en-US Thu, 03 Apr 2025 16:10:52 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 203019740 From the New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that spans decades.

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Mohammed Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing.

When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy with one eye, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake.

Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession, and the blinding light of hope.]]> 608 Chris Whitaker 0593798872 Kyle 0 currently-reading 4.24 2024
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 44424442 Every Wednesday, like clockwork, the terror returns.

It seems like an ordinary Wednesday, until the phone rings. A mysterious caller with a chilling threat. Journalist Alice Henderson hangs up, ready to dismiss it as a hoax against the newspaper. But the next Wednesday, the stalker makes another move—and it becomes clear that this is all about Alice.

Someone wants her to suffer, but for what? Her articles have made her a popular local champion—could it be her past rather than her work that’s put her life in danger? Alice is determined not to give in to fear, but with the police investigation at a dead end, her boyfriend insists on hiring private investigator Matthew Hill.

With every passing Wednesday the warnings escalate, until it’s not only Alice but also her family in the stalker’s sights. As her tormentor closes in, can Alice uncover what she’s being punished for before the terrifying threats become an unthinkable reality?]]> 321 Teresa Driscoll Kyle 0 to-read 4.13 2019
author: Teresa Driscoll
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216223609 The nightmare she’s running from is nothing compared to where she’s headed.

Tegan is eight months pregnant, alone, and desperately wants to put her crumbling life in the rearview mirror. So she hits the road, planning to stay with her brother until she can figure out her next move. But she doesn’t realize she’s heading straight into a blizzard.

She never arrives at her destination.

Stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and broken ankle, Tegan worries she’s made a terrible mistake. Then a miracle she is rescued by a couple who offers her a room in their warm cabin until the snow clears.

But something isn’t right. Tegan believed she was waiting out the storm, but as time ticks by, she comes to realize she is in grave danger. This safe haven isn’t what she thought it was, and staying here may have been her most deadly mistake yet.

And now she must do whatever it takes to save herself—and her unborn child.

A gut-wrenching story of motherhood, survival, and twisted expectations, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden delivers a snowbound thriller that will chill you to the bone.
]]> 384 Freida McFadden 1464227322 Kyle 1 1.5 stars

Very standard Frida McFadden, while surprisingly straightforward and relatively predictable. One of the twists was too offensively lame and out of left field (still saw it coming, but the explanation itself was just laughable), so I knocked it down from a 2.

I do have a hard time putting these down, and I can’t explain why I keep reading when I know what the quality will be. Just too addictive. ]]> 3.72 2025
author: Freida McFadden
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2025
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves:
review:
1.5 stars

Very standard Frida McFadden, while surprisingly straightforward and relatively predictable. One of the twists was too offensively lame and out of left field (still saw it coming, but the explanation itself was just laughable), so I knocked it down from a 2.

I do have a hard time putting these down, and I can’t explain why I keep reading when I know what the quality will be. Just too addictive.
]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 382 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Kyle 4
I think this shares some of the weaknesses of Ballad but does overall have a more emotionally engaging core shifting the series back to District 12, but I would like to visit a new setting if this isn't the final book. While it does make sense to tie in certain character appearances given the proximity to the start of the original trilogy, having so many introduced in that first chapter certainly threw me off and I was afraid of what the remainder of the book would look like.

The pacing of this one feels a little off in places, but the reduction in page count compared to Ballad definitely brings the series closer to the near-perfection of pacing in the original books. I disagree with this book not having anything new to say that hasn't already been covered in the original books, although I wouldn't say the perspective itself is as powerful as especially Mockingjay.

I did feel that some of the characterizations and development of the new side characters were lacking a bit of depth than I would've liked, but I think we get what we need from our central cast (and of course, Haymitch).

The epilogue was chef's kiss- no notes.

I actually think my opinion on this one will improve with time, but for now I'm sticking with a 4.25 while I wait to see how much staying power this one has in my memory. ]]> 4.67 2025
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves:
review:
This one started out a little rough for me, but has a really strong ending (although I could've done without another reprisal of The Raven).

I think this shares some of the weaknesses of Ballad but does overall have a more emotionally engaging core shifting the series back to District 12, but I would like to visit a new setting if this isn't the final book. While it does make sense to tie in certain character appearances given the proximity to the start of the original trilogy, having so many introduced in that first chapter certainly threw me off and I was afraid of what the remainder of the book would look like.

The pacing of this one feels a little off in places, but the reduction in page count compared to Ballad definitely brings the series closer to the near-perfection of pacing in the original books. I disagree with this book not having anything new to say that hasn't already been covered in the original books, although I wouldn't say the perspective itself is as powerful as especially Mockingjay.

I did feel that some of the characterizations and development of the new side characters were lacking a bit of depth than I would've liked, but I think we get what we need from our central cast (and of course, Haymitch).

The epilogue was chef's kiss- no notes.

I actually think my opinion on this one will improve with time, but for now I'm sticking with a 4.25 while I wait to see how much staying power this one has in my memory.
]]> 48635408
Men Who Hate Women examines the rise of secretive extremist communities who despise women and traces the roots of misogyny across a complex spider web of groups. It includes eye-opening interviews with former members of these communities, the academics studying this movement, and the men fighting back.

Women's rights activist Laura Bates wrote this book as someone who has been the target of many hate-fueled misogynistic attacks online. At first, the vitriol seemed to be the work of a small handful of individual men... but over time, the volume and consistency of the attacks hinted at something bigger and more ominous. As Bates went undercover into the corners of the internet, she found an unseen, organized movement of thousands of anonymous men wishing violence (and worse) upon women.
In the book, Bates explores:

Extreme communities like incels, pick-up artists, MGTOW, Men's Rights Activists and more
The hateful, toxic rhetoric used by these groups
How this movement connects to other extremist movements like white supremacy
How young boys are targeted and slowly drawn in
Where this ideology shows up in our everyday lives in mainstream media, our playgrounds, and our government

By turns fascinating and horrifying, Men Who Hate Women is a broad, unflinching account of the deep current of loathing toward women and anti-feminism that underpins our society and is a must-read for parents, educators, and anyone who believes in equality for women.]]> 366 Laura Bates Kyle 0 to-read 4.34 2020
author: Laura Bates
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 48915089
But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes.

To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past, and more troublingly, the future - outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it.]]> 355 Rivers Solomon 0374266778 Kyle 0 to-read 3.82 2021
author: Rivers Solomon
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 205363963
The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things—the strange and the unexplainable—began to happen in their house. Maybe it was some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper-middle class. Whatever it was, the Maxwells, steered by their formidable mother, stayed put, unwilling to abandon their home, terrors and trauma be damned.

As adults, the siblings could finally get away from the horrors of home, leaving their parents all alone in the house. But when news of their parents' death arrives, Ezri is forced to return to Texas with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with their family’s past and present, and to find out what happened while they were away. It was not a “natural� death for their parents . . . but was it supernatural?

Rivers Solomon turns the haunted-house story on its head, unearthing the dark legacies of segregation and racism in the suburban American South. Unbridled, raw, and daring, Model Home is the story of secret histories uncovered, and of a queer family battling for their right to live, grieve, and heal amid the terrors of contemporary American life.]]> 304 Rivers Solomon 0374607133 Kyle 4
Was a little let down by the resolution of one of the particular subplots, and kind of wanted a little more exploration of the implications left by the answers to the overarching mystery, but was overall satisfied with the direction of the story.

A horror novel definitely, but more psychological than blood and guts for anyone expecting a straightforward ghost/haunted house story.

Would read more by Solomon. ]]> 3.73 2024
author: Rivers Solomon
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves:
review:
A really unique exploration of familiar themes. The prose sometimes frustrated me, but I appreciated how distinct the voice truly was.

Was a little let down by the resolution of one of the particular subplots, and kind of wanted a little more exploration of the implications left by the answers to the overarching mystery, but was overall satisfied with the direction of the story.

A horror novel definitely, but more psychological than blood and guts for anyone expecting a straightforward ghost/haunted house story.

Would read more by Solomon.
]]> 57693472
Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren’t alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back, and is slowly stripping Vera’s childhood for spare parts. He insists that he isn’t the one leaving notes around the house in her father’s handwriting� but who else could it possibly be?

There are secrets yet undiscovered in the foundations of the notorious Crowder House. Vera must face them, and find out for herself just how deep the rot goes.]]> 344 Sarah Gailey 1250174724 Kyle 0 to-read 3.32 2022
author: Sarah Gailey
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62919847 A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

Gracetown, Florida
June 1950

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

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

The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.]]> 576 Tananarive Due 1982188340 Kyle 0 to-read 4.44 2023
author: Tananarive Due
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58724622
But lately, things have been changing inside Mary. Along with the hot flashes and body aches, she can’t look in a mirror without passing out, and the voices in her head have been urging her to do unspeakable things.

Fired from her job in New York, she moves back to her hometown, hoping to reconnect with her past and inner self. Instead, visions of terrifying, mutilated specters overwhelm her with increasing regularity and she begins auto-writing strange thoughts and phrases. Mary discovers that these experiences are echoes of an infamous serial killer.

Then the killings begin again.

Mary’s definitely going to find herself.]]> 405 Nat Cassidy 1250265231 Kyle 0 to-read 3.78 2022
author: Nat Cassidy
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 212342605 HungerstoneĚýis a thrillingly seductive sapphic romance for fans of S.T. Gibson’sĚýA Dowry of BloodĚýand Emilia Hart’sĚýWeyward.

For what do you hunger, Lenore?

Lenore is the wife of steel magnate Henry, but ten years into their marriage, the relationship has soured and no child has arrived to fill the distance growing between them. Henry's ambitions take them out of London and to the imposing Nethershaw manor in the countryside, where Henry aims to host a hunt with society’s finest. Lenore keeps a terrible secret from the last time her husband hunted, and though they never speak of it, it haunts their marriage to this day.

The preparations for the event take a turn when a carriage accident near their remote home brings the mysterious Carmilla into Lenore's life. Carmilla who is weak and pale during the day but vibrant at night; Carmilla who stirs up a hunger deep within Lenore. Soon girls from local villages begin to fall sick before being consumed by a bloody hunger.

Torn between regaining her husband's affection and Carmilla's ever-growing presence, Lenore begins to unravel her past and in doing so, uncovers a darkness in her household that will place her at terrible risk . . .

Set against the violent wilderness of the moors and the uncontrolled appetite of the industrial revolution,ĚýHungerstoneĚýis a compulsive feminist reworking ofĚýCarmilla, the book that inspiredĚýDracula: a captivating story of appetite and desire.]]> 336 Kat Dunn 1638932166 Kyle 0 to-read 4.03 2025
author: Kat Dunn
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55077657 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250236210.

Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend.

Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a lot. Chambers' series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?]]> 147 Becky Chambers Kyle 2 2.5 stars

A perfectly fine, sweet book. Just too low-stakes for me. I’m not surprised it’s found its audience though.]]> 4.25 2021
author: Becky Chambers
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves:
review:
2.5 stars

A perfectly fine, sweet book. Just too low-stakes for me. I’m not surprised it’s found its audience though.
]]> 7260188 My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans—except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay—no matter what the personal cost.]]> 390 Suzanne Collins 0439023513 Kyle 5 favorites
Even after 15 years, this book is genuinely harrowing, with moments of beauty and horror that feel unexpected even after reading the first two books. It so powerfully captures the horror and devastation of war, grief, PTSD, the fragility of revolutions, while imbuing such a strong sense of hope and resilience and, above all, love.

The plot twists keep the story engaging and the additional characters in the cast all feel worthwhile, injecting us into a completely new setting in a final book. One of the strongest moments in the book that nearly moved me to tears despite being my third read was the reunion between Katniss and Buttercup in the final chapter. Even a moment as small as that is so packed with pain and guilt it was hard to stomach. Being in Katniss' mind during those final chapters was such a dark space to inhabit, but the repurposing of the Everdeen family plant book as a memorial for all those lost somehow stitched my heart back together before the simple but resonant epilogue.

Another highlight from my overall reread of the trilogy that I hadn't anticipated in the 10 years since I last reread the trilogy was how strong Katniss' father presence lingers in each book, particularly this final installment. It's so many of those small ways Katniss still finds him in her life that add so much humanity and texture to her character and remind us that she is still just a teenage girl who is thrust into situations she has no business being expected to participate in.

I do think the frenetic nature towards the end of the invasion of the Capitol can be overwhelming and at times difficult to follow, with deaths like Castor and even Finnick seeming to happen at random and quickly moved past, which I think is a valid criticism, but I do attribute that ultimately to the first person present POV of Katniss and how she is experiencing the chaos around her. While many have disparaged the pacing over the years compared to the first two installments, I reject this as I feel there is plenty happening throughout the story prior to the final battle, although the plot and setting are noticeably different, which can be jarring depending on your expectations previously set. Katniss' character arc is another common source of frustration, however, this book feels like a pretty natural progression after rereading all of the books back-to-back and tracking this arc from the first book to Mockingjay.

Amazing, amazing book. Will probably always be one of my favorites, no matter how many times it breaks my heart.]]> 4.10 2010
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: favorites
review:
After 2025 reread: I totally understand where the disappointment typically comes from with this finale, but this will always stand as the strongest book overall in the series for me (I do feel the first is also on par with this, but it's hard to compare the scope of both).

Even after 15 years, this book is genuinely harrowing, with moments of beauty and horror that feel unexpected even after reading the first two books. It so powerfully captures the horror and devastation of war, grief, PTSD, the fragility of revolutions, while imbuing such a strong sense of hope and resilience and, above all, love.

The plot twists keep the story engaging and the additional characters in the cast all feel worthwhile, injecting us into a completely new setting in a final book. One of the strongest moments in the book that nearly moved me to tears despite being my third read was the reunion between Katniss and Buttercup in the final chapter. Even a moment as small as that is so packed with pain and guilt it was hard to stomach. Being in Katniss' mind during those final chapters was such a dark space to inhabit, but the repurposing of the Everdeen family plant book as a memorial for all those lost somehow stitched my heart back together before the simple but resonant epilogue.

Another highlight from my overall reread of the trilogy that I hadn't anticipated in the 10 years since I last reread the trilogy was how strong Katniss' father presence lingers in each book, particularly this final installment. It's so many of those small ways Katniss still finds him in her life that add so much humanity and texture to her character and remind us that she is still just a teenage girl who is thrust into situations she has no business being expected to participate in.

I do think the frenetic nature towards the end of the invasion of the Capitol can be overwhelming and at times difficult to follow, with deaths like Castor and even Finnick seeming to happen at random and quickly moved past, which I think is a valid criticism, but I do attribute that ultimately to the first person present POV of Katniss and how she is experiencing the chaos around her. While many have disparaged the pacing over the years compared to the first two installments, I reject this as I feel there is plenty happening throughout the story prior to the final battle, although the plot and setting are noticeably different, which can be jarring depending on your expectations previously set. Katniss' character arc is another common source of frustration, however, this book feels like a pretty natural progression after rereading all of the books back-to-back and tracking this arc from the first book to Mockingjay.

Amazing, amazing book. Will probably always be one of my favorites, no matter how many times it breaks my heart.
]]> 211004079 A woman invited to her wealthy fiance’s family retreat realizes they are hiding a terrible secret—and that she’s been there before, by the bestselling author of What Lies in the Woods.

A whirlwind romance.
When Theodora Scott met Connor—wealthy, charming, and a member of the powerful Dalton family—she fell in love in an instant. Six months later, he’s brought her to Idlewood, his family’s isolated winter retreat, to win over his skeptical relatives.

Stay away from Connor Dalton.
Theo has tried to ignore the threatening messages on her phone, but she can’t ignore the footprints in the snow outside the cabin window or the strange sense of familiarity she has about this place. Then, in a disused cabin, Theo finds something impossible: a photo of herself as a child. A photo taken at Idlewood.

I’ve been here before.
Theo has almost no recollection of her earliest years, but now she begins to piece together the fragments of her memories. Someone here has a shocking secret that they will do anything to keep hidden, and Theo is in terrible danger. Because the Daltons do not lose, and discovering what happened at Idlewood may cost Theo everything.]]> 291 Kate Alice Marshall 1250343054 Kyle 0 to-read 3.80 2025
author: Kate Alice Marshall
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6148028 Sparks are igniting.
Flames are spreading.
And the Capitol wants revenge.

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol—a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest that she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before . . . and surprising readers at every turn.]]> 391 Suzanne Collins 0439023491 Kyle 5
I still find the structure jarring, although I appreciate how Collins manages to write a sequel that creates and completes a satisfying narrative arc and avoiding Middle Book Syndrome. Knowing the foreshadowing of what’s to come makes the payoff all the better.

Katniss� character arc across this trilogy is always a highlight of my rereads. Catching Fire sets the stage for her controversial (at least at the time in 2010) arc in Mockingjay perfectly. Very excited to move on to Mockingjay, which has always been, and I expect will still be, my favorite of the 4 books.]]> 4.34 2009
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: favorites, re-read, phenominal, series-great, violence-galore
review:
After my 2025 reread: Amazing book, but still stands as my least favorite of the trilogy.

I still find the structure jarring, although I appreciate how Collins manages to write a sequel that creates and completes a satisfying narrative arc and avoiding Middle Book Syndrome. Knowing the foreshadowing of what’s to come makes the payoff all the better.

Katniss� character arc across this trilogy is always a highlight of my rereads. Catching Fire sets the stage for her controversial (at least at the time in 2010) arc in Mockingjay perfectly. Very excited to move on to Mockingjay, which has always been, and I expect will still be, my favorite of the 4 books.
]]> 2767052
Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . .

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.]]> 374 Suzanne Collins 0439023483 Kyle 5 favorites
Katniss Everdeen will always be the most iconic protagonist of the YA dystopian craze of the late 2000s/early 2010s. The world feels believable and so well-crafted in the violence, hope, and desperation that we experience through Katniss' eyes.

There is so much that I picked up on at a younger age that only grows more horrifying reading at 25 vs. 10. Collins walks a tightrope between an engaging story for a teen audience that still is thought-provoking for an adult audience.

I'm sure we will have a series that will meet the quality put out in The Hunger Games original trilogy, but this still stands in a league with few others in its genre. ]]> 4.34 2008
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: favorites
review:
After my 2025 re-read: Still holds up incredibly well. The prose is a little sparse, but it's obviously geared to be accessible to a younger demographic.

Katniss Everdeen will always be the most iconic protagonist of the YA dystopian craze of the late 2000s/early 2010s. The world feels believable and so well-crafted in the violence, hope, and desperation that we experience through Katniss' eyes.

There is so much that I picked up on at a younger age that only grows more horrifying reading at 25 vs. 10. Collins walks a tightrope between an engaging story for a teen audience that still is thought-provoking for an adult audience.

I'm sure we will have a series that will meet the quality put out in The Hunger Games original trilogy, but this still stands in a league with few others in its genre.
]]> 217506549 368 Julie Clark 1464221286 Kyle 0 to-read 4.25 2025
author: Julie Clark
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 28111713
Against the wishes of his mother, sixteen-year-old Ray Garraty is about to compete in the annual grueling match of stamina and wits known as the Long Walk. One hundred boys must keep a steady pace of four miles per hour without ever stopping...with the winner being awarded “The Prize”—anything he wants for the rest of his life. But, as part of this national tournament that sweeps through a dystopian America year after year, there are some harsh rules that Garraty and ninety-nine others must adhere to in order to beat out the rest. There is no finish line—the winner is the last man standing. Contestants cannot receive any outside aid whatsoever. Slow down under the speed limit and you’re given a warning. Three warnings and you’re out of the game—permanently...]]> 320 Richard Bachman 150114426X Kyle 3 3.5 stars

This one really took me by surprise in the second half after a rocky start. The emotional catharsis towards the end was so strong.

At first I thought the characters and world were a bit too shallow for me, but Stephen King really had some interesting psychological landscapes for many of them. The Vietnam War allegory is biting as well, reminds me so much of why I love dystopian novels and want to dive back into them this year.

If the movie adaptation is faithful, this one will be a tearjerker. ]]> 3.90 1978
author: Richard Bachman
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1978
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars

This one really took me by surprise in the second half after a rocky start. The emotional catharsis towards the end was so strong.

At first I thought the characters and world were a bit too shallow for me, but Stephen King really had some interesting psychological landscapes for many of them. The Vietnam War allegory is biting as well, reminds me so much of why I love dystopian novels and want to dive back into them this year.

If the movie adaptation is faithful, this one will be a tearjerker.
]]> 60784349

Mickey7 is an Expendable: a disposable employee on a human expedition sent to colonize the ice world Niflheim. Whenever there’s a mission that’s too dangerous—even suicidal—the crew turns to Mickey. After one iteration dies, a new body is regenerated with most of his memories intact.

On a routine scouting mission, Mickey7 goes missing and is presumed dead. By the time he returns to the colony base, his fate has been sealed. There’s a new clone, Mickey8, reporting for Expendable duties. The idea of duplicate Expendables is universally loathed, and, if caught, they face being recycled into protein to feed a hungry colony. Meanwhile, life on Niflheim is getting worse, and the native species are growing curious about their new neighbors, which has Commander Marshall very afraid. Ultimately, the survival of both lifeforms will come down to Mickey7.

That is, if he can just keep from dying for good.]]> 320 Edward Ashton 1250875285 Kyle 2 2.5 stars

Curious what the film adaptation of this will be like. It’s not the most eventful story.

I struggled with the comedic tone of this one. It has some interesting ideas, but I really couldn’t bring myself to get attached to any of the characters. A few laughs here and there, but I’m not sure it really worked for me.

Not bad, but not something I’ll think back to much.]]> 3.70 2022
author: Edward Ashton
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves:
review:
2.5 stars

Curious what the film adaptation of this will be like. It’s not the most eventful story.

I struggled with the comedic tone of this one. It has some interesting ideas, but I really couldn’t bring myself to get attached to any of the characters. A few laughs here and there, but I’m not sure it really worked for me.

Not bad, but not something I’ll think back to much.
]]> 8705784 Don’t miss this spectacular new series that will steal your heart and haunt your dreams, Welcome to Shadow Falls camp, nestled deep in the woods of a town called Fallen�

One night Kylie Galen finds herself at the wrong party, with the wrong people, and it changes her life forever. Her mother ships her off to Shadow Falls—a camp for troubled teens, and within hours of arriving, it becomes painfully clear that her fellow campers aren’t just “troubled.� Here at Shadow Falls, vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters, witches and fairies train side by side—learning to harness their powers, control their magic and live in the normal world.

Kylie’s never felt normal, but surely she doesn’t belong here with a bunch of paranormal freaks either. Or does she? They insist Kylie is one of them, and that she was brought here for a reason. As if life wasn’t complicated enough, enter Derek and Lucas. Derek’s a half-fae who’s determined to be her boyfriend, and Lucas is a smokin� hot werewolf with whom Kylie shares a secret past. Both Derek and Lucas couldn’t be more different, but they both have a powerful hold on her heart.

Even though Kylie feels deeply uncertain about everything, one thing is becoming painfully clear—Shadow Falls is exactly where she belongs…]]> 398 C.C. Hunter 0312624670 Kyle 1 4.11 2011
author: C.C. Hunter
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2011
rating: 1
read at: 2012/04/24
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 1217100 You can’t stop the future.
You can’t rewind the past.
The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play.

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker–his classmate and crush–who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he’ll find out why.

Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah’s pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.]]> 288 Jay Asher 1595141715 Kyle 1 4.00 2007
author: Jay Asher
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2007
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 57423632 Out of Love begins at the end. A couple call it quits after nearly five years, and while holding a box of her ex-boyfriend's belongings, the young woman wonders: How could they have spent so long together? When did they fall out of love? Were there good times before the bad? These are the questions we obsess over when a relationship ends, even when obsessing can do no good. But instead of moving forward through the emotional fallout of a break-up, Out of Love moves backward in time, weaving together an already unraveled tapestry, from tragic ending to magical first kiss. Each chapter jumps further into the past, mining their history for the days and details that might help us understand love; how it happens and why it sometimes falls apart.

Readers of Normal People; Goodbye, Vitamin; and One Day will adore this bittersweet romance, a sparkling debut that you won't want to miss.]]> 416 Hazel Hayes 0593184521 Kyle 4 <b>4.5 stars</b> 3.77 2020
author: Hazel Hayes
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves:
review:
4.5 stars
]]> 12987134
Alexander didn’t believe in love at first sight until he met Patti. She’s the kind of girl you hear about in gorgeous, feisty, and dangerous. Being with Patti is better than any high, and he can’t live without her.
But Alexander’s not the only one who wants to be with Patti. Burke ruthlessly takes what he wants and will kill to protect what is his. And he won’t let Patti go without a fight. If Patti and Alexander are going to be together, their love will come at a steep price. Because some promises are meant to be broken, and not all debts can be paid in cash�.]]> 544 Jason Myers 1442446277 Kyle 2 3.78 2012
author: Jason Myers
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2012
rating: 2
read at: 2012/07/21
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: awesome-cover, give-me-a-break, lust-not-love, massive-dissapointment, really-excited, so-so-reviews, where-for-art-thou-plot, 2012
review:

]]> 199700434 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide.

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

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 478 Liz Moore 0593418913 Kyle 5
Really satisfied by the story and conclusion to the mystery. Kept me engaged the entire way. I can definitely see why some may have issue with the pacing and number of POV characters, but I really enjoyed how thorough the narrative was and found myself intrigued by most of the characters, although of course there were POVs I found myself much more engaged by.

My only complaints are the resolution of Alice's POV, of which I wanted more from at the end, and some of the repetitiveness of the prose, especially given how long the book is. Far from a perfect book, but one I closed content upon finishing.]]> 4.10 2024
author: Liz Moore
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves:
review:
I expected to enjoy this one going in, but it really surpassed my expectations.

Really satisfied by the story and conclusion to the mystery. Kept me engaged the entire way. I can definitely see why some may have issue with the pacing and number of POV characters, but I really enjoyed how thorough the narrative was and found myself intrigued by most of the characters, although of course there were POVs I found myself much more engaged by.

My only complaints are the resolution of Alice's POV, of which I wanted more from at the end, and some of the repetitiveness of the prose, especially given how long the book is. Far from a perfect book, but one I closed content upon finishing.
]]> 214152057 When a beloved actress is cast in a feminist adaptation of a Fitzgerald classic, she finds herself the victim in a deadly game of revenge in which everyone, on screen and off, is playing a part.

Lila Crayne is America’s sweetheart: she’s generous and kind, gorgeous and magnetic. She and her fiancé, visionary filmmaker Kurt Royall, have settled into a stunning new West Village apartment and are set to begin filming their feminist adaptation of Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night.

To prepare for the leading role, Lila begins working with charming and accomplished therapist Jonah Gabriel to dig into the trauma of her past. Soon, Lila’s impeccably manicured life begins to unravel on the therapy couch—and Jonah is just the man to pick up the pieces. But everyone has a secret, and no one is quite who they seem.

A twisty, thought-provoking novel of construction and deconstruction in conversation with the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and told through the lens of the film industry, Sweet Fury is an incisive and bold critique of America’s deep-rooted misogyny. With this novel, Bischoff examines the narratives we tell ourselves, and what happens when we co-opt others into those stories; and she probes the blurred lines between victim and perpetrator and the true meaning of justice.]]> 288 Sash Bischoff 1668043254 Kyle 0 to-read 3.42
author: Sash Bischoff
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.42
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 207252770
Once home to Vanessa: A famous artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared twenty years ago.

Now home to Grace: A solitary creature of the tides, content in her own isolation.

But when a shocking discovery is made in an art gallery far away in London, a visitor comes calling.

And the secrets of Eris threaten to emerge . . .

A masterful novel that is as page-turning as it is unsettling, The Blue Hour recalls the sophisticated suspense of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith, and cements Hawkins’s place among the very best of our most nuanced and stylish storytellers.]]> 320 Paula Hawkins 0063396521 Kyle 3 3.5 stars

I enjoyed this one, but not nearly as much as The Girl on the Train and A Slow Fire Burning. I think the story is just a little too slow, meandering, with too many threads that just don't have sufficient pay-off.

I do always love the way Hawkins writes, and her characters, but I just don't feel this is her strongest work. Still look forward to whatever she publishes next.]]> 3.25 2024
author: Paula Hawkins
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars

I enjoyed this one, but not nearly as much as The Girl on the Train and A Slow Fire Burning. I think the story is just a little too slow, meandering, with too many threads that just don't have sufficient pay-off.

I do always love the way Hawkins writes, and her characters, but I just don't feel this is her strongest work. Still look forward to whatever she publishes next.
]]> 210906882 From Eric LaRocca—Bram Stoker Award–nominated and Splatterpunk Award–winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke—c´Çłľ±đ˛ő At Dark, I Become Loathsome, a grim yet gentle, horrifying yet hopeful, intense tale of death, trauma, and love.

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

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

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

Only through pain can we find healing. Only through death can we find new life.]]> 178 Eric LaRocca Kyle 0 to-read 3.36 2025
author: Eric LaRocca
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 205436018 Han Kang’s most revelatory book since The Vegetarian, We Do Not Part tells the story of a friendship between two women while powerfully reckoning with a hidden chapter of Korean history.

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

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

Blurring the boundaries between dream and reality, We Do Not Part powerfully illuminates a forgotten chapter in Korean history, buried for decades—bringing to light the lost voices of the past to save them from oblivion. Both a hymn to an enduring friendship and an argument for remembering, it is the story of profound love in the face of unspeakable violence—and a celebration of life, however fragile it might be.]]> 256 Han Kang 0593595459 Kyle 0 to-read 3.88 2021
author: Han Kang
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 205363938 A medical crisis brings one man close to death—and to love, art, and beauty—in a profound and luminous novel by award-winning author Garth Greenwell.

A poet's life is turned inside out by a sudden, wrenching pain. The pain brings him to his knees, and eventually to the ICU. Confined to bed, plunged into the dysfunctional American healthcare system, he struggles to understand what is happening to his body, as someone who has lived for many years in his mind.

This is a searching, sweeping novel set at the furthest edges of human experience, where the forces that give life value—art, memory, poetry, music, care—are thrown into sharp relief. Time expands and contracts. Sudden intimacies bloom. Small Rain surges beyond the hospital to encompass a radiant vision of human life: our shared vulnerability, the limits and possibilities of sympathy, the ideal of art and the fragile dream of America. Above all, this is a love story of the most unexpected kind.]]> 306 Garth Greenwell 0374279543 Kyle 4 book-club
A huge part of reading about Iowa City felt so nostalgic, even reading about some of the beauty of the area during such a strange and daunting time. There were so many truly beautiful passages in this book ("I have the germs of every human infirmity in me" will stick in my head for a long time), although I do think some of the stream-of-consciousness elements could have been trimmed down.

A lot of this book reads like the Iowa Writers' Workshop, in the best and worst ways. I did overall love the writing, but this and Nightbitch do read similar in many stylistic ways, choices that I don't particularly care for and vary in effectiveness, in my opinion.

The fear and claustrophobia of the medical crisis was very harrowing and overwhelming, especially listening to the audiobook with all of the run-on sentences and anxiety. The ending is satisfying and feels so beautiful and bittersweet. I'll be thinking about this one for a while. ]]> 4.06 2024
author: Garth Greenwell
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: book-club
review:
This was my first read for a book club I'm joining and it was such a strange experience to read a book set right down the street from where I lived for multiple years, at a time I lived there, by someone who lived there at the same time I did.

A huge part of reading about Iowa City felt so nostalgic, even reading about some of the beauty of the area during such a strange and daunting time. There were so many truly beautiful passages in this book ("I have the germs of every human infirmity in me" will stick in my head for a long time), although I do think some of the stream-of-consciousness elements could have been trimmed down.

A lot of this book reads like the Iowa Writers' Workshop, in the best and worst ways. I did overall love the writing, but this and Nightbitch do read similar in many stylistic ways, choices that I don't particularly care for and vary in effectiveness, in my opinion.

The fear and claustrophobia of the medical crisis was very harrowing and overwhelming, especially listening to the audiobook with all of the run-on sentences and anxiety. The ending is satisfying and feels so beautiful and bittersweet. I'll be thinking about this one for a while.
]]> 52459864
When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it's to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister's death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.�

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia�. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.]]> 394 Xiran Jay Zhao 0735269939 Kyle 0 to-read 4.03 2021
author: Xiran Jay Zhao
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 30269102
“[Han Kang writes in] intense poetic prose that . . . exposes the fragility of human life.”—from the Nobel Prize citation

WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE � “Kang viscerally explores the limits of what a human brain and body can endure, and the strange beauty that can be found in even the most extreme forms of renunciation.”—Entertainment Weekly

One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

“Ferocious.”—The New York Times Book Review (Ten Best Books of the Year)
“Both terrifying and terrific.”—Lauren Groff
“Provocative [and] shocking.”—The Washington Post

Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams—invasive images of blood and brutality—torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It’s a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law and sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that’s become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, and then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her, but also from herself.

Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.

A Best Book of the Year: BuzzFeed, Entertainment Weekly, Wall Street Journal, Time, Elle, The Economist, HuffPost, Slate, Bustle, The St. Louis Dispatch, Electric Literature, Publishers Weekly]]> 188 Han Kang 1101906111 Kyle 4
I think the first and last part are the strongest, but the second part also kept me engaged. Really glad I heard of this one out of the blue and I’m curious to see what else by Kang has been translated.]]> 3.59 2007
author: Han Kang
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves:
review:
This was a wild ride. Han Kang says so much in so little, and I’m not sure I know what it all means, but I enjoyed the ride.

I think the first and last part are the strongest, but the second part also kept me engaged. Really glad I heard of this one out of the blue and I’m curious to see what else by Kang has been translated.
]]> 29875935
Andre Aciman, who has been called “the most exciting new fiction writer of the twenty-first century� (New York Magazine), has written a novel in Enigma Variations that charts the life of Paul whose loves remain as consuming and covetous throughout adulthood as they were in adolescence. Whether in southern Italy, where as a boy he has a crush on his parents� cabinet maker, or on a snowbound campus in New England, where his enduring passion for a girl he’ll meet again and again over the years is punctuated by anonymous encounters with men; on a tennis court in Central Park, or a sidewalk in early spring New York, his attachments are ungraspable, transient and forever underwritten by raw desire—not for just one person’s body but, inevitably, for someone else’s as well.

In mapping the most inscrutable corners of desire, Aciman proves to be an unsparing reader of the human psyche and a master stylist of contemporary literature. With language at once lyrical, bare-knuckled, and unabashedly candid, he casts a sensuous, shimmering light over each facet of desire to probe how we ache, want, and waver, and ultimately how we sometimes falter and let go of those who may want only to offer what we crave from them. Behind every step the hero takes, his hopes, denials, fears, and regrets are always ready to lay their traps. Yet the dream of love always casts its luminous halo. We may not always know what we want. We may remain enigmas to ourselves and others. But sooner or later we discover who we’ve always known we were.]]> 266 André Aciman 0374148430 Kyle 0 to-read 3.68 2017
author: André Aciman
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52541369 From the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box and Malorie comes a haunting tale of love and mystery, as the date of a lifetime becomes a maddening exploration of the depths of the heart.

"Malerman expertly conjures a fairy tale nostalgia of first love, and we follow along, all too willingly, ignoring the warning signs even as the fear takes hold."-- Lit Reactor

The story begins: young lovers, anxious to connect, agree to a first date, thinking outside of the box.

At seventeen years old, James and Amelia can feel the rest of their lives beginning. They have got this summer and this summer alone to experience the extraordinary.

But they didn't expect to find it in a house at the bottom of a lake.

The house is cold and dark, but it's also their own.

Caution be damned, until being carefree becomes dangerous. For the teens must decide: swim deeper into the house--all the while falling deeper in love?

Whatever they do, they will never be able to turn their backs on what they discovered together. And what they learned:

Just because a house is empty, doesn't mean nobody's home.]]> 188 Josh Malerman 0593237773 Kyle 1
I really enjoyed Incidents Around the House by Malerman last year, but this is clearly geared towards a much younger audience. I was aware it wasn’t truly going to fall into the horror category going in, but I hoped the fairy tale nature of it would be able to hold my interest. The writing felt too juvenile, too much telling vs. showing, with characters that had no real depth or intrigue and completely murky motivations.

I think this is something I might have somewhat enjoyed 10 years ago when I would’ve fallen closer to the intended demographic, but I can’t pinpoint any aspect of the book I enjoyed, so I’m going to have to settle for 1 star. I’m honestly pretty baffled this was marketed in the adult horror section of Barnes & Noble other than it would be able to be shelved with Malerman’s other books.

I probably won’t remember much of this in a couple weeks, which is a real disappointment.]]> 3.41 2016
author: Josh Malerman
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2016
rating: 1
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves:
review:
I wouldn’t say this was a particularly bad book, but just completely not for me.

I really enjoyed Incidents Around the House by Malerman last year, but this is clearly geared towards a much younger audience. I was aware it wasn’t truly going to fall into the horror category going in, but I hoped the fairy tale nature of it would be able to hold my interest. The writing felt too juvenile, too much telling vs. showing, with characters that had no real depth or intrigue and completely murky motivations.

I think this is something I might have somewhat enjoyed 10 years ago when I would’ve fallen closer to the intended demographic, but I can’t pinpoint any aspect of the book I enjoyed, so I’m going to have to settle for 1 star. I’m honestly pretty baffled this was marketed in the adult horror section of Barnes & Noble other than it would be able to be shelved with Malerman’s other books.

I probably won’t remember much of this in a couple weeks, which is a real disappointment.
]]> 150246179 The Fallon Spring Reads Book Club Pick

A mother is forced to the breaking point when her life and the lives of her children are threatened by an intruder

Home alone with her young children during a blizzard, a mother tucks her son back into bed in the middle of the night. She hears a noise—old houses are always making some kind of noise. But this sound is disturbingly familiar: it’s the tread of footsteps, unusually heavy and slow, coming up the stairs.

She sees the figure of a man appear down the hallway, shrouded in the shadows. Terrified, she quietly wakes her children and hustles them into the oldest part of the house, a tiny, secret room concealed behind a wall. There they hide as the man searches for them, trying to tempt the children out with promises and scare the mother into surrender.

In the suffocating darkness, the mother struggles to remain calm, to plan. Should she search for a weapon or attempt escape? But then she catches another glimpse of him. That face. That voice. And at once she knows her situation is even more dire than she’d feared, because she knows exactly who he is—and what he wants.]]> 368 Tracy Sierra 0593654765 Kyle 4
Still some unanswered questions at the end, which is fine, but the final confrontation also felt a little jarring and rushed. The children also drove me insane, but obviously some grace there.

Some may find the pacing and background chapters a little jarring, but I appreciated how much we got to know the narrator.

Looking forward to reading more from this author and seeing how she grows.]]> 3.79 2024
author: Tracy Sierra
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves:
review:
Liked a lot about this one, the story went in a lot of completely unexpected directions. Reading this with my roommate out of town also added to the creep factor.

Still some unanswered questions at the end, which is fine, but the final confrontation also felt a little jarring and rushed. The children also drove me insane, but obviously some grace there.

Some may find the pacing and background chapters a little jarring, but I appreciated how much we got to know the narrator.

Looking forward to reading more from this author and seeing how she grows.
]]> 194746 No Longer Human, this leading postwar Japanese writer's second novel, tells the poignant and fascinating story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas. In consequence, he feels himself "disqualified from being human" (a literal translation of the Japanese title).

Donald Keene, who translated this and Dazai's first novel, The Setting Sun, has said of the author's work: "His world � suggests Chekhov or possibly postwar France, � but there is a Japanese sensibility in the choice and presentation of the material. A Dazai novel is at once immediately intelligible in Western terms and quite unlike any Western book." His writing is in some ways reminiscent of Rimbaud, while he himself has often been called a forerunner of Yukio Mishima.

Cover painting by Noe Nojechowiz, from the collection of John and Barbara Duncan; design by Gertrude Huston]]> 176 Osamu Dazai Kyle 0 to-read 3.99 1948
author: Osamu Dazai
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1948
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52476830 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family–and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for–and everything she feared.

Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had.

But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter–she doesn’t behave like most children do.

Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.

Then their son Sam is born–and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.

The Push is a tour de force you will read in a sitting, an utterly immersive novel that will challenge everything you think you know about motherhood, about what we owe our children, and what it feels like when women are not believed.]]> 307 Ashley Audrain 1984881663 Kyle 0 to-read 4.03 2021
author: Ashley Audrain
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18883319 Creep, as one of 2011’s best novels, while #1 bestselling author Jeffery Deaver cautioned “you better call in sick—you’re not going anywhere until you finish reading.� Now, Hillier returns to the Pacific Northwest college town where one killer’s stranglehold has ebbed . . . but another sick mind has waited for the perfect moment to pick up where the terror left off.

Sitting alone in a maximum-security prison cell, Abby Maddox is a celebrity. Her claim to fame is the envy of every freak on the outside: she’s the former lover of Ethan Wolfe, the killer who left more than a dozen dead women in his wake and nearly added Puget Sound State professor Sheila Tao to the tally. Now Abby, serving a nine-year sentence for slashing a police officer’s throat in a moment of rage, has little human contact—save for the letters that pour in from demented fans, lunatics, and creeps. But a new wave of murders has given Abby a possible chance for a plea bargain—because this killer has been sending her love letters, and carving a message on the bodies of the victims: Free Abby Maddox.

Jerry Isaac will never forget the attack—or his attacker. The hideous scarring and tortured speech are daily reminders that the one-time Seattle PD officer, now a private investigator, is just lucky to be alive. Abby Maddox deserves to rot in jail—forever, as far as Jerry’s concerned. But she alone may possess crucial evidence—letters from this newest killer—that could crack open the disturbing case. With the help of Professor Sheila Tao, seasoned police detective Mike Torrance, and intuitive criminology student Danny Mercy, Jerry must coax the shattering truth from isolated, dangerous Abby Maddox. Can he put the pieces together before Abby’s number one fan takes another life in the name of a killer’s perverted idea of justice?]]> 354 Jennifer Hillier Kyle 3
I’m really, really surprised that this is the end of the series. I’m usually okay with an ambiguous ending, but it’s such a frustrating place to be left with these characters that I’ve come to know over two books. I was also frustrated by the sidelining of many of the ensemble from the first book, as I never felt connected to the new group that took center stage. It was also surprisingly predictable, which is disappointing but not the end-all-be-all.

I did appreciate getting to know Jerry more intimately, and there were absolutely moments I was glued to the page, but I’m going to need some time to let this one sink in. I’m going with a 3-star because I did enjoy the read, but my immediate reaction is definitely the things I didn’t enjoy.]]> 4.07 2012
author: Jennifer Hillier
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves:
review:
I felt like this was overall weaker than the first book, much less gripping and tense, but that ending really solidified it for me.

I’m really, really surprised that this is the end of the series. I’m usually okay with an ambiguous ending, but it’s such a frustrating place to be left with these characters that I’ve come to know over two books. I was also frustrated by the sidelining of many of the ensemble from the first book, as I never felt connected to the new group that took center stage. It was also surprisingly predictable, which is disappointing but not the end-all-be-all.

I did appreciate getting to know Jerry more intimately, and there were absolutely moments I was glued to the page, but I’m going to need some time to let this one sink in. I’m going with a 3-star because I did enjoy the read, but my immediate reaction is definitely the things I didn’t enjoy.
]]> 214571279 A chilling historical horror novel set in the American west in 1912 following a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice.

A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.]]> 448 Stephen Graham Jones Kyle 0 currently-reading 4.57 2025
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 12287209
Or you'll get what you wish for.]]> 56 Hugh Howey Kyle 3 4.14 2012
author: Hugh Howey
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2012/12/26
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves:
review:
Very low 3 stars. Quite unimpressed if I do say so myself. Just never connected to the characters, so I didn't care much for the story.
]]> 42279228 This follow-up to The Underground Railroad brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.

When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood's only salvation is his friendship with fellow "delinquent" Turner, which deepens despite Turner's conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.

Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers.]]> 213 Colson Whitehead 0385537077 Kyle 4
The ending is such a gut wrench that I didn’t see coming, although I’d picked up some peculiarities that made so much more sense once I reached the epilogue.

Looking forward to seeing the film adaptation and seeing the approach they take towards the source material. Have heard nothing but good things so far, but heard the style is very distinct and unique.]]> 4.28 2019
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves:
review:
Devastating novel, but such an important story. The real life basis for this is even more sickening, especially reading that it was still open until 2011- proving even more how timely this book truly is.

The ending is such a gut wrench that I didn’t see coming, although I’d picked up some peculiarities that made so much more sense once I reached the epilogue.

Looking forward to seeing the film adaptation and seeing the approach they take towards the source material. Have heard nothing but good things so far, but heard the style is very distinct and unique.
]]> 204640265 From Vulture's "master of horror" Clay McLeod Chapman, a relentless and emotionally charged social horror novel about a family on the run from a demonic possession epidemic that spreads through media, for fans of The Last of Us and When Evil Lurks

Noah Fairchild has been losing his formerly polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening� is here, he assumes it’s related to one of the many conspiracy theories she believes in. But when his own phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the long drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles, a fridge full of spoiled food, and his parents locked in a terrifying trance-like state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it and get medical help.

Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.

But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart-–literally-–as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend watching particular channels, using certain apps, or visiting certain websites. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn�-but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?

This ambitious, searing novel from "one of horror's modern masters" holds a mirror to our divided nation, and will shake readers to the core.]]> 384 Clay McLeod Chapman Kyle 0 to-read 3.40 2025
author: Clay McLeod Chapman
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25225913 Five teens victimized by sex trafficking try to find their way to a new life in this riveting companion to the New York Times bestselling Tricks from Ellen Hopkins, author of Crank.

In her bestselling novel, Tricks, Ellen Hopkins introduced us to five memorable characters tackling these enormous questions: Eden, the preacher’s daughter who turns tricks in Vegas and is helped into a child prostitution rescue; Seth, the gay farm boy disowned by his father who finds himself without money or resources other than his own body; Whitney, the privileged kid coaxed into the life by a pimp and whose dreams are ruined in a heroin haze; Ginger, who runs away from home with her girlfriend and is arrested for soliciting an undercover cop; and Cody, whose gambling habit forces him into the life, but who is shot and left for dead.

And now, in Traffick, these five are faced with the toughest question of all: Is there a way out? How these five teenagers face the aftermath of their decisions and experiences is the soul of this story that exposes the dark, ferocious underbelly of the child trafficking trade. Heartwrenching and hopeful, Traffick takes us on five separate but intertwined journeys through the painful challenges of recovery, rehabilitation, and renewal to forgiveness and love. All the way home.]]> 528 Ellen Hopkins Kyle 2 4.37 2015
author: Ellen Hopkins
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2016/02/21
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: 2016, awesome-cover, boring, contemporary, e-book, library, love-story-annoying, lust-not-love, massive-dissapointment, really-excited, sequel-not-as-good, verse, where-for-art-thou-plot
review:

]]> 211119902
Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election.

They are holy men. But they have ambition. And they have rivals.

Over the next seventy-two hours one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.]]> 304 Robert Harris 0593689585 Kyle 0 on-hold 4.09 2016
author: Robert Harris
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: on-hold
review:

]]> 8490112
In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?]]> 418 Laini Taylor 0316134023 Kyle 5 Second Reading: April 13th-ish, 2013-April 20th, 2013]]> 3.98 2011
author: Laini Taylor
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2013/04/20
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: favorites, best-books-of-all-time, better-than-expected, evil-cliffhanger, favorite-characters, phenominal, will-definitely-re-read, love-story-good, what-did-i-just-read, mind-blowing, awesome-cover, unique-setting, awesome-writing-style, need-the-sequel-to-live
review:
Second Reading: April 13th-ish, 2013-April 20th, 2013
]]> 13764475 448 Jennifer Hillier 0751549010 Kyle 4
A few things here and there that probably haven’t aged well in the 14 years since publication, and a few elements I wish had been explored more thoroughly, but I’m looking forward to seeing how this wraps up in the sequel.]]> 3.87 2011
author: Jennifer Hillier
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves:
review:
Kept me on the edge of my seat and nothing like what I was expecting.

A few things here and there that probably haven’t aged well in the 14 years since publication, and a few elements I wish had been explored more thoroughly, but I’m looking forward to seeing how this wraps up in the sequel.
]]> 62898932 Do you know what happened already?
Did you know her?
Did you see it on the internet?
Did you listen to a podcast?
Did the hosts make jokes?

Did you see the pictures of the body?

Did you look for them?

It's been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked Crow-on-Sea, and the events of that terrible night are now being published for the first time.

That story is Penance, a dizzying feat of masterful storytelling, where Eliza Clark manoeuvres us through accounts from the inhabitants of this small seaside town. Placing us in the capable hands of journalist Alec Z. Carelli, Clark allows him to construct what he claims is the 'definitive account' of the murder - and what led up to it. Built on hours of interviews with witnesses and family members, painstaking historical research, and most notably, correspondence with the killers themselves, the result is a riveting snapshot of lives rocked by tragedy, and a town left in turmoil.

The only question is: how much of it is true?]]> 336 Eliza Clark 0571371795 Kyle 0 to-read 3.87 2023
author: Eliza Clark
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214329001 The future of storytelling is here.

Life has thrown Zelu some curveballs over the years, but when she's suddenly dropped from her university job and her latest novel is rejected, all in the middle of her sister's wedding, her life is upended. Disabled, unemployed and from a nosy, high-achieving, judgmental family, she's not sure what comes next.

In her hotel room that night, she takes the risk that will define her life - she decides to write a book VERY unlike her others. A science fiction drama about androids and AI after the extinction of humanity. And everything changes.

What follows is a tale of love and loss, fame and infamy, of extraordinary events in one world, and another. And as Zelu's life evolves, the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.

Because sometimes a story really does have the power to reshape the world.]]> 448 Nnedi Okorafor 0063391155 Kyle 0 to-read 4.07 2025
author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220160814 Three women are connected by one man in this kaleidoscopic thriller.

Restauranteur Paddy Swann was the life of the party until the day a man pushed him in the path of an oncoming train, leaving his twenty-something daughter Ash and wife Nina devastated. Shortly after Paddy’s funeral, the two women receive a surprise in the mail: a note and package from Nick Ratcliffe, an old friend of Paddy’s, and a nondescript lighter that once belonged to him decades ago. This unexpected gift draws Nick and Nina closer together—much to Ash’s dismay.

Martha is a small-town florist with dreams of expansion. She lives with her second husband Al, her baby, and two sons from her prior marriage. But they never seem to have any money, and with his constant traveling for work, she feels like a single parent—especially when an emergency makes her realize something needs to change.

But Nick and Al may not be who they say they are, leading these three women on a shocking collision course, wishing they had heeded a warning: Don’t let him in.]]> 368 Lisa Jewell 1668033879 Kyle 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 34884315
Catherine knows Simon must be in trouble. He wouldn't just leave her. He wouldn't leave the children.

But Simon knows the truth - about why he left and what he's done. He knows things about his marriage that it would kill Catherine to find out. The memories she holds onto are lies.

While Catherine faces a dark new reality at home, Simon's halfway around the world, alive and thriving. He's doing whatever it takes to stay one step ahead of the truth.

But he can't hide forever, and when he reappears twenty-five years later, Catherine will finally learn who he is.

And wish she'd stayed in the dark.

Revised edition: Previously published as The Wronged Sons, this edition of When You Disappeared includes editorial revisions.]]> 349 John Marrs 1477828834 Kyle 0 to-read 3.94 2013
author: John Marrs
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59016923 "A hypnotic and electrifying Irish tale that transcends country, transcends time." --Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers

Small Things Like These is award-winning author Claire Keegan's landmark new novel, a tale of one man's courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family

It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 70 Claire Keegan 0802158757 Kyle 3 4.23 2021
author: Claire Keegan
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> 214208266 The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

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

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

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.]]> 188 Agustina Bazterrica Kyle 2
I’m very curious to see what the response to this book is when it releases in March. I’m not sure of what my own thoughts are. It was meandering for a significant portion of it, but with grotesque and somewhat captivating imagery.

In parts I found the writing beautiful, others repetitive and meaningless. The cross out technique really didn’t add too much to this one either, although I understand the approach and why it was attempted.

The main character and the world that she inhabits feels so unknown and opaque in many ways, despite the details we’re given and that this story rests so heavily on her own internal thoughts and observations.

I didn’t enjoy the novel very much, but it felt wrong giving it 1 star, since I believe there is so much in theory that is good, but falls flat on execution. I wish this same story had been told in a completely different manner.

A huge step down from Tender Is the Flesh, but I will probably continue to give Bazterrica more chances despite not enjoying both of her two follow-ups so far.]]> 3.79 2023
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:
I received an e-ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I’m very curious to see what the response to this book is when it releases in March. I’m not sure of what my own thoughts are. It was meandering for a significant portion of it, but with grotesque and somewhat captivating imagery.

In parts I found the writing beautiful, others repetitive and meaningless. The cross out technique really didn’t add too much to this one either, although I understand the approach and why it was attempted.

The main character and the world that she inhabits feels so unknown and opaque in many ways, despite the details we’re given and that this story rests so heavily on her own internal thoughts and observations.

I didn’t enjoy the novel very much, but it felt wrong giving it 1 star, since I believe there is so much in theory that is good, but falls flat on execution. I wish this same story had been told in a completely different manner.

A huge step down from Tender Is the Flesh, but I will probably continue to give Bazterrica more chances despite not enjoying both of her two follow-ups so far.
]]> 231786 --back cover]]> 683 Stephen King 0743424425 Kyle 4 4.19 1977
author: Stephen King
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1977
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 13450398
When thirteen-year-old Angela Gracie Chapman looks in the mirror, someone else looks back--a thin, pale stranger, a sixteen-year-old with haunted eyes. Angie has no memory of the past three years, years in which she was lost to the authorities, lost to her family and friends, lost even to herself. Where has she been, who has been living her life, and what is hiding behind the terrible blankness? There are secrets you can’t even tell yourself.

With a tremendous amount of courage and support from unexpected friends, Angie embarks on a journey into the darkest corners of her mind. As she unearths more and more about her past, she discovers a terrifying secret and must decide: when you remember things you wish you could forget, do you destroy the people responsible, or is there another way to feel whole again?

Liz Coley’s alarming and fascinating psychological mystery is a disturbing—and ultimately empowering—page turner about accepting our whole selves, and the healing power of courage, hope, and love.]]> 344 Liz Coley 0062127373 Kyle 1 1.5 stars

I don’t necessarily think this is a bad book, but I believe I’ve phased out of YA enough to where this just did not work for me on any level really.

The writing feels too immature and juvenile to tackle all of the mature topics in the story, with a plot built off too many conveniences for my taste. Dialogue is awkward and unrealistic, and has plenty of outdated sayings (that may have already been outdated when it was published).

I think there’s an interesting story here that would have been better suited for an adult novel. I picked this one up to knock off an older book from my physical TBR that I’d owned for far too long, but the moment where I would’ve enjoyed this book was far past.

Probably better suited for its target audience, although I think some of my criticisms still stand.]]> 4.02 2013
author: Liz Coley
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2013
rating: 1
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves:
review:
1.5 stars

I don’t necessarily think this is a bad book, but I believe I’ve phased out of YA enough to where this just did not work for me on any level really.

The writing feels too immature and juvenile to tackle all of the mature topics in the story, with a plot built off too many conveniences for my taste. Dialogue is awkward and unrealistic, and has plenty of outdated sayings (that may have already been outdated when it was published).

I think there’s an interesting story here that would have been better suited for an adult novel. I picked this one up to knock off an older book from my physical TBR that I’d owned for far too long, but the moment where I would’ve enjoyed this book was far past.

Probably better suited for its target audience, although I think some of my criticisms still stand.
]]> 52028992 364 B.R. Yeager 1733569456 Kyle 0 to-read 3.71 2020
author: B.R. Yeager
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 200101541 A chilling twist on the “cursed filmâ€� genre from the bestselling author ofĚýThe Pallbearers Club ˛ą˛Ô»ĺĚýThe Cabin at the End of the World.

In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror flick.

The weird part?ĚýOnly three of the film’s scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot.

The man who played “The Thin Kid� is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy. As memories flood back in, the boundaries between reality and film, past and present start to blur. But he’s going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of cynical producers, egomaniacal directors, and surreal fan conventions � demons of the past be damned.

But at what cost?Ěý

Horror Movie is an obsessive, psychologically chilling, and suspenseful twist on the “cursed film� that breathlessly builds to an unforgettable, mind-bending conclusion.]]> 277 Paul Tremblay 0063070014 Kyle 2
Disappointing, but am interested in reading more from the author, as Knock at the Cabin does intrigue me. I think this premise just was not fully fleshed out or utilized to its full potential.]]> 3.31 2024
author: Paul Tremblay
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves:
review:
Something about this one just did not work for me. I flew through it, but did not connect to a single character, found the "twist" just kind of strange - mainly because I didn't feel any connection to the main character - and ultimately found myself not really caring all that much where the story went.

Disappointing, but am interested in reading more from the author, as Knock at the Cabin does intrigue me. I think this premise just was not fully fleshed out or utilized to its full potential.
]]> 60537565 One day, the mother was a mother, but then one night, she was quite suddenly something else...

In this blazingly smart and voracious debut, an artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced she's turning into a dog.

An ambitious mother puts her career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only to discover a dense patch of hair on the back of her neck. As she studies herself in the mirror, her canines suddenly look sharper than she remembers. Her husband, who travels for work five days a week, casually dismisses her fears from faraway hotel rooms.

As the mother's symptoms intensify, and her temptation to give in to her new dog impulses peak, she struggles to keep her alter-canine-identity secret. Seeking a cure at the library, she discovers the mysterious academic tome which becomes her bible, A Field Guide to Magical Women: A Mythical Ethnograph, and meets a group of mommies who are involved in a multilevel-marketing scheme and may also be more than what they seem.

An outrageously original novel of ideas about art, power and womanhood wrapped in a satirical fairy tale, Nightbitch will make you want to howl in laughter and recognition. And you should. You should howl as much as you want.]]> 238 Rachel Yoder 0385547765 Kyle 3
It's not a particularly lengthy novel to begin with (although I'd say the text size does make it deceptively shorter), but it does begin to feel repetitive towards the middle sections of the novel. This becomes apparent with how often we are given the same themes and lessons over and over again, whether through example or monologue.

That doesn't mean a lot of the points and observations are uninteresting, but it did create a reading experience that made this feel like a novella may have sufficed.

Rachel Yoder creates a really immersive third person narration that experiments a lot with structure and style, which mostly lands for me. I don't know exactly how to feel about the lack of quotation marks (this is always a creative choice I question- Cormac McCarthy's reasoning stands out as a pretty terrible explanation), but it does remain fairly easy to follow.

The mother/Nightbitch is provided a lot of interiority, but many of the other characters do feel a bit lifeless and one-note. Some are given more of a chance for nuance towards the end, but this is a novel that rests solely on your interest in reading from our main character's perspective. It's loose in plot and focuses on day-to-day struggles and how they are indicative of societal attitudes towards women, motherhood, and the intersecting value of those things.

I would definitely be interested in more books by Yoder, but maybe not a must-read. I'd probably struggle to recommending this to the right person that this will work for, but I highly encourage anyone who finds the premise interesting to give it a try. Very curious how the adaptation will work. ]]> 3.50 2021
author: Rachel Yoder
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves:
review:
A really interesting book with a distinct voice and a lot to say, but I'm not sure there was enough in this premise to warrant the length.

It's not a particularly lengthy novel to begin with (although I'd say the text size does make it deceptively shorter), but it does begin to feel repetitive towards the middle sections of the novel. This becomes apparent with how often we are given the same themes and lessons over and over again, whether through example or monologue.

That doesn't mean a lot of the points and observations are uninteresting, but it did create a reading experience that made this feel like a novella may have sufficed.

Rachel Yoder creates a really immersive third person narration that experiments a lot with structure and style, which mostly lands for me. I don't know exactly how to feel about the lack of quotation marks (this is always a creative choice I question- Cormac McCarthy's reasoning stands out as a pretty terrible explanation), but it does remain fairly easy to follow.

The mother/Nightbitch is provided a lot of interiority, but many of the other characters do feel a bit lifeless and one-note. Some are given more of a chance for nuance towards the end, but this is a novel that rests solely on your interest in reading from our main character's perspective. It's loose in plot and focuses on day-to-day struggles and how they are indicative of societal attitudes towards women, motherhood, and the intersecting value of those things.

I would definitely be interested in more books by Yoder, but maybe not a must-read. I'd probably struggle to recommending this to the right person that this will work for, but I highly encourage anyone who finds the premise interesting to give it a try. Very curious how the adaptation will work.
]]> 59316367 448 David Ellis 0399170928 Kyle 0 to-read 4.17 2022
author: David Ellis
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 156023123
She’s learning, too.

Doug says he loves that Annie’s artificial intelligence makes her seem more like a real woman, but the more human Annie becomes, the less perfectly she behaves. As Annie's relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder whether Doug truly desires what he says he does. In such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?]]> 231 Sierra Greer 0063312697 Kyle 0 to-read 3.81 2024
author: Sierra Greer
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 45418341 A handsome psychotherapist. His lonely wife. And in his home office ceiling, a vent
You’d listen too, wouldn’t you? (You know you would.)

Newlyweds Sam Statler and Annie Potter are head over heels, and excited to say good-bye to New York City and start a life together in Sam's sleepy hometown upstate. Or, it turns out, a life where Annie spends most of her time alone while Sam, her therapist husband, works long hours in his downstairs office, tending to the egos of his (mostly female) clientele. Little does Sam know that through a vent in his ceiling, every word of his sessions can be heard from the room upstairs. The pharmacist's wife, contemplating a divorce. The well-known painter whose boyfriend doesn’t satisfy her in bed. Who could resist listening? Everything is fine until the French girl in the green mini Cooper shows up, and Sam decides to go to work and not come home, throwing a wrench into Sam and Annie's happily ever after.

Showcasing Molloy’s deft ability to subvert norms and culminating in the kind of stunning twist that is becoming her trademark, Goodnight Beautiful is a thrilling tale of domestic suspense that not only questions assumptions but defies expectations.]]> 293 Aimee Molloy Kyle 4
It even had a satisfying narrative arc, and although the prose sometimes left me a little confused at moments, I would definitely pick up another book by this author. It’s not a perfect book, but definitely what I needed to read at this time.]]> 3.88 2020
author: Aimee Molloy
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/12
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves:
review:
I was really unsure about this one when I first started, but I found myself totally pulled in by Part II. This was surprisingly clever in the execution of the twists and I don’t think I properly predicted a single one.

It even had a satisfying narrative arc, and although the prose sometimes left me a little confused at moments, I would definitely pick up another book by this author. It’s not a perfect book, but definitely what I needed to read at this time.
]]> 219833252 Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby returns with King of Ashes, a Godfather-inspired Southern crime epic and dazzling family drama.

When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his himself, and his own particular set of skills.

Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything.

Because everything burns.]]> 352 S.A. Cosby 1250832063 Kyle 0 to-read 4.33 2025
author: S.A. Cosby
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58438576 What if you didn't have to live with your worst memories?

Across the world, thousands of people are shocked by a notification that they once chose to have a memory removed. Now they are being given an opportunity to get that memory back. Four individuals are filled with new doubts, grappling with the unexpected question of whether to remember unknown events, or to leave them buried forever.

Finn, an Irish architect living in the Arizona desert, begins to suspect his charming wife of having an affair. Mei, a troubled grad school dropout in Kuala Lumpur, wonders why she remembers a city she has never visited. William, a former police inspector in England, struggles with PTSD, the breakdown of his marriage, and his own secret family history. Oscar, a handsome young man with almost no memories at all, travels the world in a constant state of fear.

Into these characters� lives comes Noor, a psychologist working at the Nepenthe memory removal clinic in London. The process of reinstating patients� memories begins to shake the moral foundations of her world. As she delves deeper into how the program works, she will have to risk everything to uncover the cost of this miraculous technology.

A provocative exploration of secrets, grief, and identity—of the stories we tell ourselves�Tell Me an Ending is a sharp, dark, and devastating novel about the power of memory.

Never Let Me Go meets Black Mirror in this thrilling speculative debut about a tech company that deletes unwanted memories, the consequences for those forced to contend with what they tried to forget, and the dissenting doctor who seeks to protect her patients from further harm.]]> 448 Jo Harkin 1982164328 Kyle 0 to-read 3.61 2022
author: Jo Harkin
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 37004370
When a young woman who is struggling to maintain her career as a novelist discovers that her editor is in danger from the Memory Police, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards. As fear and loss close in around them, they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.

A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.]]> 274 YĹŤko Ogawa 1101870605 Kyle 0 to-read 3.72 1994
author: YĹŤko Ogawa
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 33230889
InstantĚýNew York TimesĚýBestseller

theSkimm Book Club Pick!

The stunning new novel from the international #1 bestselling authorĚý—Ěýa searing, spellbinding blend of cold-case thriller and psychological suspense.

Two girls are forced into the woods at gunpoint. One runs for her life. One is left behind�

Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn's happy small-town family life was torn apart by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father � Pikeville's notorious defense attorney � devastated. And it left the family fractured beyond repair, consumed by secrets from that terrible night.

Twenty-eight years later, and Charlie has followed in her father's footsteps to become a lawyer herself â€� the ideal good daughter. But when violence comes to Pikeville again â€� and a shocking tragedy leaves the whole town traumatized â€� Charlie is plunged into a nightmare. Not only is she the first witness on the scene, but it's a caseĚýthat unleashesĚýthe terrible memories she's spent so long trying to suppress. Because the shocking truth about the crime that destroyed her family nearly thirty years ago won't stay buried foreverâ€�

Packed with twists and turns, brimming with emotion and heart,ĚýThe Good DaughterĚýis fiction at its most thrilling.]]> 519 Karin Slaughter 0062430262 Kyle 0 to-read 4.10 2017
author: Karin Slaughter
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36204070 Set in a dangerous near future world, The Book of M tells the captivating story of a group of ordinary people caught in an extraordinary catastrophe who risk everything to save the ones they love. It is a sweeping debut that illuminates the power that memories have not only on the heart, but on the world itself.

One afternoon at an outdoor market in India, a man’s shadow disappears—an occurrence science cannot explain. He is only the first. The phenomenon spreads like a plague, and while those afflicted gain a strange new power, it comes at a horrible price: the loss of all their memories.

Ory and his wife Max have escaped the Forgetting so far by hiding in an abandoned hotel deep in the woods. Their new life feels almost normal, until one day Max’s shadow disappears too.

Knowing that the more she forgets, the more dangerous she will become to Ory, Max runs away. But Ory refuses to give up the time they have left together. Desperate to find Max before her memory disappears completely, he follows her trail across a perilous, unrecognizable world, braving the threat of roaming bandits, the call to a new war being waged on the ruins of the capital, and the rise of a sinister cult that worships the shadowless.

As they journey, each searches for answers: for Ory, about love, about survival, about hope; and for Max, about a new force growing in the south that may hold the cure.]]> 485 Peng Shepherd 0062669605 Kyle 0 to-read 3.67 2018
author: Peng Shepherd
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13079982 Sixty years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.� But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.]]> 194 Ray Bradbury Kyle 4 Unfortunately still timely. 3.97 1953
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1953
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/21
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves:
review:
Unfortunately still timely.
]]> 199793431
Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe, an impulsive, lapsed Goth who can't read her future but seems to resolve his.

Hugo, a gentle red-haired, home-schooled giant, is also in love with Kismet. He’s determined to steal her and is eager to be a home wrecker.

Kismet's mother, Crystal, hauls sugar beets for Gary's family, and on her nightly runs, tunes into the darkness of late-night radio, sees visions of guardian angels, and worries for the future, her daughter’s and her own.

Human time, deep time, Red River time, the half-life of herbicides and pesticides, and the elegance of time represented in fracking core samples from unimaginable depths, is set against the speed of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, and the sudden economic meltdown of 2008-2009. How much does a dress cost? A used car? A package of cinnamon rolls? Can you see the shape of your soul in the everchanging clouds? Your personal salvation in the giant expanse of sky? These are the questions the people of the Red River Valley of the North wrestle with every day.

The Mighty Red is a novel of tender humor, disturbance, and hallucinatory mourning. It is about on-the-job pains and immeasurable satisfactions, a turbulent landscape, and eating the native weeds growing in your backyard. It is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets; men and women both complicated and contradictory, flawed and decent, lonely and hopeful. It is about a starkly beautiful prairie community whose members must cope with devastating consequences as powerful forces upend them. As with every book this great modern master writes, The Mighty Red is about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendor.

A new novel by Louise Erdrich is a major literary event; gorgeous and heartrending, The Mighty Red is a triumph.]]> 384 Louise Erdrich 0063277050 Kyle 0 to-read 3.79 2024
author: Louise Erdrich
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 27877138
The adults, knowing better, knew nothing. Time passed and the children grew up, moved away. The horror of It was deep-buried, wrapped in forgetfulness. Until the grown-up children were called back, once more to confront It as It stirred and coiled in the sullen depths of their memories, reaching up again to make their past nightmares a terrible present reality.]]> 1156 Stephen King 1501142976 Kyle 4
There's really no justification for this book to be as long as it is while still having characters (namely Stan), who feel so thinly sketched out despite being a part of the core ensemble. This could have easily been solved by cutting down on repetition (whether an intentional literary device or not, I'm not sure I've read a book quite this repetitive before). There is also a degree of the unrealistic depictions of children and how they talk/interact (to me personally), that can mainly be excused away with the fairytale-esque nature the book has. A part of me is also curious to know what It looks like if the narrative was centered more around Mike than Bill, as the Derry Interludes had the parts of the book that felt the most profound and hit the hardest emotionally.

There's also of course parts of the book that have just aged like spoiled milk- I actually was surprised at how long THAT scene was, I had assumed it was a brief scene that isn't gone into with much detail but its reputation precedes itself. And the narrative explanation for why it's necessary is very thin and kind of ridiculous, making it all the more uncomfortable to read. The rest was fairly standard for some of the older King novels that I've read, which were obviously written 40-50 years ago; in this novel it felt particularly excessive, but that can also be attributed to length as well.

The story is incredibly imaginative and epic in scope, and does truly feel like a landmark in genre, with some really hard-hitting emotional beats and some truly scary sequences (all rooted in reality, never directly involving It). I feel like I've spent more time critiquing what I didn't care for, but I'm settling on a 4-star rating for a reason, because I truly enjoyed and am glad I finally read this book. ]]> 4.18 1986
author: Stephen King
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/20
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves:
review:
I think this book is incredibly ambitious, which I appreciate, but often feels weighed down by that very same ambition.

There's really no justification for this book to be as long as it is while still having characters (namely Stan), who feel so thinly sketched out despite being a part of the core ensemble. This could have easily been solved by cutting down on repetition (whether an intentional literary device or not, I'm not sure I've read a book quite this repetitive before). There is also a degree of the unrealistic depictions of children and how they talk/interact (to me personally), that can mainly be excused away with the fairytale-esque nature the book has. A part of me is also curious to know what It looks like if the narrative was centered more around Mike than Bill, as the Derry Interludes had the parts of the book that felt the most profound and hit the hardest emotionally.

There's also of course parts of the book that have just aged like spoiled milk- I actually was surprised at how long THAT scene was, I had assumed it was a brief scene that isn't gone into with much detail but its reputation precedes itself. And the narrative explanation for why it's necessary is very thin and kind of ridiculous, making it all the more uncomfortable to read. The rest was fairly standard for some of the older King novels that I've read, which were obviously written 40-50 years ago; in this novel it felt particularly excessive, but that can also be attributed to length as well.

The story is incredibly imaginative and epic in scope, and does truly feel like a landmark in genre, with some really hard-hitting emotional beats and some truly scary sequences (all rooted in reality, never directly involving It). I feel like I've spent more time critiquing what I didn't care for, but I'm settling on a 4-star rating for a reason, because I truly enjoyed and am glad I finally read this book.
]]> 211004893
As they attempt to evade the boy's increasingly desperate father, horrifying incidents of butchery follow them. At first, Jess thinks she understands what they're up against, but she's about to learn there's more to these surreal and grisly events than she could've ever imagined.

And that when the wolf finally comes home, none will be spared.]]> 304 Nat Cassidy 125035434X Kyle 0 to-read 4.57 2025
author: Nat Cassidy
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 65212029 Nat Cassidy is at his razor-sharp best again with his horror novel Nestlings, which harnesses the creeping paranoia of Rosemary's Baby and the urban horror of 'Salem's Lot, set in an exclusive New York City residential building.

Ana and Reid need a break. The horrifically complicated birth of their first child has left Ana paralyzed, bitter, and struggling―with mobility, with her relationship with Reid, with resentment for her baby. Reid dismisses disturbing events and Ana’s deep unease and paranoia, but he can't explain the needle-like bite marks on their baby.]]> 293 Nat Cassidy 1250265258 Kyle 0 to-read 3.81 2023
author: Nat Cassidy
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58416952 At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

AUDI. VIDE. TACE.

The Catenan Republic � the Hierarchy � may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus � what they call Will � to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.]]> 639 James Islington 1982141190 Kyle 0 to-read 4.61 2023
author: James Islington
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 197491143
A whistleblower pulls Tully into a murder investigation at the centre of an election battle for a global dictator, with a mandate to prevent a climate apocalypse. A former US President campaigns against the first AI politician for the position, but someone is trying to sway the outcome.

Tully must convince the world to face the truth and make hard choices about the future of the species. But will humanity ultimately choose salvation over freedom, whatever the cost?

An enthralling murder mystery with a vividly realised future world, forcing readers to grapple with hard hitting questions about the climate crisis, our relationship with Artificial Intelligence and the price we'd be willing to pay, as a species, to be saved. Perfect for fans of Blake Crouch, Harlan Coben, Neal Stephenson, Philip K. Dick, Kim Stanley Robinson and RR Haywood.]]> 433 Thomas R. Weaver 1739434307 Kyle 0 to-read 3.97 2023
author: Thomas R. Weaver
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18211208 From an acclaimed horror writer, a chilling tale of blood-hungry children who rise from the dead in this innovative spin on apocalyptic vampire fiction.

Suffer the Children presents a terrifying tale of apocalyptic fiction, as readers are introduced to Herod's Syndrome, a devastating illness that suddenly and swiftly kills all young children across the globe. Soon, they return from the grave…and ask for blood. And with blood, they stop being dead. They continue to remain the children they once were...but only for a short time, as they need more blood to live. The average human body holds ten pints of blood, so the inevitable question for parents everywhere becomes: How far would you go to bring your child back?]]> 343 Craig DiLouie 1476739633 Kyle 0 to-read 3.96 2014
author: Craig DiLouie
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220572122
Something is coming. From an inconceivable interstellar distance away, something is coming that is about to commit an unspeakable crime. Who can stop them? What chance does our narrator and his friends have against an enemy so vast?

Fortunately, his family knows something about saving the world against impossible odds.

His parents are named Todd and Viola.

This unputdownable, compelling trilogy follows a group of young people as they’re thrust into a war they don’t even understand, and asks how much can you forgive your enemy, if at all…]]> Patrick Ness Kyle 0 to-read 0.0
author: Patrick Ness
name: Kyle
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 205804189
A cop walked into a nursing home and unloaded his weapons on elderly and staff alike. A mass of school shootings. Prison riots of unprecedented brutality. Mind-boggling acts of violence in every state.

4 Days Ago the murders increased ten-fold. . .

3 Days Ago the President addressed the nation and begged for calm and peace. . .

2 Days Ago the killers began to mobilize. . .

Yesterday all the power went out. . .

Tonight they're reading the names of those to be killed on the Emergency Broadcast System. You are listening over the battery-powered radio on your kitchen table, and they've just read yours. Your name is Jack Colclough. You have a wife, a daughter, and a young son. You live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. People are coming to your house to kill you and your family. You don't know why, but you don't have time to think about that any more. You only have time to R - U - N!

©2012 Blake Crouch (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.]]> 336 Blake Crouch 059387479X Kyle 0 to-read 3.65 2011
author: Blake Crouch
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56534999 Welcome to the thrilling and unnervingly prescient world of the slow horses. This team of MI5 agents is united by one common bond: They've screwed up royally and will do anything to redeem themselves.

This special tenth-anniversary deluxe edition of a modern classic includes a foreword by the author, discussion questions for book clubs, and an exclusive short story featuring the slow horses.

London, England: Slough House is where washed-up MI5 spies go to while away what’s left of their failed careers. The “slow horses,� as they’re called, have all disgraced themselves in some way to get relegated there. Maybe they botched an Op so badly they can’t be trusted anymore. Maybe they got in the way of an ambitious colleague and had the rug yanked out from under them. Maybe they just got too dependent on the bottle—not unusual in this line of work. One thing they have in common, though, is they want to be back in the action. And most of them would do anything to get there─even if it means having to collaborate with one another.

When a young man is abducted and his kidnappers threaten to broadcast his beheading live on the Internet, the slow horses see an opportunity to redeem themselves. But is the victim really who he appears to be?]]> 334 Mick Herron 1641292970 Kyle 0 to-read 4.05 2010
author: Mick Herron
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 66087062 A woman risks everything to end her family’s centuries-old curse, solve her mother’s disappearance, and find love in this mesmerizing novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Spells for Forgetting.

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

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

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

With The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young delivers a brilliant novel of romance, mystery, and a touch of the impossible—a story you will never forget.]]> 320 Adrienne Young 0593598679 Kyle 0 to-read 4.13 2023
author: Adrienne Young
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62919399 A collection of nineteen dark, wildly imaginative short stories from the author of the award-winning TikTok sensation Tender Is the Flesh.

From celebrated author Agustina Bazterrica, this collection of nineteen brutal, darkly funny short stories takes into our deepest fears and through our most disturbing fantasies. Through stories about violence, alienation, and dystopia, Bazterrica’s vision of the human experience emerges in complex, unexpected ways—often unsettling, sometimes thrilling, and always profound. In “Roberto,� a girl claims to have a rabbit between her legs. A woman’s neighbor jumps to his death in “A Light, Swift, and Monstrous Sound,� and in “Candy Pink,� a woman fails to contend with a difficult breakup in five easy steps.

Written in Bazterrica’s signature clever, vivid style, these stories question love, friendship, family relationships, and unspeakable desires.]]> 154 Agustina Bazterrica 1668012669 Kyle 1 1.5 stars

I just did not find this at the same level of quality of Tender Is the Flesh. I’m not sure if some of it may have been a translation issue, but the writing in particular was one of my biggest complaints across many of the stories.

A lot of them just came across as very half-baked and lacking in any real substance, no true sense of creepiness or dread. There are a few, mainly in the front half of the collection, that do work, but almost none I’d describe as a real home run.

It’s a real disappointment, and I’m hoping it’s just that these are such short stories and not indicative of future quality from Bazterrica’s works, as I’d like to continue reading them.]]> 3.11 2020
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.11
book published: 2020
rating: 1
read at: 2024/10/12
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves:
review:
1.5 stars

I just did not find this at the same level of quality of Tender Is the Flesh. I’m not sure if some of it may have been a translation issue, but the writing in particular was one of my biggest complaints across many of the stories.

A lot of them just came across as very half-baked and lacking in any real substance, no true sense of creepiness or dread. There are a few, mainly in the front half of the collection, that do work, but almost none I’d describe as a real home run.

It’s a real disappointment, and I’m hoping it’s just that these are such short stories and not indicative of future quality from Bazterrica’s works, as I’d like to continue reading them.
]]> 39926632 “Whatever you do, don’t read this in the dark…� —Cara Hunter, author of Close to Home

He hides in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment. Each kill is calculated, planned and executed like clockwork.

Struggling to balance her personal and professional life, young DS Becca Vincent has landed the biggest case of her career � and she knows that it will make or break her. But how can she identify one face in a sea of thousands? With the help of Police Super Recogniser Joe Russell, she strives to catch a glimpse of the elusive murderer, but he’s watching her every move.

Time is not on their side. The body count is rising, and the attacks are striking closer and closer to home. Can Becca and Joe uncover the connection between the murders before the killer strikes the last name from his list?

From the bestselling author of When You Disappeared and The Good Samaritan comes his most thrilling novel yet.]]> 385 John Marrs Kyle 2 <b>2.5 stars</b> 4.09 2018
author: John Marrs
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/10
date added: 2024/10/09
shelves:
review:
2.5 stars
]]> 199798006
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.

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

This unputdownable and spine-tingling novel “is like quicksand: the further you delve into its pages, the more immobilized you become by a spiral of terror. We Used to Live Here will haunt you even after you have finished it� (Agustina Bazterrica, author of Tender Is the Flesh).]]> 312 Marcus Kliewer 1982198788 Kyle 3
I'll admit that I didn't find myself scared of this one like I'd hoped, but I don't think that reflected too strongly in my rating. There are absolutely some eerie sequences, particularly towards the end, but overall I felt like the promise of scares to come didn't end up paying off for me.

I did quite some the last 20% and think it was a worthwhile read overall, and perfect for October, and I actually felt perfectly satisfied by the ending, which I think is an unpopular opinion as of now. I'm pretty sure I have quite a bit of the plot figured out and didn't have many lingering questions given my own personal theories. The book is still wide open for interpretation and I'm not certain my own theories answer all the possible questions others may have, but it was enough for me to close the book satisfied with what I was given.

A promising beginning, a muddled middle, and a strong ending. Something about the middle of the book just was not clicking for me and those mixed feelings prevent me from being willing to give this a higher rating at this time. Perhaps if I re-read it I may feel differently knowing the plot direction, but 3 stars is going to have to be where it sits for now. ]]> 3.68 2024
author: Marcus Kliewer
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/08
date added: 2024/10/08
shelves:
review:
I felt very conflicted about what rating to give this book for the first 80% of it. I think that this one ultimately suffered under the weight of my own expectations, but I struggled to see the bigger picture and where this one was ultimately going.

I'll admit that I didn't find myself scared of this one like I'd hoped, but I don't think that reflected too strongly in my rating. There are absolutely some eerie sequences, particularly towards the end, but overall I felt like the promise of scares to come didn't end up paying off for me.

I did quite some the last 20% and think it was a worthwhile read overall, and perfect for October, and I actually felt perfectly satisfied by the ending, which I think is an unpopular opinion as of now. I'm pretty sure I have quite a bit of the plot figured out and didn't have many lingering questions given my own personal theories. The book is still wide open for interpretation and I'm not certain my own theories answer all the possible questions others may have, but it was enough for me to close the book satisfied with what I was given.

A promising beginning, a muddled middle, and a strong ending. Something about the middle of the book just was not clicking for me and those mixed feelings prevent me from being willing to give this a higher rating at this time. Perhaps if I re-read it I may feel differently knowing the plot direction, but 3 stars is going to have to be where it sits for now.
]]> 209950981 She's looking for the perfect man. He's looking for the perfect victim.

Sydney Shaw, like every single woman in New York, has terrible luck with dating. She’s seen it all: men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and worst of all, men who can't shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot.

Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He's charming, handsome, and works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet.

Then the brutal murder of a young woman―the latest in a string of deaths across the coast―confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them.

Sydney should feel safe. After all, she is dating the guy of her dreams. But she can’t shake her own suspicions that the perfect man may not be as perfect as he seems. Because someone is watching her every move, and if she doesn’t get to the truth, she’ll be the killer’s next victim...

A dark story about obsession and the things we’ll do for love, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden proves that crimes of passion are often the bloodiest…]]> 370 Freida McFadden Kyle 2 4.20 2024
author: Freida McFadden
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/07
date added: 2024/10/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 31682141 He surfaced two years ago. Then he disappeared ...

But Detective Angie Pallorino never forgot the violent rapist who left a distinctive calling card—crosses etched into the flesh of his victim’s foreheads.

When a comatose Jane Doe is found in a local cemetery, sexually assaulted, mutilated, and nearly drowned, Angie is struck by the eerie similarities to her earlier unsolved rapes. Could he be back?
�
Then the body of a drowned young woman floats up in the Gorge, also bearing the marks of the serial rapist, and the hunt for a predator becomes a hunt for a killer. Assigned to the joint investigative task force, Angie is more than ready to prove that she has what it takes to break into the all-male homicide division. But her private life collides with her professional ambitions when she’s introduced to her temporary partner, James Maddocks—a man she’d met the night before in an intense, anonymous encounter.

Together, Angie and Maddocks agree to put that night behind them. But as their search for the killer intensifies so does their mutual desire. And Angie’s forays into the mind of a monster shake lose some unsettling secrets about her own past . . .

How can she fight for the truth when it turns out her whole life is a lie? ]]> 526 Loreth Anne White 1503996220 Kyle 0 to-read 4.25 2017
author: Loreth Anne White
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 198218463 A mind-bending, psychological thriller from Freida McFadden, the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Housemaid!

Lesson #1: trust no one

Eve has a good life. She gets up each day, gets a kiss from her husband Nate, and heads off to teach math at the local high school. All is as it should be. Except�

Last year, Caseham High was rocked by a scandal involving a student-teacher affair, with one student, Addie, at its center. But Eve knows there is far more to these ugly rumors than meets the eye.

Addie can't be trusted. She lies. She hurts people. She destroys lives. At least, that's what everyone says.

But nobody knows the real Addie. Nobody knows the secrets that could destroy her. And Addie will do anything to keep it quiet.

From the New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden comes a story of twisting secrets and long-awaited revenge.]]> 362 Freida McFadden Kyle 1
Aside from that final twist, this is probably her most predictable/straightforward novel.

If you’ve enjoyed other books by McFadden, you’ll probably still enjoy, but maybe slightly less than her others- it is far too long for a pretty thin plot that doesn’t get going until far along into it.]]> 4.15 2024
author: Freida McFadden
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2024/09/19
date added: 2024/09/19
shelves:
review:
This was already pretty bad, but that final shoehorned plot twist was just so insultingly stupid that I couldn’t give my standard 2 stars for compulsive readability.

Aside from that final twist, this is probably her most predictable/straightforward novel.

If you’ve enjoyed other books by McFadden, you’ll probably still enjoy, but maybe slightly less than her others- it is far too long for a pretty thin plot that doesn’t get going until far along into it.
]]> 15700312
But in the middle of the ceremony, he is visited by the Evil Queen who manipulates him into helping her with information about Snow White. This or she will expose him as he has been secretly kidnapping kids to help him rebuild Neverland in the Dreamworld.

After the deal is made, Peter continues with the ceremony, bringing Sleeping Beauty back into life. What Sleeping Beauty is capable of and who she really is are like nothing ever written in the books.]]> 28 Cameron Jace Kyle 1 3.76 2012
author: Cameron Jace
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2012
rating: 1
read at: 2012/07/27
date added: 2024/09/16
shelves: awesome-cover, boring, e-book, give-me-a-break, massive-dissapointment, maybe-read, short-stories, vampires, where-for-art-thou-plot, 2012
review:

]]> 217387937 A pulse-pounding new Southern thriller from the author of the runaway bestseller A Flicker in the Dark.

Twenty-two years ago, Claire Campbell’s older sister, Natalie, disappeared shortly after her eighteenth birthday. Days later, her blood was found in a car, a man was arrested, and the case was swiftly closed. In the decades since, Claire has attempted to forget her traumatic past by moving to the city and climbing the ranks as an investigative journalist... until an unexpected call from her father forces her to come back home and face it all anew.

With the entire summer now looming ahead—a summer spent with nothing to do in her childhood home, with her estranged mother—Claire decides on a whim to accept a seasonal job at Galloway Farm, a muscadine vineyard in coastal South Carolina less than an hour away from where she grew up. At first glance, Galloway is an idyllic escape for Claire. A scenic retreat full of slow-paced nostalgia, as well as a place where her sister seemed truly happy in that last summer before she vanished, it feels like the perfect plan to pass the time. However, as soon as Claire starts to settle in, she stumbles across an old diary written by one of the vineyard's owners, and what at first seems like a story of young rebellion and love turns into something much more sinister as it begins to describe details of various unsolved crimes. As the days stretch on, Claire finds herself becoming more and more secluded as she starts to obsess over the diary's contents� as well as the lingering feeling that her own sister's disappearance may be somehow tied to it all.

Galloway was supposed to be a place to help her move forward, but instead, Claire quickly finds herself immersed in her own dark and dangerous past.]]> 368 Stacy Willingham 1250887976 Kyle 0 to-read 4.34 2025
author: Stacy Willingham
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60410897 Named a most anticipated summer book by People, E! News, PureWow, CrimeReads, POPSUGAR, and The Nerd Daily The New York Times bestselling author of Final Girls and Survive the Night is back with his "best plot twist yet." (People, Best Summer Books) Be careful what you watch for . . . Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to the peace and quiet of her family's lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of bourbon, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple living in the house across the lake. They make for good viewing--a tech innovator, Tom is powerful; and a former model, Katherine is gorgeous.One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other--and the longer Casey watches--it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom's marriage isn't as perfect as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey immediately suspects Tom of foul play. What she doesn't realize is that there's more to the story than meets the eye--and that shocking secrets can lurk beneath the most placid of surfaces.Packed with sharp characters, psychological suspense, and gasp-worthy plot twists, Riley Sager's The House Across the Lake is the ultimate escapist read . . . no lake house required.]]> 368 Riley Sager 0593472012 Kyle 3
The major twist regarding one specific point towards the end actually caught me by surprise, but I’d need to really think if it holds up to scrutiny or not, especially since it’s a main driver in Casey’s actions.

I feel like this is a weaker The Girl on the Train, but I’d consider giving another Riley Sager book a try because there were elements of this one I liked.]]> 3.66 2022
author: Riley Sager
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/12
date added: 2024/09/12
shelves:
review:
I actually didn’t mind some of the weirdest parts of the book that others haven’t cared for (I won’t mention as I feel they’re massive spoilers). The final twist in the last couple of chapters was just a bit too much for me.

The major twist regarding one specific point towards the end actually caught me by surprise, but I’d need to really think if it holds up to scrutiny or not, especially since it’s a main driver in Casey’s actions.

I feel like this is a weaker The Girl on the Train, but I’d consider giving another Riley Sager book a try because there were elements of this one I liked.
]]> 161380710
Dawn Schiff is strange.

At least, everyone thinks so at Vixed, the nutritional supplement company where Dawn works as an accountant. She never says the right thing. She has no friends. And she is always at her desk at precisely 8:45 a.m.

So when Dawn doesn't show up to the office one morning, her coworker Natalie Farrell―beautiful, popular, top sales rep five years running―is surprised. Then she receives an unsettling, anonymous phone call that changes everything...

It turns out Dawn wasn't just an awkward outsider� she was being targeted by someone close. And now Natalie is irrevocably tied to Dawn as she finds herself caught in a twisted game of cat and mouse that leaves her who's the real victim?

But one thing is incredibly somebody hated Dawn Schiff.

Enough to kill.

The Coworker is a tense, unputdownable thriller from New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden that explores the dark ways the past can echo through the present―with deadly consequences.]]> 370 Freida McFadden Kyle 2 3.97 2023
author: Freida McFadden
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/09/11
date added: 2024/09/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 49090884
His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.� Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.

Then one day he’s given a a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.]]> 209 Agustina Bazterrica 1982150920 Kyle 4
The story is meandering, and some of the writing is repetitive, but it is one of the books that has burrowed itself into my head in a really comfortable way more than maybe any other this year.

I just wish there’d been one more chapter after the ending.

Definitely check your content warnings for any of the things you can imagine from a book with this premise, as it’s bleak and unforgiving.]]> 3.76 2017
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/08
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves:
review:
A really bizarre dystopian/horror slice-of-life.

The story is meandering, and some of the writing is repetitive, but it is one of the books that has burrowed itself into my head in a really comfortable way more than maybe any other this year.

I just wish there’d been one more chapter after the ending.

Definitely check your content warnings for any of the things you can imagine from a book with this premise, as it’s bleak and unforgiving.
]]> 56749656 From the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box and Malorie Josh Malerman comes the legend of a strange new monster unlike any other in horror.

Go to the farm just outside of town and you'll hear it.

A voice. Inside your head.

Or is it?

Come to me...

A voice that makes you want to pick up that axe over in the corner of the barn.

And swing it.

And kill.

Feed us. Feed us now.

It is the voice of Pearl.

Sing for me. Sing for your precious Pearl...


]]> 290 Josh Malerman 0593237838 Kyle 0 to-read 3.35 2019
author: Josh Malerman
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59348305 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone comes “her best thriller yet� (Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author) about a young couple’s disappearance on a gorgeous summer night, and the mother who will never give up trying to find them.

On a beautiful summer night in a charming English suburb, a young woman and her boyfriend disappear after partying at the massive country estate of a new college friend.

One year later, a writer moves into a cottage on the edge of the woods that border the same estate. Known locally as the Dark Place, the dense forest is the writer’s favorite place for long walks and it’s on one such walk that she stumbles upon a mysterious note that simply reads, “DIG HERE.�

Could this be a clue towards what has happened to the missing young couple? And what exactly is buried in this haunted ground?

“Utterly gripping with richly drawn, hugely compelling characters, this is a first-class thriller with heart� (Lucy Foley, New York Times bestselling author) that will keep you on the edge of your seat.]]> 401 Lisa Jewell 1982137371 Kyle 0 to-read-shortlist 4.13 2021
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/04
shelves: to-read-shortlist
review:

]]> 60811826 Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.


As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.


Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.]]> 184 Jacqueline Harpman 1945492600 Kyle 4 <b>4.5 stars</b> 4.12 1995
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/04
date added: 2024/09/03
shelves:
review:
4.5 stars
]]> 59787336 On an ordinary working day...

Leila Syed receives a call that cleaves her life in two. Her brother-in-law’s voice is filled with panic. His son’s nursery has called to ask where little Max is.

Your worst nightmare...

Leila was supposed to drop Max off that morning. But she forgot.

Racing to the carpark, she grasps the horror of what she has done.

Is about to come true...

What follows is an explosive, high-profile trial that will tear the family apart. But as the case progresses it becomes clear there’s more to this incident than meets the eye.

A gripping, brave and tense courtroom drama, Next of Kin will keep you on the edge of your seat until the final, heart-stopping page.]]> 384 Kia Abdullah 0008538328 Kyle 0 to-read 4.19 2021
author: Kia Abdullah
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 195888784 A genre-bending story about love and loss, hope and heartbreak, and the healing to be found in life’s little limbos, those in-between spaces where you’re no longer who you were and not yet the person you will be
Ěý
Following a breakup, Kate and Finn decide to keep sharing their house until the lease runs out in twelve weeks, alternating week by week so that they are occupying the same space but never at the same time. Practically, the plan makes sense, but coming back each Sunday to a home where Finn has been feels far too much like living with a ghost. Soon Kate finds herself adrift in her own subconscious, trapped in the liminal space between loving someone and letting go.]]> 320 Hazel Hayes 0593472950 Kyle 0 to-read 3.74 2024
author: Hazel Hayes
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61423858 A deluxe hardcover edition of Children of Dune, the third novel in Frank Herbert's magnificent science fiction saga.

This deluxe hardcover edition of Children of Dune includes:
- An iconic new cover
- A stamped and foiled case featuring a quote from the Litany Against Fear
- Stained edges and fully illustrated endpapers
- A beautifully designed poster on the interior of the jacket
- An Introduction by Brian Herbert

The Children of Dune are twin siblings Leto and Ghanima Atreides, whose father, the Emperor Paul Muad'Dib, disappeared in the desert wastelands of Arrakis nine years ago. Like their father, the twins possess supernormal abilities--making them valuable to their manipulative aunt Alia, who rules the Empire in the name of House Atreides.

Facing treason and rebellion on two fronts, Alia's rule is not absolute. The displaced House Corrino is plotting to regain the throne while the fanatical Fremen are being provoked into open revolt by the enigmatic figure known only as The Preacher. Alia believes that by obtaining the secrets of the twins' prophetic visions, she can maintain control over her dynasty.

But Leto and Ghanima have their own plans for their visions--and their destinies....]]> 496 Frank Herbert 0593548450 Kyle 0 to-read 3.98 1976
author: Frank Herbert
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61403877 A deluxe hardcover edition of Dune Messiah, the second novel in Frank Herbert's magnificent science fiction saga.

This deluxe hardcover edition of Dune Messiah includes:
- An iconic new cover
- A stamped and foiled case featuring a quote from the Litany Against Fear
- Stained edges and fully illustrated endpapers
- A beautifully designed poster on the interior of the jacket
- An Introduction by Brian Herbert

Dune Messiah continues the story of Paul Atreides, better know--and feared--as the the man called Muad'Dib. As Emperor of the known universe, Paul possesses more power than a single man was ever meant to wield. Worshipped as a religious icon by the fanatical Fremen, Paul faces the enmity of the political houses he displaced when he assumed the throne--and a conspiracy conducted within his own sphere of influence.

And even as House Atreides begins to crumble around him from the machinations of his enemies, the true threat to Paul comes to his lover, Chani, and the unborn heir to his family's dynasty....]]> 288 Frank Herbert 0593548442 Kyle 4
This is one that I'll need to dwell on and read more about to really sort out my feelings on.]]> 3.93 1969
author: Frank Herbert
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/29
date added: 2024/08/29
shelves:
review:
A very different book from the original, but leaves the story in an interesting spot. I have no idea where the next sequels could go.

This is one that I'll need to dwell on and read more about to really sort out my feelings on.
]]> 13545075 Unwind, which Publishers Weekly called a “gripping, brilliantly imagined futuristic thriller.�

Thanks to Connor, Lev, and Risa—and their high-profile revolt at Happy Jack Harvest Camp—people can no longer turn a blind eye to unwinding. Ridding society of troublesome teens while simltaneously providing much-needed tissues for transplant might be convenient, but its morality has finally been brought into question. However, unwinding has become big business, and there are powerful political and corporate interests that want to see it not only continue, but also expand to the unwinding of prisoners and the impoverished.

Cam is a product of unwinding; made entirely out of the parts of other unwinds, he is a teen who does not technically exist. A futuristic Frankenstein, Cam struggles with a search for identity and meaning and wonders if a rewound being can have a soul. And when the actions of a sadistic bounty hunter cause Cam’s fate to become inextricably bound with the fates of Connor, Risa, and Lev, he’ll have to question humanity itself.

Rife with action and suspense, this riveting companion to the perennially popular Unwind challenges assumptions about where life begins and ends—and what it means to live.]]> 416 Neal Shusterman Kyle 3 4.24 2012
author: Neal Shusterman
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2012/10/05
date added: 2024/08/26
shelves: 2012, awesome-cover, awesome-writing-style, boring, dystopian, massive-dissapointment, need-the-sequel-to-live, overhyped, really-excited, sequel-not-as-good, where-for-art-thou-plot
review:

]]> 199757490 A chilling horror novel about a haunting told from the perspective of a young girl whose troubled family is targeted by an entity she calls “Other Mommy,� from the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box
Ěý
To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’sĚýMommy,ĚýDaddo,Ěýand Grandma Ruth.ĚýBut there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”ĚýĚ�
Ěý
When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the same question, over and over . . . Bela understands that unless she says yes, soon her family must pay.Ěý
Ěý
Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe but other incidents show cracks in her parents' marriage. The safety Bela relies on is on the brink of unraveling.ĚýĚý
Ěý
But Other Mommy needs an answer.Ěý
Ěý
Incidents Around the House is a chilling, wholly unique tale of true horror told by the child Bela. A story about a family as haunted as their home.]]> 367 Josh Malerman 0593723120 Kyle 4 4.5 stars

I can’t even recall the last time I was so creeped out reading a book.

Really tense, fast-paced, with an extremely distinct style.

Also HIGHLY recommend the audiobook, it’s fantastic.]]> 3.61 2024
author: Josh Malerman
name: Kyle
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/23
date added: 2024/08/23
shelves:
review:
4.5 stars

I can’t even recall the last time I was so creeped out reading a book.

Really tense, fast-paced, with an extremely distinct style.

Also HIGHLY recommend the audiobook, it’s fantastic.
]]> 5291539
Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into a complex and atmospheric novel.]]> 590 Stieg Larsson 0307454541 Kyle 0 to-read 4.07 2005
author: Stieg Larsson
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199228303
I used to clean other people’s houses—now, I can’t believe this home is actually mine. The charming kitchen, the quiet cul-de-sac, the huge yard where my kids can play. My husband and I saved for years to give our children the life they deserve.

Even though I’m wary of our new neighbor Mrs. Lowell, when she invites us over for dinner it’s our chance to make friends. Her maid opens the door wearing a white apron, her hair in a tight bun. I know exactly what it’s like to be in her shoes.

But her cold stare gives me chills�

The Lowells� maid isn’t the only strange thing on our street. I’m sure I see a shadowy figure watching us. My husband leaves the house late at night. And when I meet a woman who lives across the way, her words chill me to the bone: Be careful of your neighbors.

Did I make a terrible mistake moving my family here?

I thought I’d left my darkest secrets behind. But could this quiet suburban street be the most dangerous place of all?]]> 402 Freida McFadden 183525229X Kyle 2
In a lot of ways it hardly even feels related to the first two, outside of the returning characters. Gave it an extra star for the usual readability of Freida McFadden’s books, but can’t find much to justify any higher of a rating.]]> 4.03 2024
author: Freida McFadden
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/19
date added: 2024/08/19
shelves:
review:
This book was kind of a mess and clearly this was just a series concept that couldn’t sustain itself longer than two books.

In a lot of ways it hardly even feels related to the first two, outside of the returning characters. Gave it an extra star for the usual readability of Freida McFadden’s books, but can’t find much to justify any higher of a rating.
]]> 18333581 40 Sarah J. Maas Kyle 4 4.21 2013
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Kyle
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2016/02/02
date added: 2024/08/18
shelves: 2016, better-than-expected, e-book, fantasy, short-stories, unique-setting
review:

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