en-US Thu, 26 Sep 2024 16:57:51 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 8617651 291 Sloane Crosley 1101188286 lp 1
It's worse then the last one because this time there aren't even funny titles. At least I Was Told There'd Be Cake had, every so often, a funny title or sentence or something.

Crosley is a good writer and can describe things well, but her life is not interesting, everything she says is boring, and nothing happens to her. That is 3 ways to say the same thing, but that is how much I mean it. She even goes to fucking Lisbon to try to make her life cool but it doesn't work. The most interesting things she has going on is "boo hoo I hate weddings" (again), boo hoo, i got locked out of my apartment once. I particularly hated the part where she thought she was some awesome badass because she went to confession ('CAUSE GET THIS SHE'S NOT CATHOLIC). Guess what? Priests don't care. As a Catholic, I don't think you're going to hell for doing that, I don't think you're funny or a rebel or interesting for doing that. If anything I think, "if you're not Catholic, why the hell would you want to do that?"

Finally, as points out, she's just unlikeable.

I'm tired of talking about this and I don't even want to go into WHY this got published or WHY David Sedaris wrote the blurb. Life is unfair.

Back to my office job now.]]> 3.68 2010
author: Sloane Crosley
name: lp
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2010
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves:
review:
May I make a bold statement? Everyone who liked this book and wrote a good review, saying it was "entrancing" or that Crosley is "cute, funny, sarcastic as hell and really smart" is full of shit and fell for her little trick and wouldn't know a good book if it slapped them in the buttcheeks.

It's worse then the last one because this time there aren't even funny titles. At least I Was Told There'd Be Cake had, every so often, a funny title or sentence or something.

Crosley is a good writer and can describe things well, but her life is not interesting, everything she says is boring, and nothing happens to her. That is 3 ways to say the same thing, but that is how much I mean it. She even goes to fucking Lisbon to try to make her life cool but it doesn't work. The most interesting things she has going on is "boo hoo I hate weddings" (again), boo hoo, i got locked out of my apartment once. I particularly hated the part where she thought she was some awesome badass because she went to confession ('CAUSE GET THIS SHE'S NOT CATHOLIC). Guess what? Priests don't care. As a Catholic, I don't think you're going to hell for doing that, I don't think you're funny or a rebel or interesting for doing that. If anything I think, "if you're not Catholic, why the hell would you want to do that?"

Finally, as points out, she's just unlikeable.

I'm tired of talking about this and I don't even want to go into WHY this got published or WHY David Sedaris wrote the blurb. Life is unfair.

Back to my office job now.
]]> 28962891 Gather under the mistletoe for one last round of caroling with the Quinn family in this heartwarming conclusion to Elin Hilderbrand's bestselling Winter Street Trilogy.

Some of the stormy weather of the past few seasons seems to have finally lifted for the Quinns. After a year apart, and an ill-fated affair with the Winter Street Inn's old Santa Claus, Mitzi has returned to rule the roost; Patrick is about to be released from prison; Kevin has a successful new business and is finally ready to tie the knot with Isabelle; and best of all, there's hopeful news about Bart, who has been captured by enemy forces in Afghanistan.

That doesn't mean there aren't a few dark clouds on the horizon. Kelley has recently survived a health scare; Jennifer can't quite shake her addiction to the drugs she used as a crutch while Patrick was in jail; and Ava still can't decide between the two lovers that she's been juggling with limited success. However, if there's one holiday that brings the Quinn family together to give thanks for the good times, it's Christmas. And this year promises to be a celebration unlike any other as the Quinns prepare to host Kevin and Isabelle's wedding at the inn. But as the special day approaches, a historic once-in-a-century blizzard bears down on Nantucket, threatening to keep the Quinns away from the place--and the people--they love most. Before the snow clears, the Quinns will have to survive enough upheavals to send anyone running for the spiked eggnog, in this touching novel that proves that when the holidays roll around, you can always go home again.]]> 246 Elin Hilderbrand 0316261173 lp 5 I am now a Hilderbrander. 3.85 2016
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: lp
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:
I am now a Hilderbrander.
]]> 24819476 "Happy Holidays 2015! It has been a rough year for the Quinns, but I would like to start by saying thank you for all of the well wishes and positive missives sent our way."

Another Christmas on Nantucket finds Winter Street Inn owner Kelley Quinn reflecting on the past year as he writes a holiday letter to friends and family. Though the year has had its share of misfortune and worry, the Quinns have much to celebrate. Kelley, now single, at least is on better terms with his first wife Margaret, who is using her celebrity to lure customers to the inn in record numbers. Their son Kevin has a beautiful new baby, Genevieve, with the Inn's French housekeeper, Isabelle; and their daughter, Ava, is finally dating a nice guy--her devoted colleague, Scott.

Now the Quinns are looking forward to celebrating Genevieve's baptism, welcoming Isabelle to the family, and enjoying the cheer of Nantucket's traditional Christmas Stroll. But just when a peaceful family gathering seems within reach, Kelley's estranged second wife, Mitzi, shows up on the island after souring on her relationship with the inn's former Santa Claus. Soon Kelley isn't the only Quinn entertaining a surprise guest from Christmases past as lovers old and new gather beneath the mistletoe. With jealousy, passion, and eggnog consumption at an all-time high, it's going to take a whole lot more than a Christmas miracle to get the Quinns--and the inn--through the holidays intact.]]> 263 Elin Hilderbrand 0316261130 lp 5 3.79 2015
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: lp
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2017/08/12
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 1058564
But she soon finds herself intrigued by Nina, a young mother on the beach, eventually striking up a conversation with her. After Nina confides a dark secret, one seemingly trivial occurrence leads to events that could destroy Nina’s family.]]> 140 Elena Ferrante 1933372427 lp 0 to-read 3.70 2006
author: Elena Ferrante
name: lp
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61273720 In this New York Times bestseller and Today show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance, in this “surreal� (People), “remarkable� (Vogue), and “infuriatingly timely� (The New York Times Book Review) debut novel.

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

Until Frida has a very bad day.

The state has its eye on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgement, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.

Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good.

An “intense� (Oprah Daily), “captivating� (Today) page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect� upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love, The School for Good Mothers introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages. Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic.]]> 336 Jessamine Chan 1982156139 lp 0 to-read 3.56 2022
author: Jessamine Chan
name: lp
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/16
shelves: to-read
review:

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

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the �80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501139231 lp 0 to-read 4.39 2017
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: lp
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 75555793 *The Sunday Times and Global number one bestseller*
*Winner of Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards*
*A Book of the Year in The Times, the Guardian, the Irish Times and the Financial Times*

Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he'd like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend Eileen is getting over a break-up and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood.

Alice, Felix, Eileen and Simon are still young - but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they worry about sex and friendship and the times they live in. Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?]]> 337 Sally Rooney 0571365442 lp 0 to-read 3.49 2021
author: Sally Rooney
name: lp
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61986136 A young woman pretends to be someone she isn't in this stunning novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls.

Summer is coming to a close on the East End of Long Island, and Alex is no longer welcome.

A misstep at a dinner party, and the older man she's been staying with dismisses her with a ride to the train station and a ticket back to the city.

With few resources and a waterlogged phone, but gifted with an ability to navigate the desires of others, Alex stays on Long Island and drifts like a ghost through the hedged lanes, gated driveways, and sun-blasted dunes of a rarified world that is, at first, closed to her. Propelled by desperation and a mutable sense of morality, she spends the week leading up to Labor Day moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake.

Taut, propulsive, and impossible to look away from, Emma Cline's The Guest is a spellbinding literary achievement.]]> 304 Emma Cline 0812998626 lp 0 to-read 3.29 2023
author: Emma Cline
name: lp
average rating: 3.29
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57846320 An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781982156121 can be found here.

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

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

Until Frida has a horrible day.

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

This propulsive, witty page-turner explores the perils of “perfect� upper-middle-class parenting, the violence enacted upon women by the state and each other, and the boundless love a mother has for her daughter.]]> 336 Jessamine Chan lp 0 to-read 3.51 2022
author: Jessamine Chan
name: lp
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 42983724 WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

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

A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is worthy of a voice?]]> 274 Olga Tokarczuk 0525541330 lp 0 to-read 3.92 2009
author: Olga Tokarczuk
name: lp
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/11/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 35480518 New York Times-bestselling author of The Interestings, comes an electric novel not just about who we want to be with, but who we want to be.

To be admired by someone we admire—we all yearn for this: the private, electrifying pleasure of being singled out by someone of esteem. But sometimes it can also mean entry to a new kind of life, a bigger world.

Greer Kadetsky is a shy college freshman when she meets the woman she hopes will change her life. Faith Frank, dazzlingly persuasive and elegant at sixty-three, has been a central pillar of the women’s movement for decades, a figure who inspires others to influence the world. Upon hearing Faith speak for the first time, Greer—madly in love with her boyfriend, Cory, but still full of longing for an ambition that she can’t quite place—feels her inner world light up. And then, astonishingly, Faith invites Greer to make something out of that sense of purpose, leading Greer down the most exciting path of her life as it winds toward and away from her meant-to-be love story with Cory and the future she’d always imagined.

Charming and wise, knowing and witty, Meg Wolitzer delivers a novel about power and influence, ego and loyalty, womanhood and ambition. At its heart, The Female Persuasion is about the flame we all believe is flickering inside of us, waiting to be seen and fanned by the right person at the right time. It’s a story about the people who guide and the people who follow (and how those roles evolve over time), and the desire within all of us to be pulled into the light.]]> 454 Meg Wolitzer 1594488401 lp 0 to-read 3.55 2018
author: Meg Wolitzer
name: lp
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/10/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> 19178 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 0486272664 / 9780486272665

Great title poem plus "Kubla Khan," "Christabel," and twenty more sonnets, lyrics, and odes, including Sonnet: To a Friend who asked how I felt when the Nurse first presented my Infant to me, Frost at Midnight, The Nightingale, The Pains of Sleep, To William Wordsworth, Youth and Age, and many more.

All are reprinted from an authoritative edition published by Oxford University Press. Includes alphabetical lists of titles and first lines.]]> 76 Samuel Taylor Coleridge lp 4 3.94 1799
author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
name: lp
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1799
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2019/10/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 41880602
But Toby's new life � liver specialist by day, kids every other weekend, rabid somewhat anonymous sex at night � is interrupted when his ex-wife suddenly disappears. Either on a vision quest or a nervous breakdown, Toby doesn't know � she won't answer his texts or calls.

Is Toby's ex just angry, like always? Is she punishing him, yet again, for not being the bread winner she was? As he desperately searches for her while juggling his job and parenting their two unraveling children, Toby is forced to reckon with the real reasons his marriage fell apart, and to ask if the story he has been telling himself all this time is true.]]> 373 Taffy Brodesser-Akner 0525510877 lp 0 currently-reading 3.61 2019
author: Taffy Brodesser-Akner
name: lp
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/09/18
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 46207678 Reality and dream collide in Amy Bonnaffons's dazzling, darkly playful debut novel about a love affair between the living and the dead.

For weeks, Rachel has been noticing the same golden-haired young man sitting at her Brooklyn bus stop, staring off with a melancholy air. When, one day, she finally musters the courage to introduce herself, the chemistry between them is undeniable: Thomas is wise, witty, handsome, mysterious, clearly a kindred spirit. There's just one tiny problem: He's dead.


Stuck in a surreal limbo governed by bureaucracy, Thomas is unable to "cross over" to the afterlife until he completes a 90-day stint on earth, during which time he is forbidden to get involved with a member of the living -- lest he incur "regrets." When Thomas and Rachel break this rule, they unleash a cascade of bizarre, troubling consequences.


Set in the hallucinatory borderland between life and death, The Regrets is a gloriously strange and breathtakingly sexy exploration of love, the cataclysmic power of fantasies, and the painful, exhilarating work of waking up to reality, told with uncommon grace and humor by a visionary artist at the height of her imaginative power.]]> 296 Amy Bonnaffons 0316516163 lp 0 to-read 3.17 2020
author: Amy Bonnaffons
name: lp
average rating: 3.17
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/09/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 937105 Ěý
But it’s in the countryside, among nature, where Lolly has her first taste of freedom. Duty-bound to no one except herself, she revels in the solitary life. When her nephew moves there, and Lolly feels once again thrust into her old familial role, she reaches out to the otherworldly, to the darkness, to the unheeded power within the hearts of women to feel at peace once moreĚý.Ěý.Ěý.]]> 222 Sylvia Townsend Warner 0940322161 lp 0 to-read 3.75 1926
author: Sylvia Townsend Warner
name: lp
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1926
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/08/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 42854180 This fresh, smart novel in the guise of a celebrity memoir probes the inner life of a mega-famous pop star

Honestly, what amazes me the most with a lot of the people I meet is that they think they’re so big. They think, ultimately, that the universe revolves around them. And I’m beginning to think that it’s only when you live a life like mine—it’s only when you’re in a position where you don’t even really own yourself, when you can’t even really say that you’re a citizen of any particular country—that you realize that we’re all just tiny pieces of cosmic dust floating through the void until we disappear forever and we’re never heard from again.


So begins the life story of our uber famous twenty-two year old narrator. A teen idol since he was twelve, when a video of him singing went viral, his star has only risen since. Now, haunted by the suicide of his manager-father, unsettled by the very different paths he and his his teenage love (and girl pop-star counterpart) “Mandy� have taken, and increasingly aware that he has signed on to something he has little control over, he begins to parse the divide that separates him from the “normal people� of the world.

Sneakily philosophical, earnest and funny, Justin Kuritzkes's Famous People is a rollicking, unforgettable look at the clash between fame and the human condition.]]> 211 Justin Kuritzkes 1250309034 lp 0 to-read 3.18 2019
author: Justin Kuritzkes
name: lp
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/07/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 152052
"Were it not in its physical details so carefully documented, it would be lurid beyond itself." �Nation]]> 122 Horace McCoy 185242401X lp 0 to-read 3.90 1935
author: Horace McCoy
name: lp
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1935
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/07/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 7905092
But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz—outré rocker and Walter's college best friend and rival—still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become "a very different kind of neighbor," an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes?

In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom's characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.
(jacket)]]> 562 Jonathan Franzen 0374158460 lp 1 3.78 2010
author: Jonathan Franzen
name: lp
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2010
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2019/07/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 42207168
This deliciously sharp novel captures the relentless ambitions and fears that animate parents and their children in modern America, exploring the conflicts between achievement and potential, talent and privilege.

Set in the fictional town of Crystal, Colorado, The Gifted School is a keenly entertaining novel that observes the drama within a community of friends and parents as good intentions and high ambitions collide in a pile-up with long-held secrets and lies. Seen through the lens of four families who've been a part of one another's lives since their kids were born over a decade ago, the story reveals not only the lengths that some adults are willing to go to get ahead, but the effect on the group's children, sibling relationships, marriages, and careers, as simmering resentments come to a boil and long-buried, explosive secrets surface and detonate. It's a humorous, keenly observed, timely take on ambitious parents, willful kids, and the pursuit of prestige, no matter the cost.]]> 452 Bruce Holsinger 0525534962 lp 0 3.71 2019
author: Bruce Holsinger
name: lp
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/07/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 40514431
Meanwhile, in New York City, Dean Tenney, former Major League pitcher and Andy’s childhood best friend, is wrestling with what miserable athletes living out their worst nightmares call the “yips�: he can’t throw straight anymore, and, even worse, he can’t figure out why. As the media storm heats up, an invitation from Andy to stay in Maine seems like the perfect chance to hit the reset button on Dean’s future.

When he moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie’s house, the two make a deal: Dean won’t ask about Evvie’s late husband, and Evvie won’t ask about Dean’s baseball career. Rules, though, have a funny way of being broken—and what starts as an unexpected friendship soon turns into something more. To move forward, Evvie and Dean will have to reckon with their pasts—the friendships they’ve damaged, the secrets they’ve kept—but in life, as in baseball, there’s always a chance—up until the last out.]]> 289 Linda Holmes 0525619240 lp 0 to-read 3.80 2019
author: Linda Holmes
name: lp
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/07/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> 41817523
Beating with the pulse of a long-witheld confession, Patsy gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to choose herself first―not to give a better life to her family back home. Patsy leaves Tru behind in a defiant act of self-preservation, hoping for a new start where she can be, and love, whomever she wants. But when Patsy arrives in Brooklyn, America is not as Cicely’s treasured letters described; to survive as an undocumented immigrant, she is forced to work as a bathroom attendant and nanny. Meanwhile, Tru builds a faltering relationship with her father back in Jamaica, grappling with her own questions of identity and sexuality, and trying desperately to empathize with her mother’s decision.

Expertly evoking the jittery streets of New York and the languid rhythms of Jamaica, Patsy weaves between the lives of Patsy and Tru in vignettes spanning more than a decade as mother and daughter ultimately find a way back to one another.]]> 419 Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn 1631495631 lp 0 to-read 3.91 2019
author: Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn
name: lp
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/07/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40203647 From a psychotherapist, and national advice columnist comes a thought-provoking new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist's world -- where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she).

One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.

As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients' lives -- a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can't stop hooking up with the wrong guys -- she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.

With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is revolutionary in its candor, offering a deeply personal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing the rarest of gifts: a boldly revealing portrait of what it means to be human, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them.]]> 413 Lori Gottlieb lp 0 to-read 4.41 2019
author: Lori Gottlieb
name: lp
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/06/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 48335 The Easter Parade, first published in 1976, we meet sisters Sarah and Emily Grimes when they are still the children of divorced parents. We observe the sisters over four decades, watching them grow into two very different women. Sarah is stable and stalwart, settling into an unhappy marriage. Emily is precocious and independent, struggling with one unsatisfactory love affair after another. Richard Yates's classic novel is about how both women struggle to overcome their tarnished family's past, and how both finally reach for some semblance of renewal.]]> 226 Richard Yates 0413773450 lp 0 to-read 4.05 1976
author: Richard Yates
name: lp
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/06/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 33926 The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing maps the progress of Jane Rosenal as she sets out on a personal and spirited expedition through the perilous terrain of sex, love, and relationships as well as the treacherous waters of the workplace. With an unforgettable comic touch, Melissa Bank skillfully teases out issues of the heart; puts a new spin on the mating dance; and captures what it's like to be a young woman coming of age in America today.]]> 274 Melissa Bank 0143035479 lp 0 to-read 3.36 1998
author: Melissa Bank
name: lp
average rating: 3.36
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 12807506 How To Get Into the Twin Palms is the story of Anya, a young woman living in a Russian neighborhood in Los Angeles, who struggles between retaining her parents' Polish culture and trying to assimilate into her adopted community. She lusts after Lev, a Russian man who frequents the Twin Palms nightclub down the block from Anya's apartment. It is Anya's wish to gain entrance to this seemingly exclusive club.

How To Get Into the Twin Palms is a really funny and often moving book that provides a unique twist on the immigrant story, and provides a credible portrait of the city of Los Angeles, literally burning to the ground.]]> 192 Karolina Waclawiak 0983247188 lp 0 to-read 3.46 2012
author: Karolina Waclawiak
name: lp
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 9850443
With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters - losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life - and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West, and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.]]> 328 Patrick deWitt 0062041266 lp 0 to-read 3.84 2011
author: Patrick deWitt
name: lp
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/05/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 32920226 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781501126062

In Jesmyn Ward’s first novel since her National Book Award–winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first-century America. Drawing on Morrison and Faulkner, The Odyssey and the Old Testament, Ward gives us an epochal story, a journey through Mississippi’s past and present that is both an intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle. Ward is a major American writer, multiply awarded and universally lauded, and in Sing, Unburied, Sing she is at the height of her powers.

Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and the occasional presence of their drug-addicted mother, Leonie, on a farm on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Leonie is simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high; Mam is dying of cancer; and quiet, steady Pop tries to run the household and teach Jojo how to be a man. When the white father of Leonie’s children is released from prison, she packs her kids and a friend into her car and sets out across the state for Parchman farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, on a journey rife with danger and promise.

Sing, Unburied, Sing grapples with the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power, and limitations, of the bonds of family. Rich with Ward’s distinctive, musical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic new work and an essential contribution to American literature.]]> 285 Jesmyn Ward lp 0 to-read 4.00 2017
author: Jesmyn Ward
name: lp
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 44101093
George Washington Black, or "Wash," an eleven-year-old field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is terrified to be chosen by his master's brother as his manservant. To his surprise, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning--and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Christopher and Wash must abandon everything.

What follows is their flight along the eastern coast of America, and, finally, to a remote outpost in the Arctic. What brings Christopher and Wash together will tear them apart, propelling Wash even further across the globe in search of his true self.

From the blistering cane fields of the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, from the earliest aquariums of London to the eerie deserts of Morocco, Washington Black tells a story of self-invention and betrayal, of love and redemption, of a world destroyed and made whole again, and asks the question, What is true freedom?]]> 384 Esi Edugyan 0525563245 lp 0 to-read 3.91 2018
author: Esi Edugyan
name: lp
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 31434883 No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding unnecessary human contact, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen, the three rescue one another from the lives of isolation that they had been living. Ultimately, it is Raymond’s big heart that will help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one. If she does, she'll learn that she, too, is capable of finding friendship—and even love—after all.

Smart, warm, uplifting, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .

the only way to survive is to open your heart.]]> 336 Gail Honeyman 0735220689 lp 0 to-read 4.21 2017
author: Gail Honeyman
name: lp
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 5310515 199 Rebecca Stead 0385737424 lp 0 to-read 4.08 2009
author: Rebecca Stead
name: lp
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 35133922
Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.]]> 352 Tara Westover 0399590501 lp 5
]]> 4.46 2018
author: Tara Westover
name: lp
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/04/10
shelves:
review:
SOMEONE ALMOST DIES EVERY TIME THEY GET INTO A CAR.


]]> 39720991
The Witch Elm asks what we become, and what we're capable of, when we no longer know who we are.]]> 528 Tana French 0735224633 lp 2
Then you find out the mystery, and oh my god, just none of it ever would have happened. I also AUTOMATICALLY hate it when a writer uses the whole "memory loss from an accident" tactic to throw the reader off. French also threw the reader off by literally having one of the characters lie about what happened. (Susanna telling Toby that he was not in his room on the night of the murder was a lie.) So there is no craft in storytelling here, just misinformation, unnecessary fogginess, and underwhelming mystery anecdotes (a LOT OF THEM...we are OVERWHELMED WITH UNDERWHELMING MYSTERY ANECDOTES.) If I was to write an advertisement for this book it'd be like, "THIS BOOK! THERE ISN'T A GOOD MYSTERY IN THIS HUGE CLUNKER, BUT THERE SURE ARE A LOT OF THEM!!!!"

Oh and Dominic is like... too much of an extreme dumb stereotype of a creepy dangerous man. I literally have never come across a real person 1/10th as aggressively disgusting. Have you? ]]> 3.53 2018
author: Tana French
name: lp
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2019/04/10
shelves:
review:
You guys. It took them 200 pages to find the skull? 200 pages of reading!!! For the skull part to begin? 200 pages of dumb misogynistic man think? (OMG his name is fucking toby. What was his gf doing with him?)

Then you find out the mystery, and oh my god, just none of it ever would have happened. I also AUTOMATICALLY hate it when a writer uses the whole "memory loss from an accident" tactic to throw the reader off. French also threw the reader off by literally having one of the characters lie about what happened. (Susanna telling Toby that he was not in his room on the night of the murder was a lie.) So there is no craft in storytelling here, just misinformation, unnecessary fogginess, and underwhelming mystery anecdotes (a LOT OF THEM...we are OVERWHELMED WITH UNDERWHELMING MYSTERY ANECDOTES.) If I was to write an advertisement for this book it'd be like, "THIS BOOK! THERE ISN'T A GOOD MYSTERY IN THIS HUGE CLUNKER, BUT THERE SURE ARE A LOT OF THEM!!!!"

Oh and Dominic is like... too much of an extreme dumb stereotype of a creepy dangerous man. I literally have never come across a real person 1/10th as aggressively disgusting. Have you?
]]> 25019 The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary -- and literary history. The compilation of the OED, begun in 1857, was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.]]> 242 Simon Winchester 0060839783 lp 3 3.84 1998
author: Simon Winchester
name: lp
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2019/04/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 6080822
Once again, Hilderbrand masterfully weaves an intense tale of love and loyalty set against the backdrop of endless summer island life.]]> 359 Elin Hilderbrand 0316043893 lp 5 3.63 2009
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: lp
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/04/10
shelves:
review:
***J*U*I*C*Y****A*S*F*U*C*K***!!!!!!!
]]> 32956008 Sour Heart, establishing Jenny Zhang as a frank and subversive interpreter of the immigrant experience in America. In this debut collection, she conjures the disturbing and often hilarious experience of adolescence through the eyes of Chinese American girls growing up in New York City. Her stories cut across generations and continents, moving from the fraught halls of a public school in Flushing, Queens, to the tumultuous streets of Shanghai, China, during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. In the absence of grown-ups, latchkey kids experiment on each other until one day the experiments turn violent; an overbearing mother abandons her artistic aspirations to come to America but relives her glory days through karaoke; and a shy loner struggles to master English so she can speak to God.

Narrated by the daughters of Chinese immigrants who fled imperiled lives as artists back home only to struggle to stay afloat � dumpster diving for food and scamming Atlantic City casino buses to make a buck � these seven stories showcase Zhang's compassion and moral courage, and a perverse sense of humor reminiscent of Portnoy's Complaint. A darkly funny and intimate rendering of girlhood, Sour Heart examines what it means to belong to a family, to find your home, leave it, reject it, and return again.]]> 307 Jenny Zhang 0399589384 lp 3 3.70 2017
author: Jenny Zhang
name: lp
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2019/04/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 10997 416 Daniel Handler 0060733861 lp 0 currently-reading 3.80 1999
author: Daniel Handler
name: lp
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/04/10
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 36373648 338 Rachel Kushner 1476756554 lp 2 to-read 3.41 2018
author: Rachel Kushner
name: lp
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2019/04/10
shelves: to-read
review:
I wanted this to be good, everything about it (except for all of the pages inside) were very appealing to me.
]]> 39703115
From inclusion to the secret autonomy in rom-coms, from effective activism to what poker can tell us about power structures, Deborah explores what it means to be a twenty-first-century feminist, and encourages us to make the world better for everyone.

The book also includes exclusive interviews with performers, activists and thinkers - Jessamyn Stanley, Zoe Coombs Marr, Susan Wokoma, Bisha K. Ali, Reubs Walsh, Becca Bunce, Amika George, Mo Mansfied and Leyla Hussein - plus a piece from Hannah Gadsby.]]> 336 Deborah Frances-White 0349010145 lp 5 4.15 2018
author: Deborah Frances-White
name: lp
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2018
rating: 5
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date added: 2019/04/10
shelves:
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]]> 36739329
Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.

The Great Believers has become a critically acclaimed, indelible piece of literature; it was selected as one of New York Times Best 10 Books of the Year, a Washington Post Notable Book, a Buzzfeed Book of the Year, a Skimm Reads pick, and a pick for the New York Public Library’s Best Books of the year.]]> 421 Rebecca Makkai lp 4 4.29 2018
author: Rebecca Makkai
name: lp
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2019/04/10
date added: 2019/04/10
shelves:
review:
Really liked, but thought it was slow (don't kill me, Alan.)
]]> 196842
When it was first published in 1958, Rona Jaffe's debut novel electrified readers who saw themselves reflected in its story of five young employees of a New York publishing company. There's Ivy League Caroline, who dreams of graduating from the typing pool to an editor's office, naive country girl April, who within months of hitting town reinvents herself as the woman every man wants on his arm; Gregg, the free-spirited actress with a secret yearning for domesticity. Now a classic, and as page-turning as when it first came out, The Best of Everything portrays their lives and passions with intelligence, affection and prose as sharp as a paper cut.
(back cover)]]> 448 Rona Jaffe 0143035290 lp 0 to-read 3.83 1958
author: Rona Jaffe
name: lp
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1958
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40046059
In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving “Brotherhood of the Arts,� two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed—or untoyed with—by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley.

The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school’s walls—until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down. What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true—though it’s not false, either. It takes until the book’s stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place—revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence.

As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults.]]> 257 Susan Choi 1250309883 lp 0 to-read 3.12 2019
author: Susan Choi
name: lp
average rating: 3.12
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/03/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 46164 Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character, Tender Is the Night is lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative.]]> 430 F. Scott Fitzgerald lp 0 3.81 1934
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: lp
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1934
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/03/14
shelves:
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]]> 38819868
My Sister, the Serial Killer is a blackly comic novel about how blood is thicker - and more difficult to get out of the carpet - than water...]]> 226 Oyinkan Braithwaite 0385544235 lp 4 3.64 2018
author: Oyinkan Braithwaite
name: lp
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2019/01/30
date added: 2019/01/30
shelves:
review:
I am not sure what exactly I gained from reading this but I really enjoyed every moment.
]]> 34409176
Mei, an outsider in the cliquish hierarchy of dorm life, finds herself thrust together with an eccentric, idealistic classmate. Two visiting professors try to protect their newborn baby as the once-quiet streets descend into chaos. A father succumbs to the illness, leaving his daughters to fend for themselves. And at the hospital, a new life grows within a college girl, unbeknownst to her—even as she sleeps. A psychiatrist, summoned from Los Angeles, attempts to make sense of the illness as it spreads through the town. Those infected are displaying unusual levels of brain activity, more than has ever been recorded. They are dreaming heightened dreams—but of what?]]> 303 Karen Thompson Walker 0812994167 lp 3 3.61 2019
author: Karen Thompson Walker
name: lp
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2019/01/30
shelves:
review:
Reading this prose made me literally tired. I read the whole thing, it wasn't detestable, but it's not my style. Slow. I felt incredibly disconnected from the characters. Like, they were so far away I could hardly see their faces. Is it just me or were all the characters whispering? The ending was not satisfying.
]]> 39893596
In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. But instead of loss bringing them closer, the three of them find over the following months that it warps their relationships, as old entanglements and grievances rise from the past, and love and sorrow give way to anger and bitterness.

The lives of two close-knit couples are irrevocably changed by an untimely death in the latest from Tessa Hadley, the acclaimed novelist and short story master who “recruits admirers with each book� (Hilary Mantel).]]> 273 Tessa Hadley 0062476696 lp 0 to-read 3.35 2019
author: Tessa Hadley
name: lp
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36373481
Soon, Hal finds herself at the funeral of the deceased…where it dawns on her that there is something very, very wrong about this strange situation and the inheritance at the centre of it.]]> 368 Ruth Ware 1501156217 lp 1 3.79 2018
author: Ruth Ware
name: lp
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2018
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2019/01/12
shelves:
review:
Reading Ruth Ware books makes me think I dislike books. I never want to finish them but I always want to start them. The only reason this story worked is because everyone was stupid.
]]> 26074156 New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist: a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.

“I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. . . . I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe.�

In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,� Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she explores her past—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself.

With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be loved—in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.]]> 306 Roxane Gay 0062362593 lp 4
I do not want to write a book about my body. This is bravery.

I am afraid to talk about Roxane Gay and her body and her work because I have read her whip-smart, astute tweets. I feel like a well-intentioned "thin" person who might say the wrong thing, not understanding what it is like to have a body that makes people hate you, think you are lazy, a body that makes it impossible to be without pain, ride airplanes, just make it through the day without stress and fear of having to sit in a chair in front of people. I can see myself saying something uncool and her ripping me apart. I do not think Roxane Gay would like me. At least I know now to never go in for a hug.

She doesn't like that people want to hug her but as far as I am concerned that is her own fault. People want a bit of her magic. We should stop ripping apart Roxane Gay because I swear she is like Jesus, she is the light and the way and she sees stuff and is able to communicate on another plane. She's a genius. But I wonder if she would switch being a genius to be a "normal" weight, whatever that would be for her? Like if Ursula was like, "you can go up to the land and have whatever body you want, all I ask for is... YOUR BRAIN!" What would she do?

I hope she would keep the brain.

This was an important book. Roxane I doubt you are reading but if you are, thank you very much.]]> 4.17 2017
author: Roxane Gay
name: lp
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/12/23
shelves:
review:
I enjoyed this, I think, but not much as Roxane's other works. It didn't seem like something Roxane WANTED to write. She battles SUCH criticism, such bullying and hatred on Twitter. People who give her shit for being fat. This book seemed like something she felt so she could say, "okay THERE FINE read it. If you have questions about my body REFER TO MY BOOK I HAD TO WRITE A FUCKING BOOK ABOUT IT BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY QUESTIONS."

I do not want to write a book about my body. This is bravery.

I am afraid to talk about Roxane Gay and her body and her work because I have read her whip-smart, astute tweets. I feel like a well-intentioned "thin" person who might say the wrong thing, not understanding what it is like to have a body that makes people hate you, think you are lazy, a body that makes it impossible to be without pain, ride airplanes, just make it through the day without stress and fear of having to sit in a chair in front of people. I can see myself saying something uncool and her ripping me apart. I do not think Roxane Gay would like me. At least I know now to never go in for a hug.

She doesn't like that people want to hug her but as far as I am concerned that is her own fault. People want a bit of her magic. We should stop ripping apart Roxane Gay because I swear she is like Jesus, she is the light and the way and she sees stuff and is able to communicate on another plane. She's a genius. But I wonder if she would switch being a genius to be a "normal" weight, whatever that would be for her? Like if Ursula was like, "you can go up to the land and have whatever body you want, all I ask for is... YOUR BRAIN!" What would she do?

I hope she would keep the brain.

This was an important book. Roxane I doubt you are reading but if you are, thank you very much.
]]> 35069544 Bad Feminist, Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, and Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists.

Morgan Jerkins is only in her twenties, but she has already established herself as an insightful, brutally honest writer who isn’t afraid of tackling tough, controversial subjects. In This Will Be My Undoing, she takes on perhaps one of the most provocative contemporary topics: What does it mean to “be”—to live as, to exist as—a black woman today? This is a book about black women, but it’s necessary reading for all Americans.]]> 258 Morgan Jerkins 0062666150 lp 0 to-read 4.03 2018
author: Morgan Jerkins
name: lp
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/12/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36636727 In the vein of Isabel Allende and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a mesmerizing debut set against the backdrop of the devastating violence of 1990's Colombia about a sheltered young girl and a teenage maid who strike an unlikely friendship that threatens to undo them both.

The Santiago family lives in a gated community in Bogotá, safe from the political upheaval terrorizing the country. Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister Cassandra enjoy carefree lives thanks to this protective bubble, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation.

When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city's guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona's mysterious ways. But Petrona's unusual behavior belies more than shyness. She is a young woman crumbling under the burden of providing for her family as the rip tide of first love pulls her in the opposite direction. As both girls' families scramble to maintain stability amidst the rapidly escalating conflict, Petrona and Chula find themselves entangled in a web of secrecy that will force them both to choose between sacrifice and betrayal.

Inspired by the author's own life, and told through the alternating perspectives of the willful Chula and the achingly hopeful Petrona, Fruit of the Drunken Tree contrasts two very different, but inextricable coming-of-age stories. In lush prose, Rojas Contreras sheds light on the impossible choices women are often forced to make in the face of violence and the unexpected connections that can blossom out of desperation.]]> 304 Ingrid Rojas Contreras lp 0 to-read 3.93 2018
author: Ingrid Rojas Contreras
name: lp
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/10/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36809135
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]> 384 Delia Owens 0735219117 lp 0 to-read 4.35 2018
author: Delia Owens
name: lp
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/10/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 15701217
Nora Eldridge, a thirty-seven-year-old elementary school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who long ago abandoned her ambition to be a successful artist, has become the "woman upstairs," a reliable friend and tidy neighbor always on the fringe of others' achievements.

Then into her classroom walks Reza Shahid, a child who enchants as if from a fairy tale. He and his parents--dashing Skandar, a Lebanese scholar and professor at the École Normale Supérleure; and Sirena, an effortlessly glamorous Italian artist--have come to Boston for Skandar to take up a fellowship at Harvard. When Reza is attacked by schoolyard bullies who call him a "terrorist," Nora is drawn into the complex world of the Shahid family: she finds herself falling in love with them, separately and together. Nora's happiness explodes her boundaries, until Sirena's careless ambition leads to a shattering betrayal.

Told with urgency, intimacy, and piercing emotion, this story of obsession and artistic fulfillment explores the thrill--and the devastating cost--of giving in to one's passions.]]> 253 Claire Messud 0307596907 lp 0 currently-reading 3.29 2013
author: Claire Messud
name: lp
average rating: 3.29
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/08/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 31920820
When an unexpected crisis forces Lockwood and her husband to move back into her parents' rectory, she must learn to live again with the family's simmering madness, and to reckon with the dark side of her religious upbringing. Pivoting from the raunchy to the sublime, from the comic to the serious, Priestdaddy is an unforgettable story of how we balance tradition against hard-won identity—and of how, having journeyed in the underworld, we can emerge with our levity and our sense of justice intact.]]> 336 Patricia Lockwood 1594633738 lp 4
Every human on the planet needs to read the chapter toward the end called "Interior Castle."]]> 3.84 2017
author: Patricia Lockwood
name: lp
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2018/08/24
date added: 2018/08/24
shelves:
review:
I was unsure if I would enjoy Patricia Lockwood's writing, because Patricia Lockwood is a poet. I thought the writing would be intangible and too artistic for me to truly grasp and enjoy. But she is brilliant and fucking hilarious and this book is rich with wisdom. Each chapter is an essay on art, belief, family, and love, yet they are all so so funny because the characters are truly unique and could have their own TV shows. This book is written with intense awareness and it becomes clear you are reading the work of a master of the page. The mother and father and sister are so funny, my only complaint is that I wanted to know them more as real people. In a more serious light. What really drove them? Why did they make the choices they did? I laughed at them, though I'm not sure I got to know them.

Every human on the planet needs to read the chapter toward the end called "Interior Castle."
]]> 34909789 For readers of Gillian Flynn and Donna Tartt, a dark, propulsive and addictive debut thriller, splashed with all the glitz and glitter of New York City.

They go through both bottles of champagne right there on the High Line, with nothing but the stars over them... They drink and Lavinia tells Louise about all the places they will go together, when they finish their stories, when they are both great writers-to Paris and to Rome and to Trieste...

Lavinia will never go. She is going to die soon.

Louise has nothing. Lavinia has everything. After a chance encounter, the two spiral into an intimate, intense, and possibly toxic friendship. A Talented Mr. Ripley for the digital age, this seductive story takes a classic tale of obsession and makes it irresistibly new.]]> 273 Tara Isabella Burton 0385543522 lp 5 3.33 2018
author: Tara Isabella Burton
name: lp
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2018/08/24
date added: 2018/08/24
shelves:
review:
Everyone was raving about the book, and at the beginning I thought, Oh no. Am I going to be the only asshole who doesn't like this? Am I going to have to be the killjoy, naying everyone's yay? Because I thought it was garbage. I guess I am tired of reading about rich people's problems. But these characters are just so interesting. And then...things start to happen. The kind of things that demand you blow through each page because you can't wait to see what happens next. I don't know how you could not be entertained, enthralled. Well written, it is close to a perfect read. Creepy, bizarre, all the thing you want when you want to feel unearthed, unnerved. A total treat.
]]> 35068933 How to Build a Girl, the breakout novel from feminist sensation Caitlin MoranĚýwho the New York Times called, "rowdy and fearless . . . sloppy, big-hearted and alive in all the right ways."

You can’t have your best friend be famous if you’re not famous. It doesn’t work. You’re emotional pen-friends. You can send each other letters—but you’re not doing anything together. You live in different countries.

Johanna Morrigan (AKA Dolly Wilde) has it all: at eighteen, she lives in her own flat in London and writes for the coolest music magazine in Britain. But Johanna is miserable. Her best friend and man of her dreams John Kite has just made it big in 1994’s hot new BritPop scene. Suddenly John exists on another plane of reality: that of the Famouses.

Never one to sit on the sidelines, Johanna hatches a plan: she will Saint Paul his Corinthians, she will Jimmy his Pinocchio—she will write a monthly column, by way of a manual to the famous, analyzing fame, its power, its dangers, and its amusing aspects. In stories, girls never win the girl—they are won. Well, Johanna will re-write the stories, and win John, through her writing.

But as Johanna’s own star rises, an unpleasant one-night stand she had with a stand-up comedian, Jerry Sharp, comes back to haunt in her in a series of unfortunate consequences. How can a girl deal with public sexual shaming? Especially when her new friend, the up-and-coming feminist rock icon Suzanne Banks, is Jimmy Cricketing her?

For anyone who has been a girl or known one, who has admired fame or judged it, and above all anyone who loves to laugh till their sides ache, How to Be Famous is a big-hearted, hilarious tale of fame and fortune-and all they entail.]]> 368 Caitlin Moran 1443448524 lp 4 4.00 2018
author: Caitlin Moran
name: lp
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2018/08/24
date added: 2018/08/24
shelves:
review:
A wonderful sequel to HOW TO BE A GIRL, HOW TO BE FAMOUS is hilarious yet smart and oh my god...comforting. It is comforting to know that a brilliant woman like Caitlin Moran is able to encapsulate these GIRL feelings. Caitlin Moran's writing marches across the page like it's in a parade, the kind of parade where there is a lot of dancing. Every sentence is fun and packed with wisdom. The characters are unlike any characters I've read before yet completely relatable. They are so natural and real it doesn't feel like reading them is work, it's just a true delight.
]]> 36896098 Orcinus orca. The public embraced killer whales as charismatic and friendly, while scientists enjoyed their first access to live orcas. Yet even as Northwesterners taught the world to love whales, they came to oppose their captivity and to fight for the freedom of a marine predator that had become a regional icon.]]> 408 Jason M. Colby 0190673095 lp 0 to-read 4.14
author: Jason M. Colby
name: lp
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/08/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36216983
But as the couple and the nanny become more dependent on one another, jealousy, resentment, and suspicions mount, shattering the idyllic tableau.]]> 240 LeĂŻla Slimani 0525503897 lp 2 3.18 2016
author: LeĂŻla Slimani
name: lp
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2018/08/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 35541389 A supernatural story of love, ghosts, and madness as a young couple, newly engaged, become live-in caretakers of a historic museum.

When Nick Beron and Hannah Rampe decide to move to the tiny upstate town of Hibernia, New York, they aren't running away, exactly, but they need a change. Their careers have flatlined, the city is exhausting, and they've reached a relationship stalemate. Hannah takes a job as live-in director of the Wright Historic House, a museum dedicated to an obscure nineteenth century philosopher, and she and Nick move into their new home—the town's remoteness, the speed with which she is offered the job, and the lack of museum visitors barely a blip in their considerations. At first life in this old, creaky house feels cozy—they speak in Masterpiece Theater accents, they take bottles of wine to the swimming hole. But as summer turns to fall Hannah begins to have trouble sleeping and she hears whispers in the night. One morning Nick wakes up to find Hannah gone. Now, in his frantic search for her he will discover the hidden legacy of Wright a man driven wild with grief, and a spirit aching for home.]]> 256 Ben Dolnick 1101871105 lp 2 3.51 2018
author: Ben Dolnick
name: lp
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2018/08/16
shelves:
review:
This was fine. I enjoyed reading it, the process. But I cannot imagine recommending it to anyone because there are so many other better books to spend your time and money on. I believe this was a tad overrated.
]]> 18869967 From her first glimpse on that raw November eve, she could sense the inn's dark power. But never did Mary dream that she would become hopelessly ensnared in the vile, villainous schemes being hatched within its crumbling walls—or that a handsome, mysterious stranger would so incite her passions... tempting her to love a man whom she dares not trust.]]> 307 Daphne du Maurier 0316252905 lp 3 3.92 1936
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: lp
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1936
rating: 3
read at: 2018/08/16
date added: 2018/08/16
shelves:
review:
A fun gothic novel. It was advertised as a romance, though, and while the romance was light, it sure was stupid. The story was a little slow but there is something haunting and romantic and mysterious about the setting. I loved trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. I mean, I didn't even know what wrecking was. Ha! Thinking of reading THE SHIPPING NEWS next.
]]> 38887475 New York Times bestsellers Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby, a collection of side-splitting yet introspective essays by the popular stand-up comic, Chelsea Lately alum, host of truTV’s The Talk Show Game Show, and writer for The Mindy Project.

From a young age, Guy Branum always felt as if he were on the outside looking in.

Self-taught, introspective, and from a stiflingly boring farm town, he couldn’t relate to his neighbors. While other boys played outside, he stayed indoors reading Greek mythology. And being gay and overweight, he got used to being invisible. But little by little, he started learning from all the sad, strange, lonely outcasts in history who had come before him, and he started to feel hope.

In this collection of personal essays, Guy talks about finding a sense of belonging at Berkeley—and stirring up controversy in a newspaper column that led to a run‑in with the Secret Service. He recounts the pitfalls of being typecast as the “Sassy Gay Friend,� and how, after taking a wrong turn in life (i.e. law school), he found stand‑up comedy and artistic freedom.

Digressing from his personal narratives, Guy also argues why Katy Perry’s “California Girls� is the Aristotelian ideal of a summer jam, and how brunch, as a fundamentally unnecessary but delightful meal, is deeply gay. He analyzes society’s calculated deprivation of personhood from fat people, and though it’s taken him awhile to accept who he is, Guy has learned that with a little patience and a lot of humor, self-acceptance is possible.]]> 289 Guy Branum 1501170244 lp 4
This book was a brain workout. It was beautiful. I thought the title was just a funny joke but it is important. It is a guide for anyone who has ever felt hated to find their inner god.

This book isn't a regular celebrity memoir, it could be used as a pop culture text book. I appreciate more than anything someone who can find the smart in the "dumb." ]]> 4.01 2018
author: Guy Branum
name: lp
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2018/08/16
date added: 2018/08/16
shelves:
review:
It might have been easier to dog-ear the pages in MY LIFE AS A GODDESS that weren’t mind-blowingly brilliant. “The Rules Of Enchantment" stopped me, thinking of comedians as spell-casters.

This book was a brain workout. It was beautiful. I thought the title was just a funny joke but it is important. It is a guide for anyone who has ever felt hated to find their inner god.

This book isn't a regular celebrity memoir, it could be used as a pop culture text book. I appreciate more than anything someone who can find the smart in the "dumb."
]]> 36203391
This story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs, designed to heal us from our alienation from this world, shows us how reasonable, even necessary, that alienation sometimes is. Blackly funny, both merciless and compassionate � dangling its legs over the ledge of 9/11 � this novel is a showcase for the gifts of one of America’s major young writers working at the height of her powers.]]> 289 Ottessa Moshfegh 1787330419 lp 5 THE UNFORTUNATE IMPORTANCE OF BEAUTY.]]> 3.66 2018
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: lp
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/08/07
shelves:
review:
I ALMOST couldn't enjoy this book because I was so in love with it, my fear that one day it would be over overpowered me. (That day came soon, I couldn't put this book down.) Toward the end, I was starting to feel let down, abandoned. But the true ending was just perfect. It satsified me. Not satisfy, delight. The whole book did. This is what I look for when I'm looking for something fun fun fun and kind of weird to read. Reminded me of another favorite, THE UNFORTUNATE IMPORTANCE OF BEAUTY.
]]> 16085481
When Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home, long drives to explore the island, and quality time with the man she might one day marry. What she doesn't know is that Nick's family home happens to look like a palace, that she'll ride in more private planes than cars, and that with one of Asia's most eligible bachelors on her arm, Rachel might as well have a target on her back.

Initiated into a world of dynastic splendor beyond imagination, Rachel meets Astrid, the It Girl of Singapore society; Eddie, whose family practically lives in the pages of the Hong Kong socialite magazines; and Eleanor, Nick's formidable mother, a woman who has very strong feelings about who her son should—and should not—marry.

Uproarious, addictive, and filled with jaw-dropping opulence, Crazy Rich Asians is an insider's look at the Asian JetSet; a perfect depiction of the clash between old money and new money; between Overseas Chinese and Mainland Chinese; and a fabulous novel about what it means to be young, in love, and gloriously, crazily rich.]]> 403 Kevin Kwan 0385536976 lp 2
It was garbage. The writing is worse than any grocery store "chick lit" I have ever run my eyes over. Sections end with cliches like "CATCH THIS, YOU GOLD-DIGGING CUNT!" It's like KK was writing it just so it could be a shitty movie. (Hopefully the fantastic CRA cast can fix it.)

The vocabulary is basically a set of 50 boring words.

Nobody talks like a normal person.

I can deal with detestable characters, I enjoy them. I love loveable characters. I can't get into boring characters who bring nothing to the table. These are rich people who say nothing funny or interesting, we know nothing about their interests, jobs, complexities, what they love and hate. I think we are supposed to like Rachel and Nick, but why? I just read what felt like 4,000 pages about them and I know nothing about them other than the fact they annoy the shit out of me.

Everybody go read Lucy Tan's WHAT WE WERE PROMISED. It's so much better I like can't even.

I have heard the ending was awful but I seriously have erased it from my brain and don't care.

I am still going to see and support the movie. But gah. This fucking book.

xoxo

]]> 3.91 2013
author: Kevin Kwan
name: lp
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2018/08/03
date added: 2018/08/03
shelves:
review:
I read this because I am really excited about the movie and want to support it. Also, Pop Rocket Podcast is reading it for their book club.

It was garbage. The writing is worse than any grocery store "chick lit" I have ever run my eyes over. Sections end with cliches like "CATCH THIS, YOU GOLD-DIGGING CUNT!" It's like KK was writing it just so it could be a shitty movie. (Hopefully the fantastic CRA cast can fix it.)

The vocabulary is basically a set of 50 boring words.

Nobody talks like a normal person.

I can deal with detestable characters, I enjoy them. I love loveable characters. I can't get into boring characters who bring nothing to the table. These are rich people who say nothing funny or interesting, we know nothing about their interests, jobs, complexities, what they love and hate. I think we are supposed to like Rachel and Nick, but why? I just read what felt like 4,000 pages about them and I know nothing about them other than the fact they annoy the shit out of me.

Everybody go read Lucy Tan's WHAT WE WERE PROMISED. It's so much better I like can't even.

I have heard the ending was awful but I seriously have erased it from my brain and don't care.

I am still going to see and support the movie. But gah. This fucking book.

xoxo


]]> 31933069
Join New York Times Bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand on the stunning beaches of St. John for the beginning of her thrilling new winter series-The Paradise. Welcome to Paradise, the first book in the Paradise series, has everything that readers have come to know and love about an Elin Hilderbrand novel, plus a healthy dose of intrigue. Irene Steele’s idyllic life-house, husband, family-is shattered when she is woken up by a late-night phone call. Her beloved husband has been found dead, but before Irene can process this tragic news, she must confront the perplexing details of her husband’s death. He was found on St. John island, a tropical paradise far removed from their suburban life. Leaving the cold winter behind, Irene flies down to the beautiful Caribbean beaches of St. John only to make another shocking discovery: her husband had a secret second family. As Irene investigates the mysterious circumstances of her husband’s death, she is plunged into a web of intrigue and deceit belied by the pristine white sand beaches of St. John’s. This exciting first book in the Paradise series will transport readers to a new beach locale-another world that Elin knows as well as her beloved Nantucket-and have them longing for winter]]> 310 Elin Hilderbrand lp 0 currently-reading 4.03 2018
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: lp
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/07/31
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 35297438
It’s Chloe Snow’s sophomore year of high school, and life has only grown more complicated.

Last year, Chloe was the star of the musical. This year, after an audition so disastrous she runs off the stage in tears, she’s cast as a lowly member of the ensemble. Will she be able to make it through the show knowing everyone’s either pitying her or reveling in her downfall?

Chloe’s best friend, Hannah, is no help: she’s been sucked into the orbit of Lex, the velvet-gloved, iron-fisted ruler of the sophomore class. Chloe’s dad is busy falling in love with Miss Murphy, and Chloe is no longer speaking to her mother, who is sending her increasingly desperate and unhinged emails from Mexico. As her parents� divorce negotiations unravel, a custody battle looms.

If only Chloe could talk to Grady about it: his parents are divorced, and he’s easy to talk to. Or he was, until he declared his love for Chloe, and she turned him down because despite all her rational brain cells she can’t seem to get over Mac, and then Grady promptly started going out with Lex.

As the performance of the show approaches, Chloe must find a way to navigate all the messy elements of her life and make it through to the end of the year.]]> 384 Emma Chastain 1481488783 lp 5
"I was wearing a striped sweater I thought looked pretty cute, but as soon as I saw Reese, I realized I looked like someone's dorky nephew. She had on gray leather pants with ankle zippers and a sheer white shirt over a black bra with crisscrossing straps. All the pervy dads in the place stared at her when she ran over to us, squealing, to say hi."

Chloe is so much like I was, her experiences are so exact and believable. But the book is way more interesting than any other documented teen experience because Emma Chastain is a genius and she has given Chloe this wicked sense of humor and critical amount of self-awareness, that makes her able to share her teenagerisms in a unique way.

I love how the characters have been CHANGING. The mother has turning into a terrifying villian! The father has been growing in his OWN sweet way. Chloe beautifully stumbles with each step forward.

"Last year I would have ditched my friends and family at the speed of sound. Here was Mac, smiling down at me, his biceps practically ripping open the sleeves of his T-shirt, asking me if I wanted to go hook up with him. But I didn't want to. I had no desire to leave my backyard, which was full of sunshine and freshly cut grass and the smell of grilling meat, to dry-hump Mac on his dirty sheets next to a fish tank full of piranas."

Every single thing Chloe says is a tiny treat...her words and thoughts are never cliche. Each sentence is worthy of a clap or two.

I love it when I get a diary entry like this: "Too upset to write. More tomorrow." Because I immediately get excited that something juicy and fun is coming."

Tiny beautiful details, voices unlike any other voices, a story that is a lot of fun. ]]> 3.97
author: Emma Chastain
name: lp
average rating: 3.97
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/07/31
shelves:
review:
This sharp follow up to CONFESSIONS OF A HIGH SCHOOL DISASTER was so much fun (the pages literally flew by, I had no idea what was happening), the characters are developing beautifully and realistically, and the voices are delicious and perfect.

"I was wearing a striped sweater I thought looked pretty cute, but as soon as I saw Reese, I realized I looked like someone's dorky nephew. She had on gray leather pants with ankle zippers and a sheer white shirt over a black bra with crisscrossing straps. All the pervy dads in the place stared at her when she ran over to us, squealing, to say hi."

Chloe is so much like I was, her experiences are so exact and believable. But the book is way more interesting than any other documented teen experience because Emma Chastain is a genius and she has given Chloe this wicked sense of humor and critical amount of self-awareness, that makes her able to share her teenagerisms in a unique way.

I love how the characters have been CHANGING. The mother has turning into a terrifying villian! The father has been growing in his OWN sweet way. Chloe beautifully stumbles with each step forward.

"Last year I would have ditched my friends and family at the speed of sound. Here was Mac, smiling down at me, his biceps practically ripping open the sleeves of his T-shirt, asking me if I wanted to go hook up with him. But I didn't want to. I had no desire to leave my backyard, which was full of sunshine and freshly cut grass and the smell of grilling meat, to dry-hump Mac on his dirty sheets next to a fish tank full of piranas."

Every single thing Chloe says is a tiny treat...her words and thoughts are never cliche. Each sentence is worthy of a clap or two.

I love it when I get a diary entry like this: "Too upset to write. More tomorrow." Because I immediately get excited that something juicy and fun is coming."

Tiny beautiful details, voices unlike any other voices, a story that is a lot of fun.
]]> 40725259 From the celebrated author ofĚýRich and Pretty, a novel about the families we fight to build and those we fight to keep

Like many first-time mothers, Rebecca Stone finds herself both deeply in love with her newborn son and deeply overwhelmed.ĚýStruggling to juggleĚýthe demands of motherhood with her own aspirations and feeling utterly alone in the process, she reaches out to the only person at the hospital who offers her any real help—Priscilla Johnson—and begs her to come home with them as her son’s nanny.


Priscilla’s presence quickly does as much to shake up Rebecca’s perception of the world as it does to stabilize her life. Rebecca is white, and Priscilla is black, and through their relationship, Rebecca finds herself confronting, for the first time, the blind spots of her own privilege. She feels profoundly connected to the woman who essentially taught her what it means to be a mother. When Priscilla dies unexpectedly in childbirth, Rebecca steps forward to adopt the baby. But she is unprepared for what it means to be a white mother with a black son. As she soon learns, navigating motherhood for her is a matter of learning how to raise two children whom she loves with equal ferocity, but whom the world is determined to treat differently.


Written with the warmth and psychological acuity that defined his debut, Rumaan Alam has crafted a remarkable novel about the lives we choose, and the lives that are chosen for us.]]> 304 Rumaan Alam 0062667629 lp 2
Really thought I'd love this, was totally disappointed. ]]> 3.06 2018
author: Rumaan Alam
name: lp
average rating: 3.06
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2018/07/21
shelves:
review:
Not sure why this book got so much praise. I found it uninteresting and unbelievable and unlikeable. I found it hard to believe an intelligent (white) artist would never have considered the problems of adopting a black baby. I just also kept thinking...this is not how real women talk and interact and think! But maybe that's just me. Is this how men think women talk? That's fine, maybe interesting in itself.

Really thought I'd love this, was totally disappointed.
]]> 35068524 368 Roxane Gay 0062413503 lp 1 4.43 2018
author: Roxane Gay
name: lp
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2018
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2018/07/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 36546634 An adrenaline-fueled read that will stay with you long after you turn the final page. BAD CALL is a memoir about working on a New York City ambulance in the 1960s.

Bad Call is Mike Scardino's visceral, fast-moving, and mordantly funny account of the summers he spent working as an "ambulance attendant" on the mean streets of late-1960s New York.

Fueled by adrenaline and Sabrett's hot dogs, young Mike spends his days speeding from one chaotic emergency to another. His adventures take him into the middle of incipient race riots, to the scene of a plane crash at JFK airport and into private lives all over Queens, where New Yorkers are suffering, and dying, in unimaginable ways. Learning on the job, Mike encounters all manner of freakish accidents (the man who drank Drano, the woman attacked by rats, the man who inflated like a balloon), meets countless unforgettable New York characters, falls in love, is nearly murdered, and gets an early and indelible education in the impermanence of life and the cruelty of chance.

Action-packed, poignant, and rich with details that bring Mike's world to technicolor life, Bad Call is a gritty portrait of a bygone era as well as a bracing reminder that, though "life itself is a fatal condition," it's worth pausing to notice the moments of beauty, hope, and everyday heroism along the way.


]]> 304 Mike Scardino 0316469610 lp 5 3.91 2018
author: Mike Scardino
name: lp
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/07/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 39599881 Set in New England over three generations, THE LATECOMERS mixes the world of Colm TĂłibĂ­n's Brooklyn with the sweeping family sagas of Christina Baker Kline.

In 1908, sixteen-year-old Bridey runs away from her small town in Ireland with her same-age sweetheart Thom. But when Thom dies suddenly of ship fever on their ocean crossing, Bridey finds herself alone and pregnant in a strange new world.

Forced by circumstance to give up the baby for adoption, Bridey finds work as a maid for the Hollingworth family at a lavish, sprawling estate. It's the dawn of a new century: innovative technologies are emerging, women's roles are changing, and Bridey is emboldened by the promise of a fresh start. She cares for the Hollingworth children as if they were her own, until a mysterious death changes Bridey and the household forever. For decades, the terrible secrets of Bridey's past continue to haunt the family. And in the present day, after a strange blue bottle is found hidden beneath old wallpaper, the youngest Hollingworth makes a connection that finally brings these dark ghost stories into the light.

Told in interweaving timelines and rich with detailed history, romance and dark secrets, Helen Klein Ross' THE LATECOMERS spans a century of America life and reminds us all that we can never truly leave the past behind.]]> 419 Helen Klein Ross 0316476862 lp 5
]]> 3.66 2018
author: Helen Klein Ross
name: lp
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/07/06
shelves:
review:
Everything I look for in a historical fiction...an orphan! Irish immigrants! creepy family mysteries! a huge old house! Helen Klein Ross must have been reading my mind.


]]> 36546633 A hilarious collection inspired by a former Saturday Night Live writer's real experiences in Hollywood, chronicling the absurdity of fame and the humanity of failure in a world dominated by social media influencers and reality TV stars.

Simon Rich is "one of the funniest writers in America" (Daily Beast) -- a humorist who draws comparisons to Douglas Adams (New York Times Book Review), James Thurber, and P.G. Wodehouse (The Guardian). With Hits and Misses, he's back with a hilarious new collection of stories about dreaming big and falling flat, about ordinary people desperate for stardom and the stars who are bored by having it all.

Inspired by Rich's real experiences in Hollywood, Hits and Misses chronicles all the absurdity of fame and success alongside the heartbreaking humanity of failure. From a bitter tell-all by the horse Paul Revere rode to greatness to a gushing magazine profile of everyone's favorite World War II dictator, these stories roam across time and space to skewer our obsession with making it big -- from the days of ancient Babylon to the age of TMZ.

The baby --
Riding solo: the Oatsy story --
The foosball championship of the whole entire universe --
Birthday party --
The book of Simon --
Relapse --
Hands --
New client --
The great jester --
Physicians' lounge, April 1st --
Menlo Park, 1891 --
Tom Hanks stories --
Adolf Hitler: the GQ profile --
Any person, living or dead --
Upward mobility --
Dinosaur --
Artist's revenge --
Stage 13]]> 240 Simon Rich 0316468894 lp 5 3.84 2018
author: Simon Rich
name: lp
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/07/06
shelves:
review:
Just as funny as I hoped it would be, but also much wiser. These essays are tiny lil bursts of very weird hilarity. Treat after treat after treat! Nobody writes quite like Simon Rich. Love it.
]]> 36426614 A richly imagined debut set against the backdrop of southern India, West London and Hollywood that tells the story of a young Indian boy, suddenly orphaned, and the adults around him, each of whom, in different ways, is also looking for a home in the world.

Despite the sudden death of his mother, several years after losing his father, eight-year old Birendra refuses to believe he is an orphan. He has an aunt in West London, his mother's troubled but winning twin sister, Nayana. But when the letter informing Nayana of her nephew's plight is delivered to the wrong address, numerous lives are forever altered, and Birendra is set adrift.

In the aftermath of a failed attempt to get pregnant, Madeline, a Los Angeles native and interior designer to the stars, flies to India, where she finds herself at an orphanage, face-to-face with Birendra. In a moment of sudden certainty, she decides that adopting this boy, whom she later nicknames "Bindi," is precisely the act that will save them both.

As Nayana falls deeper into a crisis at home and in her marriage, and Madeline begins to come to terms with the full meaning of motherhood-its emotional responsibilities and unforeseen crises-Bindi learns to make himself at home in new surroundings, forging an especially close bond with Madeline's younger brother Eddie, who begins to worry his sister, so successful in many ways, may have met her match in motherhood.

For more than two months, the missing letter stays missing. Will Bindi never reconnect with his one remaining relative, the aunt who seems to have ignored his plea? Or will his adoptive uncle succeed in finding his aunt and unwittingly prompt the two women who love him most in the world to battle for him?

Written in stirring prose and infused with keen emotional insight, Bindi is about our search for family and for home, and an exploration of the ways that loss and longing can be converted into hope, connection, and love.]]> 336 Paul Matthew Maisano 0316509485 lp 5 3.63 2018
author: Paul Matthew Maisano
name: lp
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/07/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 18869987
Collecting five stories of mystery and slow, creeping horror, Daphne Du Maurier's Don't Look Now and Other Stories showcases her unique blend of sympathy and spinetingling suspense.]]> 214 Daphne du Maurier 0316253642 lp 0 to-read 3.84 1971
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: lp
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1971
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/07/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 40311348 The inside account of the life and trial of one of the world's most infamous criminals, by his closest confidante and biggest traitor - his sister.Best known for his involvement in the 1983 kidnapping of the CEO and Chairman of Heineken brewing company, Willem Holleeder is one of the most notorious criminals in contemporary history. But his latest conviction is quickly becoming the trial of the century. Charged for his involvement in multiple assassinations, including that of his former partner and brother-in-law, Holleeder is finally being put on trial for murder, all due to the involvement and shocking testimony of his own family. Having spent years as his unwilling consigliere, Holleeder's own sister Astrid is now breaking her silence and going on the record.

In this stunning memoir, Astrid reveals decades of familial manipulation and fear and her own thrilling experience working as a double cross, preserving her brother's trust just so that she could get enough information to put him away for life. Judas is the intimate account of this remarkable story: a tale of Astrid's deeply personal betrayal set against the backdrop of their haunting family history and the gripping world of the Dutch underground.]]> 0 Astrid Holleeder 1549144804 lp 5 4.33 2016
author: Astrid Holleeder
name: lp
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/07/05
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]]> 36692478 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780525520375.

Tommy Orange's wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.

Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.

Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.]]> 294 Tommy Orange lp 0 to-read 3.98 2018
author: Tommy Orange
name: lp
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/06/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> 35959708 A debut novel about an imaginative girl in the year following her parents' divorce, and what happens when her creeping premonition that something terrible will happen comes true in the most unexpected of ways.

A Barnes & Noble Discover Pick

The year is 1988, and America is full of broken homes. EVERY OTHER WEEKEND drops us into the sun-scorched suburbs of southern California, amid Bret Michaels mania and Cold War hysteria, with Nenny, a wildly precocious, nervous nelly of an eight-year-old, as our guide to the newly rearranged life she finds herself leading after her parents split.

Nenny and her mother and two brothers have just moved in with her new stepfather and his two kids. Her old life replaced by this new configuration, Nenny's natural anxieties intensify, and both real and imagined dangers entwine: earthquakes and home invasions, ghosts of her stepfather's days in Vietnam, Gorbachev knocking down the door of her third grade class and recruiting them all into the Red Army. Knock-kneed and a little stormy-eyed, she is far too small for the thoughts that haunt her, yet her fears are not entirely unfounded. Indeed, tragedy does come, but it comes at her sideways, in a way she never had imagined.

With an irresistible voice, Summerfield has managed to tap the very truth of what it is to have been a child of her generation, bottle it, and serve it up in devastating, hilarious, heartfelt doses. EVERY OTHER WEEKEND beautifully and unsettlingly captures the terrible wisdom that children often possess, as well as the surprising ways in which families fracture and reform.

]]> 282 Zulema Renee Summerfield 0316434779 lp 5 3.47 2018
author: Zulema Renee Summerfield
name: lp
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2018/04/16
date added: 2018/05/16
shelves:
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]]> 35707056
So when Riley and two Fairmont Academy mean girls die under suspicious circumstances, Mila refuses to believe everyone's explanation that her BFF was involved in a suicide pact. Instead, armed with a tube of lip gloss and an ancient grimoire, Mila does the unthinkable to uncover the truth: she brings the girls back to life.

Unfortunately, Riley, June, and Dayton have no recollection of their murders, but they do have unfinished business to attend to. Now, with only seven days until the spell wears off and the girls return to their graves, Mila must wrangle the distracted group of undead teens and work fast to discover their murderer...before the killer strikes again.]]> 320 Lily Anderson 0451478231 lp 0 to-read 3.75 2018
author: Lily Anderson
name: lp
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/05/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 36341649 A gripping page-turner for fans of THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR, Michelle Sacks's You Were Made For This provocatively explores the darker sides of marriage, motherhood. and friendship. Doting wife, devoted husband, cherished child. Merry, Sam, and Conor are the perfect family in the perfect place. Merry adores the domestic life: baking, gardening, caring for her infant son. Sam, formerly an academic, is pursuing a new career as a filmmaker. Sometimes they can hardly believe how lucky they are. What perfect new lives they've built.

When Merry's childhood friend Frank visits their Swedish paradise, she immediately becomes part of the family. She bonds with Conor. And with Sam. She befriends the neighbors, and even finds herself embracing the domesticity she's always seemed to scorn.

All their lives, Frank and Merry have been more like sisters than best friends. And that's why Frank soon sees the things others might miss. Treacherous things, which are almost impossible to believe when looking at this perfect family. But Frank, of all people, knows that the truth is rarely what you want the world to see.]]> 341 Michelle Sacks 0316475408 lp 5 3.37 2018
author: Michelle Sacks
name: lp
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/05/01
shelves:
review:
Thrilling and twisty...I couldn't put it down.
]]> 37486540
Beginning with a single dealer who lands in a small Virginia town and sets about turning high school football stars into heroin overdose statistics, Macy endeavors to answer a grieving mother's question-why her only son died-and comes away with a harrowing story of greed and need. From the introduction of OxyContin in 1996, Macy parses how America embraced a medical culture where overtreatment with painkillers became the norm. In some of the same distressed communities featured in her bestselling book Factory Man, the unemployed use painkillers both to numb the pain of joblessness and pay their bills, while privileged teens trade pills in cul-de-sacs, and even high school standouts fall prey to prostitution, jail, and death.

Through unsparing, yet deeply human portraits of the families and first responders struggling to ameliorate this epidemic, each facet of the crisis comes into focus. In these politically fragmented times, Beth Macy shows, astonishingly, that the only thing that unites Americans across geographic and class lines is opioid drug abuse. But in a country unable to provide basic healthcare for all, Macy still finds reason to hope-and signs of the spirit and tenacity necessary in those facing addiction to build a better future for themselves and their families.]]> 384 Beth Macy 0316523178 lp 5 4.06 2018
author: Beth Macy
name: lp
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/05/01
shelves:
review:
An emotional, powerful, important must-read. This book wasn't trying to do what HILLBILLY ELEGY was trying to do, but it did it, anyway. It did a great job getting close to answering those big questions. I got a huge understanding of the cycle of addiction and struggle in Appalachia. Beth Macy writes with her heart and her skill. Both are enormous.
]]> 34219858
Scott Jurek is one of the world's best known and most beloved ultrarunners. Renowned for his remarkable endurance and speed, accomplished on a vegan diet, he's finished first in nearly all of ultrarunning's elite events over the course of his career. But after two decades of racing, training, speaking, and touring, Jurek felt an urgent need to discover something new about himself. He embarked on a wholly unique challenge, one that would force him to grow as a person and as an breaking the speed record for the Appalachian Trail.

North is the story of the 2,189-mile journey that nearly shattered him. When he set out in the spring of 2015, Jurek anticipated punishing terrain, forbidding weather, and inevitable injuries. He would have to run nearly 50 miles a day, every day, for almost seven weeks. He knew he would be pushing himself to the limit, that comfort and rest would be in short supply -- but he couldn't have imagined the physical and emotional toll the trip would exact, nor the rewards it would offer.

With his wife, Jenny, friends, and the kindness of strangers supporting him, Jurek ran, hiked, and stumbled his way north, one white blaze at a time. A stunning narrative of perseverance and personal transformation, North is a portrait of a man stripped bare on the most demanding and transcendent effort of his life. It will inspire runners and non-runners alike to keep striving for their personal best.]]> 292 Scott Jurek 0316433799 lp 5 4.19 2018
author: Scott Jurek
name: lp
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/05/01
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review:
This book made me feel like a huge pussy.
]]> 11994903

With compassion and insight, author Richard Wagamese traces through his fictional characters the decline of a culture and a cultural way. For Saul, taken forcibly from the land and his family when he’s sent to residential school, salvation comes for a while through his incredible gifts as a hockey player. But in the harsh realities ofĚý1960s Canada, he battles obdurate racism and the spirit-destroying effects of cultural alienation and displacement.ĚýIndian HorseĚýunfolds against the bleak loveliness of northern Ontario, all rock, marsh, bog and cedar. Wagamese writes with a spare beauty, penetrating the heart of a remarkable OjibwayĚýman.]]> 221 Richard Wagamese 1553654021 lp 0 to-read 4.39 2012
author: Richard Wagamese
name: lp
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/04/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> 29965042
Meanwhile, a woman named Maben and her young daughter trudge along the side of the interstate. Desperate and exhausted, the pair spend their last dollar on a room for the night, a night that ends with Maben holding a pistol and a dead deputy sprawled in the middle of the road.

With the dawn, destinies collide, and Russell is forced to decide whose life he will save—his own or those of the woman and child.]]> 289 Michael Farris Smith 0316353035 lp 4 4.02 2017
author: Michael Farris Smith
name: lp
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/04/16
shelves:
review:
I was hypnotized by this book. The way it tied beauty and violence together reminded me of Elena Ferrante. It felt like a classic. Michael Farris Smith is scary-good. More people should read him.
]]> 35035160 The Merry Spinster takes up the trademark wit that endeared Lavery to readers of both The Toast and his best-selling debut Texts from Jane Eyre. The feature become among the most popular on the site, with each entry bringing in tens of thousands of views, as the stories proved a perfect vehicle for Lavery’s eye for deconstruction and destabilization. Sinister and inviting, familiar and alien all at the same time, The Merry Spinster updates traditional children's stories and fairy tales with elements of psychological horror, emotional clarity, and a keen sense of feminist mischief.

Readers of The Toast will instantly recognize Lavery's boisterous good humor and uber-nerd swagger: those new to Lavery's oeuvre will delight in his unique spin on fiction, where something a bit mischievous and unsettling is always at work just beneath the surface.

Unfalteringly faithful to its beloved source material, The Merry Spinster also illuminates the unsuspected, and frequently, alarming emotional complexities at play in the stories we tell ourselves, and each other, as we tuck ourselves in for the night.

Bedtime will never be the same.

The daughter cells --
The thankless child --
Fear not: an incident log --
The six boy-coffins --
The rabbit --
The merry spinster --
The wedding party --
Some of us had been threatening our friend Mr.Toad --
Cast your bread upon the waters --
The frog's princess --
Good fences make good neighbors]]> 190 Daniel M. Lavery 1250113423 lp 5 3.27 2018
author: Daniel M. Lavery
name: lp
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/04/16
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review:

]]> 27161156 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062300546.

Hillbilly Elegy recounts J.D. Vance's powerful origin story...

From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate now serving as a U.S. Senator from Ohio and the Republican Vice Presidential candidate for the 2024 election, an incisive account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class.

Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for more than forty years, has been reported with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck.

The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually one of their grandchildren would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that J.D.'s grandparents, aunt, uncle, and, most of all, his mother struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, never fully escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. With piercing honesty, Vance shows how he himself still carries around the demons of his chaotic family history.

A deeply moving memoir, with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.]]> 264 J.D. Vance lp 2
My expectations were clearly too high, but can you blame me? Everyone was raving about this thing!]]> 3.81 2016
author: J.D. Vance
name: lp
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2018/04/16
shelves:
review:
Unimpressive writing, a lackluster story. Were it not for J.D.'s grandmother I would have been bored to tears. He brings up a lot of good questions, important questions that Americans are really asking right now. But he doesn't offer groundbreaking insight as I hoped he would. Everything he said, they were all things I had heard before.

My expectations were clearly too high, but can you blame me? Everyone was raving about this thing!
]]> 31423198 When a DNA test reveals long-buried secrets, three generations of women reunite on Cape Cod for the homecoming of a lifetime.

Marin Bishop has always played by the rules, and it's paid off: at twenty-eight she has a handsome fiancé, a prestigious Manhattan legal career, and the hard-won admiration of her father. But one moment of weakness leaves Marin unemployed and alone, all in a single day. Then a woman claiming to be Marin's half-sister shows up, and it's all Marin can do not to break down completely. Seeking escape, Marin agrees to a road trip to meet the grandmother she never knew she had. As the summer unfolds at her grandmother's quaint beachside B&B, it becomes clear that the truth of her half-sister is just the beginning of revelations that will change Marin's life forever. THE FOREVER SUMMER is a delicious page-turner and a provocative exploration of what happens when our notions of love, truth, and family are put to the ultimate test.]]> 358 Jamie Brenner 0316394874 lp 5 3.83 2017
author: Jamie Brenner
name: lp
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/04/16
shelves:
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]]> 35959678
O'Connell brings us into the delivery room rendering childbirth in all its feverish gore and glory, and shattering the fantasies of a "magical" or "natural" experience that warp our expectations and erode maternal self-esteem.

And Now We Have Everything is an unflinchingly frank, funny, and intimate motherhood story for our times, about needing to have a baby in order to stop being one yourself.]]> 240 Meaghan O'Connell 0316393843 lp 5 3.89 2018
author: Meaghan O'Connell
name: lp
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2018/04/16
date added: 2018/04/16
shelves:
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]]> 35959740
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts, and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from or with the mortals she has come to love.]]> 393 Madeline Miller 0316556343 lp 5 4.22 2018
author: Madeline Miller
name: lp
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/04/09
shelves:
review:
CIRCE is written so beautifully and epically it almost felt metaphysical. I am so sad to not be reading it anymore. I keep having moments where I am thinking about living life fully, motherhood, and feelings that are so human they are biblical and I wonder, "why was I just thinking about that?" It is because I just finished CIRCE. It made me examine what it means to be human. This book whipped me into a world I did not want to leave. I felt like I was dreaming the most wonderful, colorful, and sometimes terrifying things. When I finished the last page I spent hours reading up on Greek mythology, wanting more of Circe and her voice. But outside of this book, it really doesn't exist. One of the best books I've read in years and years.
]]> 39332848
Alison wants to be living a fabulous life filled with myriad social engagements. She just also wants to not shower, put on a bra or leave the house. Plus, she dislikes dancing, the Fourth of July and costume parties that involve skimpy attire. Basically, if it’s fun, count her out, which is too bad, since she so desperately wants you to think she’s fun.

"Tropical Attire Encouraged� came to be on her birthday a few years ago, when her husband, Daniel Quantz, presented her with a hand-bound book of her columns from the first year she was syndicated. He worked late at his office to keep it a surprise. At the top of each one, he included a hand-drawn illustration. Daniel told her he made it because he wanted her to know he believed in her and felt she should be published in book form, and because one year, she gave him an over-the-cabinet-door organizer, and he wanted her to really know—like, on a visceral level—just how crappy her gift was in comparison. (He didn’t say this, but it was implied.)]]> Alison Rosen lp 5
The reason people love Alison Rosen is because she really does feel like your best friend.

This went through my mind while reading: "My best friend Patty has done/said this thing. My best friend Patty would love Alison Rosen. Would my best friend Patty love Alison Rosen more than me? (Probably.) IS Patty Alison Rosen?" It's a lot to think about.

The essays often start with a quirky thought and end in something profound. It's all insanely relatable. I was nodding my head off, laughing my ass off. So now I am head/ass-less thanks to Alison Rosen.

On her podcast Alison has a segment "is it just me or everyone?" Many of the sentiments in TROPICAL ATTIRE perfectly address those "is it just me or everyone" feelings, but so elegantly. Alison Rosen makes this look EASY. But it's hard to do. Yes TROPICAL ATTIRE is funny and sweet but it is also masterful. Not everyone can take those "is it just me or everyone" feelings and perfectly/beautiful explain them in a way that gets people nodding/laughing their butts off.

Alison's writing is sharp, clear, and full of purpose and wit. Alison is able to encapsulate things we all feel in ways we have not considered. TROPICAL ATTIRE is a true delight, and I know you thought you could not love Alison Rosen more, but this book will make you do it.

Plus the whole thing comes from a place love. (The drawings are super sweet and make the book more loveable.)

OH WAIT ONE THING. I love Christmas. LOVE!!!! CHRISTMAS!!!!! C'mon, Alison Rosen. Come love Christmas with me. ]]> 3.72
author: Alison Rosen
name: lp
average rating: 3.72
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/04/02
shelves:
review:
If you know / love Alison Rosen, you are 100% going to love this book. And if you don't know / love Alison Rosen yet, you need to get to know her and you will also love this book, anyway.

The reason people love Alison Rosen is because she really does feel like your best friend.

This went through my mind while reading: "My best friend Patty has done/said this thing. My best friend Patty would love Alison Rosen. Would my best friend Patty love Alison Rosen more than me? (Probably.) IS Patty Alison Rosen?" It's a lot to think about.

The essays often start with a quirky thought and end in something profound. It's all insanely relatable. I was nodding my head off, laughing my ass off. So now I am head/ass-less thanks to Alison Rosen.

On her podcast Alison has a segment "is it just me or everyone?" Many of the sentiments in TROPICAL ATTIRE perfectly address those "is it just me or everyone" feelings, but so elegantly. Alison Rosen makes this look EASY. But it's hard to do. Yes TROPICAL ATTIRE is funny and sweet but it is also masterful. Not everyone can take those "is it just me or everyone" feelings and perfectly/beautiful explain them in a way that gets people nodding/laughing their butts off.

Alison's writing is sharp, clear, and full of purpose and wit. Alison is able to encapsulate things we all feel in ways we have not considered. TROPICAL ATTIRE is a true delight, and I know you thought you could not love Alison Rosen more, but this book will make you do it.

Plus the whole thing comes from a place love. (The drawings are super sweet and make the book more loveable.)

OH WAIT ONE THING. I love Christmas. LOVE!!!! CHRISTMAS!!!!! C'mon, Alison Rosen. Come love Christmas with me.
]]> 21188426
Author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Language: English

It is often said that we have no satisfactory translation of "Don Quixote." To those who are familiar with the original, it savours of truism or platitude to say so, for in truth there can be no thoroughly satisfactory translation of "Don Quixote" into English or any other language. It is not that the Spanish idioms are so utterly unmanageable, or that the untranslatable words, numerous enough no doubt, are so superabundant, but rather that the sententious terseness to which the humour of the book owes its flavour is peculiar to Spanish, and can at best be only distantly imitated in any other tongue.

The history of our English translations of "Don Quixote" is instructive. Shelton's, the first in any language, was made, apparently, about 1608, but not published till 1612. This of course was only the First Part. It has been asserted that the Second, published in 1620, is not the work of Shelton, but there is nothing to support the assertion save the fact that it has less spirit, less of what we generally understand by "go," about it than the first, which would be only natural if the first were the work of a young man writing currente calamo, and the second that of a middle-aged man writing for a bookseller. On the other hand, it is closer and more literal, the style is the same, the very same translations, or mistranslations, occur in it, and it is extremely unlikely that a new translator would, by suppressing his name, have allowed Shelton to carry off the credit.]]> 780 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra lp 0 to-read 3.33 1615
author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
name: lp
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1615
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 35876332 From the #1 bestselling author of The Historian comes a mesmerizing novel that spans the past and the present--and unearths the troubled history of a gorgeous but haunted country.

A young American woman, Alexandra Boyd, has traveled to Sofia, Bulgaria, hoping that life abroad will salve the wounds left by the loss of her beloved brother. Soon after arriving in this elegant East European city, however, she helps an elderly couple into a taxi--and realizes too late that she has accidentally kept one of their bags. Inside she finds an ornately carved wooden box engraved with a name: Stoyan Lazarov. Raising the hinged lid, she discovers that she is holding an urn filled with human ashes.

As Alexandra sets out to locate the family and return this precious item, she will first have to uncover the secrets of a talented musician who was shattered by political oppression--and she will find out all too quickly that this knowledge is fraught with its own danger.

Elizabeth Kostova's new novel is a tale of immense scope that delves into the horrors of a century and traverses the culture and landscape of this mysterious country. Suspenseful and beautifully written, it explores the power of stories, the pull of the past, and the hope and meaning that can sometimes be found in the aftermath of loss.

Advance praise for The Shadow Land

"In The Shadow Land, Elizabeth Kostova, a master storyteller, brings vividly to life an unfamiliar country--Bulgaria--and a painful history that feels particularly relevant now. You won't want to put down this remarkable book."--Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs

"In this brilliant work, what appears at first a minor mystery quickly becomes emblematic of a whole country's hidden history. Lyrical and compelling, The Shadow Land proves a profound meditation on how evil is inflicted, endured, and, through courage and compassion, defeated. Elizabeth Kostova's third novel clearly establishes her as one of America's finest writers."--Ron Rash, author of The Risen

"The Shadow Land is thrilling, and not just as a gripping tale. It's also thrilling to watch such a talented writer cast her spell. The central character actually begins this deft novel in an urn, only to emerge as one of the most memorable characters I've encountered in a long time."--Richard Russo, author of Everybody's Fool

"Transporting . . . draws us into Bulgarian history and character revelation like an elegant, mysterious labyrinth. Page-turning, evocative, and richly imagined."--Dominic Smith, author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

Praise for Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian

"Quite extraordinary . . . Kostova is a natural storyteller. . . . She has refashioned the vampire myth into a compelling contemporary novel, a late-night page-turner." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Hypnotic . . . a thrill ride through history." --The Denver Post

"Part thriller, part history, part romance . . . Kostova has a keen sense of storytelling and she has a marvelous story to tell." --Baltimore Sun

Praise for The Swan Thieves

"Exquisite." --The Boston Globe

"Engrossing." --O: The Oprah Magazine

"Stunning . . . A beautifully written tale of art, love and an obsession triggered by both."--Associated Press]]> 512 Elizabeth Kostova 0345527879 lp 0 to-read 3.88 2017
author: Elizabeth Kostova
name: lp
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 23019294
To her parents' despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession. He also contacts a production company that is eager to document the Barretts' plight. With John, Marjorie's father, out of work for more than a year and the medical bills looming, the family agrees to be filmed, and soon find themselves the unwitting stars of The Possession, a hit reality television show. When events in the Barrett household explode in tragedy, the show and the shocking incidents it captures become the stuff of urban legend.

Fifteen years later, a bestselling writer interviews Marjorie's younger sister, Merry. As she recalls those long ago events that took place when she was just eight years old, long-buried secrets and painful memories that clash with what was broadcast on television begin to surface--and a mind-bending tale of psychological horror is unleashed, raising vexing questions about memory and reality, science and religion, and the very nature of evil.]]> 287 Paul Tremblay 0062363239 lp 1 3.78 2015
author: Paul Tremblay
name: lp
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2015
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2018/01/29
shelves:
review:
Could not finish. Hate the kind of "primary sources" format, the teenagers are so annoying. God I hated them so, so much.
]]> 35604734
A century-spanning novel-in-stories about the inhabitants of a French village, revealing the deception, despair, love, and longing beneath the calm surface of ordinary lives.

What if our homes could tell the stories of others who lived there before us? Set in a small village near Paris, The Balcony follows the inhabitants of a single estate-including a manor and a servants' cottage-over the course of several generations, from the Belle vâpoque to the present day, introducing us to a fascinating cast of characters. A young American au pair develops a crush on her brilliant employer. An ex-courtesan shocks the servants, a Jewish couple in hiding from the Gestapo attract the curiosity of the neighbors, and a housewife begins an affair while renovating her downstairs. Rich and poor, young and old, powerful and persecuted, all of these people are seeking something: meaning, love, a new beginning, or merely survival.

Throughout, cross-generational connections and troubled legacies haunt the same spaces, so that the rose garden, the forest pond, and the balcony off the manor's third floor bedroom become silent witnesses to a century of human drama.

In her debut, Jane Delury writes with masterful economy and profound wisdom about growing up, growing old, marriage, infidelity, motherhood - in other words, about life - weaving a gorgeous tapestry of relationships, life-altering choices, and fleeting moments across the frame of the twentieth century. A sumptuous narrative of place that burrows deep into individual lives to reveal hidden regrets, resentments, and desires, The Balcony is brimming with compassion, natural beauty, and unmistakable humanity.


Praise:

"Shimmering... this multigenerational cast of characters has the reach of an epic novel... The vivid intimacy of Delury's canvas is enhanced by descriptive prose at once concise and lush."―New York Times

"An entrancing debut...instantly engaging."―People

"In an assured debut, a delicate fretwork of lives, relationships, and secrets is built up over the course of a century-and linked by a manor in an ugly French village... Strikingly deft and nuanced; a writer to watch."―Kirkus (Starred Review)

"Not just an extraordinary first novel, The Balcony is the accomplished work of a writer already at ease with a rich combination of language, character and consummate storytelling."―Shelf Awareness

"With the assurance of a seasoned pro, Jane Delury spans decades, adopts a multitude of voices, and explores with the keen-eyed sensibility of Elena Ferrante or Claire Messud marriage, infidelity, motherhood, aging, money, greed, and the workings of fate. A complex and utterly engaging debut."―Alice McDermott

"The Balcony is sweeping, suspenseful, rich with surprises and eerie atmosphere. Jane Delury arrives on the scene of her debut with a sensibility fully formed and a breathtaking array of writerly gifts at her command."―Jennifer Egan

"From the opening pages of The Balcony I was enthralled by Jane Delury's picture of Benneville and by her expansive sense of character. In ways both profound and moving she shows on page after beautiful page how her characters live inextricably in a time and a place. A stellar debut."―MargotLivesey, New York Times bestsellingauthor of Mercury

"A subtly crafted and richly rewarding debut book of fiction...reminiscent of Olive Kitteredge...It is no stretch to mention Delury and [Elizabeth] Strout in the same sentence: Delury's debut book, with wise observations, intriguing twists and indelibly drawn characters, is filled with reading pleasures...The Balcony is an American's love letter to France, and a compelling saga spanning France's past century."―The Washington Post

"The beautifully arranged structure leads the reader back and forth in time through changes in place and history, revealing the interconnected stories of individual characters with a master’s subtlety. Memorable, distinct, surprising, The Balcony evokes two World Wars, a terrorist attack, and family secrets passed on generation to generation, rendering architectural and human interiors with introspective sadness and beauty.� � Citation by American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Committee (Joy Williams, Amy Hempel, Henri Cole, John Guare, and Jayne Anne Phillips)]]> 244 Jane Delury 0316554677 lp 5 2.88 2018
author: Jane Delury
name: lp
average rating: 2.88
book published: 2018
rating: 5
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]]> 52258 The Price of Salt tells the riveting story of Therese Belivet, a stage designer trapped in a department store day job, whose routine is forever shattered by an erotic epiphany - the appearance of Carol Aird, a customer who comes in to buy her daughter a Christmas toy. Therese begins to stalk the alluring suburban housewife, who is trapped in a marriage as stultifying as Therese's job. They fall in love and set out across the United States, pursued by a private investigator who eventually blackmails Carol in a choice between her daughter and her lover.]]> 262 Claire Morgan 0393325997 lp 2 4.03 1952
author: Claire Morgan
name: lp
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1952
rating: 2
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date added: 2018/01/29
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review:
One of the rare occasions where the movie is way better than the book. It was so bleak and depressing, and not well written. This book is important, I'm glad it is here. I wonder if I didn't know the ending (from having seen the movie first) I would have been more invested and curious. Can anybody tell me if any of Highsmith's other books are better?
]]> 29983711 Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan.

So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.]]> 490 Min Jin Lee 1455563935 lp 5 4.25 2017
author: Min Jin Lee
name: lp
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2017
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/01/29
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review:
It took me awhile to read this because I didn't want it to end. The characters were unlike any characters I've read before. Their behavior was believable yet surprising. Noa was firm with his little brother, wanting him to have an education but also allowing him to pursue his interests. Yoseb was incredibly stubborn and his actions were frustrating. The men, all of them, only seemed to be hinderances to the women, who knew what the fuck was going down. But this wasn't too much. It was perfectly written and I believed it. I lived in it. I learned so much about Korea and Japan. The teenagers were so real, not annoying. I loved, loved this book and am quite sad I'm no longer inside of it. xoxo
]]> 32572166 A gorgeous, darkly humorous memoir about a woman overcoming dramatic loss and finding reinvention—for readers of Cheryl Strayed and Joan Didion

When thirty-eight-year-old New Yorker writer Ariel Levy left for a reporting trip to Mongolia in 2012, she was pregnant, married, financially secure, and successful on her own terms. A month later, none of that was true.

Levy picks you up and hurls you through the story of how she built an unconventional life and then watched it fall apart with astonishing speed. Like much of her generation, she was raised to resist traditional rules—about work, about love, and about womanhood.

“I wanted what we all want: everything. We want a mate who feels like family and a lover who is exotic, surprising. We want to be youthful adventurers and middle-aged mothers. We want intimacy and autonomy, safety and stimulation, reassurance and novelty, coziness and thrills. But we can’t have it all.�

In this profound and beautiful memoir, Levy chronicles the adventure and heartbreak of being “a woman who is free to do whatever she chooses.� Her own story of resilience becomes an unforgettable portrait of the shifting forces in our culture, of what has changed—and of what is eternal.

]]> 207 Ariel Levy 0812996933 lp 3 3.68 2017
author: Ariel Levy
name: lp
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2018/01/29
date added: 2018/01/29
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3.5 stars. I had just finished THE NIX (yuck!) and this is just what I needed. Beautiful writing, a pretty good story.
]]> 31848273 Goodbye, Vitamin is the wry, beautifully observed story of a woman at a crossroads, as Ruth and her friends attempt to shore up her father's career; she and her mother obsess over the ambiguous health benefits - in the absence of a cure - of dried jellyfish supplements and vitamin pills; and they all try to forge a new relationship with the brilliant, childlike, irascible man her father has become.]]> 196 Rachel Khong lp 0 3.66 2017
author: Rachel Khong
name: lp
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/01/10
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]]> 28251002
To save her, Samuel will have to embark on his own journey, uncovering long-buried secrets about the woman he thought he knew, secrets that stretch across generations and have their origin all the way back in Norway, home of the mysterious Nix. As he does so, Samuel will confront not only Faye’s losses but also his own lost love, and will relearn everything he thought he knew about his mother, and himself.]]> 625 Nathan Hill 110194661X lp 2 4.08 2016
author: Nathan Hill
name: lp
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2016
rating: 2
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date added: 2018/01/10
shelves:
review:
Nobody told Nathan Hill to kill his darlings and they should have. This book was overrated, far too long, and disappointing. If a woman had written it it would have received 35% of the credit. I was having major Franzen PTSD.
]]> 27746288 Goodbye, Vitamin is the wry, beautifully observed story of a woman at a crossroads, as Ruth and her friends attempt to shore up her father's career; she and her mother obsess over the ambiguous health benefits - in the absence of a cure - of dried jellyfish supplements and vitamin pills; and they all try to forge a new relationship with the brilliant, childlike, irascible man her father has become.]]> 208 Rachel Khong 1250109167 lp 4
The deeper I got into the book, the more I started to appreciate those tiny, nothing moments and now I think they are brilliant.

The more time that passes in reading Goodbye, Vitamin, the more I am blown away by it. ]]> 3.72 2017
author: Rachel Khong
name: lp
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/01/10
shelves:
review:
When I was reading this, I kept thinking how it was just a bunch of tiny dull moments, who cares, they weren't that important or well written. They were so simple.

The deeper I got into the book, the more I started to appreciate those tiny, nothing moments and now I think they are brilliant.

The more time that passes in reading Goodbye, Vitamin, the more I am blown away by it.
]]> 30763882
A young woman named Amanda lies dying in a rural hospital clinic. A boy named David sits beside her. She’s not his mother. He's not her child. Together, they tell a haunting story of broken souls, toxins, and the power and desperation of family.

Fever Dream is a nightmare come to life, a ghost story for the real world, a love story and a cautionary tale. One of the freshest new voices to come out of the Spanish language and translated into English for the first time, Samanta Schweblin creates an aura of strange psychological menace and otherworldly reality in this absorbing, unsettling, taut novel.]]> 183 Samanta Schweblin 0399184597 lp 2 What did I just read 3.62 2014
author: Samanta Schweblin
name: lp
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2014
rating: 2
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date added: 2018/01/10
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What did I just read
]]> 91289
It is 1889, and the civil war is brewing in Mexico. Sixteen year old Teresita, illegitimate but beloved daughter of the wealthy and powerful rancher Don Tomas Urrea, wakes from the strangest dream - a dream that she has died. Only it was not a dream. This passionate and rebellious young woman has arisen from the dead with the power to heal - but it will take all her faith to endure the trials that await her and her family now that she has become the Saint of Cabora.

The Hummingbird's Daughter is a vast, hugely satisfying novel of love and loss, joy and pain. Two decades in the writing, this is the masterpiece that Luis Alberto Urrea has been building up to.]]> 499 Luis Alberto Urrea 0316154520 lp 5 4.20 2005
author: Luis Alberto Urrea
name: lp
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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Funny, magical, a tale perfectly spun.
]]> 45195 A Passage to India compellingly depicts the fate of individuals caught between the great political and cultural conflicts of the modern world.

In his introduction, Pankaj Mishra outlines Forster's complex engagement with Indian society and culture. This edition reproduces the Abinger text and notes, and also includes four of Forster's essays on India, a chronology and further reading.]]> 376 E.M. Forster 014144116X lp 0 to-read 3.69 1924
author: E.M. Forster
name: lp
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1924
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/01/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 35952871
Curtis Sittenfeld has established a reputation as a sharp chronicler of the modern age who humanizes her subjects even as she skewers them. Now, with this first collection of short fiction, her “astonishing gift for creating characters that take up residence in readers� heads� (The Washington Post) is showcased like never before. Throughout the ten stories in You Think It, I’ll Say It, Sittenfeld upends assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided.

With moving insight and uncanny precision, Curtis Sittenfeld pinpoints the questionable decisions, missed connections, and sometimes extraordinary coincidences that make up a life. Indeed, she writes what we’re all thinking—if only we could express it with the wit of a master satirist, the storytelling gifts of an old-fashioned raconteur, and the vision of an American original.]]> 226 Curtis Sittenfeld 0399592865 lp 0 to-read 3.66 2017
author: Curtis Sittenfeld
name: lp
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> 33375622 Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.

A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store's prom dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella Especially Heinous, Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naively assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgangers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes.

Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.

The husband stitch --
Inventory --
Mothers --
Especially heinous --
Real women have bodies --
Eight bites --
The resident --
Difficult at parties]]> 248 Carmen Maria Machado 155597788X lp 0 to-read 3.85 2017
author: Carmen Maria Machado
name: lp
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/01/10
shelves: to-read
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]]>