researching the topic on my own, every step of which was one made on a dark and horrid path I will never forget. The photographic evidence of the atrocities committed are now permanently burned into my memory.

Read this book. Read it right now. Take what you learn from it and add it to the list of moments from our collective past that we should never erase from our memories, that we should for damn sure never stop talking about.

“Apparently some quirk in human nature allows even the most unspeakable acts of evil to become banal within minutes, provided only that they occur far enough away to pose no personal threat.�

Do not be like those who want to forget, those who are making a choice to repeat it.]]> 4.39 1997 The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II
author: Iris Chang
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: 2025, time-to-get-real
review:
“I was suddenly in a panic that this terrifying disrespect for death and dying, this reversion in human social evolution, would be reduced to a footnote of history, treated like a harmless glitch in a computer program that might or might not again cause a problem, unless someone forced the world to remember it.�

One of the hardest reads of my life. It sent me down a path of researching the topic on my own, every step of which was one made on a dark and horrid path I will never forget. The photographic evidence of the atrocities committed are now permanently burned into my memory.

Read this book. Read it right now. Take what you learn from it and add it to the list of moments from our collective past that we should never erase from our memories, that we should for damn sure never stop talking about.

“Apparently some quirk in human nature allows even the most unspeakable acts of evil to become banal within minutes, provided only that they occur far enough away to pose no personal threat.�

Do not be like those who want to forget, those who are making a choice to repeat it.
]]> <![CDATA[A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)]]> 50659467
At least, he’s not a beast all the time.

As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

From bestselling author Sarah J. Maas comes a seductive, breathtaking book that blends romance, adventure, and faerie lore into an unforgettable read.]]> 419 Sarah J. Maas 1635575567 Amanda 0 to-read 4.16 2015 A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3) 209439446
Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.]]> 527 Rebecca Yarros 1649374186 Amanda 4 2025 “If I wallow in every loss, that’s all I’ll ever have time for.�

I am mourning the loss of the book I had in my hands. I finished it. I want more. I want to know what is going to happen to my beloved characters. I want to know where the story will take me next. I can’t accept that I am stuck in this spot for who knows how long. This is not fair.

Why not five stars?

There was a lot of time spent off doing things that got to be quite repetitive. It reminded me of the time I watched my husband play the first Assassin’s Creed video game. Each mission brought him to a city that was almost identical to the one before it. The only difference was the size of the city (they kept getting bigger) and the level of difficulty of the mission (it increased). I watched him get bored because the template was obvious. He was thankful when the next game in the series did a better job of masking it.

Four stars to a book that left me hanging in a good way.

A QUOTE:

“Or is the miracle of our relationship the result of a precise combination of tragedies that broke us both so completely that when we collided, we became something entirely new?� ]]> 4.17 2025 Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: 2025
review:
“If I wallow in every loss, that’s all I’ll ever have time for.�

I am mourning the loss of the book I had in my hands. I finished it. I want more. I want to know what is going to happen to my beloved characters. I want to know where the story will take me next. I can’t accept that I am stuck in this spot for who knows how long. This is not fair.

Why not five stars?

There was a lot of time spent off doing things that got to be quite repetitive. It reminded me of the time I watched my husband play the first Assassin’s Creed video game. Each mission brought him to a city that was almost identical to the one before it. The only difference was the size of the city (they kept getting bigger) and the level of difficulty of the mission (it increased). I watched him get bored because the template was obvious. He was thankful when the next game in the series did a better job of masking it.

Four stars to a book that left me hanging in a good way.

A QUOTE:

“Or is the miracle of our relationship the result of a precise combination of tragedies that broke us both so completely that when we collided, we became something entirely new?�
]]> Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2) 90202302 “The first year is when some of us lose our lives. The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.� —Xaden Riorson

Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College—Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky.

Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders� capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves.

Although Violet’s body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she still has her wits—and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules.

But a determination to survive won’t be enough this year.

Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College—and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.]]> 623 Rebecca Yarros 1649374178 Amanda 4 2025 “Because love, at its root, is hope. Hope for tomorrow. Hope for what could be. Hope that the someone you’ve entrusted your everything to will cradle and protect it. And hope? That shit is harder to kill than a dragon.�

I felt a touch of middle book syndrome with this one as I grinded through it. The length did not help matters at all. I got bored at certain points and had to read a few chapters ahead to wake my interest back up. Never a good sign, but one I am choosing to ignore for now. My love for book one fills me with hope that tomorrow (the next book) will make things better.

“Turns out, falling in love with someone only brings that blissful high all the poets talk about if they love you back. And if they keep secrets that jeopardize everyone and everything you hold dear? Love doesn’t have the decency to die. It just transforms into abject misery. That’s what this ache in my chest is: misery.�

I hope the next book doesn’t transform my love into misery.]]> 4.33 2023 Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: 2025
review:
“Because love, at its root, is hope. Hope for tomorrow. Hope for what could be. Hope that the someone you’ve entrusted your everything to will cradle and protect it. And hope? That shit is harder to kill than a dragon.�

I felt a touch of middle book syndrome with this one as I grinded through it. The length did not help matters at all. I got bored at certain points and had to read a few chapters ahead to wake my interest back up. Never a good sign, but one I am choosing to ignore for now. My love for book one fills me with hope that tomorrow (the next book) will make things better.

“Turns out, falling in love with someone only brings that blissful high all the poets talk about if they love you back. And if they keep secrets that jeopardize everyone and everything you hold dear? Love doesn’t have the decency to die. It just transforms into abject misery. That’s what this ache in my chest is: misery.�

I hope the next book doesn’t transform my love into misery.
]]> <![CDATA[Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)]]> 61431922 Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders...

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile� humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die]]> 528 Rebecca Yarros 1649374046 Amanda 5 2025 “He’s the most exquisite man I’ve ever seen.�

The characters were exquisite.

The writing style was exquisite.

The story was exquisite.

Five stars to an exquisite read.

(I decided to keep this one short and sweet because I know it has been reviewed to death.)

QUOTES:

“Hope is a fickle, dangerous thing. It steals your focus and aims it toward the possibilities instead of keeping it where it belongs—on the probabilities.�

“Eventually those closest to us become our enemies in some way, even if it’s through well-intentioned love or apathy, or if we live long enough to become their villains.�

“Lies are comforting. Truth is painful.� ]]> 4.56 2023 Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/22
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: 2025
review:
“He’s the most exquisite man I’ve ever seen.�

The characters were exquisite.

The writing style was exquisite.

The story was exquisite.

Five stars to an exquisite read.

(I decided to keep this one short and sweet because I know it has been reviewed to death.)

QUOTES:

“Hope is a fickle, dangerous thing. It steals your focus and aims it toward the possibilities instead of keeping it where it belongs—on the probabilities.�

“Eventually those closest to us become our enemies in some way, even if it’s through well-intentioned love or apathy, or if we live long enough to become their villains.�

“Lies are comforting. Truth is painful.�
]]> <![CDATA[Musashi's Book of Five Rings: The Definitive Interpertation of Miyomoto Musashi's Classic Book of Strategy]]> 16475406 128 Stephen F. Kaufman 1462906362 Amanda 2 2025, dull-jane “A slight error in judgement while at sea can throw you miles off course. You must constantly study your Way to ensure that you do not lose your way.�

This book is a powerhouse of historical significance in its own way, and mad respect for that. It just was not the book that I needed it to be. The writing style was a thing, and the content was a thing. They were both things that were not the thing to educate or benefit me. I had to dig deep and swap out words to find any amount of meaning that I could work with, which took from the reading experience.

“Whatever your determination or will-power, it is foolish to try to change the nature of things. Things work the way they do because that is the Way of things.�

I can now confidently say that that my “Way� does not include books like this one.

QUOTES:

“You cannot take a certain attitude and depend upon it entirely. There are too many variations in attacks from the enemy. What you may think is effective may in fact be ineffective because of the way in which the enemy is “feeling� at that particular moment. Your attitude must be such that you can shift into any other mode of combat without having to make a conscious decision. You must be flexible and you must have no particular liking for any particular set of techniques.�

“To constantly be on the defensive means that you are weak in your resolve and that you do not truly understand the Way of the warrior.�

“Why would you want to change your basic attitudes towards life simply because a new set of events is occurring? If you take the time to change your methodology in midstream your spirit has to catch up, regardless of how quickly you move. Eventually you are going to have to come back to your natural state. So why leave it in the first place?�

“When you are your own self and are not concerned with the motions of others, you will be in control of the situation and in control of the enemy and the movements with which he may or may not attack you.�

Two stars to a book better suited for somebody else.

A FUNNY STORY ABOUT THIS ONE:

A few months back my husband told me he had ordered the perfect book for me. I quizzed him relentlessly, but all I could get out of him was that he saw it and instantly thought of me. I was beyond excited.

Flash forward to the day he opened the mail and handed me this book. I was thrown off by the title and cover, but I trusted him. A dozen or so pages in, and I was perplexed. It was not reading like anything that I would be remotely interested in. My faith in him was still strong, so I decided the problem was with me. That I needed to dig deep for the meaning. I put my all in and went for it. When I finished it, I was speechless. There was no meaning, there was no connection, there was nothing. Was I supposed to fight somebody? Was somebody going to fight me? What was going on?

The answer: He did not buy THIS book for me. This was a book he bought for himself. The reason he handed it to me was so that I could smell the pages. A me thing that I do with all books that enter our home. (Watch yourself. Only those of us free of weird quirks can cast out insults.)

His perfect book for me was still out for delivery. To be continued�.]]> 4.08 2012 Musashi's Book of Five Rings: The Definitive Interpertation of Miyomoto Musashi's Classic Book of Strategy
author: Stephen F. Kaufman
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2012
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: 2025, dull-jane
review:
“A slight error in judgement while at sea can throw you miles off course. You must constantly study your Way to ensure that you do not lose your way.�

This book is a powerhouse of historical significance in its own way, and mad respect for that. It just was not the book that I needed it to be. The writing style was a thing, and the content was a thing. They were both things that were not the thing to educate or benefit me. I had to dig deep and swap out words to find any amount of meaning that I could work with, which took from the reading experience.

“Whatever your determination or will-power, it is foolish to try to change the nature of things. Things work the way they do because that is the Way of things.�

I can now confidently say that that my “Way� does not include books like this one.

QUOTES:

“You cannot take a certain attitude and depend upon it entirely. There are too many variations in attacks from the enemy. What you may think is effective may in fact be ineffective because of the way in which the enemy is “feeling� at that particular moment. Your attitude must be such that you can shift into any other mode of combat without having to make a conscious decision. You must be flexible and you must have no particular liking for any particular set of techniques.�

“To constantly be on the defensive means that you are weak in your resolve and that you do not truly understand the Way of the warrior.�

“Why would you want to change your basic attitudes towards life simply because a new set of events is occurring? If you take the time to change your methodology in midstream your spirit has to catch up, regardless of how quickly you move. Eventually you are going to have to come back to your natural state. So why leave it in the first place?�

“When you are your own self and are not concerned with the motions of others, you will be in control of the situation and in control of the enemy and the movements with which he may or may not attack you.�

Two stars to a book better suited for somebody else.

A FUNNY STORY ABOUT THIS ONE:

A few months back my husband told me he had ordered the perfect book for me. I quizzed him relentlessly, but all I could get out of him was that he saw it and instantly thought of me. I was beyond excited.

Flash forward to the day he opened the mail and handed me this book. I was thrown off by the title and cover, but I trusted him. A dozen or so pages in, and I was perplexed. It was not reading like anything that I would be remotely interested in. My faith in him was still strong, so I decided the problem was with me. That I needed to dig deep for the meaning. I put my all in and went for it. When I finished it, I was speechless. There was no meaning, there was no connection, there was nothing. Was I supposed to fight somebody? Was somebody going to fight me? What was going on?

The answer: He did not buy THIS book for me. This was a book he bought for himself. The reason he handed it to me was so that I could smell the pages. A me thing that I do with all books that enter our home. (Watch yourself. Only those of us free of weird quirks can cast out insults.)

His perfect book for me was still out for delivery. To be continued�.
]]> <![CDATA[The Black Bird Oracle (All Souls, #5)]]> 203518955 Diana Bishop journeys to the darkest places within herself—and her family history—in the highly anticipated fifth novel of the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling All Souls series.

Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clairmont in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two otherworldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England, dissolved the Covenant between the three species, and awoken the dark powers within Diana’s family line.

Now, Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family’s future and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It’s time you came home, Diana.

On the hallowed ground of Ravenswood, the Proctor family home, and under the tutelage of Gwyneth, a talented witch grounded in higher magic, a new era begins for Diana: a confrontation with her family’s dark past, and a reckoning for her own desire for even greater power—if she can let go, finally, of her fear of wielding it.]]> 444 Deborah Harkness 0593724771 Amanda 0 to-read 3.95 2024 The Black Bird Oracle (All Souls, #5)
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry]]> 25814222 A charming, warmhearted novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller A Man Called Ove.

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy—as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry is told with the same comic accuracy and beating heart as Fredrik Backman’s bestselling debut novel, A Man Called Ove. It is a story about life and death and one of the most important human rights: the right to be different.]]> 372 Fredrik Backman 1501115073 Amanda 0 to-read 4.07 2013 My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists—The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All]]> 136281676 464 Laura Bates 1728290902 Amanda 0 to-read 4.46 2020 Men Who Hate Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists—The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How it Affects Us All
author: Laura Bates
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Only One Left 197823613
When the Hope family was massacred decades ago, she was the only one left after that tragic night.

Mute, paralysed and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora has never been able to tell her side of the story.

Until her new live-in caregiver Kit brings her a typewriter.

And with one working finger Lenora begins to type:

I want to tell you everything.]]> 383 Riley Sager Amanda 3 blind-date-with-a-book, 2025 A young woman takes a job caring for an elderly woman who lives in a murder mansion.

Writing style…meh.

󲹰ٱ…m.

Weird ass plot that kept me guessing…well done.

Three stars to a quick read with extra cheese.]]> 4.20 2023 The Only One Left
author: Riley Sager
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: blind-date-with-a-book, 2025
review:
A young woman takes a job caring for an elderly woman who lives in a murder mansion.

Writing style…meh.

󲹰ٱ…m.

Weird ass plot that kept me guessing…well done.

Three stars to a quick read with extra cheese.
]]> Melmoth 38126334 For centuries, the mysterious dark-robed figure has roamed the globe, searching for those whose complicity and cowardice have fed into the rapids of history’s darkest waters—and now, in Sarah Perry’s breathtaking follow-up to The Essex Serpent, it is heading in our direction.

It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a home of sorts—or, at least, refuge. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and antique village lore. As such superstition has it, Melmoth travels through the ages, dooming those she persuades to join her to a damnation of timeless, itinerant solitude. To Helen it all seems the stuff of unenlightened fantasy.

But, unaware, as she wanders the cobblestone streets Helen is being watched. And then Karel disappears. . . .]]> 271 Sarah Perry 0062856421 Amanda 2 blind-date-with-a-book, 2025 A friend introduces a woman to a mystery even bigger than herself.

What a strange reading experience. Not the story itself, but what I thought about everything else. What I liked, I also disliked because it just wasn’t quite as it should be. Does that make sense? Not really, and that is how I felt while reading it. I was perplexed, bored, curious, and bored again. Still not clear? Here, let me try to break it down and hopefully something will come from it.

The story took place mostly in the present with flashbacks to the past, but the present felt like it was also in the past too, so holy hell. If it is the 2000s it needs to feel like the 2000s, not the 1800s. Gothic stacked on Gothic takes away from Gothic. Something like that. (No, I do not automatically assume Gothic means a story from an olden century. It just felt like this story wanted me to think that.)

The characters were just there. Somewhat interesting but mostly bland. Maybe that was on purpose to match the theme of the story? Not sure.

The writing style had sparks of brilliance that captured my attention, but it was so packed in with punctuation and dashes and long sentences that my attention was lost. Here is an example of what I am talking about:

“The last girl—lagging behind, her feet sore in new shoes perhaps, or slowed by heaviness of heart—looks up at the window as she passes, and sees there a man and a woman, silent, grave, gazing down at something out of sight. They’re entirely unalike, these two, but something in the cast of their faces—say, a kind of melancholy exhilaration—makes them seem cut from the same stone. The girl shrugs—moves on (a lovers� tiff, perhaps?)—and never thinks of them again.�

There is some pretty in there, but the dash shit overwhelms it and uglies it up. Whenever I happened upon a sentence or paragraph like the above, I fully felt this quote:

“Helen endures it all as she endures every discomfort, every hard thing: patiently, and as her just reward.�

I endured so much with this book because of those sparks of brilliance I could see through the overgrowth. Here are the ones that caught my eye. A phrase I need to stop using in my reviews, but I love it too much to do so (sorry, not sorry):

“Later Helen understood that his partner and his subject were really all that ever occupied his thoughts—that he was like man who dines so well on the dishes he likes best that he has no appetite for anything else.�

“I suppose my parents loved me, as parents must; but no jury would convict, and no judge pass sentence, on any evidence of love that I might put before the court.�

“She tapped her nose, and again I had that curious sensation of being wanted out of all proportion to what I could offer.�

“Let them be the song, and I the dying echo.�

“What use did I have for pride? I expected nothing, hoped for nothing, looked for nothing, asked nothing, gave nothing.�

“And there is nothing left of him now—no fury, no kindness, no despair—there is nothing: he has been emptied of himself, left hollow.�

Two stars to a book that made me want to learn more about em dashes, en dashes, and hyphens.]]> 3.32 2018 Melmoth
author: Sarah Perry
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: blind-date-with-a-book, 2025
review:
A friend introduces a woman to a mystery even bigger than herself.

What a strange reading experience. Not the story itself, but what I thought about everything else. What I liked, I also disliked because it just wasn’t quite as it should be. Does that make sense? Not really, and that is how I felt while reading it. I was perplexed, bored, curious, and bored again. Still not clear? Here, let me try to break it down and hopefully something will come from it.

The story took place mostly in the present with flashbacks to the past, but the present felt like it was also in the past too, so holy hell. If it is the 2000s it needs to feel like the 2000s, not the 1800s. Gothic stacked on Gothic takes away from Gothic. Something like that. (No, I do not automatically assume Gothic means a story from an olden century. It just felt like this story wanted me to think that.)

The characters were just there. Somewhat interesting but mostly bland. Maybe that was on purpose to match the theme of the story? Not sure.

The writing style had sparks of brilliance that captured my attention, but it was so packed in with punctuation and dashes and long sentences that my attention was lost. Here is an example of what I am talking about:

“The last girl—lagging behind, her feet sore in new shoes perhaps, or slowed by heaviness of heart—looks up at the window as she passes, and sees there a man and a woman, silent, grave, gazing down at something out of sight. They’re entirely unalike, these two, but something in the cast of their faces—say, a kind of melancholy exhilaration—makes them seem cut from the same stone. The girl shrugs—moves on (a lovers� tiff, perhaps?)—and never thinks of them again.�

There is some pretty in there, but the dash shit overwhelms it and uglies it up. Whenever I happened upon a sentence or paragraph like the above, I fully felt this quote:

“Helen endures it all as she endures every discomfort, every hard thing: patiently, and as her just reward.�

I endured so much with this book because of those sparks of brilliance I could see through the overgrowth. Here are the ones that caught my eye. A phrase I need to stop using in my reviews, but I love it too much to do so (sorry, not sorry):

“Later Helen understood that his partner and his subject were really all that ever occupied his thoughts—that he was like man who dines so well on the dishes he likes best that he has no appetite for anything else.�

“I suppose my parents loved me, as parents must; but no jury would convict, and no judge pass sentence, on any evidence of love that I might put before the court.�

“She tapped her nose, and again I had that curious sensation of being wanted out of all proportion to what I could offer.�

“Let them be the song, and I the dying echo.�

“What use did I have for pride? I expected nothing, hoped for nothing, looked for nothing, asked nothing, gave nothing.�

“And there is nothing left of him now—no fury, no kindness, no despair—there is nothing: he has been emptied of himself, left hollow.�

Two stars to a book that made me want to learn more about em dashes, en dashes, and hyphens.
]]> <![CDATA[Murder Your Employer (The McMasters Guide to Homicide, #1)]]> 176442577 The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts - a luxurious, clandestine college dedicated to the fine art of murder where earnest students study how best to "delete" their most deserving victim.


Who hasn’t wondered for a split second what the world would be like if a person who is the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you’ve probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this “Poison Ivy League� college—its location unknown to even those who study there—is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate…and where one’s mandatory graduation thesis is getting away with the perfect murder of someone whose death will make the world a much better place to live.

Prepare for an education you’ll never forget. A “fiendishly funny� (Booklist) mix of witty wordplay, breathtaking twists and genuine intrigue, Murder Your Employer will gain you admission into a wholly original world, cocooned within the most entertaining book about well-intentioned would-be murderers you’ll ever read.]]> 395 Rupert Holmes 1451648227 Amanda 3 2025 “Trust me, I do understand the frailty of existence and that a human life comes only one to a customer. But then you get older and discover there are people in this world who rob others of their lives or make life too hard for others to live. And too often these people thrive and profit.�

The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts is a secret school where people go to learn how to murder others without getting caught.

Sign me up. I have a mile long list of people I want to “delete�.

JUST KIDDING

I am not like that. I may not like you. I may wish you made a permanent move to Antarctica. I may wish to never see or hear from you again, but I would never wish for your life to end. Life is a party that we are all invited to attend until we are made to leave by the host, not another guest.

This book had a feeling about it that I have learned to despise. It is the feeling that it was written for the express purpose of becoming a movie. I can’t stand that feeling. It cheapens the reading experience for me.

“Sex with a screenwriter doesn’t count, it’s barely masturbation!�

I did like the original idea of the story. I did not like the characters. I did like the humor found in the writing style. I did not like it was bogged down with fanciful descriptions of locations and buildings. I did like that it wasn’t a horrible reading experience. I did not like that it wasn’t an amazing reading experience either.

QUOTES:

“I couldn’t fathom why she liked the unprincipled fellow, but then, in my limited experience, every couple makes total sense if only you knew more about them.�

“His readiness for adulation is a bottomless vessel into which you can pour praise without him protesting, ‘Please, sir, may I have less?’�

Three stars to a book that will make me go, “TOLD YOU SO!� when it hits a streaming service.]]> 3.86 2023 Murder Your Employer (The McMasters Guide to Homicide, #1)
author: Rupert Holmes
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: 2025
review:
“Trust me, I do understand the frailty of existence and that a human life comes only one to a customer. But then you get older and discover there are people in this world who rob others of their lives or make life too hard for others to live. And too often these people thrive and profit.�

The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts is a secret school where people go to learn how to murder others without getting caught.

Sign me up. I have a mile long list of people I want to “delete�.

JUST KIDDING

I am not like that. I may not like you. I may wish you made a permanent move to Antarctica. I may wish to never see or hear from you again, but I would never wish for your life to end. Life is a party that we are all invited to attend until we are made to leave by the host, not another guest.

This book had a feeling about it that I have learned to despise. It is the feeling that it was written for the express purpose of becoming a movie. I can’t stand that feeling. It cheapens the reading experience for me.

“Sex with a screenwriter doesn’t count, it’s barely masturbation!�

I did like the original idea of the story. I did not like the characters. I did like the humor found in the writing style. I did not like it was bogged down with fanciful descriptions of locations and buildings. I did like that it wasn’t a horrible reading experience. I did not like that it wasn’t an amazing reading experience either.

QUOTES:

“I couldn’t fathom why she liked the unprincipled fellow, but then, in my limited experience, every couple makes total sense if only you knew more about them.�

“His readiness for adulation is a bottomless vessel into which you can pour praise without him protesting, ‘Please, sir, may I have less?’�

Three stars to a book that will make me go, “TOLD YOU SO!� when it hits a streaming service.
]]> The Lives of Lee Miller 236146
� Lee 1927: New York. Classically beautiful, she is discovered by Condé Nast and immortalized by Steichen, Hoyningen-Huene, Horst, and other famous photographers.
� Lee 1929: Paris. Protégé and lover of Man Ray, she invents with him the solarization technique of photography and develops into a brilliant Surrealist photographer.
� Lee 1939-1945: Europe. She becomes a U.S. war correspondent and covers the liberation of Paris. Her photographs of the Dachau concentration camp shock the world.

These are but three of the many lives of Lee Miller, intimately recorded here by her son, Antony Penrose, whose years of work on her photographic archives unearthed a rich selection of her finest work, including portraits of her friends Picasso, Braque, Ernst, Eluard, and Miró. To these are added many other photos that complement Penrose's highly readable biography of this uniquely talented artist. 171 duotone illustrations.]]> 216 Antony Penrose 0500275092 Amanda 0 4.01 1985 The Lives of Lee Miller
author: Antony Penrose
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: to-read, instead-of-a-20-on-my-nighstand
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Life (All Souls, #3)]]> 16054217 The #1 New York Times bestselling series finale and sequel to A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night

Bringing the magic and suspense of the All Souls Trilogy to a deeply satisfying conclusion, this highly anticipated finale went straight to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. In The Book of Life, Diana and Matthew time-travel back from Elizabethan London to make a dramatic return to the present—facing new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home, Sept-Tours, they reunite with the beloved cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency.]]> 561 Deborah Harkness 0670025593 Amanda 4 hark-who-goes-there 4.15 2014 The Book of Life (All Souls, #3)
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves: hark-who-goes-there
review:

]]> Small World 373167 312 Tabitha King 0451114086 Amanda 0 to-read 3.43 1981 Small World
author: Tabitha King
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Woman in Cabin 10 (Lo Blacklock, #1)]]> 29883629 340 Ruth Ware 1501132954 Amanda 2 blind-date-with-a-book, 2024 “For a minute I had no idea what she was talking about � then I remembered. The Aurora. A boutique super-luxury cruise liner traveling around the Norwegian fjords, and somehow, I still wasn’t quite sure how, I had been lucky enough to snag one of the handful of press passes on its maiden voyage.�

This is the only quote I pulled from the book. It wasn’t because I found it to be profound or that I liked any part of it. I saved it because it was lazy and awkward, and I knew at that moment I was screwed beyond belief with my reading choice. The story opened with so much going on and the segue into the biggest piece of the story was that crap. Show not tell. Let the story naturally take the reader where they need to be. If you have to jump them there because the thread got lost in other crap, rethink the other crap.

I just reread the review of another book I read by this author (In a Dark, Dark Wood), which reminded me of a promise I made to myself while reading the book The Woman in the Window. The promise was to not read any more books with a similar theme and/or with a similar title. Here is how I see it now:

You screwed me over once, shame on you; you screwed me over twice, shame on me; you screwed me over three times, and that makes me a huge $%^&inging idiot.

With all that said, I decided to close out this review with something fun. All the credit goes to the song “I’m On a Boat� by The Lonely Island. (I listened to it on repeat the entire time I typed up the review.)

Lo’s on a murder boat (She’s on a murder boat) Lo’s on a murder boat (She’s on a murder boat)
Everybody look at her
'Cause she’s sailing on a murder boat (sailing on a murder boat)
Lo’s on a murder boat (She’s on a murder boat) Lo’s on a murder boat
Take a good hard look at the mothertrucking murder boat (murder boat, yeah)

Lo’s on a murder boat mothertrucker take a look at her
Straight floatin' on a murder boat on the deep blue sea
Busting five knots, wind whipping out her rented dress
You can't stop her mothertrucker cause she’s on a murder boat

Take a picture, trick (trick) She’s on a murder boat, bitch (bitch)
She’s drinking all the booze, 'cause it goes well with her meds
She’s got additional anxiety from recently being robbed
Is that why she thinks she’s on a mothertrucking murder boat?

Two stars to a book that did me dirty.

Zero stars to me because I am the $%^&ing idiot that let it happen.]]> 3.69 2016 The Woman in Cabin 10 (Lo Blacklock, #1)
author: Ruth Ware
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: blind-date-with-a-book, 2024
review:
“For a minute I had no idea what she was talking about � then I remembered. The Aurora. A boutique super-luxury cruise liner traveling around the Norwegian fjords, and somehow, I still wasn’t quite sure how, I had been lucky enough to snag one of the handful of press passes on its maiden voyage.�

This is the only quote I pulled from the book. It wasn’t because I found it to be profound or that I liked any part of it. I saved it because it was lazy and awkward, and I knew at that moment I was screwed beyond belief with my reading choice. The story opened with so much going on and the segue into the biggest piece of the story was that crap. Show not tell. Let the story naturally take the reader where they need to be. If you have to jump them there because the thread got lost in other crap, rethink the other crap.

I just reread the review of another book I read by this author (In a Dark, Dark Wood), which reminded me of a promise I made to myself while reading the book The Woman in the Window. The promise was to not read any more books with a similar theme and/or with a similar title. Here is how I see it now:

You screwed me over once, shame on you; you screwed me over twice, shame on me; you screwed me over three times, and that makes me a huge $%^&inging idiot.

With all that said, I decided to close out this review with something fun. All the credit goes to the song “I’m On a Boat� by The Lonely Island. (I listened to it on repeat the entire time I typed up the review.)

Lo’s on a murder boat (She’s on a murder boat) Lo’s on a murder boat (She’s on a murder boat)
Everybody look at her
'Cause she’s sailing on a murder boat (sailing on a murder boat)
Lo’s on a murder boat (She’s on a murder boat) Lo’s on a murder boat
Take a good hard look at the mothertrucking murder boat (murder boat, yeah)

Lo’s on a murder boat mothertrucker take a look at her
Straight floatin' on a murder boat on the deep blue sea
Busting five knots, wind whipping out her rented dress
You can't stop her mothertrucker cause she’s on a murder boat

Take a picture, trick (trick) She’s on a murder boat, bitch (bitch)
She’s drinking all the booze, 'cause it goes well with her meds
She’s got additional anxiety from recently being robbed
Is that why she thinks she’s on a mothertrucking murder boat?

Two stars to a book that did me dirty.

Zero stars to me because I am the $%^&ing idiot that let it happen.
]]> <![CDATA[Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead]]> 59366182 In this “fun, page-turner of a novel� (Sarah Haywood, New York Times bestselling author) that’s perfect for fans of Mostly Dead Things and Goodbye, Vitamin, a morbidly anxious young woman stumbles into a job as a receptionist at a Catholic church and soon finds herself obsessed with her predecessor’s mysterious death.

Gilda, a twenty-something, atheist, animal-loving lesbian, cannot stop ruminating about death. Desperate for relief from her panicky mind and alienated from her repressive family, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local Catholic church, and finds herself being greeted by Father Jeff, who assumes she’s there for a job interview. Too embarrassed to correct him, Gilda is abruptly hired to replace the recently deceased receptionist Grace.

In between trying to memorize the lines to Catholic mass, hiding the fact that she has a new girlfriend, and erecting a dirty dish tower in her crumbling apartment, Gilda strikes up an email correspondence with Grace’s old friend. She can’t bear to ignore the kindly old woman who has been trying to reach her friend through the church inbox, but she also can’t bring herself to break the bad news. Desperate, she begins impersonating Grace via email. But when the police discover suspicious circumstances surrounding Grace’s death, Gilda may have to finally reveal the truth of her mortifying existence.

With a “kindhearted heroine we all need right now� (Courtney Maum, New York Times bestselling author), Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is a crackling and “delightfully weird reminder that we will one day turn to dust and that yes, this is depressing, but it’s also what makes life beautiful� (Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl).]]> 256 Emily R. Austin 198216736X Amanda 3 2024, blind-date-with-a-book “Sometimes I fixate on how disgusting humans are. I think about how we do things like litter and invent nuclear bombs. I think about racism, war, rape, child abuse, and climate change. I think about how gross people are. I think about public bathrooms, armpits, and about all of our dirty hands. I think about how infection and diseases are spread. I think about how every human has a butt, and about how disgusting that is.�

Me too, girl, me too.

Gilda is trying her best to be what she thinks she is supposed to be at any given moment. Her head is full of thoughts regarding her observations on the condition that is life. Which is quite confusing considering how complicated life is. Her romantic relationships are a thing, her family is a thing, her employment is a thing, dying is a HUGE thing, basically everything is a thing that must be pondered (obsessed over) and sorted (temporarily).

The story started out awesome, and then lost itself and the point. The characters were entertaining but not enough to balance out the loss. What would have been a five star read quickly deteriorated to three with pointlessness and repetition.

“I have chosen happiness. Out of all the emotions set out on the table, I have selected it. It is by far the superior option. It’s insane to think I would have ever picked one of those shittier emotions before � when all the while, I could have chosen shiny, shimmering, iridescent happiness.

I am ready to feel happy, universe. Lay it on me.�

Three stars to a book that I tried with all I had to choose happiness for.]]> 3.85 2021 Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead
author: Emily R. Austin
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: 2024, blind-date-with-a-book
review:
“Sometimes I fixate on how disgusting humans are. I think about how we do things like litter and invent nuclear bombs. I think about racism, war, rape, child abuse, and climate change. I think about how gross people are. I think about public bathrooms, armpits, and about all of our dirty hands. I think about how infection and diseases are spread. I think about how every human has a butt, and about how disgusting that is.�

Me too, girl, me too.

Gilda is trying her best to be what she thinks she is supposed to be at any given moment. Her head is full of thoughts regarding her observations on the condition that is life. Which is quite confusing considering how complicated life is. Her romantic relationships are a thing, her family is a thing, her employment is a thing, dying is a HUGE thing, basically everything is a thing that must be pondered (obsessed over) and sorted (temporarily).

The story started out awesome, and then lost itself and the point. The characters were entertaining but not enough to balance out the loss. What would have been a five star read quickly deteriorated to three with pointlessness and repetition.

“I have chosen happiness. Out of all the emotions set out on the table, I have selected it. It is by far the superior option. It’s insane to think I would have ever picked one of those shittier emotions before � when all the while, I could have chosen shiny, shimmering, iridescent happiness.

I am ready to feel happy, universe. Lay it on me.�

Three stars to a book that I tried with all I had to choose happiness for.
]]> <![CDATA[Have a Nice Day!: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks]]> 340587 768 Mick Foley 0061031011 Amanda 0 to-read 4.29 1999 Have a Nice Day!: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks
author: Mick Foley
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Shadow and Bone (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #1)]]> 35384793
Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha . . . and the secrets of her heart.

Shadow and Bone is the first installment in Leigh Bardugo's Grisha Trilogy.]]> 358 Leigh Bardugo 1250027438 Amanda 0 to-read 3.91 2012 Shadow and Bone (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #1)
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Plant 13609593 The novel is about an editor in a paperback publishing house who gets a manuscript from what appears to be a crackpot. The manuscript is about magic, but it also contains photographs that seem very real. The editor writes the author a rejection slip, but because of the photographs, he also notifies the police where the author lives. This enrages the author, who sends a mysterious plant to the editor's office.
The story is told in epistolary format, consisting entirely of letters, memos and correspondence.]]> 291 Stephen King Amanda 0 to-read 3.60 2000 The Plant
author: Stephen King
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation]]> 53121662 A scholar of American Christianity presents a seventy-five-year history of evangelicalism that identifies the forces that have turned Donald Trump into a hero of the Religious Right.

How did a libertine who lacks even the most basic knowledge of the Christian faith win 81 percent of the white evangelical vote in 2016? And why have white evangelicals become a presidential reprobate’s staunchest supporters? These are among the questions acclaimed historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez asks in Jesus and John Wayne, which delves beyond facile headlines to explain how white evangelicals have brought us to our fractured political moment. Challenging the commonly held assumption that the “moral majority� backed Donald Trump for purely pragmatic reasons, Du Mez reveals that Donald Trump in fact represents the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of white evangelicals� most deeply held values.

Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping account of the last seventy-five years of white evangelicalism, showing how American evangelicals have worked for decades to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism, or in the words of one modern chaplain, with “a spiritual badass.� As Du Mez explains, the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the role of culture in modern American evangelicalism. Many of today’s evangelicals may not be theologically astute, but they know their VeggieTales, they’ve read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart, and they learned about purity before they learned about sex—and they have a silver ring to prove it. Evangelical books, films, music, clothing, and merchandise shape the beliefs of millions. And evangelical popular culture is teeming with muscular heroes—mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of “Christian America.� Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done.

Trump, in other words, is hardly the first flashy celebrity to capture evangelicals� hearts and minds, nor is he the first strongman to promise evangelicals protection and power. Indeed, the values and viewpoints at the heart of white evangelicalism today—patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive foreign policy, fear of Islam, ambivalence toward #MeToo, and opposition to Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community—are likely to persist long after Trump leaves office.

A much-needed reexamination, Jesus and John Wayne explains why evangelicals have rallied behind the least-Christian president in American history and how they have transformed their faith in the process, with enduring consequences for all of us.]]> 356 Kristin Kobes Du Mez 1631495739 Amanda 0 to-read 4.27 2020 Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
author: Kristin Kobes Du Mez
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Station Eleven 23995368 An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.]]> 336 Emily St. John Mandel 0804172447 Amanda 5 blind-date-with-a-book, 2024 “INSERT CATCHY BOOK QUOTE HERE.�

INSERT A SENTENCE OR TWO THAT GIVES A TASTE FOR WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT.

INSERT MY REVIEW.

INSERT CLOSING SENTENCE: “X NUMBER OF STARS TO A BOOK THAT…�

The above is my secret sauce recipe for the top shelf reviews I force upon the world. It is typed out like it is (went old school and used the skeleton outline training from back in the day) because it is not working for this book, which makes no damn sense to me!!! It is a five star book. I loved it. A good book should be easy to review. Why is this one kicking my ass???

My base thoughts: It is a rather simple story with easy-to-follow characters�

A virus strikes and takes out most of the population. This is the story of a handful of people that existed right before, during, and after said event.

…on the surface.

There it is. That is the source of the struggle. This book has layers. Lots and lots of layers. A simple glance at the surface version of this review would be that it is a post-apocalyptic story. The layers are why I can’t do my usual with this one because they are surprisingly complex. They include characters struggling with the meaning of their lives, the relationships they currently have and/or have lost, and the life strings that bind certain people together for reasons that make no sense until they do.

In closing, (another relic from the past used when the word and/or page count had been met and you wanted to impress the teacher with a splash of fancy) this book is worth the read. The writing style is perfection, and I would totally recommend it to people who are into the surface review stuff I mentioned.

QUOTE TIME:

“When sober, he suggests that she’s squandering her talent. When drunk, he implies that there isn’t much there to squander, although later he apologizes for this and sometimes cries.�

�'You don’t have to understand it,� she said. ‘It’s mine.’�

“No one ever thinks they’re awful, even people who really actually are. It’s some sort of survival mechanism.�

“Okay, let’s say he’ll change a little, probably, if you coach him, but he’ll still be a successful-but-unhappy person who works until nine p.m. every night because he’s got a terrible marriage and doesn’t want to go home, and don’t ask how I know that, everyone knows when you’ve got a terrible marriage, it’s like having bad breath, you get close enough to a person and it’s obvious.�

“I’m talking about these people who’ve ended up in one life instead of another and they are just so disappointed. Do you know what I mean? They’ve done what’s expected of them. They want to do something different but it’s impossible now, there’s a mortgage, kids, whatever, they’re trapped.�

These two are examples of the layering that snagged me. They contradict each other and compliment each other in a way that does and does not make sense:

“Hell is the absence of the people you long for.�

“If hell is other people, what is a world with almost no people left in it?� ]]> 4.14 2014 Station Eleven
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: blind-date-with-a-book, 2024
review:
“INSERT CATCHY BOOK QUOTE HERE.�

INSERT A SENTENCE OR TWO THAT GIVES A TASTE FOR WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT.

INSERT MY REVIEW.

INSERT CLOSING SENTENCE: “X NUMBER OF STARS TO A BOOK THAT…�

The above is my secret sauce recipe for the top shelf reviews I force upon the world. It is typed out like it is (went old school and used the skeleton outline training from back in the day) because it is not working for this book, which makes no damn sense to me!!! It is a five star book. I loved it. A good book should be easy to review. Why is this one kicking my ass???

My base thoughts: It is a rather simple story with easy-to-follow characters�

A virus strikes and takes out most of the population. This is the story of a handful of people that existed right before, during, and after said event.

…on the surface.

There it is. That is the source of the struggle. This book has layers. Lots and lots of layers. A simple glance at the surface version of this review would be that it is a post-apocalyptic story. The layers are why I can’t do my usual with this one because they are surprisingly complex. They include characters struggling with the meaning of their lives, the relationships they currently have and/or have lost, and the life strings that bind certain people together for reasons that make no sense until they do.

In closing, (another relic from the past used when the word and/or page count had been met and you wanted to impress the teacher with a splash of fancy) this book is worth the read. The writing style is perfection, and I would totally recommend it to people who are into the surface review stuff I mentioned.

QUOTE TIME:

“When sober, he suggests that she’s squandering her talent. When drunk, he implies that there isn’t much there to squander, although later he apologizes for this and sometimes cries.�

�'You don’t have to understand it,� she said. ‘It’s mine.’�

“No one ever thinks they’re awful, even people who really actually are. It’s some sort of survival mechanism.�

“Okay, let’s say he’ll change a little, probably, if you coach him, but he’ll still be a successful-but-unhappy person who works until nine p.m. every night because he’s got a terrible marriage and doesn’t want to go home, and don’t ask how I know that, everyone knows when you’ve got a terrible marriage, it’s like having bad breath, you get close enough to a person and it’s obvious.�

“I’m talking about these people who’ve ended up in one life instead of another and they are just so disappointed. Do you know what I mean? They’ve done what’s expected of them. They want to do something different but it’s impossible now, there’s a mortgage, kids, whatever, they’re trapped.�

These two are examples of the layering that snagged me. They contradict each other and compliment each other in a way that does and does not make sense:

“Hell is the absence of the people you long for.�

“If hell is other people, what is a world with almost no people left in it?�
]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)]]> 1 652 J.K. Rowling Amanda 5 harry-plopper, 2015 BUT it doesn’t mean I can’t be crushing on a little side action while things are reaching their boiling point. Apparently this girl has a soft spot for the tall, dark and greasy type. Money says it’s probably his sharp-wit and angry demure that sold me, though I imagine the oozing with backstory could be a likely candidate as well.

All kidding aside, I am keeping a close eye on Snape not only because he is my favorite character but because deep down I feel he is at heart a noble guy. How will I feel if I’m wrong? He will still hold a place in my favorite character category because there is just so much to him as a character. He is honestly one that I would love to hear more of a backstory on (fingers crossed the next book covers that).

So a lot has happened here and I am ready to face everyone’s fate (as horrible as it might be) in the final installment of this epic series. Wish me luck.]]> 4.57 2005 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2015/08/08
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: harry-plopper, 2015
review:
Book six brought my slowly budding love for Mr. Snape to a head. Don’t get me wrong, I am all about the good guy winning and I am totally rooting for the main character to find his prize at the bottom of the 80’s cereal box. BUT it doesn’t mean I can’t be crushing on a little side action while things are reaching their boiling point. Apparently this girl has a soft spot for the tall, dark and greasy type. Money says it’s probably his sharp-wit and angry demure that sold me, though I imagine the oozing with backstory could be a likely candidate as well.

All kidding aside, I am keeping a close eye on Snape not only because he is my favorite character but because deep down I feel he is at heart a noble guy. How will I feel if I’m wrong? He will still hold a place in my favorite character category because there is just so much to him as a character. He is honestly one that I would love to hear more of a backstory on (fingers crossed the next book covers that).

So a lot has happened here and I am ready to face everyone’s fate (as horrible as it might be) in the final installment of this epic series. Wish me luck.
]]> <![CDATA[Van Gogh's Letters: The Mind of the Artist in Paintings, Drawings, and Words, 1875-1890]]> 10083004 Now in paperback, this beautiful and important collection of more than 150 of Van Gogh's letters paired with more than 250 works of art

Vincent Van Gogh wrote hundreds of letters to his brother Theo as well as to family members and fellow artists including Paul Gauguin and Emile Bernard. In many of them he described, in painstaking detail and beautiful prose, the progress of his work. Van Gogh's Letters presents more than 150 of these stirring letters, excerpted and newly translated, and set side-by-side with the art it describes, including sketches, drawings, and paintings. The result is an elegantly rendered collection that allows us to see the world through the eyes of one of the greatest artists of all time.

Previously published in hardcover as Vincent van Gogh: A Self-Portrait in Art and Letters
]]> 320 Vincent van Gogh 1579128599 Amanda 4 2024, time-to-get-real “…when you look at it through your eyelashes…�

I really struggled with rating this one because I am a huge Van Gogh fan. I had one of his pieces tattooed on me, which then led to the decision to a do a full leg sleeve of beautiful moths…that level of adoration. I decided to divide this one into two reviews to help myself work through the struggle.

Five star review:
The art was gorgeous (as always). The layout of the book paired Vincent van Gogh’s art with the letters he wrote before/during/after each piece. The letters detailed his thoughts behind the focus on a subject, the medium, colors used (when used), and how the finished product landed. What a phenomenal behind the curtain reading experience.

Two star review:
It is nice that the letters were about his art. I would have liked to have seen more letters about what was going on with his life and how everything made him feel. I know letters like this exist, because the last letter in this book sent me down that rabbit hole. Not because of the content, but because the noted reference made no damn sense. I flipped all over the book trying to understand it, before finally giving up and doing my own search. That is where I found a plethora of other letters that match more of what I am looking for.

Four stars to a book that was eye candy.

QUOTES, QUOTES, AND MORE QUOTES:

“There is some sense of color emerging in me that I never had before, something that is wide-ranging and powerful.�

“There is something infinite about painting � I can’t quite explain it to you � but particularly for the expression of moods it is so wonderful. In colors there are hidden aspects of harmony or contrasts that cooperate automatically and don’t take sides.�

“But I mean, it is not easy to find a summer effect that is as rich and as simple and as good to look at as the characteristic effects of other seasons. Spring is delicate, green young wheat and pink apple blossom. Autumn is the contract of yellow foliage against violet tones. Winter is the snow with black silhouettes.�

“You can’t forecast infallibly over such a large area. So best leave it alone. But you analyze it closely, you see that the greatest and most dynamic people of the century always worked against the stream, and that they were always working on their own initiative. You see it both in painting and in literature (I know nothing about music, but I assume that the same holds good there).�

“Since it’s still winter here, please just let me get on with my work; if it’s the work of a madman, that’s just too bad. There’s nothing I can do about it.� ]]> 4.55 2006 Van Gogh's Letters: The Mind of the Artist in Paintings, Drawings, and Words, 1875-1890
author: Vincent van Gogh
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: 2024, time-to-get-real
review:
“…when you look at it through your eyelashes…�

I really struggled with rating this one because I am a huge Van Gogh fan. I had one of his pieces tattooed on me, which then led to the decision to a do a full leg sleeve of beautiful moths…that level of adoration. I decided to divide this one into two reviews to help myself work through the struggle.

Five star review:
The art was gorgeous (as always). The layout of the book paired Vincent van Gogh’s art with the letters he wrote before/during/after each piece. The letters detailed his thoughts behind the focus on a subject, the medium, colors used (when used), and how the finished product landed. What a phenomenal behind the curtain reading experience.

Two star review:
It is nice that the letters were about his art. I would have liked to have seen more letters about what was going on with his life and how everything made him feel. I know letters like this exist, because the last letter in this book sent me down that rabbit hole. Not because of the content, but because the noted reference made no damn sense. I flipped all over the book trying to understand it, before finally giving up and doing my own search. That is where I found a plethora of other letters that match more of what I am looking for.

Four stars to a book that was eye candy.

QUOTES, QUOTES, AND MORE QUOTES:

“There is some sense of color emerging in me that I never had before, something that is wide-ranging and powerful.�

“There is something infinite about painting � I can’t quite explain it to you � but particularly for the expression of moods it is so wonderful. In colors there are hidden aspects of harmony or contrasts that cooperate automatically and don’t take sides.�

“But I mean, it is not easy to find a summer effect that is as rich and as simple and as good to look at as the characteristic effects of other seasons. Spring is delicate, green young wheat and pink apple blossom. Autumn is the contract of yellow foliage against violet tones. Winter is the snow with black silhouettes.�

“You can’t forecast infallibly over such a large area. So best leave it alone. But you analyze it closely, you see that the greatest and most dynamic people of the century always worked against the stream, and that they were always working on their own initiative. You see it both in painting and in literature (I know nothing about music, but I assume that the same holds good there).�

“Since it’s still winter here, please just let me get on with my work; if it’s the work of a madman, that’s just too bad. There’s nothing I can do about it.�
]]> Normal People 41057294
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.]]> 273 Sally Rooney 1984822179 Amanda 3 2024, blind-date-with-a-book
“Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn’t know if she would ever find out where it was and become part of it.�

Connell is a young man growing up in a small town. His family situation is decent, his time spent at school is decent, basically his life is a thing to live because it just is and that is what you are supposed to do.

“If anything, his personality seemed like something external to himself, managed by the opinions of others, rather than anything he individually did or produced.�

This is a little ditty about Jack and Diane. This is a story of two people whose orbits keep colliding as they teeter-totter through life. What starts with a casual conversation between two high school kids making nice in a kitchen, opens the door to so much more.

“Their life in Carricklea, which they had imbued with such drama and significance, just ended like that with no conclusion, and it would never be picked back up again, never in the same way.�

The sharpness of the character’s experiences and how it was written was impressive. I gave it five stars for that. Why I took one away was because of the skip around business. It made sense until the points where it skipped wrong, and I had to flip back through pages to find my place. Why I took another one away was because it got to be a bit too dramatic where it didn’t need to be. Less can be more.

Quotes that nailed the description:

“Back outside the café now, the sunlight is so strong it crunches all the colors up and makes them sting.�

Outside it’s still snowing. The exterior world looks like an old TV screen badly tuned. Visual noise breaks the landscape into soft fragments.�

“Connell went home that night and read over some notes he had been making for a new story, and he felt the old beat of pleasure inside his body, like watching a perfect goal, like the rustling movement of light through leaves, a phrase of music from the window of a passing car. Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything.�

Three stars to a book that stirred up my own memories of past tumultuous times.]]> 3.81 2018 Normal People
author: Sally Rooney
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/07
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: 2024, blind-date-with-a-book
review:
Marianne is a young girl growing up in a small town. Her family situation is a struggle, her time spent at school is a struggle, basically her life is a thing to quietly endure until whatever comes next happens.

“Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn’t know if she would ever find out where it was and become part of it.�

Connell is a young man growing up in a small town. His family situation is decent, his time spent at school is decent, basically his life is a thing to live because it just is and that is what you are supposed to do.

“If anything, his personality seemed like something external to himself, managed by the opinions of others, rather than anything he individually did or produced.�

This is a little ditty about Jack and Diane. This is a story of two people whose orbits keep colliding as they teeter-totter through life. What starts with a casual conversation between two high school kids making nice in a kitchen, opens the door to so much more.

“Their life in Carricklea, which they had imbued with such drama and significance, just ended like that with no conclusion, and it would never be picked back up again, never in the same way.�

The sharpness of the character’s experiences and how it was written was impressive. I gave it five stars for that. Why I took one away was because of the skip around business. It made sense until the points where it skipped wrong, and I had to flip back through pages to find my place. Why I took another one away was because it got to be a bit too dramatic where it didn’t need to be. Less can be more.

Quotes that nailed the description:

“Back outside the café now, the sunlight is so strong it crunches all the colors up and makes them sting.�

Outside it’s still snowing. The exterior world looks like an old TV screen badly tuned. Visual noise breaks the landscape into soft fragments.�

“Connell went home that night and read over some notes he had been making for a new story, and he felt the old beat of pleasure inside his body, like watching a perfect goal, like the rustling movement of light through leaves, a phrase of music from the window of a passing car. Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything.�

Three stars to a book that stirred up my own memories of past tumultuous times.
]]> <![CDATA[Death's End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #3)]]> 25451264
Now this epic trilogy concludes with Death's End. Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge. With human science advancing daily and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations will soon be able to co-exist peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But the peace has also made humanity complacent.

Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer from the early 21st century, awakens from hibernation in this new age. She brings with her knowledge of a long-forgotten program dating from the beginning of the Trisolar Crisis, and her very presence may upset the delicate balance between two worlds. Will humanity reach for the stars or die in its cradle?]]> 604 Liu Cixin 0765377101 Amanda 0 4.40 2010 Death's End (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #3)
author: Liu Cixin
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: to-read, instead-of-a-20-on-my-nighstand
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2)]]> 23168817 512 Liu Cixin Amanda 0 4.39 2008 The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2)
author: Liu Cixin
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: to-read, instead-of-a-20-on-my-nighstand
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)]]> 20518872 472 Liu Cixin Amanda 0 4.08 2006 The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #1)
author: Liu Cixin
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: to-read, instead-of-a-20-on-my-nighstand
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Triple H Making the Game: Triple H's Approach to a Better Body (WWE)]]> 675959
Making The Game -- Triple H's Approach to a Better Body is Triple H's verbal and visual blueprint for building your body. He discusses how "a Jones for bodybuilding and a love for wrestling" morphed a skinny, 135-pound fourteen-year-old into one of the biggest Superstars in World Wrestling Entertainment. But be warned -- the "Cerebral Assassin" has two words for anyone who's not serious about the craft: "Complacency sucks!" He's spent the past twenty years living by the philosophy that training results in improved strength and conditioning, self-discipline, and an ability to focus on setting goals. This book isn't for pantywaists who'd rather exercise their egos.

Triple H had help along the way. He didn't get to be "that damn good" without the support of a loving family. And over the years several bodybuilders (including world-renowned trainer Charles Glass) worked with him to develop the best training regimens. Their advice, plus hardcore commitment, helped Paul Levesque survive "The Hard Way In" through Walter "Killer" Kowalski's wrestling school and become "Terra Rising" in Kowalski's International Wrestling Federation; enabled him to adjust to a difficult life on the road as "the French guy" in World Championship Wrestling; and gave "Hunter Hearst-Helmsley" the self-assurance he needed to succeed.

Making The Game breaks down and demonstrates the split-training workout program Triple H has embraced to achieve new levels of success in sculpting his body. Between drilling you with reps and sets, he relates how training gave him the inner strength to shoulder the brunt of a controversial "Curtain Call" in the ring and, later, to elevate his position with Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock as one of the "Big Three" in WWE. Relive the fateful Raw events of May 2001 that left Triple H with a torn quadriceps muscle. Then you too can feel "The Triple H Burn," the series of exercises he endured through nine months of physical therapy so he could resume his wrestling career.

Besides offering the lowdown with step-by-step exercises for both novice bodybuilders and those looking to radically advance their workout, Making The Game weighs in on the science behind progressive-training resistance and rest-pause techniques; the significance of exercise form over volume; the truth behind achieving "six-pack abs"; the dangers of overtraining and "skullcrushing" exercises that risk injury; and how creativity can go a long way in your workout. Triple H sees it as his mission to provide the guidelines for you to follow in the months and years ahead. And if there's one thing he knows how to do, it's succeed.

It's time to stop playing The Game...and time to start Making The Game.]]> 256 Triple H 0743483618 Amanda 4 2024, time-to-get-real “Whether you’re trying to become the best player on your high school football team, live a healthier lifestyle, look good at the beach, or just want to give yourself a better shot with the babe down the block, I believe a dedication to weight training will provide the structure to help you achieve your goals.�

I am as shocked by the rating I gave this book as you are. When I saw it sitting on my husband’s side table I thought it was a joke. When I gave him a world-class WTF look, he just shrugged and handed me the book. When I flipped through it and saw all the pics of Triple H working out, I died laughing. I then said, “Okay, challenge accepted. Let me read this turd so I can tell you all about how cheesy and dumb it is.�

It is not cheesy, and it is not dumb. It is also not a turd. This is me eating crow. I absolutely enjoyed the read. I was glued to it. Paul Levesque mixes an autobio of his wrestling life (up to the point the book was written) with step-by-step exercises and other working out/healthy living/self-help advice. The exercises I am still considering trying but the info on his life…A++.

“No matter what you go after in life, if you’re gonna do it, do it all the way, but at the same time, prepare yourself for the reality.�

Four stars to a book that surprised the hell out of me.]]> 3.80 2004 Triple H Making the Game: Triple H's Approach to a Better Body (WWE)
author: Triple H
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: 2024, time-to-get-real
review:
“Whether you’re trying to become the best player on your high school football team, live a healthier lifestyle, look good at the beach, or just want to give yourself a better shot with the babe down the block, I believe a dedication to weight training will provide the structure to help you achieve your goals.�

I am as shocked by the rating I gave this book as you are. When I saw it sitting on my husband’s side table I thought it was a joke. When I gave him a world-class WTF look, he just shrugged and handed me the book. When I flipped through it and saw all the pics of Triple H working out, I died laughing. I then said, “Okay, challenge accepted. Let me read this turd so I can tell you all about how cheesy and dumb it is.�

It is not cheesy, and it is not dumb. It is also not a turd. This is me eating crow. I absolutely enjoyed the read. I was glued to it. Paul Levesque mixes an autobio of his wrestling life (up to the point the book was written) with step-by-step exercises and other working out/healthy living/self-help advice. The exercises I am still considering trying but the info on his life…A++.

“No matter what you go after in life, if you’re gonna do it, do it all the way, but at the same time, prepare yourself for the reality.�

Four stars to a book that surprised the hell out of me.
]]> <![CDATA[You Owe You: Ignite Your Power, Your Purpose, and Your Why]]> 59883566
No matter your story or your struggle, Eric Thomas—celebrated motivational guru, educator, and problem-solver to many of the top athletes and business leaders—will “help you work harder, discover your real motivation, and crack the code of enduring success� (Ed Mylett, #1 bestselling author of The Power of One More )

If you feel like success is for others, that only certain people get to have their dreams fulfilled, Eric Thomas’s You Owe You is your wake-up call. His urgent message to stop waiting for inspiration to strike and take control of your life is one he wishes someone had given him when he was a teenager—lost, homeless, failing in school, and dealing with the challenges of being a young Black man in America.

Once he was able to break free from thinking of himself as a victim and truly understand his strengths, he switched the script. And now, with this book, Thomas reveals how you, too, can rewrite your life's script. With support, he recognized that his unique gift is being able to capture the attention of all kinds of people in all kinds of settings—boardrooms, locker rooms, churches, classrooms, even the streets—thanks to his wealth of experiences and command of language. Today, Thomas considers himself blessed to speak to an audience that is as large as it is diverse, from the rich and famous to kids struggling in school to young men in prison hoping for a new start.

Thomas’s secrets of success have already helped hundreds of thousands on their journey, but this is his first guide to show you how to start today, right now. These critical first steps include deeply understanding yourself and the world around you, finding your why, accepting that you may have to give up something good for something great, and constantly stretching toward your potential. No matter where you are on your journey toward greatness, you owe it to yourself to become fully, authentically you. And Eric Thomas’s You Owe You can help get you there.]]> 288 Eric Thomas 0593234987 Amanda 2 2024, dull-jane “You Are the Most Powerful When You Are the Most You�

We all know that we shine brightest when we are our true selves. We all know that we should tune out the B.S. around us that makes us think we should be something other than our true selves. This is not a new way of thinking. We all struggle with it. What this book brings to the table is a person who will do everything in his power to motivate you to be you.

This book felt more memoir than self-help. I do appreciate the author sharing his struggles, his path through those struggles, and his wins. I just did not get the self-help that I expected to get.

Two things that caught me wrong:

-Reading over and over again about how the author could not give his gifts away for free (his motivational speaking, merch, products, and all that). That he was justified in seeking payment to provide for himself, his family, his business partners, and to fund his charity operations.

-The author mentioned he had a second home in California and then followed it up with an explanation that he had to have it for his wife’s health.

The response I jotted down in my notes:

Dude, nobody expects you to do what you do for free. We get that you need money just the same as the rest of us. Nobody is judging you/should judge you for it. The fact you have to justify it says to me that it carries weight in you. Work on that.

Quotes I liked:

“My message is that you are the only one who can change your life. You are the only person who determines your value. You are the only person who can truly choose your purpose and find your path to greatness. You are the only person who can identify your difference and use it to your advantage. You are the only person who can help yourself.�

“Truth can make or break people. That day, something inside of me broke. Nothing was the same after that. A piece of knowledge fell into place and it choked out everything that felt good and right in the world. That feeling has stayed with me and become embedded in the fabric of who I am. Even today, I have to fight hard not to let it destroy me.�

“What is the thing that you can get lost in? The thing that puts you in the flow or in the zone? Pay attention to the things that make you feel that time is irrelevant.�

“At some point you have to accept what is happening around you. You have to accept the difficulty. And you have to persist.�

Two stars to a self-help book that would have been rated three stars if it was a memoir.]]> 4.04 You Owe You: Ignite Your Power, Your Purpose, and Your Why
author: Eric Thomas
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.04
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: 2024, dull-jane
review:
“You Are the Most Powerful When You Are the Most You�

We all know that we shine brightest when we are our true selves. We all know that we should tune out the B.S. around us that makes us think we should be something other than our true selves. This is not a new way of thinking. We all struggle with it. What this book brings to the table is a person who will do everything in his power to motivate you to be you.

This book felt more memoir than self-help. I do appreciate the author sharing his struggles, his path through those struggles, and his wins. I just did not get the self-help that I expected to get.

Two things that caught me wrong:

-Reading over and over again about how the author could not give his gifts away for free (his motivational speaking, merch, products, and all that). That he was justified in seeking payment to provide for himself, his family, his business partners, and to fund his charity operations.

-The author mentioned he had a second home in California and then followed it up with an explanation that he had to have it for his wife’s health.

The response I jotted down in my notes:

Dude, nobody expects you to do what you do for free. We get that you need money just the same as the rest of us. Nobody is judging you/should judge you for it. The fact you have to justify it says to me that it carries weight in you. Work on that.

Quotes I liked:

“My message is that you are the only one who can change your life. You are the only person who determines your value. You are the only person who can truly choose your purpose and find your path to greatness. You are the only person who can identify your difference and use it to your advantage. You are the only person who can help yourself.�

“Truth can make or break people. That day, something inside of me broke. Nothing was the same after that. A piece of knowledge fell into place and it choked out everything that felt good and right in the world. That feeling has stayed with me and become embedded in the fabric of who I am. Even today, I have to fight hard not to let it destroy me.�

“What is the thing that you can get lost in? The thing that puts you in the flow or in the zone? Pay attention to the things that make you feel that time is irrelevant.�

“At some point you have to accept what is happening around you. You have to accept the difficulty. And you have to persist.�

Two stars to a self-help book that would have been rated three stars if it was a memoir.
]]> <![CDATA[The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue]]> 60795461 447 Victoria E. Schwab 0765387573 Amanda 3 2024 Here one moment and forgotten the next.

Addie LaRue is not like the other girls in her village. She pines for more in life than marriage and children. When the chance to make a deal to escape the life she does not want is presented to her, she takes it without hesitation. Living forever does sound amazing. What does not, is all the fine print she wasn’t wise enough to consider before making the deal.

“Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives � or to find strength in a very long one.�

I would agree to the same deal if given the chance. Not because I want to escape anything, but because of all the books that exist in the world that I have not read. I know that the years left before me will not be enough to get through a fraction of them. A few extra lifetimes thrown my way would boost my stats.

The first half of this read (give or take a few chapters) was great. I had five stars lit up in my mind. Then things drifted into too much fluff with the introduction of Henry and his crew. I wanted to hit the fast forward button far too many times just to get to the point. One star blinked out of existence during that lull. Then when it finally got to the point I was not impressed, which took out an additional star.

Three stars to a book that is fading from memory as a type this.]]> 4.21 2020 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: 2024
review:
Here one moment and forgotten the next.

Addie LaRue is not like the other girls in her village. She pines for more in life than marriage and children. When the chance to make a deal to escape the life she does not want is presented to her, she takes it without hesitation. Living forever does sound amazing. What does not, is all the fine print she wasn’t wise enough to consider before making the deal.

“Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives � or to find strength in a very long one.�

I would agree to the same deal if given the chance. Not because I want to escape anything, but because of all the books that exist in the world that I have not read. I know that the years left before me will not be enough to get through a fraction of them. A few extra lifetimes thrown my way would boost my stats.

The first half of this read (give or take a few chapters) was great. I had five stars lit up in my mind. Then things drifted into too much fluff with the introduction of Henry and his crew. I wanted to hit the fast forward button far too many times just to get to the point. One star blinked out of existence during that lull. Then when it finally got to the point I was not impressed, which took out an additional star.

Three stars to a book that is fading from memory as a type this.
]]> Mad Honey 59912428 A soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past, and what we choose to leave behind.

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father's beekeeping business.

Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.

And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can she trust him completely . . .

Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in him, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.

Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.]]> 464 Jodi Picoult 1984818384 Amanda 0 4.05 2022 Mad Honey
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: to-read, blind-date-with-a-book, instead-of-a-20-on-my-nighstand
review:

]]> Ishmael (Ishmael, #1) 40611328
The narrator of this extraordinary tale is a man in search for truth. He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling delicately on a slender branch. "You are the teacher?" he asks incredulously. "I am the teacher," the gorilla replies. Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time save. Like all great teachers, Ishmael refuses to make the lesson easy; he demands the final illumination to come from within ourselves. Is it man's destiny to rule the world? Or is it a higher destiny possible for him-- one more wonderful than he has ever imagined?]]> 338 Daniel Quinn Amanda 0 4.07 1992 Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)
author: Daniel Quinn
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: to-read, blind-date-with-a-book, instead-of-a-20-on-my-nighstand
review:

]]> The Historian 30236962
The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out. It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself--to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive. What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? Is it possible that the Dracula of myth truly existed and that he has lived on, century after century, pursuing his own unknowable ends? The answers to these questions cross time and borders, as first the father and then the daughter search for clues, from dusty Ivy League libraries to Istanbul, Budapest, and the depths of Eastern Europe. In city after city, in monasteries and archives, in letters and in secret conversations, the horrible truth emerges about Vlad the Impaler's dark reign and about a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive down through the ages.]]> 704 Elizabeth Kostova Amanda 0 3.94 2005 The Historian
author: Elizabeth Kostova
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: to-read, blind-date-with-a-book, instead-of-a-20-on-my-nighstand
review:

]]> The Carrow Haunt 39666962 Remy is a tour guide for Carrow House, a notoriously haunted building. When she's asked to host seven guests for a week-long stay to research Carrow's phenomena, she hopes to finally experience some of the sightings that made the house famous.

At first, it's everything they hoped for. Then a storm moves in, cutting off their contact with the outside world, and things quickly become twisted. Doors open on their own. Seances go disastrously wrong. Red liquid seeps from behind the wallpaper. Their spirit medium wanders through the house during the night, seemingly in a trance.

Then one of the guests dies under strange circumstances, and Remy is forced to consider the possibility that the ghost of the house's original owner, a twisted serial killer, still walks the halls.

But by then it's too late to escape.]]> 372 Darcy Coates Amanda 0 4.08 2018 The Carrow Haunt
author: Darcy Coates
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: to-read, blind-date-with-a-book, instead-of-a-20-on-my-nighstand
review:

]]> Americanah 15796700 477 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Amanda 0 4.32 2013 Americanah
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: to-read, blind-date-with-a-book, instead-of-a-20-on-my-nighstand
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Into the Mist (Into the Mist, #1)]]> 59248539 As men fall to the mist, the age of womankind begins to rise

Bombs strike US cities and military sites, cause fires, explosions, sonic detonations, quakes, slides, and green mist. Breathed in, the toxin melts men into puddles of bloody clothes. But women may get strange new powers.

High school science teachers leaving an Oregon mountain conference find their blood may cause plants to grow suddenly. "Warrior" Mercury 30s is now incredibly strong and fast. "Seer" Stella 40s senses future, directs them, where and when, to go or stay. "Watcher" Imani gazes toward her lost family for hours. Christian "Priestess" Karen 50+ sees their powers act, in the spirit world, as a green glow.

"Healer" Gemma 16, then three children join after losing their respective parents. They meet bad and good people in their search for The Place to build their safe perfect new world.]]> 352 P.C. Cast 1643859188 Amanda 0 3.51 2022 Into the Mist (Into the Mist, #1)
author: P.C. Cast
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier, #1)]]> 58724626
What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.]]> 165 T. Kingfisher 1250830753 Amanda 0 3.86 2022 What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier, #1)
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> Chain-Gang All-Stars 61190770
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means.]]> 367 Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 0593317335 Amanda 0 4.13 2023 Chain-Gang All-Stars
author: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)]]> 52397
Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.

When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.]]> 345 Octavia E. Butler 0446675504 Amanda 0 4.21 1993 Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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]]> The Once and Future Witches 49504061
But when the Eastwood sisters--James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna--join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women's movement into the witch's movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote-and perhaps not even to live-the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.

There's no such thing as witches. But there will be.]]> 517 Alix E. Harrow 0316422045 Amanda 0 4.01 2020 The Once and Future Witches
author: Alix E. Harrow
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> Girl A 55271524 352 Abigail Dean Amanda 0 3.54 2021 Girl A
author: Abigail Dean
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Archive Undying (The Downworld Sequence, #1)]]> 61885010 The Archive Undying, national bestseller Emma Mieko Candon's bold entry into the world of mecha fiction.

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

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

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

Come get in the robot.]]> 496 Emma Mieko Candon 1250821541 Amanda 0 3.33 2023 The Archive Undying (The Downworld Sequence, #1)
author: Emma Mieko Candon
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> Five Survive 61313902 Eight hours.
Six friends.
One sniper . . .

Eighteen year old Red and her friends are on a road trip in an RV, heading to the beach for Spring Break. It’s a long drive but spirits are high. Until the RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere. There’s no mobile phone reception and nobody around to help. And as the wheels are shot out, one by one, the friends realise that this is no accident. There’s a sniper out there in the dark watching them and he knows exactly who they are. One of the group has a secret that the sniper is willing to kill for.

A game of cat-and-mouse plays out as the group desperately tries to get help and to work out which member of the group is the target. Buried secrets are forced to light in the cramped, claustrophobic setting of the RV, and tensions within the group will reach deadly levels. Not everyone will survive the night.]]> 391 Holly Jackson 0755504402 Amanda 0 4.09 2022 Five Survive
author: Holly Jackson
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> The Heart's Invisible Furies 33253215 real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from � and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.]]> 582 John Boyne Amanda 0 4.51 2017 The Heart's Invisible Furies
author: John Boyne
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A River Runs Through It and Other Stories]]> 30043 "A River Runs Through It" that he is "haunted by waters," so have readers been haunted by his novella. A retired English professor who began writing fiction at the age of 70, Maclean produced what is now recognized as one of the classic American stories of the twentieth century. Originally published in 1976, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories now celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary, marked by this new edition that includes a foreword by Annie Proulx.

Maclean grew up in the western Rocky Mountains in the first decades of the twentieth century. As a young man he worked many summers in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service. The two novellas and short story in this collection are based on his own experiences—the experiences of a young man who found that life was only a step from art in its structures and beauty. The beauty he found was in reality, and so he leaves a careful record of what it was like to work in the woods when it was still a world of horse and hand and foot, without power saws, "cats," or four-wheel drives. Populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, and set in the small towns and surrounding trout streams and mountains of western Montana, the stories concern themselves with the complexities of fly fishing, logging, fighting forest fires, playing cribbage, and being a husband, a son, and a father.]]> 217 Norman Maclean 0226500667 Amanda 0 4.18 1976 A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
author: Norman Maclean
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1976
rating: 0
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]]> My Darling Dreadful Thing 193544852
Spirits are drawn to salt, be it blood or tears.

Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she can see. Ruth—strange, corpse-like, and dead for centuries—is the light of Roos' life. That is, until the wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop visits one of Roos' backroom seances, and the two strike up a connection.

Soon, Roos is whisked away to the crumbling estate Agnes inherited upon the death of her husband, where an ill woman haunts the halls, strange smells drift through the air, and mysterious stone statues reside in the family chapel. Something dreadful festers in the manor, but still, the attraction between Roos and Agnes is undeniable.

Then, someone is murdered.

Poor, alone, and with a history of 'hysterics', Roos is the obvious culprit. With her sanity and innocence in question, she'll have to prove who—or what—is at fault or lose everything she holds dear.

"A Sapphic seance of preternatural proportions, My Darling Dreadful Thing summons a stunning new literary voice to be reckoned with. Johanna van Veen reaches beyond the veil to conjure up a gothic shocker like no other."—Clay McLeod Chapman, author of What Kind of Mother and Ghost Eaters

©2024 Johanna van Veen (P)2024 Tantor]]> 375 Johanna van Veen 1728281547 Amanda 0 3.85 2024 My Darling Dreadful Thing
author: Johanna van Veen
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> The Night Tiger 39863482 A sweeping historical novel about a dancehall girl and an orphan boy whose fates entangle over an old Chinese superstition about men who turn into tigers.

When 11-year-old Ren's master dies, he makes one last request of his Chinese houseboy: that Ren find his severed finger, lost years ago in an accident, and reunite it with his body. Ren has 49 days, or else his master's soul will roam the earth, unable to rest in peace.

Ji Lin always wanted to be a doctor, but as a girl in 1930s Malaysia, apprentice dressmaker is a more suitable occupation. Secretly, though, Ji Lin also moonlights as a dancehall girl to help pay off her beloved mother's Mahjong debts. One night, Ji Lin's dance partner leaves her with a gruesome souvenir: a severed finger. Convinced the finger is bad luck, Ji Lin enlists the help of her erstwhile stepbrother to return it to its rightful owner.

As the 49 days tick down, and a prowling tiger wreaks havoc on the town, Ji Lin and Ren's lives intertwine in ways they could never have imagined. Propulsive and lushly written, The Night Tiger explores colonialism and independence, ancient superstition and modern ambition, sibling rivalry and first love. Braided through with Chinese folklore and a tantalizing mystery, this novel is a page-turner of the highest order.

Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick, Amazon Spotlight Pick for Best Book of the Month, NYTimes and Publisher's Weekly Bestseller. Starred Kirkus, Booklist, and Publisher's Weekly reviews.]]> 372 Yangsze Choo 1250175453 Amanda 0 3.81 2019 The Night Tiger
author: Yangsze Choo
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> Homegoing 27071490 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

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

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

Generation after generation, Yaa Gyasi's magisterial first novel sets the fate of the individual against the obliterating movements of time, delivering unforgettable characters whose lives were shaped by historical forces beyond their control. Homegoing is a tremendous reading experience, not to be missed, by an astonishingly gifted young writer.]]> 305 Yaa Gyasi Amanda 0 4.48 2016 Homegoing
author: Yaa Gyasi
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> The Vegetarian 25489025
Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.]]> 188 Han Kang 0553448188 Amanda 0 3.61 2007 The Vegetarian
author: Han Kang
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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]]> Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell 14201
Proceeding to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange.

Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very antithesis of Norrell. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men which overwhelms that between England and France. And their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine.]]> 1006 Susanna Clarke Amanda 0 3.84 2004 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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]]> A Flicker in the Dark 57693172
Now 20 years later, Chloe is a psychologist in private practice in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. She finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to get. Sometimes, though, she feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. And then a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, and that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, and seeing parallels that aren't really there, or for the second time in her life, is she about to unmask a killer?

In a debut novel that has already been optioned for a limited series by actress Emma Stone and sold to a dozen countries around the world, Stacy Willingham has created an unforgettable character in a spellbinding thriller that will appeal equally to fans of Gillian Flynn and Karin Slaughter.]]> 357 Stacy Willingham 1250803829 Amanda 0 3.96 2022 A Flicker in the Dark
author: Stacy Willingham
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> The Joy Luck Club 7763 Alternate cover editions of ISBN 9780143038092 can be found here.

Four mothers, four daughters, four families, whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's telling the stories. In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives � until their own inner crises reveal how much they've unknowingly inherited of their mothers' pasts.

With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.]]> 288 Amy Tan Amanda 0 3.96 1989 The Joy Luck Club
author: Amy Tan
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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]]> Lilith 81069444 In the Garden of Eden, at the beginning of time, an outrageous lie is born: that women are inferior.

Lilith and Adam are equal and happy in the Garden of Eden. Until Adam decides Lilith should submit to his will and lie beneath him. She refuses - and is banished forever from Paradise.

Demonized and sidelined, Lilith watches in fury as God creates Eve, the woman who accepts her submission. But Lilith has a secret: she has already tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Endowed with Wisdom, she knows why Asherah - God's wife and equal, the Queen of Heaven - is missing. Lilith has a plan: she will rescue Eve, find Asherah, restore balance to the world and regain her rightful place in Paradise.

Lilith's quest for justice drives her throughout history, from the ziggurats of Ancient Sumer to the court of Israel's Queen Jezebel, and to the side of a radical preacher in Roman Judea. In the modern age, as she observes the catastrophic consequences of a world built on inequality, Lilith finally understands what must be done to correct the wrong done to women - and all humankind - at the beginning of time.

Inspired by ancient myths and suppressed scriptures, Lilith is a thought-provoking and ambitious novel with an evocative literary voice and a triumphantly engaging heroine.]]> 336 Nikki Marmery 1639105719 Amanda 0 3.63 2023 Lilith
author: Nikki Marmery
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)]]> 45047384
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 394 T.J. Klune Amanda 0 4.37 2020 The House in the Cerulean Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #1)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> The Cider House Rules 4687 1064 John Irving 0786226749 Amanda 0 4.16 1985 The Cider House Rules
author: John Irving
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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]]> Crossroads 55881796 Jonathan Franzen's gift for wedding depth and vividness of character with breadth of social vision has never been more dazzlingly evident than in Crossroads.

It's December 23, 1971, and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless--unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem's sister, Becky, long the social queen of her high-school class, has sharply veered into the counterculture, while their brilliant younger brother Perry, who's been selling drugs to seventh graders, has resolved to be a better person. Each of the Hildebrandts seeks a freedom that each of the others threatens to complicate.

Jonathan Franzen's novels are celebrated for their unforgettably vivid characters and for their keen-eyed take on contemporary America. Now, in Crossroads, Franzen ventures back into the past and explores the history of two generations. With characteristic humor and complexity, and with even greater warmth, he conjures a world that resonates powerfully with our own.

A tour de force of interwoven perspectives and sustained suspense, its action largely unfolding on a single winter day, Crossroads is the story of a Midwestern family at a pivotal moment of moral crisis. Jonathan Franzen's gift for melding the small picture and the big picture has never been more dazzlingly evident.]]> 592 Jonathan Franzen 0374181179 Amanda 0 4.05 2021 Crossroads
author: Jonathan Franzen
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories]]> 15161
With Clarke's characteristic historical detail and diction, these dark, enchanting tales unfold in a slightly distorted version of our own world, where people are bedeviled by mischievous interventions from the fairies. With appearances from beloved characters from her novel, including Jonathan Strange and Childermass, and an entirely new spin on certain historical figures, including Mary, Queen of Scots, this is a must-have for fans of Susanna Clarke's and an enticing introduction to her work for new readers.

Some of these stories have never before been published; others have appeared in the "New York Times" or in highly regarded anthologies. In this collection, they come together to expand the reach of Clarke's land of enchantment.]]> 235 Susanna Clarke 1596912510 Amanda 0 3.87 2006 The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> The Complete Tales and Poems 132314 Collected here is the ultimate Kindle edition of the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe—all of his tales and poems in one convenient, easy-to-use volume at a fantastic price.

Included in Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Tales and Poems are:

The complete text of all of the tales and poems written by Edgar Allan Poe (over 125 works), each elegantly formatted for ease of use and enjoyment on your Kindle reader.
Links to free, full-length audio recordings of the poems and tales in this collection.
An individual, active Table of Contents for each section accessible from the Kindle “go to� feature.
Perfect formatting in rich text compatible with Kindle’s Text-to-Speech features.
A low, can't-say-no price!
The Complete Tales and Poems
All of Poe's tales, poems, and essays are included—over 125 works. Some of the most notable are:

Tales:
"The Fall of the House of Usher"
"The Masque of the Red Death"
"The Pit and the Pendulum"
"The Premature Burial"
"The Purloined Letter"
"The Tell-Tale Heart"
Poems:
"Annabel Lee"
"The Bells"
"The City in the Sea"
"A Dream Within a Dream"
"To Helen"
"Lenore"
"The Raven"
"Ulalume"
Other Works:
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket—Poe's only complete novel
Collected Essays
Additional Fan Resources
Also included are special features for any Poe enthusiast, including:

A list of films and television series, both directly and indirectly inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe.
A Reading Guide to fictional works that feature the historical Edgar Allan Poe as a character.
Links to free, full-length audio recordings of the major poems and short stories in this collection.]]> 1040 Edgar Allan Poe 040405109X Amanda 0 to-read 4.51 1849 The Complete Tales and Poems
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.51
book published: 1849
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso]]> 6656 This Everyman’s Library edition–containing in one volume all three cantos, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso–includes an introduction by Nobel Prize—winning poet Eugenio Montale, a chronology, notes, and a bibliography. Also included are forty-two drawings selected from Botticelli’s marvelous late-fifteenth-century series of illustrations.

Translated in this edition by Allen Mandelbaum, The Divine Comedy begins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in the year 1300. It proceeds on a journey that, in its intense recreation of the depths and the heights of human experience, has become the key with which Western civilization has sought to unlock the mystery of its own identity.

Mandelbaum’s astonishingly Dantean translation, which captures so much of the life of the original, renders whole for us the masterpiece of that genius whom our greatest poets have recognized as a central model for all poets.]]> 798 Dante Alighieri 0679433139 Amanda 0 to-read 4.08 1320 The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso
author: Dante Alighieri
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1320
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Difficult Conversations Don't Have to Be Difficult: A Simple, Smart Way to Make Your Relationships and Team Better (Jon Gordon)]]> 78919232 112 Jon Gordon 1394187173 Amanda 3 2024, dull-jane “Ruth’s mother always told her that everyone is a teacher, and if you’re willing to learn from everyone, they will teach you something valuable.�

This book is a short tale about fictional characters that are dealing with a workplace issue that snowballed out of control because of bad communication practices. It isn’t the worst, but it isn’t the best either.

Deal with the Elephants

It is a thing I try to do in all aspects of my life. Emphasis on the word try.It is damn near impossible to accomplish when it involves people who prefer to ignore the multiple ginormous elephants rolled up under the collective rugs. This is why I love to hate advice like this. Perfect world scenarios only exist in fiction.

Three stars to a book that made me think about how I can try to take a different approach to my current work stuff.]]> 3.74 Difficult Conversations Don't Have to Be Difficult: A Simple, Smart Way to Make Your Relationships and Team Better (Jon Gordon)
author: Jon Gordon
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.74
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/12
shelves: 2024, dull-jane
review:
“Ruth’s mother always told her that everyone is a teacher, and if you’re willing to learn from everyone, they will teach you something valuable.�

This book is a short tale about fictional characters that are dealing with a workplace issue that snowballed out of control because of bad communication practices. It isn’t the worst, but it isn’t the best either.

Deal with the Elephants

It is a thing I try to do in all aspects of my life. Emphasis on the word try.It is damn near impossible to accomplish when it involves people who prefer to ignore the multiple ginormous elephants rolled up under the collective rugs. This is why I love to hate advice like this. Perfect world scenarios only exist in fiction.

Three stars to a book that made me think about how I can try to take a different approach to my current work stuff.
]]> Batman: Resurrection 210410462 After The Joker’s death, Batman and Gotham City face a mysterious new threat in this direct sequel to Tim Burton’s iconic Batman.

The Joker is dead, but not forgotten. Gotham City is saved, but it is still not safe. By night, its new symbol of hope, Batman, continues his fight to protect the innocent and the powerless. By day, his alter ego, Bruce Wayne, wonders whether there may someday be a future beyond skulking the city’s rooftops or the cavernous halls of his stately manor alongside the ever-dutiful Alfred Pennyworth.

But even after death, the Clown Prince of Crime’s imprint can be seen in more than just the pavement. Remnants from The Joker’s gang are leading wannabes fascinated by his bizarre mystique on a campaign of arson that threatens the city—even as it serves greedy opportunists, including millionaire Max Shreck. And survivors of exposure to The Joker’s chemical weapon Smylex continue to crowd Gotham City’s main hospital.

To quell the chaos, Batman needs more than his cape and his well-stocked Utility Belt. Bruce Wayne is forced into action, prompting a partnership with a charismatic scientist to help solve the health crisis. But as he works in both the shadows and the light, Bruce finds himself drawn deeper into Gotham City’s turmoil than ever before, fueling his obsession to save the city—an obsession that has already driven a wedge between him and Vicki Vale. The loyal Alfred, who had hoped Bruce’s efforts as Batman could help him find closure, finds the opposite happening. Nightmares begin to prompt Bruce to ask new questions about the climactic events in the cathedral, and investigations by Commissioner Gordon and reporter Alexander Knox into the arsons only amplify his concerns.

Having told the people of Gotham City that they’d earned a rest from crime, Batman finds the forces of evil growing ever more organized—and orchestrated—by a sinister hand behind the scenes. The World’s Greatest Detective must solve the greatest mystery of all: Could The Joker have somehow survived? And could he still have the last laugh against the people of Gotham City?]]> 418 John Jackson Miller 0593871901 Amanda 0 4.06 2024 Batman: Resurrection
author: John Jackson Miller
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: to-read, instead-of-a-20-on-my-nighstand
review:

]]> Meditations 30659 Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Marcus Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and readers throughout the centuries.]]> 254 Marcus Aurelius 0140449337 Amanda 0 4.29 180 Meditations
author: Marcus Aurelius
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.29
book published: 180
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: to-read, instead-of-a-20-on-my-nighstand
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]]> <![CDATA[Paper Boat: New and Selected Poems, 1961-2023]]> 218484382 An extraordinary career-spanning collection from one of the most revered poets and storytellers of our ageTracing the legacy of Margaret Atwood—a writer who has fundamentally shaped the contemporary literary landscapes—Paper Boat assembles Atwood’s most vital poems in one essential volume. In pieces that are at once brilliant, beautiful, and hyper-imagined, Atwood gives voices to remarkably drawn characters—mythological figures, animals, and everyday people—all of whom have something to say about what it means to live in a world as strange as our own. “How can one live with such a heart?� Atwood asks, casting her singular spell upon the reader, and ferrying us through life, death, and whatever comes next. Walking the tightrope between reality and fantasy as only she can, Atwood’s journey through poetry illuminates our most innate joys and sorrows, desires and fears. Spanning six decades of work—from her earliest beginnings to brand new poems—this volume charts the evolution of one of our most iconic and necessary authors.]]> 624 Margaret Atwood 0771020619 Amanda 0 4.26 2024 Paper Boat: New and Selected Poems, 1961-2023
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: to-read, instead-of-a-20-on-my-nighstand
review:

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