en-US Tue, 08 Apr 2025 19:54:36 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 35999155 An original, imaginative, and hilarious debut novel about love, anxiety, and sea creatures, from the author of So Sad Today

Lucy has been writing her dissertation on Sappho for thirteen years when she and her boyfriend break up in a dramatic flameout. After she bottoms out in Phoenix, her sister in Los Angeles insists Lucy dog-sit for the summer. Annika's home is a gorgeous glass cube on Venice Beach, but Lucy can find little relief from her anxiety -- not in the Greek chorus of women in her love addiction therapy group, not in her frequent Tinder excursions, not even in Dominic the foxhound's easy affection.

Everything changes when Lucy becomes entranced by an eerily attractive swimmer while sitting alone on the beach rocks one night. But when Lucy learns the truth about his identity, their relationship—and Lucy's understanding of what love should look like—take a very unexpected turn.

A masterful blend of vivid realism and giddy fantasy, pairing hilarious frankness with pulse-racing eroticism, THE PISCES is a story about falling in obsessive love with a merman: a figure of Sirenic fantasy whose very existence pushes Lucy to question everything she thought she knew about love, lust, and meaning in the one life we have.]]> 304 Melissa Broder 1524761575 Kay 0 currently-reading 3.25 2018
author: Melissa Broder
name: Kay
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 211785080 Meeting her future in-laws draws a young woman into a dark labyrinth in a novel of mounting psychological suspense by the author of My Favorite Terrible Thing.

Devon Ferrell and Richard Belmont are engaged, in love, and from two different worlds. Devon is as eager to please Richard’s elite parents as she is to leave the traumas of her childhood behind. After all, the Belmonts are her family now.

But being brought into the fold is unbalancing her. There are the piercing stares from Richard’s brother, the confounding whispers about Devon’s moods and health. It’s as if the Belmonts are looking for reasons to reject her, to fill her with self-doubt and put her on edge. It’s working. And no one seems to be on Devon’s side. Not even Richard.

Are the Belmonts right to be concerned about Devon? Or are they waging a psychological battle against her? The truth is getting darker. Because the mind games have just begun.]]> 292 Madeleine Henry 1662517467 Kay 0 currently-reading 3.54 2025
author: Madeleine Henry
name: Kay
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 200870501 From the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize finalist, whose short stories received instant acclaim (“Sparingly told, evoked with lacerating intimacy . . . Extraordinary”�Esquire), a debut novel about a young woman’s coming of age, and the singular friendship that challenges her values, her beliefs, and the course of her life

At sixteen, Eva meets Jamie by chance. She lives in middle-class south Brooklyn; he comes from the super rich of upper Manhattan. She’s observant, cautious, often insecure; he’s curious, bold, full of mysteries. These two questers are drawn together in a strange and profound friendship, tested by forces larger than themselves. As Eva follows a path of conventional achievement—a prestigious degree, a classic romance, the start of an ambitious career—Jamie seeks out more radical experiments in finding renouncing his family, joining a political movement, and eventually even talking to God.

Carried forcefully along by Clare Sestanovich’s exquisite prose, these two characters are pulled into separate spheres but circle the same how to define their values and find their purpose, how to create a sense of self while discovering what they owe to society and to the cause of justice. These reckonings propel a surprising story of intimacy across time, exploring the alchemy of identity, the mystery of destiny, and the difficult journey of finding faith—in yourself, and in the world.]]> 321 Clare Sestanovich 0593318129 Kay 0 currently-reading 3.57
author: Clare Sestanovich
name: Kay
average rating: 3.57
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 166395597
He watches me at night, sneaking in through my living room window and making my blood turn to ice. I feel him all around me as chills snake down my spine. Each night he becomes bolder, getting closer and welcoming himself into my bedroom, feeding his addiction.

When I feel the warmth of his skin brushing over mine, I pretend to sleep, terrified of what he plans to do with me. But when he touches me � my whole body comes alive.

I’ve never seen his face, and don’t even know his name, but I want to. Every part of me knows this is wrong, but I can’t bring myself to lock the window, to tell him no.

He thrills me, but living life on the edge doesn’t come without consequences.

He’s sick in the head, addicted to this infatuation, and obsessed with his messed-up mind games. But maybe I’m just as sick as he is because, whether I like it or not � I’m addicted to my stalker.]]> 399 Sheridan Anne Kay 0 currently-reading 3.95 2023
author: Sheridan Anne
name: Kay
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 50702585
Funny how things changed over time. How the fairy tale twisted into something far more crooked, darker than I ever imagined.

In reality, my knight is scarred and broken, living alone in a castle of bones that overlooks the sea. He isn’t searching for me. He never was.

Lucian Blackthorne is as cursed as I am, and equally shunned by the locals, the fishers of men, who believe him to be the devil in the flesh.

Perhaps he is, with the way his amber eyes draw me in, ignite me like an infernal blaze. And the sins he whispers in my ear are as wickedly intoxicating as the man himself.

Yet, his touch is heaven and his will is my weakness.

He calls us forbidden, an unsalvageable tragedy, with no happy end. Maybe we are. But in this story, he’s the one who needs saving.]]> 552 Keri Lake Kay 0 currently-reading 3.92 2020
author: Keri Lake
name: Kay
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 58868872
Max has made a name for himself as "that grumpy northern architect off Grand Designs", after he told Kevin McCloud that designing affordable, environmentally friendly homes “wasn’t rocket science� and that most of the other projects featured on the programme were for “reight poncy bastads who want to spend a grand on a shite tap.� It turned out that the whole gorgeous-but-rough-around-the-edges-Yorkshire-man vibe was just what the country was looking for � the episode had gone viral and Max was the new, extremely reluctant, pin-up of the building industry.

But to Mia, huge, grumpy men weren’t sexy, they were simply terrifying. She knows from experience that even men of average size can be dangerous. If she wasn’t so desperate, she’d run. She’s used to running. Running away is Mia’s special talent, together with invisibility � survival techniques she’s perfected over the years. So, she’ll put up with Max and his moods, ignore him calling her a teen emo freak (he’s not to know that her black hair used to be honey blonde or her heavy eyeliner isn’t by choice) and just bloody well jog on. Just try to survive. Try to hide.

It’s easy to hide when nobody really sees you. But what happens when Max finally opens his eyes?

Unperfect a full-length contemporary, enemies to lovers, office romance.

Please be aware - occasional swearing and trigger warning for domestic violence.]]> 364 Susie Tate 1999843797 Kay 0 currently-reading 4.06 2021
author: Susie Tate
name: Kay
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 29856111 "Raw, dark, yet achingly tender, Dark Notes is a scorching-hot masterpiece as beautifully written as the music within." ~ Anna Zaires, NY Times Bestselling Author

They call me a slut.
Maybe I am.
Sometimes I do things I despise.
Sometimes men take without asking.

But I have a musical gift, only a year left of high school, and a plan.
With one obstacle.

Emeric Marceaux doesn’t just take.
He seizes my will power and bangs it like a dark note.
When he commands me to play, I want to give him everything.
I kneel for his punishments, tremble for his touch, and risk it all for our stolen moments.

He’s my obsession, my master, my music.
And my teacher.]]> 493 Pam Godwin Kay 0 currently-reading 4.15 2016
author: Pam Godwin
name: Kay
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 58503518
“I can’t help but compare our worth as writers, as lovers, as women. Is anything solely mine, or will I always dwell in someone else’s shadow?�

Twenty-four-year-old bookseller and New Yorker Naomi Ackerman, desperate to write a novel, struggles to find the right story to tell. When, after years of disastrous Tinder dates, she meets Caleb—a perfectly nice guy with a Welsh accent and a unique patience for all of her quirks—she feels she's finally stumbled onto a time-honored subject: love. But then Caleb's ex-girlfriend, Rosemary, enters the scene.

When Naomi learns that Rosemary is not safely tucked away overseas as she'd assumed but in fact lives in New York and works in the literary world, she is fundamentally threatened and intrigued in equal measure. On paper, Rosemary sounds like a better version of Naomi—but if they both fell for the same man, they must have something more essential in common.

Determined to figure out how their stories intertwine, Naomi's casual Instagram stalking morphs into a full-blown friendship under false pretenses. She can't seem to get herself to quit Rosemary, in whom she discovers an unexpected confidant—and she can't stop writing about her either, having now found a more interesting subject for her nascent novel. As her lies and half-truths spiral out of her control, and fact and fiction become increasingly difficult to separate, Naomi manipulates the most important people in her life—her family, her friends, Caleb, Rosemary, and, perhaps most devastatingly, herself—in pursuit of her craft. Ultimately, she’s forced to decide who and what she's willing to sacrifice to write them all the perfect ending.]]> 336 Caitlin Barasch 0593185587 Kay 0 currently-reading 3.56 2022
author: Caitlin Barasch
name: Kay
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 213807252 In the aftermath of a shocking breakup, a woman's desperate quest for answers ignites a psychological inferno that will consume her past, present, and future in this hair-raising debut from an exciting new voice in suspense . . .

She’s been ghosted. But she won’t be forgotten.

Claire is excited to drop off a surprise workday lunch for her fiancé, Noah. It’s their anniversary, after all. But when the receptionist tells her that no one with Noah’s name works there, Claire thinks there must be a mistake.

Noah isn’t picking up her calls. Her texts go unanswered. It turns out Noah has a different life . . . one with a beautiful girlfriend, a beautiful house. Claire was never really in the picture.

Desperate to speak to Noah and convince him to return to their dream life, Claire plunges into a nightmarish journey of obsession that submerges her deeper into the murky waters of her own past—a past dominated by a manipulative mother who shattered her sense of self.

Will Claire break free from the ghosts that haunt her? Or will they become more costly than any of Noah’s lies?]]> 288 Callie Kazumi 0593871642 Kay 0 currently-reading 3.74 2025
author: Callie Kazumi
name: Kay
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 32332902
Sex and Rage delights in its sensuous, dreamlike narrative and spontaneous embrace of fate, work, and of certain meetings and chances. Jacaranda moves beyond the tango of sex and rage into the open challenge of a defined and more fulfilling expressive life. Sex and Rage further solidifies Eve Babitz's place as a singularly important voice in Los Angeles literature―haunting, alluring, and alive.]]> 256 Eve Babitz 1619029359 Kay 0 to-read 3.56 1979
author: Eve Babitz
name: Kay
average rating: 3.56
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 45835845
But the thing is:

� She can’t actually afford her house since her criminally sexy ex-boyfriend Art left,

� her best friend Kelly is clearly trying to break up with her,

� she's so frazzled trying to keep up with everything you can practically hear her nerves jangling,

� she spends all day online-stalking women with beautiful lives as her career goes down the drain.

And now her mother has appeared on her doorstep, unbidden, to save the day�

Is Jenny ready to grow up and save herself this time?

Deliciously candid and gloriously heartfelt, ADULTS is the story of one woman learning how to fall back in love with her life. It will remind you that when the world throws you a curve ball (or nine), it may take friendship, gin & tonics or even your mother to bring you back…]]> 400 Emma Jane Unsworth 0008334595 Kay 0 to-read 3.30 2020
author: Emma Jane Unsworth
name: Kay
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59085460
At a party, what was already unstable completely falls apart and Sophie finds herself obsessively scrolling social media, waiting for something (anything) to happen.

None of This Is Serious is about the uncertainty and absurdity of being alive today. It's about balancing the real world with the online, and the vulnerabilities in yourself, your relationships, your body. At its heart, this is a novel about the friendships strong enough to withstand anything.]]> 304 Catherine Prasifka Kay 0 to-read 3.07 2022
author: Catherine Prasifka
name: Kay
average rating: 3.07
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 21535475 227 Halle Butler 1940430291 Kay 0 to-read 3.54 2015
author: Halle Butler
name: Kay
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57771192 A bitingly honest, darkly funny debut about ambition, sex, power, and love, Imogen Crimp's A Very Nice Girl cracks open the timeless questions of what it is to be young, what it is to want to be wanted, and what it is to find your calling but lose your way to it.

Anna doesn’t fit in. Not with her wealthy classmates at the selective London Conservatory where she unexpectedly wins a place after university, not with the family she left behind, and definitely not with Max, a man she meets in the bar where she sings for cash. He’s everything she’s not—rich, tailored to precision, impossible to read—and before long Anna is hooked, desperate to hold his attention, and determined to ignore the warning signs that this might be a toxic relationship.

As Anna shuttles from grueling rehearsals to brutal auditions, she finds herself torn between two conflicting desires: the drive to nurture her fledgling singing career, which requires her undivided attention, and the longing for human connection. When the stakes increase, and the roles she’s playing—both on stage and off—begin to feel all-consuming, Anna must reckon with the fact that, in carefully performing what’s expected of her as a woman, she risks losing sight of herself completely.

Both exceedingly contemporary and classic, A Very Nice Girl reminds us that even once we have taken possession of our destinies we still have the power to set all we hold dear on fire.]]> 336 Imogen Crimp 1250792770 Kay 5 5-star-books, favorites I still think about this book often. Because of that I have to bump the rating to 5 stars.

Reading about toxic relationships is truly a cathartic experience
]]> 3.32 2022
author: Imogen Crimp
name: Kay
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/07
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: 5-star-books, favorites
review:

I still think about this book often. Because of that I have to bump the rating to 5 stars.

Reading about toxic relationships is truly a cathartic experience

]]> 59417433 This is not your typical love story.

It’s a story of almosts and could-have-beens.
Of friendship that teeters on the edge of something more.
Of passion so intoxicating, it burns.

Jamie and B are two hearts caught in the tangle of bad timing and unspoken words. Their connection defies labels—too deep for friendship, too tangled for love. Over a decade of moments, choices, and missed opportunities, they find themselves drawn together like a moth to a flame, even when the world—and their own mistakes—keep pulling them apart.

Is it obsession? Destiny? Or just self-destruction with a pretty face?

Sometimes, love isn’t about finding the right person—it’s about the moment when everything aligns.
But what if that moment never comes?

This special edition features:
* A Love Letter to Whiskey (the full, heart-wrenching story)
* Love, Whiskey (Jamie’s side, plus an extended epilogue)
* Bonus content, including behind-the-scenes stories, fun facts, and letters from the author and audiobook narrator]]> 608 Kandi Steiner Kay 0 currently-reading 4.23
author: Kandi Steiner
name: Kay
average rating: 4.23
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 23120773
"Eimear McBride is a writer of remarkable power and originality."--"The Times Literary Supplement"

"An instant classic."--"The Guardian"

"It's hard to imagine another narrative that would justify this way of telling, but perhaps McBride can build another style from scratch for another style of story. That's a project for another day, when this little book is famous."--"London Review of Books"

""A Girl is a Half-formed Thing" is simply a brilliant book--entirely emotionally raw and at the same time technically astounding. Her prose is as haunting and moving as music, and the love story at the heart of the novel--between a sister and brother--as true and wrenching as any in literature. This is a book about family, faith, sex, home, transcendence, violence, and love. I can't recommend it highly enough."--Elizabeth McCracken

"My discovery of the year was Eimear McBride's debut novel "A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing.""--Eleanor Catton

Eimear McBride's acclaimed debut tells the story of a young woman's relationship with her brother, and the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumor, touching on everything from family violence to sexuality and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma.

Eimear McBride was born in 1976 and grew up in Ireland. At twenty-seven she wrote "A Girl is a Half-formed Thing" and spent the next nine years trying to have it published.]]> 236 Eimear McBride 156689378X Kay 0 currently-reading 3.24 2013
author: Eimear McBride
name: Kay
average rating: 3.24
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 222432376 I know that better than anybody�
Because I’m one of them.

I spend my days locked in a black-market nightmare, held captive by a twisted mastermind who considers me his prized possession. My only form of human contact are the victims in the next room, each of whom disappears faster than the last.

Everyone leaves…except me.

Then I hear him—Isaac. Brash, elusive, and haunted, he isn’t anyone’s idea of a hero. Separated by a wall, our faces hidden, his voice cuts through the darkness, becoming my only hope. He’s driven by vengeance, bearing scars as dark as my own. Despite his rough edges, a fragile bond forms between us—a lifeline.

Isaac might be my best chance of escape, but time is slipping away. Breaking free will mean outrunning both our pasts, and in this twisted game, the cost of freedom may be more than we can afford to pay.

Appearances deceive. Choices have consequences.

And some consequences?
They are irreversible.]]> 582 Jennifer Hartmann Kay 0 to-read 4.16 2025
author: Jennifer Hartmann
name: Kay
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 209745049 Before he discovered my age, he uncovered my heart.

Bruised and abused, and victim to a loveless household, I shimmered with new life the moment he found me drowning my sorrows in a lake beneath the stars.

A chance encounter. An unspoken connection.

I was smitten; he was curious.

But, as everyone knew, fate could be decidedly cruel.

He called me Halley, like the comet.

I called him Reed.

And my best friend?

Well…she called him Dad.

Older is a forbidden, slow-burn, age-gap romance standalone, ending in an HEA.]]> 436 Jennifer Hartmann Kay 4 3.75/5 4.07 2024
author: Jennifer Hartmann
name: Kay
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves:
review:
3.75/5
]]> 144744277
Sasha has had it. She cannot bring herself to respond to another inane, “urgent� (but obviously not at all urgent) email or participate in the corporate employee joyfulness program. She hasn’t seen her friends in months. Sex? Seems like a lot of effort. Even cooking dinner takes far too much planning. Sasha has hit a wall.

Armed with good intentions to drink kale smoothies, try yoga, and find peace, she heads to the seaside resort she loved as a child. But it’s the off season, the hotel is in a dilapidated shambles, and she has to share the beach with the only other a grumpy guy named Finn, who seems as stressed as Sasha. How can she commune with nature when he’s sitting on her favorite rock, watching her? Nor can they agree on how best to alleviate their burnout ( manifesting, wild swimming; drinking whisky, getting pizza delivered to the beach).

When curious messages, seemingly addressed to Sasha and Finn, begin to appear on the beach, the two are forced to talk—about everything. How did they get so burned out? Can either of them remember something they used to love? ( surfing!) And the question they try and fail to what does the energy between them—flaring even in the face of their bone-deep exhaustion—signify?]]> 403 Sophie Kinsella 0593730402 Kay 0 currently-reading 3.99 2023
author: Sophie Kinsella
name: Kay
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 58131101 208 Þóra Hjörleifsdóttir 0802157408 Kay 0 currently-reading 3.41 2019
author: Þóra Hjörleifsdóttir
name: Kay
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 75498179
It began as a crowdsourced collection of names and somehow morphed into an anonymous account posting allegations on social media. Ola would usually be the first to support such a list—she’d retweet it, call for the men to be fired, write article after article. Except this time Michael’s name is on it.]]> 336 Yomi Adegoke 0063274876 Kay 0 to-read 2.99 2023
author: Yomi Adegoke
name: Kay
average rating: 2.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 65648032 “Does love conquer all? Does it now? Did it ever? These are questions Cecilia Rabess asks in her nimble, discerning debut…The ending of Everything’s Fine is one of the best I’ve read in years.� �The New York Times

A painfully funny, painfully real love story for our time that doesn’t just ask will they, but…should they?

Jess is a senior in college, ambitious but aimless, when she meets Josh. He’s a privileged preppy in chinos, ready to inherit the world. She’s not expecting to inherit anything.

A year later, they’re both working at the same investment bank. And when Jess finds herself the sole Black woman on the floor, overlooked and underestimated, Josh shows up for her in surprising—if imperfect—ways. Before long, an unlikely friendship forms, tinged with undeniable chemistry. It gradually, and then suddenly, turns into an electrifying romance that shocks them both.

Despite their differences, the force of their attraction propels the relationship forward. But as the cultural and political landscape shifts underneath them, Jess is forced to consider if their disagreements run deeper than she can bear, what she’s willing to compromise for love, and whether, in fact, everything’s fine.

A stunning debut about “a love affair that turns inferno� (People), that is “extraordinarily brave…funny as hell,� (Zakiya Dalilah Harris) Cecilia Rabess’s Everything’s Fine is an incisive and moving portrait of a young woman who is just beginning to discover who she is and who she has the right to be. It is also a “subtle, ironic, wise, state-of-the-nation novel� (Nick Hornby) that asks big questions about the way we live now and “whether our choices stop and end with us� (The New York Times).]]> 335 Cecilia Rabess 1982187719 Kay 5 5-star-books
However, what truly resonated with me is the nuance presented in the story. When you peel away the layers that society often imposes—such as class, race, and education—you begin to see that at their core, these two individuals are quite similar. And that realization is nothing short of beautiful.

The journey they embark on isn’t easy, and it's possible that their relationship might not even last. Yet, at the end of the day, the question remains: why not choose happiness? It’s a complicated path, but that’s part of what makes it so meaningful.

I also appreciated how they intertwine math and science into their connection. The way they turn equations and theories into poetry, comparing intricate problems and paradoxes to their relationship, adds a layer of depth that feels both intriguing and romantic.

This book is beautifully messy and encourages readers to question their perspectives, which I find incredibly valuable. It reminds us that life isn’t simply black and white (pun intended), and I truly cherish that complexity. I know this story will linger in my thoughts for a long time.]]> 3.69 2023
author: Cecilia Rabess
name: Kay
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: 5-star-books
review:
I understand that many people may have reservations about this book, and I completely empathize with those feelings. The idea of a liberal and a conservative being in a relationship might seem like a recipe for conflict to some.

However, what truly resonated with me is the nuance presented in the story. When you peel away the layers that society often imposes—such as class, race, and education—you begin to see that at their core, these two individuals are quite similar. And that realization is nothing short of beautiful.

The journey they embark on isn’t easy, and it's possible that their relationship might not even last. Yet, at the end of the day, the question remains: why not choose happiness? It’s a complicated path, but that’s part of what makes it so meaningful.

I also appreciated how they intertwine math and science into their connection. The way they turn equations and theories into poetry, comparing intricate problems and paradoxes to their relationship, adds a layer of depth that feels both intriguing and romantic.

This book is beautifully messy and encourages readers to question their perspectives, which I find incredibly valuable. It reminds us that life isn’t simply black and white (pun intended), and I truly cherish that complexity. I know this story will linger in my thoughts for a long time.
]]> 59366123 Butts: A Backstory, reporter, essayist, and RadioLab contributing editor Heather Radke is determined to find out.

Spanning nearly two centuries, this “whip-smart� (Publishers Weekly, starred review) cultural history takes us from the performance halls of 19th-century London to the aerobics studios of the 1980s, the music video set of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back� and the mountains of Arizona, where every year humans and horses race in a feat of gluteal endurance. Along the way, she meets evolutionary biologists who study how butts first developed; models whose measurements have defined jean sizing for millions of women; and the fitness gurus who created fads like “Buns of Steel.� She also examines the central importance of race through figures like Sarah Bartmann, once known as the “Venus Hottentot,� Josephine Baker, Jennifer Lopez, and other women of color whose butts have been idolized, envied, and despised.

Part deep dive reportage, part personal journey, part cabinet of curiosities, Butts is an entertaining, illuminating, and thoughtful examination of why certain silhouettes come in and out of fashion—and how larger ideas about race, control, liberation, and power affect our most private feelings about ourselves and others.]]> 311 Heather Radke 1982135484 Kay 0 to-read 3.74 2022
author: Heather Radke
name: Kay
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217388273 #1 NYT-bestselling YA author Renee Ahdieh's adult debut novel, about a young lawyer who gets pulled in to manage a crisis with her firm's biggest client, a family whose Korean beauty brand is worth a billion dollars, pitched as CRAZY RICH ASIANS meets SUCCESSION

Jia Song was always destined for greatness. As the daughter of Korean bodega owners, she promised herself that she would have every Fifth Avenue luxury when she grew up, and it is all within reach. She has just made junior partner at her prestigious Manhattan law firm, she has two best friends who are always there for her, and she is even about to score the ultra-luxe Birkin bag of her dreams. Sure, maybe her love life is in shambles and she’s spending too much time at the office. But she is set up to become the firm’s next star. So when her boss asks her for a Friday morning favor, sitting in on the hush-hush family implosion of a high-level client, she accepts without hesitation—only to find out that the client in question is one of the most famous Korean families in the world.

The Park family’s net worth is estimated at a billion dollars, and their mega-successful Korean beauty brand has shaped the culture for the past two decades. But the patriarch is filing for divorce while his wife is dying, and their three children can’t stop snapping at each other. With both the family fortune and legacy under threat from the worst kind of scandal, it’s up to Jia to set things right—and she only has a month to do it. Suddenly, Jia is thrust into the three Park siblings� back-stabbing family politics and embroiled in a drama that feels straight out of a Korean soap opera. As Jia sorts through the lies and subterfuge, chasing the truth across the globe on private jets, she finds herself falling for this broken, badly-behaving family in ways she can’t quite explain. But it is also becoming all too clear that the Parks are hiding dark secrets, from themselves and from Jia. Can she separate the truth from the lies in time to protect the Parks� fortune and secure her success at the firm? And can she hold on to what’s most important, even if it means admitting that what she always wanted isn’t what she actually needs?]]> 320 Renée Ahdieh 1250897955 Kay 0 to-read 4.03 2025
author: Renée Ahdieh
name: Kay
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 215749072 The Marriage Plot meets The Idiot in this brilliant debut, which tells the story of a young Muslim scholar stuck in the mire of adjunct professorship in Los Angeles who decides to give up her career in academia and marry rich, committing herself to 100 dates in the course of a single summer.ĚýBy midsummer reality hits, taking her—and her project—to Tehran.

The unnamed Iranian-Indian American narrator of Liquid, A Love Story has always believed herself to be the smartest person in the room. And from an early age, she and her best friend—a poet-turned-marketer named Adam—have turned their noses up at other peoples� riches. But two years after earning a PhD from UCLA, the narrator is no closer to the middle-class comfort promised to her by the prestige of her fancy, scholarship-funded education and the successes of her immigrant parents. Jokingly, Adam suggests she just marry rich.

But our protagonist, whose PhD thesis compared Eastern and Western views of marriage in film and literature, takes the idea seriously. She makes a spreadsheet and outlines a 100 dates with people of all genders and a marriage proposal in hand by the official start of the fall semester. What follows is a whirlwind summer packed with martinis sans vermouth with the lazy scion of an Eastside construction empire; board games with a butch producer who owns a house in the hills and a newly dented Porsche; a Venmo request from a “socialist� trust fund babe; and an evening spent dodging the halitosis of a maxillofacial surgeon from Orange County.

Only a tragedy in Tehran and an overdue familial reckoning can alter the narrator’s increasingly manic trajectory and force her to confront the contradictions of her life in Los Angeles. And as doubts begin to creep in about her marriage project, it suddenly seems possible that the eligible prospect she’s been looking for has been beneath her nose the entire time.

For fans of Kaveh Akbar and Elif Batuman, Liquid, A Love Story delivers a modern taleĚýof romance, loss, and belongingĚýlike no other. Mariam Rahmani’s gorgeous high-wire satire explodes off the page with verve and originality in this riveting spin on the classic romantic comedy.]]> 320 Mariam Rahmani 1643756508 Kay 0 to-read 3.03 2025
author: Mariam Rahmani
name: Kay
average rating: 3.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 214537784 From the author of Gold Diggers, a biting examination of millennial adulthood, the often fraught conversations around fertility and reproduction, and the painful quest to forge an identity

Sanjana Satyananda is trying to recover her life. It’s been a year since she walked out on her husband, a struggling actor named Killian, at a commune in India, after a disagreement about whether to have children. Now, Sanjana is struggling to resurrect her busted anthropology dissertation and crashing at her annoyingly perfect sister’s while her similarly well-adjusted peers obsess over marriages, mortgages, and motherhood. Sanjana needs to move forward—and finalize her divorce, ASAP.

There’s just one problem: Killian is missing. As Sanjana tries to track him down, she’s bombarded with unnerving calls from women seeking her advice on pregnancy and fertility. Soon, Sanjana comes face to face—literally—with what her life might have been if she’d chosen parenthood. And the road not taken turns out to be wilder, stranger, and more tempting than she imagined.

A darkly funny, vertiginous novel about the dilemmas of procreation, pregnancy, and parenting, Goddess Complex is both a twist-filled psychological thriller and a feminist satire of our age of GirlBosses turned self-care influencers, optimization cults, internet mommy gurus, egg freezing, and so much more.]]> 304 Sanjena Sathian 0593489772 Kay 0 to-read 3.71 2025
author: Sanjena Sathian
name: Kay
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/03
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]]> 17615939
Connor Montgomery is tortured with guilt and wants only one thing from Jessica and he'swilling to pay her for it. Setting her up as his mistress seems like the perfect idea. But how long can it last when it was a mistake from the beginning?]]> 177 Lynda Chance Kay 0 currently-reading 3.88 2013
author: Lynda Chance
name: Kay
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 217320305
I've worn all types of labels over the years: Non-believer, pariah, deranged, orphan... It's all in my file if you care to understand me better. However, the label that implanted the deepest and garnered the most attention is the one I wear, like a Scarlet Letter. It precedes me when I enter a room and gets whispered about like a schoolyard crush.

Paranoid Schizophrenic.

Dr. Sutton has some lofty ideas about my condition and claims mental illness is only one aspect of hundreds that make me who I am. Not one to shy away from a challenge, he thinks he can help me. His confidence is legendary, but I've carried this burden for a long time. Despite what he thinks, I can't be fixed.

He doesn't realize I'm falling for him or that I have some lofty ideas of my own. He should know better because people like me deserve a hero, too.]]> 271 K.C. Decker Kay 4 4-stars-books
4 stars! ]]> 4.44 2020
author: K.C. Decker
name: Kay
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: 4-stars-books
review:
This book was so good! I'm sad that it's over. I loved Mercy. But I especially love Sutton! He was sexy, but kind. He had the type of love that wasn't cringe like in some books. He had cared so deeply about her mental health and also wanted to love her at the same time. God, this was beautiful.

4 stars!
]]> 223524394
When We Love You, Bunny opens, Sam has just published her first novel to critical acclaim. But at a New England stop on her book tour, her one-time frenemies, furious at the way they’ve been portrayed, kidnap her. Now a captive audience, it’s her (and our) turn to hear the Bunnies� side of the story. One by one, they take turns holding the axe, and recount the birth throes of their unholy alliance, their discovery of their unusual creative powers—and the phantasmagoric adventure of conjuring their first creation. With a bound and gagged Sam, we embark on a wickedly intoxicating journey into the heart of dark academia: a fairy tale slasher that explores the wonder and horror of creation itself. Not to mention the transformative powers of love and friendship, Bunny.

Frankenstein by way of Heathers, We Love You, Bunny is both a prequel and a sequel, and an unabashedly wild and totally complete stand-alone novel. Open your hearts, Bunny, to another dazzlingly original and darkly hilarious romp in the Bunny-verse from the queen of the fever-dream, Mona Awad.]]> 496 Mona Awad 1668098482 Kay 0 to-read 4.12 2025
author: Mona Awad
name: Kay
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 57934424
Sweet and self-conscious Sasha Collins has never had a boyfriend. She never imagined that anyone, much less the star of the varsity baseball team, would be interested in her unruly red hair and socially awkward tendencies.

After years of floating invisibly through the hallways of her high school, Sasha is completely shocked when confident and handsome Adam Lincoln chooses her to be his Chemistry partner. Despite Sasha’s best friend’s skepticism, Sasha refuses to believe that Adam selected her solely because of her grade point average.

As an unlikely relationship blooms, Sasha feels like she’s living out a made for TV fairytale. But Sasha soon finds there’s more to Adam than his classic good looks and athletic ability. Navigating his jealousy, mood swings and possessive behaviors prove just to be the tip of their complex relationship.

Eager to love Adam and desperate to keep from losing him, Sasha devotes herself to keeping him happy, a task that proves to be infinitely harder than it seems. As pleasing Adam engulfs her whole world, she slips into depression for reasons that she can’t quite put into words.

Sasha is painfully aware that she can’t continue living this way, but she can’t imagine living without Adam, either.]]> 218 Nenia Corcoran 0578893851 Kay 4 I hate Adam so much! 4.17
author: Nenia Corcoran
name: Kay
average rating: 4.17
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
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I hate Adam so much!
]]> 54446893
You.

Happiness, at last.

Then you left me.

And now I am alone.

Everyone I love leaves in the end.

But not this time.

I’m not giving up on us.

I’m not giving up on you.

When you love someone, you never let them go.

That’s why for me, this is just beginning.]]> 297 Charlotte Levin 1529032407 Kay 4 3.93 2020
author: Charlotte Levin
name: Kay
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
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]]> 58908156 THE HILARIOUS AND RAZOR-SHARP NEW NOVEL FROM THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLING QUEEN OF REVENGE COMEDY

'Gripping, sharp and brilliantly twisty. A rollercoaster of revenge' DAILY MAIL
'Her best yet! Ingenious and entertaining' MARIAN KEYES
'Razor sharp, sassy, witty and entertaining' 5 READER REVIEW
'Fabulous characters and a story that just will not let you go!' RUTH JONES
'Funny, fresh and clever' CLARE MACKINTOSH
_________

He's not who he says he is. Then again, neither is she . . .

When Joni finds Ant via a dating app, neither is entirely honest about who they are.

But when they meet in real life, they fall for each other.

Soon they are a happy, steady item. Until Joni discovers Ant is still on the app, still dating other women . . .

Having secret rivals devastates Joni. So she decides to take revenge. But not on them.

Can she turn these rivals into allies to get back at the real enemy . . . Ant?
_________

NO ONE CAN GET ENOUGH OF JUST GOT REAL . . .

'This escapist gem is loud-snort funny' HEAT
'Witty, smart, topical and full of heart' TAMMY COHEN
'Wry observation and razor-sharp wit' SUNDAY EXPRESS
'Jane just keeps getting better and better. So smart, funny and warm' ADELE PARKS
'Her best yet! Especially gorgeous on female friendship' MARIAN KEYES
'We drop everything for a Jane Fallon novel and this is one of her best' CLOSER
'A brilliantly spiky read. Loved it' SAM BAKER
'Another brilliant tale from best-selling author Jane Fallon' HELLO!
'Seems to slip down like a glass of nicely chilled white wine' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
'Witty, funny, beautifully written' CATHY KELLY
'I loved it. The killer twist of the year. Totally brilliant' TONY PARSONS
'Sharply observed, wickedly funny, with real depths of emotion' MILLY JOHNSON
'Just Got Real is an absolute joy' JOANNA CANNON
'A real page turner . . . Such a treat to read' ALICE FEENEY
'Smart and funny' SUN]]> 400 Jane Fallon 0241541158 Kay 0 to-read 3.70 2022
author: Jane Fallon
name: Kay
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 223348860 1157 DeathsDoll Kay 0 to-read 4.30
author: DeathsDoll
name: Kay
average rating: 4.30
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 51260845 A classic sort of love story... except somebody might wind up dead.

Nobody knows Delilah like Logan does. Nobody. He makes sure of it by learning everything he can through her social media and watching her through a hidden camera he has trained on her house. Some might call him a stalker. Logan prefers to be called “romantic.�

But after Logan sees Delilah killing her abusive stepfather, he realizes there’s still more about her to discover. His sweet, perfect Delilah isn’t so perfect after all.

Delilah knows she should feel guilty, but all she feels is free. She’s so over the men in her life controlling her. Except Logan saw what she did, and he won’t let her forget it.

Delilah is done being the victim. And she refuses to be a character in Logan’s twisted fantasy. If Logan won’t let her go� she’ll make him.]]> 309 Jesse Q. Sutanto 1728215161 Kay 0 to-read 3.71 2021
author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
name: Kay
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223939780 *Sequel to Limerence* H.C. Dolores Kay 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: H.C. Dolores
name: Kay
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/28
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]]> 214881313 A dark secret.
And a sociopath who can't decide whether he'd rather kill me or kiss me.

Welcome to Lionswood Prep, the world's most elite boarding school. Here, old money reigns supreme, and if you can't flaunt your weight in designer labels, you'd better get used to sitting alone. As a poor scholarship student, I know these rules better than anyone. I've perfected the art of pretending I don't envy my classmates' limitless wealth just as well as I've mastered blending into the background.

Until the school's only other scholarship student takes a tumble from the fifth floor.

Mickey Mabel's death is ruled a suicide, but I have my doubts. The only thing I am certain of is that Lionswood's golden boy, Adrian Ellis, is somehow involved. It's a wild suspicion, considering Adrian is not just Lionswood's richest student...but also one of the nicest. He's the kind of guy who buys out the bake sale and caters lunch for a grieving student body... surely, he can't be a murderer, can he?

Most of my classmates worship the ground he walks on, but I've seen enough darkness to sense that there's more than a little of it lurking beneath that pretty smile of his.

I shouldn't get involved, but for the first time in nearly four years, I'm done sticking to the shadows. Except, exposing Adrian doesn't quite go to plan, and now, he has his sights set on me. He's determined to turn senior year into a game of cat-and-mouse, one where I'm not sure if his end goal is to kill me or possess me.

And the longer we play, the less certain I am that I want to escape his snare.

After all, I've got a few dark secrets of my own.

Limerence is an 18+ dark romance featuring an obsessed love interest that is unapologetically morally black. The relationship between our hero and heroine is not a healthy one and features themes of dubious consent, emotional manipulation, and other explicit content that may be upsetting to some readers. Please check the full list of trigger warnings inside. ]]> 415 H.C. Dolores Kay 4 4.26 2024
author: H.C. Dolores
name: Kay
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves:
review:
So toxic. And I enjoyed this thoroughly.
]]> 215362556 This is the story of a murder, not a murderer . . .
Ěý
In Story of a Murder, bestselling author of The Five and celebrated historian Hallie Rubenhold reexamines the events leading up to the infamous Crippen murder from the perspectives of the three women at the center of it all.

When Belle Elmore’s remains were discovered in the basement of London’s 39 Hilldrop Crescent in July 1910, the larger-than-life vaudevillian performer was launched into stardom she never achieved on the stage.

Story of a Murder provides an intricately plotted, intimate look into the lives of three multifaceted women living during a time of electric progress and stifling ĚýCrippen’s first wife, Charlotte, who died under mysterious circumstances; his mistress, Ethel, who claimed ignorance of his crime even as she escaped with Crippen disguised as his son; and Belle, the woman whose life Crippen took.
Ěý
Throughout the twentieth century, the infamous Crippen murder was told in such a way as to cast doubt on Crippen's guilt and to victim-blame his wife Cora for her own murder. It also astonishingly depicted Crippen's younger mistress, Ethel, as innocent of any involvement in the killing of her love rival.
Ěý
But new evidence unearthed by Rubenhold completely subverts this famous history, unravelling assumptions about the crime and deconstructing Edwardian beliefs about women, class aspiration, and the transatlantic world, ultimately proving that Charlotte, Belle, and Ethel were so much more than the passive victims history has portrayed them as.]]> 512 Hallie Rubenhold 0593184610 Kay 0 to-read 4.26 2025
author: Hallie Rubenhold
name: Kay
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 199743711
Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, will grow to have a feisty and somewhat uncompromising character in adult life. But she is always a one-off, from her infancy; Elphie is the riveting coming-of-age story of a very peculiar and relatable young girl.

Young Elphie is shaped and molded by the behaviors of her promiscuous mother, Melena, and her pious father, Frex. She suffers ordinary childhood jealousies when her sister, saintly Nessarose, and brother, junior felon Shell, arrive. She first encounters the mistreatment of the Animal populations of Oz, which live adjacent to but not intertwined with human settlements, haunted by a Monkey and receiving aid from Dwarf Bears. She thrashes through her first bruising attempts at friendship, a possible lifeline from her tricky family life. And she gleans the benefits of an education, haphazard though it must be—until she arrives at the doors of Shiz University, about to meet the radiant creature that is Galinda.

Elphie is destined to be a witch; she bears the markings from childhood—most evidently in her green skin but more obscurely and profoundly in her cunning and perhaps amoral behaviors, as she seeks to make do, to slip by, to sneak out, to endure, and to aspire.]]> 288 Gregory Maguire 0063377012 Kay 0 to-read 3.14
author: Gregory Maguire
name: Kay
average rating: 3.14
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/28
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]]> 203223797
1) The stars of your fanfic are men you see every day.

2) There's even the tiniest possibility they'll get a hold of it.

Because if they do, be prepared, they just might respond...

Hot. Brilliant. Mysterious. Untouchable.

These are words students across campus use to describe Gage Sinclair and Alex Grantham, best friends and university professors. What everyone doesn't know? Sometimes they share the same woman in bed.

I want to be that woman.

Don't tempt us, they say. You're not our type, they insist. You're only twenty-three. Too young. A virgin. A student.

We will never touch you.

Well, I may be lacking experience, but I am a good girl, and they know it.

There's Alex, with eyes of an angel, the body of a sinner, oozing with alpha male goodness. And Gage? One: intense. Seeing right through me, telling me he'd always have to have his way, and that it might even hurt. God. I hope so.

They can deny me a thousand ways. Tell me it's not happening a thousand times. But there's only one word in each man's eyes when he looks at me: MINE.

Curious to know what it's like when two intelligent alphas are possessive and obsessive? Kinky and demanding? Who do MORE than just teach? This is Book 1 of a saga between two professors and a virgin student who cross into temptation. A ménage, age gap MFM romance with all the feels, sugar, and serious spice. 1-Click click click!]]> 406 Verika Sloane Kay 0 currently-reading 3.88
author: Verika Sloane
name: Kay
average rating: 3.88
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 220509746
As hidden truths surface, Demi must confront the fallout of her choices. Will love be enough to overcome the damage, or will the consequences of her actions tear everything apart?]]> 336 Anabel Cortis Kay 0 currently-reading 3.38
author: Anabel Cortis
name: Kay
average rating: 3.38
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 20348781
It was easy to call us forbidden and harder to call us soulmates. Yet I believed we were both. Forbidden soulmates.

When I arrived to Edgewood, Wisconsin I didn’t plan to find him. I didn't plan to stumble into Joe's bar and have Daniel's music stir up my emotions. I had no clue that his voice would make my hurts forget their own sorrow. I had no idea that my happiness would remember its own bliss.

When I started senior year at my new school, I wasn’t prepared to call him Mr. Daniels, but sometimes life happens at the wrong time for all the right reasons.

Our love story wasn’t only about the physical connection.

It was about family. It was about loss. It was about being alive. It was silly. It was painful. It was mourning. It was laughter.

It was ours.

And for those reasons alone, I would never apologize for Loving Mr. Daniels.

-Ashlyn Jennings]]> 310 Brittainy C. Cherry 0692221913 Kay 0 to-read 4.19 2014
author: Brittainy C. Cherry
name: Kay
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18135913
Time.

That’s all I have now.

A small room, a photograph, and time.

They want me to trust them and confess my sins.

They told me they wouldn't judge me—they lied.

I thought we could convince the world that this wasn't a crime.

We were wrong.

Time doesn't stand still.

The clock keeps ticking, the world is unconvinced, and now�

Now he is gone.]]> 275 Ella Frank Kay 0 to-read 4.02 2014
author: Ella Frank
name: Kay
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 214269008 The long-awaited follow-up to the Reese’s Book ClubĚýpick and New York Times bestselling global phenomenon The Light We Lost: a thrilling love story about the roles fate and choice play in shaping a life

It’s been ten years. In case you’re out there somewhere—in case you’re listening, I’m here. And I have so much to tell you.

It’s been nearly ten years since Gabe’s been gone when Lucy finds a tiny piece of paper in a box of his old photos. An address in Rome. Why did Gabe keep it, and what was he doing in Italy? Lucy buys a last-minute ticket. Impulsive, but Gabe always brought that out in her.

Lucy’s journey to uncover Gabe’s secret leads her to Dr. Dax Amstrong, a New Yorker in Italy working with an NGO. His broad shoulders and sad, intense eyes draw Lucy in. His touch reaches her in a forgotten place—one that no one has neared since Gabe.

But her old life awaits, along with an earth-shattering decision—whether she and Darren should tell their son Samuel the truth about his real father. How can Lucy move forward while she’s rooted in regret? Fate broke her heart in the past. Can finding new love set her free?]]> 352 Jill Santopolo 0593419200 Kay 0 to-read 3.97
author: Jill Santopolo
name: Kay
average rating: 3.97
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
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]]> 213870131 When a husband asks his reluctant wife to consider what might be missing from their marriage, what follows surprises them both—sex, heartbreak and heart rekindling, and a rediscovered sense of all that is possible

She’s happy and settled and productive and content in her full life—a child, a career, an admirable marriage, deep friendships, happy parents, and a spouse she still loves. But when her husband urges her to address what the narrow labels of “husbandâ€� and “wifeâ€� force them to edit out of their lives, the very best kind of hell breaks loose.Ěý

Using the author’s personal experiences as a jumping-off point, Crush is about the danger and liberation of chasing desire, the havoc it can wreak, and most of all the clear sense of self one finds when the storm passes. Destined to become a classic novel of marriage, and tackling the big questions being asked about partnership in postpandemic relationships, Crush is a sharp, funny, seductive, and revelatory novel about holding on to everything it’s possible to love—friends, children, parents, passion, lovers, husbands, all of the world’s good books, and most of all one’s own deep sense of purpose.]]> 288 Ada Calhoun 0593832027 Kay 0 to-read 3.03 2025
author: Ada Calhoun
name: Kay
average rating: 3.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
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]]> 214175077 An extraordinary and urgent debut by a prize-winning Irish writer, Nesting introduces an unforgettable new voice in fiction.

On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change everything. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe.

This was meant to be an escape. But with dwindling savings, no job, and her family across the sea, Ciara finds herself adrift, facing a broken housing system and the voice of her own demons. As summer passes and winter closes in, she must navigate raising her children in a hotel room, searching for a new home and dealing with her husband Ryan’s relentless campaign to get her to come back. Because leaving is one thing, but staying away is another.

What will it take for Ciara to rebuild her life? Can she ever truly break away from Ryan’s control � and what will be the cost?

Tense, beautiful, and underpinned by an unassailable love, hope and resilience, this is the story of one woman’s bid to start over.]]> 400 Roisín O’Donnell 1643755706 Kay 0 to-read 4.31 2025
author: Roisín O’Donnell
name: Kay
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
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]]> 219542918 THIS BOOK IS NOT SAFE TO READ AT WORK. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

Twenty year old Temperance Verus has never been kissed. But that's what the basilisk is for.

Along with thirteen other contestants, Tem must train with a basilisk to learn the power of seduction and win the prince's hand in marriage. When Tem is matched with Caspen, the Serpent King, she realizes she might actually stand a chance. But with tensions rising between the basilisks and the humans, Tem is suddenly torn in two directions. As her bond with Caspen deepens, so does her connection with the prince. And when she uncovers a terrible secret about the royal family, Tem finds herself caught between two neither of which she can survive without.

Guaranteed to make you blush (and then some), Split or Swallow is like if fanfic Draco Malfoy went on the Bachelor and had to compete with a snake. Sounds fun, doesn't it? That's because it is!!]]> 528 Lindsay Straube 1464247579 Kay 0 to-read 3.45
author: Lindsay Straube
name: Kay
average rating: 3.45
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
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]]> 211399781 A taut, powerful psychological thriller following a mother who must confront a sudden and terrifying change in her daughter after the abrupt death of their babysitter.

Charlotte’s daughter Stella is sensitive and brilliant, perhaps even a genius, but a recent change in her behavior has alarmed her mother. Following the sudden death of Stella’s babysitter, Blanka, the once disruptive and anti-social child has become docile and agreeable. But what’s unsettling is that she has begun to mirror Blanka’s personality, from Blanka’s repetitive phrases to her accent, to fierce cravings for Armenian meat stew after being raised a vegetarian.

Charlotte is pregnant with her second child, and depleted and sick with the pregnancy. She is convinced that Blanka herself is somehow responsible for Stella’s transformation. But how could Blanka, dead, still be entwined in their lives? Has Blanka somehow possessed Stella? Has Stella become Blanka? As Charlotte becomes increasingly obsessed, she is sure that only she can save her daughter. . . even though it’s soon clear that her husband believes this is all in Charlotte’s head.

Helena Echlin’s singular, chilling voice holds light to the blurred lines of diagnosis in children and to the vital power of maternal instinct. Kaleidoscopic and tense, pulse-pounding and genuinely creepy, and infused with shades of the supernatural, Clever Little Thing is an ode to motherhood and a nuanced critique of the caretaking industry, a page-turner that will haunt readers long after its epic, surprising finale.]]> 352 Helena Echlin 0593656075 Kay 0 to-read 3.62 2025
author: Helena Echlin
name: Kay
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 38647400 A gripping true-crime investigation of the 1948 abduction of Sally Horner and how it inspired Vladimir Nabokov’s classic novel, Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is one of the most beloved and notorious novels of all time. And yet very few of its readers know that the subject of the novel was inspired by a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of eleven-year-old Sally Horner.

Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and social history, and literary investigation, The Real Lolita tells Sally Horner’s full story for the very first time. Drawing upon extensive investigations, legal documents, public records, and interviews with remaining relatives, Sarah Weinman uncovers how much Nabokov knew of the Sally Horner case and the efforts he took to disguise that knowledge during the process of writing and publishing Lolita.

Sally Horner’s story echoes the stories of countless girls and women who never had the chance to speak for themselves. By diving deeper in the publication history of Lolita and restoring Sally to her rightful place in the lore of the novel’s creation, The Real Lolita casts a new light on the dark inspiration for a modern classic.]]> 306 Sarah Weinman 0062661922 Kay 0 to-read 3.44 2018
author: Sarah Weinman
name: Kay
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 216247518 One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. A mesmerizing Mobius strip of a novel that asks who we are to the people we love.

Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an elegant and accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, and young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In Audition, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day—partner, parent, creator, muse—and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us best.]]> 208 Katie Kitamura 059385232X Kay 0 to-read 3.85 2025
author: Katie Kitamura
name: Kay
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211934957 A young woman’s madcap search for her missing ex-boyfriend takes her into the sexual underground in Brittany Newell’s savage, tender Soft Core.

Ruth is lost. She’s living in a drafty Victorian with her ex-boyfriend Dino, a ketamine dealer with a lingerie habit, overdosing on television and regretting her master’s degree. When she starts dancing at a strip club, she becomes Baby Blue, seductress of crypto bros, outcasts, and old lovers alike. Plunged into this swirling underworld of beautiful women, fast cash, ungodly hours, and strangers� secrets, Baby’s grip on reality begins to loosen. She is sure she can handle it—until one autumn morning when Dino disappears without a trace.

Thus begins a nocturnal quest for the one she still loves—through the misty hills of San Francisco; in dive bars and bus depots; at the BDSM dungeon where she takes a part-time gig. Along the way, she meets Simon, a recluse who pays her for increasingly bizarre favors; a philosophizing suicide fetishist named Nobody; and Emeline, the beautiful and balletic new hire who reminds Baby of someone . . .

A brutally funny, propulsive story of power, fantasy, love, and loss, Brittany Newell’s Soft Core is an ode to the heartbroken and unhinged, to those whose appetites lead them astray. It is a hallucinogenic romp about a girl coming undone, whose longing for friendship, romance, and revenge will take her over the edge and back again.]]> 352 Brittany Newell 0374613893 Kay 0 to-read 3.63 2025
author: Brittany Newell
name: Kay
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> 183932744
When it comes to dating, Margot's had the good, the bad, and the downright embarrassing - from her first kiss to her first time, from the mistakes she'd rather forget to the heartbreak she'll always remember. And for a while it really did seem that those stepping stones had led her to the one.

So how did she find herself here, thirty-four, alone and about to make the biggest decision of her life?

This was never meant to be part of her story.

Fresh, funny and full of heart, As Young as This is an irresistible debut novel about the people that shape us, the plans we make for our lives, and what it means to let go of them, from a major new talent.]]> 288 Roxy Dunn 0241632714 Kay 0 to-read 3.96 2024
author: Roxy Dunn
name: Kay
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> 129552261
Over the next fifteen years, they share grief, laughter, friendship, bottles of cider, cigarettes in the rain. But there’s one thing Ella can never ask whether he feels the same way about her. And every time Lowe kisses another girl, Ella feels her heart break just that little bit more.

So can you ever really just be friends with the love of your life? And what happens when the day comes when you can’t keep the beautiful, terrifying, all-consuming truth to yourself anymore?

From a unique new voice in adult fiction, I Love You, I Love You, I Love You is a glorious nostalgia trip for anyone who has ever known the exquisite pain and pleasure of first love.]]> 349 Laura Dockrill 0008587019 Kay 0 to-read 4.00 2024
author: Laura Dockrill
name: Kay
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199516514 A tense and compulsive novel of unnatural fixation

Anna is smart. Smarter than you, probably. But when she falls for the beautiful, enigmatic Caden, her need to get under his skin, to truly know him becomes overpowering.

Anna’s new life in Cambridge is full of promise � she’s the top student in her PhD cohort, she has great friends and she has met an exhaustingly attractive man � but something is a little off. Perhaps it’s the routine violence of her lab work with animals, or maybe it’s something to do with her boyfriend’s icy reserve but it seems there is a kind of menace hiding beneath the Cambridge dream.

When Anna and Caden's lives become tightly entangled, her obsession with Caden’s seemingly ever-present ex-girlfriend reaches a dangerous pitch� Just how far will she go to satiate her curiosity?]]> 240 Bea Setton 147359409X Kay 0 to-read 3.67 2024
author: Bea Setton
name: Kay
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> 6316171
Now, after a summer of seclusion, Val is forced to confront her guilt as she returns to school to complete her senior year. Haunted by the memory of the boyfriend she still loves and navigating rocky relationships with her family, former friends and the girl whose life she saved, Val must come to grips with the tragedy that took place and her role in it, in order to make amends and move on with her life.
]]> 405 Jennifer Brown 0316041440 Kay 0 to-read 4.00 2009
author: Jennifer Brown
name: Kay
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6646822 Left to her grandparents' care, longing for her elusive, glamorous mother and for a father she barely remembers, Isabel's agony erupts into perverse and dangerous rebellion.
A compelling novel that lends new meaning to Freud's "family romance", Thicker Than Water brilliantly illuminates how fragile the line is between family love and the darker sides of passion.]]> 290 Kathryn Harrison Kay 0 currently-reading 3.67 1991
author: Kathryn Harrison
name: Kay
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 197404659 Ěý Ěý Ěý Ěý Ěý
Meet the most irresistible serial killer of the year in this twisty feminist thriller that's as wickedly fun as it is lethal
Ěý Ěý Ěý ĚýĚý
Saffy Huntley-Oliver is an intelligent and glamorous socialite; she also happens to be a proficient serial killer. For the past fifteen years, she's hunted down and dispatched rapists, murderers, domestic abusers—bad men all. But leading a double life has left her lonely—dating’s tough when your boyfriend might turn out to be your next victim. Saffy thinks she's finally found a truly good man inĚýJonathan Desrosiers, a true-crime podcaster who’s amassed legions of die-hard fans for cracking cold cases and bringing justice to victims­­.
Ěý Ěý ĚýĚý
When a decapitated body shows up on Jon's doorstep the morning after his wife leaves him, he becomes the chief suspect for a murder he insists he didn’t commit. Saffy’s crush becomes an obsession as she orchestrates a meet-cute and volunteers to help Jon clear his name, using every trick up her sleeve to find the real killer and get her man—no matter the cost.
Ěý Ěý Ěý
Darkly comic and addictively readable,Ěý Bad MenĚý is a wild romp of a feminist thriller that asks if even a serial killer can have a happily ever after.]]> 336 Julie Mae Cohen Kay 0 currently-reading 3.70 2023
author: Julie Mae Cohen
name: Kay
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 59349372
If he can’t have her . . .

Dr. Sheila Tao is a professor of psychology. An expert in human behavior. And when she began an affair with sexy, charming graduate student Ethan Wolfe, she knew she was playing with fire. Consumed by lust when they were together, riddled with guilt when they weren’t, she knows the three-month fling with her teaching assistant has to end. After all, she’s finally engaged to a kind and loving investment banker who adores her, and she’s taking control of her life. But when she attempts to end the affair, Ethan Wolfe won’t let her walk away.

. . . no one else can.

Ethan has plans for Sheila, plans that involve posting a sex video that would surely get her fired and destroy her prestigious career. Plans to make her pay for rejecting him. And as she attempts to counter his every threatening move without her colleagues or her fiancé discovering her most intimate secrets, a shattering crime rocks Puget Sound State University: a female student, a star athlete, is found stabbed to death. Someone is raising the stakes of violence, sex, and blackmail . . . and before she knows it, Sheila is caught in a terrifying cat-and-mouse game with the lover she couldn’t resist—who is now the monster who won’t let her go.]]> 436 Jennifer Hillier Kay 0 currently-reading 4.17 2011
author: Jennifer Hillier
name: Kay
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 197510443 *"For fans of Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This (2021). An off-kilter, hauntingly hilarious debut novel." �Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"[A] bonkers story . . . Despite the sobering material, this is a hoot." �Publishers Weekly

In a pre-apocalyptic world not unlike our own, a young Instagram poet starts an affair with a California billionaire who's promised a time machine that will make everything normal again—whatever that means.

Everyone knows something’s off, but nobody can agree on just what it is. Maybe it’s the weather; maybe everyone’s just so damn sensitive these days. Or maybe it’s because the animals of the world have finally had enough, besieging towns and cities and terrorizing their human residents.

Jenlena and her best friend Daphne are two humanities grads in their early 20s, trying to find their way in a society that has just eradicated all animals for the safety of humanity. In the post-fauna world, Jenlena transforms from an aspiring poet to a gig worker, capitalizing on other people’s grief by selling house plants that have come to replace pets and cosplaying as dogs for pay. Meanwhile Daphne, a once-promising student, flounders in a deep depression, smoking weed and ditching work to hang out with her once famous, now canceled boyfriend. When Jenlena meets the California billionaire Roderick Maeve, and the two become romantically entangled, she is exposed to a new understanding of wealth, power, and the gender economy—just as the world hurtles toward its alleged salvation.

Marked with Frankie Barnet’s poignant intelligence and sly sense of humor, Mood Swings is a stand-out debut novel that imagines with pitch-perfect absurdity what comes after life as we know it.]]> 296 Frankie Barnet 1662602588 Kay 0 currently-reading 3.34 2024
author: Frankie Barnet
name: Kay
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 193438779
Kill for Love is a searing satirical thriller about Tiffany, a privileged Los Angeles sorority sister who is struggling to keep her sadistic impulses—and haunting nightmares of fire and destruction—at bay. After a frat party hookup devolves into a bloody, fatal affair, Tiffany realizes something within her has awoken: the insatiable desire to kill attractive young men.

As Tiffany’s bloodlust deepens and the bodies pile up, she must contend with mounting legal scrutiny, social media-fueled competing murders, and her growing relationship with Weston, who she thinks could be the perfect boyfriend. A female-driven, modern-day American Psycho, Kill for Love exposes modern toxic plasticity with dark comedy and propulsive plot.]]> 279 Laura Picklesimer 1951213866 Kay 0 currently-reading 3.64 2023
author: Laura Picklesimer
name: Kay
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 52860811 "Show Them a Good Time is a master class in the short story-bold, irreverent and agonizingly funny." Sally Rooney, Author of Normal People and Conversations with Friends

Named A Most Anticipated Novel of 2020 by
Entertainment Weekly * Marie Claire * Wall Street Journal * The A.V. Club * The Millions * Time * Parade * The Chicago Review of Books * LitHub

A blisteringly original and wickedly funny collection of stories about the strange worlds that women inhabit and the parts that they must play.

A sense of otherworldly menace is at work in the fiction of Nicole Flattery, but the threats are all too familiar. SHOW THEM A GOOD TIME tells the stories of women slotted away into restrictive roles: the celebrity's girlfriend, the widower's second wife, the lecherous professor's student, the corporate employee. And yet, the genius of Flattery's characters is to blithely demolish the boundaries of these limited and limiting social types with immense complexity and caustic intelligence. Nicole Flattery's women are too ferociously mordant, too painfully funny to remain in their places.

In this fiercely original and blazingly brilliant debut, Flattery likewise deconstructs the conventions of genre to serve up strange realities: In Not the End Yet, Flattery probes the hilarious and wrenching ambivalence of Internet dating as the apocalypse nears; in Sweet Talk, the mysterious disappearance of a number of local women sets the scene for a young girl to confront the dangerous uncertainties of her own sexuality; in this collection's center piece, Abortion, A Love Story, two college students in a dystopian campus reconfigure the perilous stories of their bodies in a fraught academic culture to offer a subversive, alarming, and wickedly funny play that takes over their own offstage lives. And yet, however surreal or richly imagined the setting, Flattery always shows us these strange worlds from startlingly unexpected angles, through an unforgettable cast of brutally honest, darkly hilarious women and girls.

Like the stories of Mary Gaitskill, Miranda July, Lorrie Moore, Joy Williams, and Ottessa Moshfegh, SHOW THEM A GOOD TIME is the work of a profoundly resonant and revelatory literary voice � at once spiky, humane, achingly hilarious-- that is sure to echo through the literary culture for decades to come.]]> 256 Nicole Flattery 1635574307 Kay 0 currently-reading 2.74 2019
author: Nicole Flattery
name: Kay
average rating: 2.74
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 123791142 341 Franz Kafka Kay 0 to-read, books-that-i-own 2.50 1925
author: Franz Kafka
name: Kay
average rating: 2.50
book published: 1925
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read, books-that-i-own
review:

]]> 63059709 An aimless young woman starts writing to an accused serial killer while he awaits trial and then, once he’s acquitted, decides to move in with him and take the investigation into her own hands in this dark and irresistibly compelling debut thriller. Recently ghosted and sick of watching her friends fade into the suburbs, thirty-something Hannah finds community in a true-crime forum that’s on a mission to solve the murders of four women in Atlanta. After William, a handsome lawyer, is arrested for the killings, Hannah begins writing him letters. It’s the perfect outlet for her pent-up frustration and rage. The exercise empowers her, and even feels healthy at first. Until William writes back. Hannah’s interest in the case goes from curiosity to obsession, leaving space for nothing else as her life implodes around her. After she loses her job, she heads to Georgia to attend the trial and befriends other true-crime junkies like herself. When a fifth woman is discovered murdered, the jury has no choice but to find William not guilty, and Hannah is the first person he calls upon his release. The two of them quickly fall into a routine of domestic bliss. Well, as blissful as one can feel while secretly investigating their partner for serial murder…]]> 320 Tasha Coryell 0593640292 Kay 3
3.5/5 stars ]]> 3.41 2024
author: Tasha Coryell
name: Kay
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves:
review:
Very predictable but very entertaining

3.5/5 stars
]]> 229017917 270 Mia Ballard Kay 0 currently-reading 3.95 2025
author: Mia Ballard
name: Kay
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 210395729 The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue meets This is How You Lose The Time War in this fantastical love story that defies death as two souls reincarnate through the centuries.

They've loved each other in a thousand lifetimes. They've killed each other in every one.

Evelyn remembers all her past lives. She also remembers that in every single one, she’s been murdered before her eighteenth birthday by Arden, a supernatural being whose soul―and survival―is tethered to hers.

The problem is that she’s quite fond of the life she’s in now, and her little sister needs her for bone marrow transplants in order to stay alive. If Evelyn wants to save her sister, she’ll have to:

1. Find the centuries-old devil who hunts her through each life―before they find her first.
2. Figure out why she’s being hunted and finally break their curse.
3. Try not to fall in love.]]> 352 Laura Steven 1250333881 Kay 0 3.80 2025
author: Laura Steven
name: Kay
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: 2025-book-club-books, currently-reading
review:

]]> 216497102 From a blistering new voice in dark literary fiction, an unsettling portrait of loneliness, obsession, and identity which asks: if a stranger was left alone in your house, how well could they truly get to know you—enough to fall in love with you?

Alice and Tom are made for each other. Deeply connected, they share a flat in London, go to galleries together, enjoy the same books and wine. They even share a toothbrush. It’s all picture perfect.

Except Alice and Tom have never met.

Alice has been cleaning Tom’s apartment every Wednesday for a year. With every smudge wiped from his coffee cup, every multivitamin counted in the jar, Alice spirals deeper into infatuation, imagining a love so powerful it might erase a lifetime of self-hatred and loneliness.

But as Alice prepares for the moment when she and Tom will finally meet face-to-face, she discovers that love might not be the cure she thought it was. Instead, their coming together sets off a chain of events that shatters everything Alice thought she knew and burns her world to the ground.

Told in Alice’s compelling, deliciously acidic voice, Creep is a literary study of unreliability and unlikability. Exploring alienation and loneliness, class and race, it's a skilled debut with resonance in the way that we view women, mental health, and the lost in society.]]> 256 Emma van Straaten 0063411016 Kay 4 4-stars-books
4/5 ]]> 3.55 2025
author: Emma van Straaten
name: Kay
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: 4-stars-books
review:
This was a painful read. Alice was crazy, and I was dying of secondhand embarrassment for most of the book. It was a good book, but boy, did I struggle to read it. Alice was truly delusional, and I was just sad and cringed over the things she did. Someone get this girl committed ASAP!

4/5
]]> 206097138
It's 2016, and Sloane Hart's senior year of college is bound to be the best one yet. Her nights consist of drinking cheap vodka and singing along to The Chainsmokers with her friends, and her days are spent writing as she prepares for the post-grad life in New York City she's always dreamed of.

The last thing she needs is for a guy to get in the way of her goals. With graduation so close, she just needs to focus on landing a job and enjoying this last year with her best friends all under one roof. But that plan becomes a little more complicated when her upstairs neighbor, Ethan Brady, enters the picture.

Ethan's pull is undeniable. He's tall, mysterious, and handsome as hell, and when Sloane is with him, the entire world slows to a halt. But Ethan's guarded past is too hurtful for him to face, and if letting Sloane in means that the walls he's built around his heart would come crumbling down, he may not be willing to let that happen.

As their chemistry and connection intensify, Sloane finds herself falling deeper and deeper, but will Ethan ever be ready to catch her?Ěý

Nostalgic, heartfelt, and profoundly cathartic, Call It What You Want is an ode to almost-love stories—the kinds with no labels, no promises, and the potential to turn your entire world upside down.]]> 287 Alissa DeRogatis 1464223378 Kay 0 currently-reading 3.60 2023
author: Alissa DeRogatis
name: Kay
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 2247142
It’s here, in the first volume of Patricia Highsmith’s five-book Ripley series, that we are introduced to the suave Tom Ripley, a young striver seeking to leave behind his past as an orphan bullied for being a “sissy.� Newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley’s fascination with Dickie’s debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie’s ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game.

“Sinister and strangely alluring,� (Mark Harris, Entertainment Weekly) The Talented Mr. Ripley serves as an unforgettable introduction to this smooth confidence man, whose talent for self-invention is as unnerving—and unnervingly revealing of the American psyche—as ever.]]> 271 Patricia Highsmith Kay 0 to-read 3.96 1955
author: Patricia Highsmith
name: Kay
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1955
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217387999 A smart and thought-provoking memoir, history, and cultural critique about the turmoil and complexity of female friendship

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

We have all been bad friends. It’s impossible to be a perfect one; as Watt Smith points out, women’s friendships have long been magnified, scrutinized, praised, and admonished, creating a legacy of impossible ideals. In Bad Friend, Watt Smith reflects on her own experience and thoroughly mines the rich cultural history of female friendship to look for a new paradigm that might encompass the struggles along with the joy.]]> 304 Tiffany Watt Smith 1250870216 Kay 0 to-read 4.05
author: Tiffany Watt Smith
name: Kay
average rating: 4.05
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217481325 The #1 New York Times bestselling authors and award-winning podcasters Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle created We Can Do Hard Things —the guidebook for being alive—to help fellow travelers find their way through life.

When you travel through a new country, you need a guidebook.

When you travel through love, heartbreak, joy, parenting, friendship, uncertainty, aging, grief, new beginnings � life � you need a guidebook, too.

We Can Do Hard Things is the guidebook for being alive.

Every day, Glennon Doyle spirals around the same questions: Why am I like this? How do I figure out what I want? How do I know what to do? Why can’t I be happy? Am I doing this right?

The harder life gets, the less likely she is to remember the answers she’s spent her life learning. She wonders: I’m almost fifty years old. I’ve overcome a hell of a lot. Why do I wake up every day having forgotten everything I know?

Glennon’s compasses are her sister, Amanda, and her wife, Abby. Recently, in the span of a single year, Glennon was diagnosed with anorexia, Amanda was diagnosed with breast cancer, and Abby’s beloved brother died. For the first time, they were all lost at the same time. So they turned toward the only thing that’s ever helped them find their way: deep, honest conversations with other brave, kind, wise people.

They asked each other, their dearest friends, and 118 of the world’s most brilliant wayfinders: As you’ve traveled these roads—marriage, parenting, work, recovery, heartbreak, aging, new beginnings—have you collected any wisdom that might help us find our way?

As Glennon, Abby, and Amanda wrote down every life-saving answer, they discovered two things:

1. No matter what road we are walking down, someone else has traveled the same terrain.
2. The wisdom of our fellow travelers will light our way.

They put all of that wisdom in one place: We Can Do Hard Things —a place to turn when you feel clueless and alone, when you need clarity in the chaos, or when you want wise company on the path of life.

We are all life travelers. We don’t have to travel alone. We Can Do Hard Things is our guidebook.

Featuring wisdom from: ALOK � Sara Bareilles � Dr. Yaba Blay � Kate Bowler � adrienne maree brown � Brandi Carlile � Brittney Cooper � Brittany Packnett Cunningham � Kaitlin Curtice � Megan Falley � Jane Fonda � Stephanie Foo � Ashley C. Ford � Ina Garten � Roxane Gay � Andrea Gibson � Elizabeth Gilbert � Dr. Orna Guralnik � Tricia Hersey � Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson � Luvvie Ajayi Jones � Dr. Becky Kennedy � Emily Nagoski � Esther Perel � Ai-Jen Poo � Cole Arthur Riley � Dr. Alexandra Solomon � Cheryl Strayed � Sonya Renee Taylor � Ocean Vuong � And many others ]]> 512 Glennon Doyle 0593977645 Kay 0 to-read 4.00
author: Glennon Doyle
name: Kay
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> 223889073 An extraordinary work from the author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights

In November 1999, Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist because, as she wrote to a friend, her family had had “a rough few years.� She described the sessions in a journal she created for her husband, John Gregory Dunne.

For several months, Didion recorded conversations with the psychiatrist in meticulous detail. The initial sessions focused on alcoholism, adoption, depression, anxiety, guilt, and the heartbreaking complexities of her relationship with her daughter, Quintana. The subjects evolved to include her work, which she was finding difficult to maintain for sustained periods. There were discussions about her own childhood—misunderstandings and lack of communication with her mother and father, her early tendency to anticipate catastrophe—and the question of legacy, or, as she put it, “what it’s been worth.� The analysis would continue for more than a decade.

Didion’s journal was crafted with the singular intelligence, precision, and elegance that characterize all of her writing. It is an unprecedently intimate account that reveals sides of her that were unknown, but the voice is unmistakably hers—questioning, courageous, and clear in the face of a wrenchingly painful journey.]]> 224 Joan Didion 0593803671 Kay 0 to-read 3.67
author: Joan Didion
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]]> 217044909 A glorious chronicle of a life like none other—enlightening, entertaining, surprising, empowering—and a testament to the world-changing power of Black motherhood

"You are Celestine," she said. She squatted to push the hair off my face and pull leaves off my pajama legs. "Like my sister and my grandmother." And there under the pecan tree, as she did countless times, that day my mother told me stories of the mothers and daughters that went before me.

Tina Knowles, the mother of iconic singer-songwriters Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Solange Knowles, and bonus daughter Kelly Rowland, is known the world over as a Matriarch with a capital M: a determined, self-possessed, self-aware, and wise woman who raised and inspired some of the great artists of our time. But this story is about so much more than that.

Matriarch begins with a precocious, if unruly, little girl growing up in 1950s Galveston, the youngest of seven. She is in love with her world, with extended family on every other porch and the sounds of Motown and the lapping beach always within earshot. But as the realities of race and the limitations of girlhood set in, she begins to dream of the world beyond. Her instincts and impulsive nature drive her far beyond the shores of Texas to discover the life awaiting her on the other side of childhood.

That life's journey—through grief and tragedy, creative and romantic risks and turmoil, the nurturing of superstar offspring and of her own special gifts—is the remarkable story she shares with readers here. This is a page-turning chronicle of family love and heartbreak, of loss and perseverance, and of the kind of creativity, audacity, and will it takes for a girl from Galveston to change the world. It's one brilliant woman's intimate and revealing story, and a multigenerational family saga that carries within it the story of America—and the wisdom that women pass on to each other, mothers to daughters, across generations.]]> 432 Tina Knowles 0593597400 Kay 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: Tina Knowles
name: Kay
average rating: 4.00
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]]> 219867662
Amanda Knox spent nearly four years in prison and eight years on trial for a murder she didn’t commit—and became a notorious tabloid story in the process. Though she was exonerated, it’s taken more than a decade for her to reclaim her identity and truly feel free.

Free recounts how Knox survived incarceration, the mistakes she made and misadventures she had reintegrating into society, and culminates in the as-yet-untold story of her return to Italy and the extraordinary relationship she went on to build with the man who sent her to prison. It is the moving saga of how she wrests back her own life from the grip of her story’s notoriety and returns to the quiet matters of a normal life—seeking a life partner, finding a job, or even just going out in public.

In harrowing (and sometimes hilarious) detail, Amanda reveals her personal growth and hard-fought wisdom, recasting her public reckoning as a private reflection on the search for meaning and purpose that will speak to everyone who has persevered through hardship.]]> 304 Amanda Knox 1538770717 Kay 0 to-read 3.96 2025
author: Amanda Knox
name: Kay
average rating: 3.96
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]]> 211003937 The long-awaited follow-up from one of the most original and hilarious voices writing today.

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

Sucker Punch is about what happens when the life you thought you’d be living radically changes course, everything you thought you knew about the world and yourself has tilted on its axis, and you have to start forging a new path forward. Scaachi employs her signature humor and fierce intelligence to interrogate her previous belief that fighting is the most effective tool for progress. She examines the fights she’s had—with her parents, her ex-husband, her friends, online strangers, and herself—all in an attempt to understand when a fight is worth having, and when it's better to walk away.]]> 272 Scaachi Koul 1250270502 Kay 0 to-read 4.07 2025
author: Scaachi Koul
name: Kay
average rating: 4.07
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]]> 209594872 The Last of Us meets The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in this standalone dystopian romance about survival, sacrifice, and love that risks everything.

By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society.

Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to Inesa, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt—enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus’s livestreamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb’s Gauntlet.

Melinoë is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. The product of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. She has never failed to assassinate one of her marks.

When Inesa learns that her mother has offered her as a sacrifice, at first she despairs—the Gauntlet is always a bloodbath for the impoverished debtors. But she’s had years of practice surviving in the apocalyptic wastes, and with the help of her hunter brother, she might stand a chance of staying alive.

For Melinoë, this is a game she can’t afford to lose. Despite her reputation for mercilessness, she is haunted by painful flashbacks. After her last Gauntlet, where she broke down on livestream, she desperately needs redemption.

As Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything: Inesa wonders if there’s more to life than survival, while Mel wonders if she’s capable of more than killing.

And both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love.]]> 384 Ava Reid 0063211556 Kay 0 to-read 3.88 2025
author: Ava Reid
name: Kay
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2025
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]]> 216971219 A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods in this mesmerizing horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.

Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what.

Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something a mysterious staircase to nowhere.

One friend walks up—and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears.

Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods. . . .]]> 400 Chuck Wendig 0593156560 Kay 0 to-read 3.90 2025
author: Chuck Wendig
name: Kay
average rating: 3.90
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]]> 219401075 Four strangers time travel to the past and find themselves stuck on the day all their lives were changed in this stunning speculative mystery from award-winning film and television producer Dete Meserve, perfect for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Wrong Place Wrong Time and The Paradox Hotel.

What would you do if you could spend an hour in your past? Four strangers in the beach town of Ventura, California are about to find out.Ěý

Elizabeth aches for one more precious hour with her son who died in a senseless accident. Andy is desperate to find his first love who vanished after a whirlwind romance. Logan craves the rush of surfing and mountain climbing, yearning to reclaim the freedom he lost after a misstepĚýlanded him in a wheelchair. Brooke is looking for an hour of relief from the guilt of an unforgivable mistake.

Enter Aeon Expeditions, the groundbreaking time travelĚýinvention of Mark Saunders—which allowsĚýsome lucky clientsĚý the chanceĚýto spend an hour in their past. Even though Aeon’s technology ensures time travel can’t alter the future, all four clients,Ěýincluding Mark’s ex-wife Elizabeth,Ěýyearn to revisit the hour that changed their lives forever.Ěý

But when their “hour� extends beyond sixty minutes, they find themselves stranded in the past. As their paths intertwine unexpectedly, they unearth shocking secrets hidden in the shadows of their shared All their lives were shattered the same night on a secluded highway by the beach. As they delve into the hidden truths of that pivotal hour, a startling revelation emerges. They were not alone. Someone else was present, harboring deadly intentions.

The Memory Collectors is a heart-wrenching, genre-bending novel brimming with hope, grief and second chances.

]]> 336 Dete Meserve Kay 0 to-read 4.21 2025
author: Dete Meserve
name: Kay
average rating: 4.21
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]]> 215362027 A woman dives into her husband's memories to uncover a decades-old feud threatening reality itself in this staggering technothriller from the bestselling author of Ascension.

Maggie Webb has lived the last decade caring for elderly husband, Stanley, as memory loss gradually erases all the beautiful moments they created together. It's the loneliest she's ever felt in her life.

When a mysterious stranger named Hassan appears at her door, he reveals a shocking truth: Stanley isn't losing his memories. Someone is actively removing them to hide a long-buried secret from coming to light. If Maggie does what she's told, she can reverse it. She can get her husband back.

Led by Hassan and his technological marvels, Maggie breaks into her husband's mind, probing the depths of his past in an effort to save him. The deeper she dives, the more she unravels a mystery spanning continents and centuries, each layer more complex than the last.

But Hassan cannot be trusted. Not just memories are disappearing, but pieces of reality itself. If Maggie cannot find out what Stanley did all those years ago, and what Hassan is after now, she risks far more than her husband's life. The very course of human history hangs in the balance.]]> 384 Nicholas Binge 0593852168 Kay 0 to-read 4.16 2025
author: Nicholas Binge
name: Kay
average rating: 4.16
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]]> 220161226 What if you could have one last meal with someone you’ve loved, someone you’ve lost? Combining the magic of Under the Whispering Door with the high-stakes culinary world of Sweetbitter, Aftertaste is an epic love story, a dark comedy, and a synesthetic adventure through food and grief.

Konstantin Duhovny is a haunted man. His father died when he was ten, and ghosts have been hovering around Kostya ever since. Kostya can’t exactly see the ghosts, but he can taste their favorite foods. Flavors of meals he’s never eaten will flood his mouth, a sign that a spirit is present. Kostya has kept these aftertastes a secret for most of his life, but one night, he decides to act on what he’s tasting. And everything changes.

Kostya discovers that he can reunite people with their deceased loved ones—at least for the length of time it takes for them to eat a dish that he’s prepared. He thinks his life’s purpose might be to offer closure to grieving strangers, and sets out to learn all he can by entering a particularly fiery ring of Hell: the New York culinary scene. But as his kitchen skills catch up with his ambitions, Kostya is too blind to see the catastrophe looming in the Afterlife. And the one person who knows Kostya must be stopped also happens to be falling in love with him.

Set in the bustling world of New York restaurants and teeming with mouthwatering food writing, Aftertaste is a whirlwind romance, a heart-wrenching look at love and loss, and a ghost story about all the ways we hunger—and how far we’d go to find satisfaction.

Lavelle’s debut is a multi-course tasting menu of a book that will sate, delight, excite, comfort, and inspire even the pickiest of readers.]]> 400 Daria Lavelle 1668061597 Kay 0 to-read 4.25 2025
author: Daria Lavelle
name: Kay
average rating: 4.25
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]]> 217387935 Naomi Novik's Scholomance series meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy by instant national and international bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.

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

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

Walden is good at her job―no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from―is herself.]]> 432 Emily Tesh 1250835011 Kay 0 to-read 4.31 2025
author: Emily Tesh
name: Kay
average rating: 4.31
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]]> 211004124 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six comes the story of three siblings who, upon the death of their father, are forced to reckon with their long-festering rivalries, dangerous abilities, and the crushing weight of all their unrealized adolescent potential.

Where there’s a will, there’s a war.

Thayer Wren, the brilliant CEO of Wrenfare Magitech and so-called father of modern technology, is dead. Any one of his three telepathically and electrokinetically gifted children would be a plausible inheritor to the Wrenfare throne.

Or at least, so they like to think.

Meredith, textbook accomplished eldest daughter and the head of her own groundbreaking biotech company, has recently cured mental illness. You're welcome! If only her father's fortune wasn't her last hope for keeping her journalist ex-boyfriend from exposing what she really is: a total fraud.

Arthur, second-youngest congressman in history, fights the good fight every day of his life. And yet, his wife might be leaving him, and he's losing his re-election campaign. But his dead father’s approval in the form of a seat on the Wrenfare throne might just turn his sinking ship around.

Eilidh, once the world's most famous ballerina, has spent the last five years as a run-of-the-mill marketing executive at her father’s company after a life-altering injury put an end to her prodigious career. She might be lacking in accolades compared to her siblings, but if her father left her everything, it would finally validate her worth—by confirming she'd been his favorite all along.

On the pipeline of gifted kid to clinically depressed adult, nobody wins—but which Wren will come out on top?]]> 512 Olivie Blake 1250883407 Kay 0 to-read 3.95 2025
author: Olivie Blake
name: Kay
average rating: 3.95
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]]> 214152131 An imaginative retelling of the triumphs and sorrows of one of the most controversial and misunderstood women in Mexico’s history and mythology, perfect for fans of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Gods of Jade and Shadow and Zoraida Córdova’s The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina.

A real-life historical figure, the woman known as Malinalli, Malintzin, La Malinche, Doña Marina, and Malinalxochitl was the Nahua interpreter who helped Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés communicate with the native people of Mexico. When indigenous leaders observed her marching into their cities, they believed she was a goddess—blessed with the divine power to interpret the Spaniards� intentions for their land. Later, historians and pop culture would deem her a traitor—the “Indian� girl who helped sell Mexico’s future to an invader.

In this riveting, fantastical retelling, Malinalli is all of those things and more, but at heart, she’s a young girl, kidnapped into slavery by age twelve, and fighting to survive the devastation wrought by both the Spanish and Moctezuma’s greed and cruelty. Blessed with magical powers, and supported by a close-knit circle of priestesses, Mali vows to help defend her people’s legacy. In vivid, compelling prose, debut author Veronica Chapa spins an epic tale of magic, sisterhood, survival, and Mexican resilience. This is the first novel to reimagine and reinterpret Malinalli’s story with the empathy, humanity, and awe she’s always deserved.]]> 384 Veronica Chapa 1668009013 Kay 0 to-read 3.50 2025
author: Veronica Chapa
name: Kay
average rating: 3.50
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]]> 214151202 “The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.�

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.]]> 320 Clare Leslie Hall 166807818X Kay 0 to-read 4.44 2025
author: Clare Leslie Hall
name: Kay
average rating: 4.44
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]]> 222085340 fresh. Torn between fear and fascination, the boys decide to keep the corpse hidden in a ditch in the woods in order to keep her as their girlfriend—to converse with her, to flirt, to practice, to love.

What follows is a story of adolescence, friendship, love, envy, hatred, and extreme horror.

Jon Athan, the author of Are Your Parents Home? and The Groomer, brings you a disturbing tale of 'young love' and human horror. Could you ever love a dead body?

Rewritten and re-edited from the ground up, the 2025 Author’s Enhanced Edition of this novel is an uncut, uncensored, and extended version of the original story. It is the definitive �Our Dead Girlfriend� experience.

This book contains graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.]]> 254 Jon Athan Kay 0 currently-reading 4.05
author: Jon Athan
name: Kay
average rating: 4.05
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]]> 126919201 A roofing family’s bonds of loyalty are tested when they uncover a long-hidden secret at the heart of their blue-collar town—from Amy Jo Burns, author of the critically acclaimed novel Shiner

It’s 1990 and seventeen-year-old Marley West is blazing into the river valley town of Mercury, Pennsylvania. A perpetual loner, she seeks a place at someone’s table and a family of her own. The first thing she sees when she arrives in town is three men standing on a rooftop. Their silhouettes blot out the sun.

The Joseph brothers become Marley’s whole world before she can blink. Soon, she is young wife to one, The One Who Got Away to another, and adopted mother to them all. As their own mother fades away and their roofing business crumbles under the weight of their unwieldy father’s inflated ego, Marley steps in to shepherd these unruly men. Years later, an eerie discovery in the church attic causes old wounds to resurface and suddenly the family’s survival hangs in the balance. With Marley as their light, the Joseph brothers must decide whether they can save the family they’ve always known—or whether together they can build something stronger in its place.]]> 319 Amy Jo Burns 1250908574 Kay 0 currently-reading 3.91 2024
author: Amy Jo Burns
name: Kay
average rating: 3.91
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]]> 190118193 From the award-winning author of Goodbye, Vitamin: How far would you go to shape your own destiny? An exhilarating novel of American identity that spans three generations in one family and asks: What makes us who we are? And how inevitable are our futures?

Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.

In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can't shake the sense she's hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than it provides answers.

In immersive, moving prose, Rachel Khong weaves a profound tale of class and striving, race and visibility, and family and inheritance—a story of trust, forgiveness, and finally coming home.

Exuberant and explosive, Real Americans is a social novel par excellence that asks: Are we destined, or made? And if we are made, who gets to do the making? Can our genetic past be overcome?]]> 610 Rachel Khong 0593537262 Kay 0 currently-reading 4.15 2024
author: Rachel Khong
name: Kay
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
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]]> 220666285 Horror Romance meets Science Fiction in this dark and delicious gothic psychological thriller by NYT bestseller Karina Halle, perfect for fans of Gothikana, Ninth House, and Mexican Gothic.

Grad Student Sydney Denik is getting a second chance. When a dream opportunity presents itself with a prestigious foundation doing promising Alzheimer’s research, Sydney leaves the shambles of her old life to join a dozen other students at an isolated lodge hidden away in a remote, fog-shrouded inlet on Vancouver Island.

But the Madrona Foundation harbors more than brilliant minds. Everyone around her is hiding a terrible secret—including the resident psychologist she’s falling in love with. A student disappears, and no one but Sydney seems to care. Ghosts walk the halls. Snow falls in the middle of summer. Dead animals move like the living. The more Sydney uncovers about the foundation, the more she begins to question her own sanity. And if Sydney isn’t going mad, then the horrors in the surrounding forest are real, and the Madrona Foundation may be the biggest monster of all.

Author's This is a standalone dark-ish romance book with mature and graphic themes, including body horror, morally grey characters, and explicit sexual scenes. Please consult the content warning in the inside of the book by enabling the "Look Inside/Read Sample" feature.]]> 397 Karina Halle Kay 0 currently-reading 4.06 2024
author: Karina Halle
name: Kay
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
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]]> 59132958 A stunning story about finding the courage to speak out against injustice, even when committed by those closest to us.

Camille Kouchner’s childhood was marked by sun-drenched summers in the south of France, where a vibrant cast of family and friends would gather at their Sanary-sur-Mer house. This familia grande, which included much of the country’s elite, spent memorable days and nights laughing, debating, drinking, and dancing. But a long-held secret poisoned Camille’s memories.

In February 2017, Camille returned to Sanary at forty-one to bury her mother, who died with none of her five children present. Her passing would stir up old emotions, ultimately leading Camille to publicly confront the truth.

The Familia Grande poignantly explores the dynamics of abuse, and the questions of guilt and shame surrounding it. Published in France in 2021, the book sparked an important conversation about incest, and the attitudes and laws that have so often allowed influential men to evade consequences for their crimes.]]> 220 Camille Kouchner 1635422132 Kay 0 currently-reading 3.97 2021
author: Camille Kouchner
name: Kay
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2021
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]]> 52918279 A dazzling debut novel about a young woman’s dark obsession with her privileged classmate and the lengths she’ll go to win his love—from prizewinning Chinese American author Susie Yang.

Ivy Lin is a thief and a liar—but you’d never know it by looking at her.

Raised outside of Boston, Ivy’s immigrant grandmother relies on Ivy’s mild appearance for cover as she teaches her granddaughter how to pilfer items from yard sales and second-hand shops. Thieving allows Ivy to accumulate the trappings of a suburban teen—and, most importantly, to attract the attention of Gideon Speyer, the golden boy of a wealthy political family. But when Ivy’s mother discovers her trespasses, punishment is swift and Ivy is sent to China, and her dream instantly evaporates.

Years later, Ivy has grown into a poised yet restless young woman, haunted by her conflicting feelings about her upbringing and her family. Back in Boston, when Ivy bumps into Sylvia Speyer, Gideon’s sister, a reconnection with Gideon seems not only inevitable—it feels like fate.

Slowly, Ivy sinks her claws into Gideon and the entire Speyer clan by attending fancy dinners, and weekend getaways to the cape. But just as Ivy is about to have everything she’s ever wanted, a ghost from her past resurfaces, threatening the nearly perfect life she’s worked so hard to build.

Filled with surprising twists and offering sharp insights into the immigrant experience, White Ivy is both a love triangle and a coming-of-age story, as well as a glimpse into the dark side of a woman who yearns for success at any cost.]]> 368 Susie Yang 1982100613 Kay 3 3.69 2020
author: Susie Yang
name: Kay
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/16
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]]> 34509947 This book contains scenes of graphic violence, including violence towards children. This book is about abuse—verbal, physical, and emotional. This book does not feature any explicit sex scenes, but it does discuss sexual abuse. This book is not intended for those easily offended or appalled.]]> 208 Jon Athan Kay 0 to-read 3.69 2017
author: Jon Athan
name: Kay
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/16
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]]> 208878746
The Ivory’s have picked a favorite girl.

And it might just be her.

This novel is a dark thriller that has content that may be intense for some. Please check the author's website for warnings and/or message her if you have questions or concerns.]]> 404 Monica Arya Kay 0 to-read 3.72
author: Monica Arya
name: Kay
average rating: 3.72
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]]> 80973 199 Barbara Gowdy 1569471169 Kay 0 to-read 3.84 1989
author: Barbara Gowdy
name: Kay
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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]]> 199454353 An influencer attempts to derail a viral TV marketing campaign with her violent cult following. A marriage between two ghost hunters is threatened when one of them loses her ability to see spirits. The lives of a famous painter in the twilight of her career and a teenage UFO enthusiast converge when a mysterious glowing orb appears in their small desert town. And a slasher-flick screenwriter looking for inspiration escapes a pack of wild dogs only to find herself locked in an SUV with a strange man beside her. Set primarily in deserts throughout the American Southwest, Lena Valencia’s Mystery Lights is a debut collection of stories about women and girls at the crossroads of mundane daily life and existential dread.

From the all-too-real horror of a sexual predator on a college campus to a lost sister transformed by cave-dwelling creatures, Mystery Lights grapples with terrors both familiar and fantastic, introducing an electrifying new voice in contemporary fiction while bringing to light the many faces of the forces that haunt us.]]> 256 Lena Valencia 1959030620 Kay 0 to-read 3.59 2024
author: Lena Valencia
name: Kay
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> 203579186 From the author of the critically acclaimed Laura & Emma comes a The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. for our times: Kate Greathead's razor-sharp but big-hearted excavation of millennial masculinity, The Book of George.

If you haven’t had the misfortune of dating a George, you know someone who has. He’s a young man brimming with potential but incapable of following through; noncommittal to his long-suffering girlfriend, Jenny; distant from but still reliant on his mother; funny one minute, sullenly brooding the next. Here, Kate Greathead paints one particular, unforgettable George in a series of droll and surprisingly poignant snapshots of his life over two decades.

And yet, it’s hard not to root for George at least a little. Beneath his cynicism is a reservoir of fondness for Jenny’s valiant willingness to put up with him. Each demonstration of his flaws is paired with a self-eviscerating comment. No one is more disappointed in him than himself (except maybe Jenny and his mother). As hilarious as it is astute and singular as it is universal, The Book of George is a deft, unexpectedly moving portrait of one man � but also countless others.]]> 288 Kate Greathead 1250351022 Kay 0 to-read 3.42 2024
author: Kate Greathead
name: Kay
average rating: 3.42
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]]> 199056181
Dear Skunks, I wrote. Then I got stuck. What was there to say about the skunks? Of course there was the smell—the spraying. Everyone’s mind jumped to the spraying. I often forgot about the spraying entirely, which was nice because it made me feel that I wasn’t like other people.

From the outside, Isabel doesn’t seem to have much going on. It’s the summer after college graduation and she’s moved back to her hometown, where she spends her days house-sitting, babysitting, working the front desk at a yoga studio, and hanging out with her childhood friend Ellie. But on the inside, Isabel’s mind is always running, always analyzing, and right now, she’s trying hard to not let her thoughts give weight to boys. So when Isabel spots three baby skunks in the yard, their presence is not only a strangely thrilling break from the expected, it feels like a fortuitous sign from the universe. Skunks. That’s what she should be thinking about.

As the summer unfolds, Isabel becomes increasingly preoccupied with the skunks, while also navigating her various jobs and an ambiguous relationship with Eli, the son of the couple she’s house-sitting for. In her own life and in the imagined inner lives of the skunks, Isabel ponders the nature of existence, love vs. infatuation, and the many small moments that make us animal, make us human. The Skunks is an unforgettable coming-of-age story about the complexities of crushes, desire, friendship, and modern life.]]> 240 Fiona Warnick 1959030612 Kay 0 to-read 3.64 2024
author: Fiona Warnick
name: Kay
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/16
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]]> 127305853 From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women—at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie� McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Kay 0 to-read 4.59 2024
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Kay
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> 150444415
Grieving her best friend's recent death, neuroscientist Mariana Pineda’s ready to give up everything to start anew. Even her career� after one last week consulting at a top secret particle accelerator.

Except the strangest thing a man stops her…and claims they've met before. Carter Cho knows who she is, why she's mourning, why she's there. And he needs Mariana to remember everything he’s saying.

Because time is about to loop.

In a flash of energy, it’s Monday morning. Again. Together, Mariana and Carter enter an inevitable life, four days at a time, over and over, without permanence except for what they share. With everything resetting—even bank accounts—joy comes in the little a delicious (and expensive) meal, a tennis match, giving a dog his favorite treat.

In some ways, those are all that matter.

But just as they figure out this new life, everything changes. Because Carter's memories of the time loop are slowly disappearing. And their only chance at happiness is breaking out of the loop—forever.]]> 368 Mike Chen 0778369501 Kay 0 to-read 3.59 2024
author: Mike Chen
name: Kay
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/16
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]]> 211004175
A mind is a terrible thing to erase...

Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty’s most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.

Near the topmost deck of an interstellar generation ship, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers—just as someone else is found murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy usually delights in unraveling the schemes on board the Fairweather, but when she finds that someone is not only killing bodies but purposefully deleting minds from the Library, she realizes something even more sinister is afoot.

Dorothy suspects her misfortune is partly the fault of her feckless nephew Ruthie who, despite his brilliance as a programmer, leaves chaos in his cheerful wake. Or perhaps the sultry yarn store proprietor—and ex-girlfriend of the body Dorothy is currently inhabiting—knows more than she’s letting on. Whatever it is, Dorothy intends to solve this case. Because someone has done the impossible and found a way to make murder on the Fairweather a very permanent state indeed. A mastermind may be at work—and if so, they’ve had three hundred years to perfect their schemes…]]> 112 Olivia Waite 1250342244 Kay 0 to-read 3.80 2025
author: Olivia Waite
name: Kay
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
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]]> 214152402 A moving story about two very different sisters, and a love letter to childhood, growing up, and the power of imagination—from the bestselling author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead and Interesting Facts About Space.

Sigrid hates working at the Dollar Pal but having always resisted the idea of growing up into the trappings of adulthood, she did not graduate high school, preferring to roam the streets of her small town with her best friend Greta, the only person in the world who ever understood her. Her older sister Margit is baffled and frustrated by Sigrid’s inability to conform to the expectations of polite society.

But Sigrid’s detachment veils a deeper turmoil and sensitivity. She’s haunted by the pains of her past—from pretending her parents were swamp monsters when they shook the floorboards with their violent arguments to grappling with losing Greta’s friendship to the opioid epidemic ravaging their town. As Margit sets out to understand Sigrid and the secrets she has hidden, both sisters, in their own time and way, discover that reigniting their shared childhood imagination is the only way forward.

What unfolds is an unforgettable story of two sisters finding their way back to each other, and a celebration of that transcendent, unshakable bond.]]> 256 Emily R. Austin 1668058146 Kay 0 to-read 4.08 2025
author: Emily R. Austin
name: Kay
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/16
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]]> 223081081 An assassin and her mark might find love amidst the turmoil of a technology war between steam and electricity if they can learn to trust each other...

Louisa Stanton, madame and assassin, has another assignment to eliminate an enemy of the Crown. Normally she does her duty without asking too many questions, but something about this assignment has her hesitating. And it’s not just the blue-grey gaze of the handsome lord she was sent to kill.

John Griffin, the Earl of Melton, can imagine more than one reason an assassin is standing in his house with a blade pressed to his neck. Too bad he has no intention of dying. Not even at the hands of the darkly sensual assassin sent to kill him.

When he convinces her to help him find who ordered his death, nothing about their alliance goes as planned. Not when his mother mistakes his would-be-killer for his fiancé, and not when they steam up the sheets. The question is, can they discover who is behind his kill order before everything falls apart in a tangle of secrets and lies?]]> 306 Sorcha Mowbray 1955615233 Kay 0 to-read 4.42
author: Sorcha Mowbray
name: Kay
average rating: 4.42
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]]> 4929705
What Catherine Land did not realize was that the enigmatic and lonely Ralph Truitt had a plan of his own. And what neither anticipated was that they would fall so completely in love.

Filled with unforgettable characters, and shimmering with color and atmosphere, A Reliable Wife is an enthralling tale of love and madness, of longing and murder.]]> 291 Robert Goolrick 1565125967 Kay 0 to-read 3.27 2009
author: Robert Goolrick
name: Kay
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/14
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