Lin's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 18 Apr 2025 03:11:59 -0700 60 Lin's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Èé¤ÈÂÑ 24724043 95 Mieko Kawakami Lin 0 to-read 3.58 2008 Èé¤ÈÂÑ
author: Mieko Kawakami
name: Lin
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[This Earth of Mankind (Buru #1)]]> 301304 367 Pramoedya Ananta Toer 0140256350 Lin 0 to-read 4.14 1980 This Earth of Mankind (Buru #1)
author: Pramoedya Ananta Toer
name: Lin
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1980
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Cat, Shozo and Two Women (The University of Sydney East Asian Series)]]> 1021220
Biten ili?ki i?in umut, di?eri i?inse endi?e kayna??d?r. B?ylece, ba?l? ba??na bir kavram olmay? hak eden ¡°kedi sevgisi¡±nden ?ok daha fazlas?na dokunur Tanizaki. Zarif, yumu?ac?k bir ¨¹slupla insan ili?kilerinin girift yap?s?n?, k¨¹?¨¹c¨¹k ayr?nt?lar?n -bir nesnenin, jestin veya bak???n- insan ruhunda yaratt??? d?n¨¹?¨¹mleri, yaln?zl???n ve sevginin t¨¹rl¨¹ bi?imlerini g?sterir.

Yo?un tutkular?n, tuhaf arzular?n ve ince bir melankolinin ustas? Tanizaki¡¯nin Bir Kedi, Bir Adam, ?ki Kad?n¡¯?n? Sinan Ceylan Japonca asl?ndan ?evirdi.

¡°Tanizaki en g?zde yazarlar?mdand?r. A?k? ve a?k?n sapk?n y?nlerini anlat?r kitaplar?.¡±
-Henry Miller-

¡°Tanizaki, muhte?em bir yazar.¡±
-Haruki Murakami-]]> Jun'ichir¨­ Tanizaki 0959073558 Lin 4 3.75 1936 A Cat, Shozo and Two Women (The University of Sydney East Asian Series)
author: Jun'ichir¨­ Tanizaki
name: Lin
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1936
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
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I loved that it was the two women fighting over some dude then kind of each other and then the cat. a bit gay
]]> <![CDATA[The Immortal City (The Sacred Dark #2)]]> 50704984 Sometimes you just have to jump.

The second book in The Sacred Dark series, a lush fantasy romance by acclaimed author May Peterson.

I don¡¯t remember you¡­

Reborn as an immortal with miraculous healing powers, Ari remembers nothing of his past life. His entire world now consists of the cold mountainside city of Serenity. Ruled with an iron fist. Violent.

Lonely.

I may never remember you¡­

Regaining the memories of who he once was seems an impossible dream, until Ari encounters Hei, a mortal come to Serenity for his own mysterious purposes. From the moment Hei literally falls into his arms, Ari is drawn to him in ways he cannot understand. Every word, every look, every touch pulls them closer together.

But I¡¯m with you now¡­

As their bond deepens, so does the need to learn the truth of their past. Together they journey to find an ancient immortal who can give them what they both want: a history more entwined than Ari could have ever imagined, but which Hei has always known.

It¡¯s the reason they will risk the world as they know it to reclaim who they used to be¡ªand what they could be once again.]]> 258 May Peterson 1488055173 Lin 0 3.87 2020 The Immortal City (The Sacred Dark #2)
author: May Peterson
name: Lin
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2023/10/03
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves:
review:

]]> Neverest 83825280
Guided by a travel journal left behind by her husband, Carrie ventures into the frozen, open-air graveyard of the world's tallest peak. But as Sean¡¯s diary and Carrie¡¯s experiences reveal, climbing the mountain is more than a test of endurance; it¡¯s a battle of wills with an ancient and hostile force protecting the mountain¡ªand the dead do not rest easy at the summit.

NEVEREST is a survival thriller with a hint of the supernatural that will appeal to fans of Ally Wilkes¡¯ All the White Spaces and Amy McCulloch¡¯s Breathless.

Praise for

"An intense psychological study of obsession, jealousy, and hubris, set on the body-strewn slopes of Everest - with a deft hand on the mountain's unearthly and supernatural elements - T.L. Bodine's novel gripped me throughout. Perfect for fans of Amy McCulloch's Breathless, or Sarah Lotz's The White Road."
-- Ally Wilkes, author of All the White Spaces

"NEVEREST weaves a deft, intoxicating spell of grief, intrigue, adventure, and the ghosts of our pasts. Beautifully paced and haunting in all the best ways, by the end of the journey I felt almost as breathless as a doomed climber. Bodine spins a talented and imminently enjoyable tale¡ªsettle in for winter horror at its best."
-- Laurel Hightower, author of Crossroads and Below

"With an uncanny ability to bring the most brutal emotions out of her characters, Bodine¡¯s writing will suck you in as you claw to the top of the mountain with them, the low thrum of dread pulsing with every step."
-- Donna Taylor, author of the San Nico Slayers series

"An emotional slow-burn facing the power of the elements. From the start, Neverest is harsh, thoughtful, and real to its core. I felt the cold of this book snapping at my bones."
-- Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth

¡°T.L. Bodine¡¯s Neverest is a beautifully written exploration of the ascent to Everest and what it means to retrace the steps of a lost life. The novel climbs to a truly expansive and stunning peak.¡±
¡ªChristi Nogle, Bram Stoker Award? nominated author of Beulah]]> 292 T.L. Bodine 1739611659 Lin 0 currently-reading 3.80 2023 Neverest
author: T.L. Bodine
name: Lin
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Fortress 36344640
Jonathon has offered himself as a supplicant in The Fortress after his pregnant wife Adalia discovered the ugly sexual violence pervading his top-tier firm. She has agreed to continue their fractured relationship on the condition he enter The Fortress for one year.

Jonathon is utterly unprepared for what will happen to him over the course of the year ¨C not only to his body, but his mind and his heart.

This absorbing, confronting and moving novel asks questions about consent, power, love and fulfilment. It asks what it takes for a man to change, and whether change is possible without a radical reversal of the conditions that seem normal.]]> 288 S.A. Jones 1760407941 Lin 5 3.45 The Fortress
author: S.A. Jones
name: Lin
average rating: 3.45
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2021/06/15
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves:
review:
something something feminism something something restorative justice this book is definitely very deep and important but more importantly YOOOOOO SEND ME TO FEMDOM ISLAND. pretty sure your reaction to this book isn't meant to be horny but here we are, sorry, women
]]> The Beauty 34356502 Nominated for the Shirley Jackson and Saboteur awards.

Somewhere away from the cities and towns, in the Valley of the Rocks, a society of men and boys gather around the fire each night to listen to their history recounted by Nate, the storyteller. Requested most often by the group is the tale of the death of all women.

They are the last generation.

One evening, Nate brings back new secrets from the woods; peculiar mushrooms are growing from the ground where the women¡¯s bodies lie buried. These are the first signs of a strange and insidious presence unlike anything ever known before¡­

Discover the Beauty.
------------------

Titan editions include the short story Peace, Pipe.]]> 195 Aliya Whiteley Lin 0 to-read 3.49 2014 The Beauty
author: Aliya Whiteley
name: Lin
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Tower of Swallows (The Witcher #4)]]> 35062472 The Witcher returns in this action-packed sequel to Baptism of Fire, in the New York Times bestselling series that inspired The Witcher video games.

The world has fallen into war. Ciri, the child of prophecy, has vanished. Hunted by friends and foes alike, she has taken on the guise of a petty bandit and lives free for the first time in her life.

But the net around her is closing. Geralt, the Witcher, has assembled a group of allies determined to rescue her. Both sides of the war have sent brutal mercenaries to hunt her down. Her crimes have made her famous.

There is only one place left to run.

The tower of swallows is waiting...]]> 444 Andrzej Sapkowski 0316273767 Lin 0 to-read 4.21 1997 The Tower of Swallows (The Witcher #4)
author: Andrzej Sapkowski
name: Lin
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Rough Guide to Japan (Rough Guide to...)]]> 19238411
Make the most of your trip with The Rough Guide to Japan .]]> 848 Jan Dodd 1405389257 Lin 0 currently-reading 3.00 1999 The Rough Guide to Japan (Rough Guide to...)
author: Jan Dodd
name: Lin
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Wolf's Bane 52654619
From the moment they arrive at the camp, the twins sense something is off and they react in their usual manner - Logan reserving judgement and surveying the setup, while Kate charges forward determined to get answers. Kate and Logan quickly ascertain that most of the conference attendees have already formed hostile factions, leaving the twins and a few other misfits to band together.

What seems like teen hormones in overdrive becomes something much more dangerous, even deadly. Add in a strange magic-warded cabin in the woods and a local history rife with curses and macabre legends, and it becomes clear this was a really, really bad place to build a camp for teenage supernaturals.]]> 268 Kelley Armstrong 1989046061 Lin 4 4.03 2018 Wolf's Bane
author: Kelley Armstrong
name: Lin
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/07
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pack Darling Part One (Pack Darling #1)]]> 198558356
My awakening? Never gonna happen. Heat, mates, and a fairytale pack life? Maybe next reincarnation.

All I want is to be left alone.

I'm invisible, headed to a blissful solo future until the Wyvern Pack destroys my dream of independence.

Atlas, Hunter, Finn, Jett, and Orion are poison candy. They don't want an omega, but they need one, even if there'll never be a real spot for me in their pack.

Who needs a pack? I¡¯ll keep myself safe, same as always.

I'll never awaken, and I'll never ever give the Wyverns my heart...

Because all they'll do is rip me apart .



? Slow

? Med/High (spicy MM + MMMMM scenes)

? Growly alpha males, no shifting

? Warning : Contains MM content, frequent cursing, and references to past assault that may be disturbing. Author not responsible for ugly crying. Wait for Part 2 if HEA is a requirement.



Join the fanpack who are waiting for Pack Darling, Part Two and see if you agree with these readers¡¯ reviews!

¡°Like AJ Merlin's Reckless, Pack Darling fits into that great middle ground ¡­ Basically, it's a perfect choice for those who don't want super sweet or super dark. Pack Darling is just right.¡± ¨C Rambling Reader, Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

¡°I honestly can't give enough stars to this book. I think it easily deserves six, seven or even eight stars, but unfortunately there is no option to add extra stars, so I'm gonna have to go with five and an amazing review. But somehow I doubt a review can really do justice to this amazing book.¡± ¨C Ines, Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

¡°I love the books that sneak up on you!....Oh my goodness. I have to wait until September for book two. I am dying inside from anticipation. I read this twice in three days! How many more times will I read it between now and then!? I highly recommend this book for people who enjoy Lily Archer's Omega Academy . Pack Darling is similar in awesomeness without aliens. I can't wait to read more by Lola Rock!¡± - Ali, Have Coffee, Need Books]]> 356 Lola Rock 1959927000 Lin 0 4.38 2021 Pack Darling Part One (Pack Darling #1)
author: Lola Rock
name: Lin
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/25
date added: 2024/04/25
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review:

]]> Lor (Monstrous, #7) 60379746 My role as Moric¡ªruler of a small and prosperous fiefdom in a quiet corner of the world¡ªhas always been painfully dull and stifling.

Until a beautiful, otherworldly creature with pink skin and a mane of golden hair falls through a strange void that has appeared in my guestroom.

And I am instantly captivated by him.

I have never seen anything like him. I have no idea where he came from, and what else is through that unsettling void¡ªanother world filled with soft-skinned, defenceless creatures like him? No tails, no horns, no claws, no sharp teeth. Tiny clothing, rounded ears, bright blue eyes. He is fascinating. And I want to keep him.

But I have no idea how my citizens and councillors will react to his presence¡ªto the knowledge that a whole other world exists, and there is a portal to it in my guestroom. As much as I try to keep him my secret, the truth starts to slip out.

And those in my fiefdom who cling desperately onto power do their best to tear us apart. To take him from me.

I won¡¯t let them.

Lor is Book Seven of the Monstrous series, a post-apocalyptic m/m fantasy series that features monsters and human men falling in love. It is best to read the series in order.

Warning: This m/m love story contains explicit sexual content and is not suitable for young readers. It also contains non-human genitalia, mentions of a past familial death, grief, depression, attempted murder, depictions of death and violence.]]> 619 Lily Mayne Lin 0 currently-reading 4.47 2023 Lor (Monstrous, #7)
author: Lily Mayne
name: Lin
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/18
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Gloam (Monstrous, #4) 59732829
That big, grey-skinned monster with the cage on his head and the chain hanging from his back¡ªsomething is telling me I need to help him. I need to free him. But I have absolutely no idea how I¡¯m supposed to do that, especially when he can¡¯t even talk to me to tell me how.

Collector Mary is finally leaving our camp to head back to her monster menagerie, so I do the only thing I can think of to help him. I go with her.

Now, this big beastie and I are traveling companions for the foreseeable future. Now I just have to think of a way to get that cage off his head, which seems like an impossible task. But I¡¯m not giving up. He has no one else, and when I start to discover who he is beneath the cage, my motivation to free him becomes far more than just a desire to help.

This is so dangerous. The military is lurking. Vicious monsters are lurking. And when Mary turns out to be even worse than we could have ever imagined, my desperate bid to save this monster turns into a deadly game of cat and mouse.

I¡¯m pretty sure I¡¯m going to die out here.

Gloam is Book Four of the Monstrous series, a post-apocalyptic m/m fantasy series that features monsters and human men falling in love. It is best to read the series in order. Warning: This m/m love story contains explicit sexual content and is not suitable for young readers. It also contains graphic depictions of torture and violence.]]> 413 Lily Mayne Lin 0 4.29 2021 Gloam (Monstrous, #4)
author: Lily Mayne
name: Lin
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/07
date added: 2024/04/07
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review:

]]> The Rycke (Monstrous, #3) 58743609
I¡¯ve been out here for a long time, and the fear that courses through my blood every time I have to step outside our camp walls to scavenge never fades. No matter how many monsters you face¡ªand have to run for your life from¡ªit doesn¡¯t ever get easier.

But when I come across a bound and injured monster in an abandoned military base, I can¡¯t leave him behind. His presence in our camp is causing tension, but I can¡¯t bring myself to care when I get to see a different side to him¡ªwhen he starts to show me who he is, beneath the pain and lingering trauma.

But despite his gentle nature, I soon discover why others are so desperate to own him. Why the military, and now this stranger lurking outside our camp, want to put him back in chains and take him away from me.

There¡¯s something hiding under his skin. Something that threatens to upend my entire life, the one I¡¯ve spent my years carefully protecting out here.

There¡¯s a reason why all other monsters fear him.

The Rycke is Book Three of the Monstrous series, a post-apocalyptic m/m fantasy series that features monsters and human men falling in love. It is best to read the series in order. Warning: This m/m love story contains explicit sexual content and is not suitable for young readers. It also contains graphic depictions of torture and violence, and deals with PTSD.]]> 330 Lily Mayne Lin 5 4.28 2021 The Rycke (Monstrous, #3)
author: Lily Mayne
name: Lin
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/05
date added: 2024/04/05
shelves:
review:

]]> American Royals 44425651 What if America had a royal family?

When America won the Revolutionary War, its people offered General George Washington a crown. Two and a half centuries later, the House of Washington still sits on the throne.

As Princess Beatrice gets closer to becoming America's first queen regnant, the duty she has embraced her entire life suddenly feels stifling.

Nobody cares about the spare except when she's breaking the rules, so Princess Samantha doesn't care much about anything, either . . . except the one boy who is distinctly off-limits to her.

And then there's Samantha's twin, Prince Jefferson. If he'd been born a generation earlier, he would have stood first in line for the throne, but the new laws of succession make him third. Most of America adores their devastatingly handsome prince . . . but two very different girls are vying to capture his heart.]]> 401 Katharine McGee Lin 0 currently-reading 3.77 2019 American Royals
author: Katharine McGee
name: Lin
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Lunar Trilogy 63887968 967 Jerzy ?u?awski 1950423522 Lin 0 currently-reading 5.00 1911 The Lunar Trilogy
author: Jerzy ?u?awski
name: Lin
average rating: 5.00
book published: 1911
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> His Black Tongue 59938773
Dead things have been found in the fields of Enfaire, a God-fearing town north of Reams. Not just dead things but twisted forms¡­ unholy shapes. And there are rumours, too¡ªof a blasphemous union and of fell creatures that haunt the night. Yet, even as plague and witch pyres blacken the sky, the town remains untouched by the malady that has already claimed thousands and will claim thousands more.

It is here, in Enfaire, that an old Franciscan friar and his ward take shelter from a storm. It is here, in a little town on the edge of civilization, that they will have their faith truly tested.

His Black Tongue is a tale of medieval horror, plunging the reader into the plague-torn land of 14th century France, when pestilence and death walked hand-in-hand, and life was little more than a sputtering candle, waiting to be put out. But there are worse things than death, than sickness and decay¡­ and it comes upon leathery black wings.

Includes The Bone Fields novella and the short stories The Knights of the Non-Euclidean Table and Necropolis.]]> 256 Mitchell L¨¹thi Lin 0 currently-reading 3.45 2021 His Black Tongue
author: Mitchell L¨¹thi
name: Lin
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/04
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pet (Captive Prince Short Stories, #4)]]> 37413230 40 C.S. Pacat 0987622323 Lin 0 4.10 2018 Pet (Captive Prince Short Stories, #4)
author: C.S. Pacat
name: Lin
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/21
date added: 2024/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> Everything That's Underneath 35478024
Crawl across the earth and dig in the dirt. Feel it. Tearing at your nails, gritty between your teeth, filling your nostrils. Consume it until it has consumed you. For there you will find the voices that have called from the shadows, the ones that promise to cherish you only to rip your body to shreds.

In Everything That¡¯s Underneath , Kristi DeMeester explores the dark places most people avoid. A hole in an abandoned lot, an illness twisting your loved one into someone you don¡¯t recognize, lust that pushes you further and further until no one can hear your cry for help. In these 18 stories the characters cannot escape the evil that is haunting them. They must make a accept it and become part of what terrifies them the most or allow it to consume them and live in fear forever.]]> 222 Kristi DeMeester Lin 0 currently-reading 3.60 2017 Everything That's Underneath
author: Kristi DeMeester
name: Lin
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/13
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Love, Hate & Clickbait 60757114 Shake some hands. Kiss some coworkers.


Cutthroat political consultant Thom Morgan is thriving, working on the governor of California¡¯s presidential campaign. If only he didn¡¯t have to deal with Clay Parker, the infuriatingly smug data analyst who gets under Thom¡¯s skin like it¡¯s his job. In the midst of one of their heated and very public arguments, a journalist snaps a photo, but the image makes it look like they¡¯re kissing. As if that weren¡¯t already worst-nightmare territory, the photo goes viral ¡ª and in a bid to secure the liberal vote, the governor asks them to lean into it. Hard.

Thom knows all about damage control ¡ª he practically invented it. Ever the professional, he¡¯ll grin and bear this challenge as he does all others. But as the loyal staffers push the boundaries of ¡®giving the people what they want,¡¯ the animosity between them blooms into something deeper and far more desire. Soon their fake relationship is hurtling toward something very real, which could derail the campaign and cost them both their jobs...and their hearts.]]> 311 Liz Bowery 1867252910 Lin 0 3.88 2022 Love, Hate & Clickbait
author: Liz Bowery
name: Lin
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/11/17
date added: 2023/11/17
shelves:
review:

]]> The Cybernetic Tea Shop 49984407
Sal is a fully autonomous robot. Older than the law declaring her kind illegal due to ethical concerns, she is at best out of place in society and at worst vilified. She continues to run the tea shop previously owned by her long-dead master, lost in memories of the past, struggling to fulfill her master's dream for the shop while slowly breaking down.

They meet by chance, but as they begin to spend time together, they both start to wrestle with the concept of moving on...

A F/F retro-future sci-fi asexual romance. A story about artificial intelligence and real kindness, about love, and the feeling of watching steam rising softly from a teacup on a bright and quiet morning.]]> 118 Meredith Katz 1989646158 Lin 0 currently-reading 4.14 2016 The Cybernetic Tea Shop
author: Meredith Katz
name: Lin
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/01
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Shipping News 7354
A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family, The Shipping News shows why E. Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.
(back cover)]]> 337 Annie Proulx 0743225422 Lin 3 3.88 1993 The Shipping News
author: Annie Proulx
name: Lin
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1993
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/10/31
shelves:
review:

]]> The Errant Prince 53138376
Instead of attempting to drag the prince home by force, Myron tries a different tact: patience. He might not be able to best Tamsen magically or physically, but Myron can certainly out-stubborn him. He's nothing if not used to doing what other people say he can't.

But neither prince nor soldier expected stubbornness to be the crack in armor they've both become adept at wearing...]]> 115 Sasha L. Miller Lin 0 currently-reading 3.76 2015 The Errant Prince
author: Sasha L. Miller
name: Lin
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/26
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Three Kings 199225293 A polyamorous modern-day fairytale filled with magical flora, cozy romance, and Icelandic folklore¡­

Ethan Shaw¡ªlighthouse keeper and local witch¡ªlives a charmed life in his chilly, coastal hometown. Blessed with a flourishing garden and a stable livelihood, Ethan can¡¯t complain. But when his husband, Captain Peter V¨¢squez, brings home a wounded leopard seal after an impromptu storm, Ethan is faced with a curious caring for a lost selkie named Nico Locke.

As Ethan struggles with the possibility of being infertile, insecurities surrounding his marriage, and a newly formed magical bond with a hostile, handsome selkie, his comfortable life begins to fracture. But could breakage lead to something better?

With autumn at their heels and winter on the horizon, Ethan, Peter, and Nico test the boundaries of a new relationship, shared intimacy, and the chance at a future together.]]> 157 Freyd¨ªs Moon Lin 0 3.91 2022 Three Kings
author: Freyd¨ªs Moon
name: Lin
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/10/25
date added: 2023/10/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Lodestar of Ys (The Stories of Ys, #1)]]> 26132673 191 Amy Rae Durreson Lin 0 3.94 2013 The Lodestar of Ys (The Stories of Ys, #1)
author: Amy Rae Durreson
name: Lin
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2023/10/24
date added: 2023/10/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Monstress, Volume 1: Awakening]]> 55883882
Collects MONSTRESS #1-6

About the Creators:

New York Times bestselling and award-winning writer Marjorie Liu is best known for her fiction and comic books. She teaches comic book writing at MIT, and leads a class on Popular Fiction at the Voices of Our Nation (VONA) workshop. Ms. Liu's extensive work includes the bestselling "Astonishing X-Men" for Marvel Comics, which featured the gay wedding of X-Man Northstar and was subsequently nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for outstanding media images of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Prior to writing full-time, Liu was a lawyer. She currently resides in Boston.

Sana Takeda is an illustrator and comic book artist who was born in Niigata, and now resides in Tokyo, Japan. At age 20 she started out as a 3D CGI designer for SEGA, a Japanese video game company, and became a freelance artist when she was 25. She is still an artist, and has worked on titles such as "X-23" and "Ms. Marvel" for Marvel Comics, and is an illustrator for trading card games in Japan.]]> 192 Marjorie M. Liu 1632157098 Lin 0 to-read 3.96 2016 Monstress, Volume 1: Awakening
author: Marjorie M. Liu
name: Lin
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories]]> 63198504
This volume collects the highlights of his short fiction, including "The Difference", "I Don't Know, Timmy, Being God Is A Big Responsibility" and the acclaimed "Lena".]]> 101 qntm Lin 5 4.30 2022 Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories
author: qntm
name: Lin
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/05
date added: 2023/06/05
shelves:
review:

]]> The Guest List 52656911
The bride ¨C The plus one ¨C The best man ¨C The wedding planner ¨C The bridesmaid ¨C The body

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It¡¯s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride¡¯s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn¡¯t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?]]> 319 Lucy Foley Lin 3 3.82 2020 The Guest List
author: Lucy Foley
name: Lin
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves:
review:

]]> The Companion 56688439 168 E.E. Ottoman Lin 5 3.83 2021 The Companion
author: E.E. Ottoman
name: Lin
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/16
date added: 2023/02/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe]]> 34858286
In her debut collection, Gwendolyn Kiste delves into the gathering darkness where beauty embraces the monstrous, and where even the most tranquil worlds are not to be trusted. From fairy tale kingdoms and desolate carnivals, to wedding ceremonies and summer camps that aren't as joyful as they seem, these fourteen tales of horror and dark fantasy explore death, rebirth, and illusion all through the eyes of those on the outside--the forgotten, the forsaken, the Other, none of whom will stay in the dark any longer.]]> 190 Gwendolyn Kiste 1945373547 Lin 0 4.44 2017 And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe
author: Gwendolyn Kiste
name: Lin
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/03
date added: 2023/01/03
shelves:
review:

]]> Fake It 58521418
And the start of a pressing new problem: falling in love.

Avery Lindt finally opened her dream restaurant¡ªand there¡¯s no customers. She¡¯s staying optimistic, though: she¡¯s confident she can fake it till she makes it, roll with the punches, and find a way to save her luxury restaurant, Paramour.
But it gets harder when she gets restaurant mogul and star chef Mike Wallace angry, and finds herself on the other end of a campaign to shut down Paramour.

Celebrity chef Holly Mason¡¯s show is in trouble: people are bored with her routine of helping struggling restaurants. Worse, her ex-boyfriend Mike Wallace is making backdoor deals trying to steal the starring role.

Luckily, Holly¡¯s agent Tay has a solution: ditch her show plans for the season, throw their lot in with luxury restaurant Paramour against Mike Wallace¡¯s racketeering operation of a restaurant partnership. The cherry on top? A fake relationship between Holly and Avery to stir up drama.

It would already be a mess if Holly and Avery weren¡¯t already struggling to hold back their attraction for one another. Despite their promise not to date, the lines between acting and reality get awfully blurry sometimes.

Fake It is an 80,000-word fake-dating celebrity romance between a disillusioned TV cooking star and a bright-eyed restaurant owner who¡¯s sure she can manifest a solution to her hard times if she believes hard enough. Features an agent named Tay who calls their brilliant ideas ¡°inspir-Tay-tion,¡± plenty of descriptions of food that made me hungry while I wrote the book, and a cute bisexual trans girl who gets to fall in love. Content warnings for open-door sex scenes that get a little bit kinky, a gross man who won¡¯t stop calling his ex-girlfriend babe, and sapphics getting in the way of their own feelings, like they always do.]]> 222 Lily Seabrooke Lin 0 currently-reading 4.35 2021 Fake It
author: Lily Seabrooke
name: Lin
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/02
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Soul to Keep (Duskwalker Brides, #1)]]> 61208877
Known as a harbinger of bad omens and blamed for Demons eating her family, Reia is shunned by her entire village. When the next offering is due and the monstrous Duskwalker is seen heading their way, her village offers her an impossible choice ¨C be thrown into the prison cells or allow herself to be sacrificed to a faceless monster.

However, he is not what he seems. His skull face and glow eyes are ethereal, and she finds herself unwittingly enchanted by him.

All Orpheus ever wanted was a companion.

Each decade, in exchange for a protection ward from the Demons that terrorise the world, Orpheus takes a human offering to the Veil ¨C the place he lives and the home of Demons. The brief companionship does little to ease his loneliness, and their lives were always, unfortunately, cut short.

He'd thought it was a hopeless endeavour, until he met her. She¡¯s not afraid of him, and his insatiable desire deepens within every moment of her presence.

But will Orpheus be able to convince Reia to stay before she¡¯s lost to him forever?]]> 544 Opal Reyne 0645510408 Lin 0 4.08 2022 A Soul to Keep (Duskwalker Brides, #1)
author: Opal Reyne
name: Lin
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/11/13
date added: 2022/11/13
shelves:
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]]> Peter Darling 34308231
But when he returns to Neverland, everything has the Lost Boys have become men, and the war games they once played are now real and deadly. Even more shocking is the attraction Peter never knew he could feel for his old rival, Captain Hook¡ªand the realization that he no longer knows which of them is the real villain.]]> 207 Austin Chant Lin 0 currently-reading 4.10 2017 Peter Darling
author: Austin Chant
name: Lin
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/22
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Dream Houses 24109259 Menkalinan get burned-out veterans, techs who¡¯ve been warned off-planet, medics who weren¡¯t much good on the ground. The Gliese-D run isn¡¯t quite the end of the line, but it¡¯s getting there. No cachet, no rewards, no future; their trading posts get Kites full of cargo that the crew never ask questions about, because if it¡¯s headed for Gliese-D, it¡¯s probably something nobody wanted.

A year into the Deep, Amadis Reyes wakes up. Menkalinan is sounding the alarm; something¡¯s wrong. The rest of the crew are dead.

That¡¯s not even what¡¯s wrong.]]> 127 Genevieve Valentine 1890464333 Lin 5 3.75 2014 Dream Houses
author: Genevieve Valentine
name: Lin
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2022/07/25
date added: 2022/07/25
shelves:
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]]> Nona the Ninth Sneak Peek 61319822 Tamsyn Muir's New York Times and USA Today bestselling Locked Tomb Series continues with Nona ...the Ninth? Download a FREE sneak peek today!

¡°You will love Nona, and Nona loves you.¡± ¡ªAlix E. Harrow

¡°Unlike anything I've ever read.¡± ¡ªV.E. Schwab on Gideon the Ninth

¡°Deft, tense and atmospheric, compellingly immersive and wildly original.¡± ¡ªThe New York Times on Gideon the Ninth

Her city is under siege.

The zombies are coming back.

And all Nona wants is a birthday party.

In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs. But Nona's not like other people. Six months ago she woke up in a stranger's body, and she's afraid she might have to give it back.

The whole city is falling to pieces. A monstrous blue sphere hangs on the horizon, ready to tear the planet apart. Blood of Eden forces have surrounded the last Cohort facility and wait for the Emperor Undying to come calling. Their leaders want Nona to be the weapon that will save them from the Nine Houses. Nona would prefer to live an ordinary life with the people she loves, with Pyrrha and Camilla and Palamedes, but she also knows that nothing lasts forever.

And each night, Nona dreams of a woman with a skull-painted face...

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 56 Tamsyn Muir 1250891736 Lin 5 4.66 Nona the Ninth Sneak Peek
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: Lin
average rating: 4.66
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2022/07/15
date added: 2022/07/14
shelves:
review:
DAM WHAT A BOOK what a ride great times
]]> <![CDATA[A Brief Stop On the Road From Auschwitz: A Memoir]]> 22318560 On August 2, 1947 a young man gets off a train in a small Swedish town to begin his life anew. Having endured the ghetto of Lodz, the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the slave camps and transports during the final months of Nazi Germany, his final challenge is to survive the survival.

In this intelligent and deeply moving book, G?ran Rosenberg returns to his own childhood to tell the story of his walking at his side, holding his hand, trying to get close to him. It is also the story of the chasm between the world of the child, permeated by the optimism, progress, and collective oblivion of postwar Sweden, and the world of the father, darkened by the long shadows of the past.]]> 336 G?ran Rosenberg 1590516079 Lin 0 currently-reading 3.92 2011 A Brief Stop On the Road From Auschwitz: A Memoir
author: G?ran Rosenberg
name: Lin
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Moon of the Crusted Snow (Moon, #1)]]> 39082248
The community leadership loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision.

Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborn.]]> 213 Waubgeshig Rice 1770414002 Lin 5 See also: Terra Nullius by Claire G Coleman. Would love other recommendations in this vein.

also look: I read a lot of speculative fiction where humans die out and That's Fine but have you tried: speculative fiction where First Nations people survive. It's good

Apart from the philosophical/spiritual themes which I obviously found deeply moving, this novel is also a triumph of form- it's slim and the plot moves nicely, the descriptions are clear and beautiful, the action is where you want it, the characters are present to the reader and finely crafted. If you're not interested or put off by all the things I mention in the first paragraph of this review, you should still read this book simply because it is technically excellent and a great book. ]]> 3.83 2018 Moon of the Crusted Snow (Moon, #1)
author: Waubgeshig Rice
name: Lin
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2022/07/03
date added: 2022/07/14
shelves:
review:
An obligatory read imo, especially in these times that feel like the end times, especially for anyone who benefits from colonialism. it's critical during these times of destabilization and pandemic and climate change that we understand and appreciate First Nations and Indigenous resilience and hopefully, apply it.
See also: Terra Nullius by Claire G Coleman. Would love other recommendations in this vein.

also look: I read a lot of speculative fiction where humans die out and That's Fine but have you tried: speculative fiction where First Nations people survive. It's good

Apart from the philosophical/spiritual themes which I obviously found deeply moving, this novel is also a triumph of form- it's slim and the plot moves nicely, the descriptions are clear and beautiful, the action is where you want it, the characters are present to the reader and finely crafted. If you're not interested or put off by all the things I mention in the first paragraph of this review, you should still read this book simply because it is technically excellent and a great book.
]]> <![CDATA[I Just Wanted to Save My Family]]> 56676836 The timely, powerful memoir of a man unjustly charged with a crime for helping his relatives, refugees from Syria.

For trying to save his in-laws, who were fleeing certain death in Syria, Stephan Pelissier was threatened with fifteen years in prison by the Greek justice system, which accused him of human smuggling. His crime? Having gone to search for the parents, brother, and sister of his wife, Zena, in Greece rather than leaving them to undertake a treacherous journey by boat to Italy.

Their joy on finding each other quickly turned into a Pelissier was arrested as a result of a missing car registration and thrown into prison. Although his relatives were ultimately able to seek asylum--legally--in France, Pelissier had to fight to prove his innocence, and to uphold the values of common humanity and solidarity in which he so strongly believes.

I Just Wanted to Save My Family offers a heart-rending window into the lives of those displaced by the Syrian civil war and a scathing critique of the often absurd, unfeeling bureaucracies that determine their fates.]]> 257 Stephan Pelissier 1635420199 Lin 4 3.68 2021 I Just Wanted to Save My Family
author: Stephan Pelissier
name: Lin
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/07/14
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review:

]]> Hummingbird Salamander 53359447 Annihilation, a brilliant speculative thriller of dark conspiracy, endangered species, and the possible end of all things.

Security consultant ¡°Jane Smith¡± receives an envelope with a key to a storage unit that holds a taxidermied hummingbird and clues leading her to a taxidermied salamander. Silvina, the dead woman who left the note, is a reputed ecoterrorist and the daughter of an Argentine industrialist. By taking the hummingbird from the storage unit, Jane sets in motion a series of events that quickly spin beyond her control.

Soon, Jane and her family are in danger, with few allies to help her make sense of the true scope of the peril. Is the only way to safety to follow in Silvina¡¯s footsteps? Is it too late to stop? As she desperately seeks answers about why Silvina contacted her, time is running out¡ªfor her and possibly for the world.

Hummingbird Salamander is Jeff VanderMeer at his brilliant, cinematic best, wrapping profound questions about climate change, identity, and the world we live in into a tightly plotted thriller full of unexpected twists and elaborate conspiracy.]]> 351 Jeff VanderMeer 0374173540 Lin 4 3.23 2021 Hummingbird Salamander
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: Lin
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/14
date added: 2022/07/14
shelves:
review:
Jeff VanderMeer does it again, aka HUGE WOMEN in literature. Good. Thank you Jeff. The physicality of the female lead is all I need. Yeah there's some stuff about the environment and thriller elements and that's very good! Fun to see Jeff trying out different fields! BUT. the main point of this book is you can inhabit the body of an ex pro wrestler for several hours, out there in the blood and grit of the world threatening men sexily and getting it done. I love her.
]]> The Best of Uncanny 43967701
This Best of Uncanny anthology collects those two novelettes and many of the other best stories and poems from the first 22 issues of Uncanny Magazine. Naomi Novik plunges you into a delicious fractured fairy tale retelling in ¡°Blessings.¡± Delilah S. Dawson explores superpowers, harassment, and revenge in"Catcall." Neil Gaimantakes you along to keep pace with his gorgeous and powerful poem ¡°The Long Run.¡± Charlie Jane Anders shakes up a haunting cocktail of comedy clubs and love with "Ghost Champagne." Mary Robinette Kowal weaves a heartbreaking tale of marriage, duty, and magical curses in "Midnight Hour." N.K. Jemisin ruminates on dangerous fans, awards, and legacy in ¡°Henosis.¡± Maria Dahvana Headleyslinks into a Classic Hollywood of animal actors and sleazy secrets with ¡°If You Were a Tiger, I¡¯d Have to Wear White.¡± Catherynne M. Valente travels to a colony world infested with strange psychic cats in ¡°Planet Lion.¡± Carmen Maria Machado wrestles with predators, identity, and death in¡°My Body, Herself.¡± And Seanan McGuire sings a tragic song of misunderstandings and unfortunate consequences with ¡°Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands.¡±

Those pieces are only the beginning. The Best of Uncanny features some of the uncanniest stories and poetry in SF/F today, by its current leading voices. Sit down and immerse yourself in 44 original science fiction and fantasy stories and poems that can make you feel.

The Uncanny Valley¡ªAn Introduction ¡ª LYNNE M. THOMAS AND MICHAEL DAMIAN THOMAS
Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies ¡ª BROOKE BOLANDER
Blessings ¡ª NAOMI NOVIK
Folding Beijing ¡ª HAO JINGFANG, TRANSLATED BY KEN LIU
The New Ways ¡ª AMAL EL-MOHTAR (POEM )
Fandom for Robots ¡ª VINA JIE-MIN PRASAD
Catcall ¡ª DELILAH S. DAWSON
Wooden Feathers ¡ª URSULA VERNON
The Long Run ¡ª NEIL GAIMAN (POEM )
Heat of Us: Notes Toward an Oral History ¡ª SAM J. MILLER
Ghost Champagne ¡ª CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
Translatio Corporis ¡ª K AT HOWARD
Rose Child ¡ª BY THEODORA GOSS (POEM )
The Witch of the Orion Waste and the Boy Knight ¡ª E. LILY YU
Monster Girls Don¡¯t Cry ¡ª A. MERC RUSTAD
Midnight Hour ¡ª MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL
Henosis ¡ª N.K . JEMISIN
The Persecution of Witches ¡ª ALI TROT TA (POEM )
Restore the Heart into Love ¡ª JOHN CHU
I Frequently Hear Music in the Very Heart of Noise ¡ª SARAH PINSKER
You¡¯ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay ¡ª ALYSSA WONG
Èâ¹Ç²è (Meat Bone Tea) ¡ª S. QIOUYI LU (POEM )
She Still Loves the Dragon ¡ª ELIZABETH BEAR
If You Were a Tiger, I¡¯d Have to Wear White ¡ª MARIA DAHVANA HEADLE Y
archival testimony fragments / minersong ¡ª ROSE LEMBERG (POEM )
Sun, Moon, Dust ¡ª URSULA VERNON
Planet Lion ¡ª CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Hydraulic Emperor ¡ª ARKADY MARTINE
Starskin, Sealskin ¡ª SHVETA THAKRAR & SARA CLETO (POEM )
Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time ¡ª K .M. SZPARA
god-date ¡ª BRANDON O¡¯BRIEN (POEM )
7 Auspicium Melioris Aevi ¡ª JY YANG
Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand ¡ª FRAN WILDE
An Ocean the Color of Bruises ¡ª ISABEL YAP
Dancing Princesses ¡ª ROSHANI CHOKSHI (POEM )
Those ¡ª SOFIA SAMATAR
Though She Be But Little ¡ª C. S. E. COONE Y
Children of Thorns, Children of Water ¡ª ALIET TE DE BODARD
Protestations Against the Idea of Anglicization ¡ª CASSANDRA KHAW (POEM )
My Body, Herself ¡ª CARMEN MARIA MACHADO
Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands ¡ª SEANAN MCGUIRE
The Words on My Skin ¡ª CAROLINE M. YOACHIM
And Then There Were (N-One) ¡ª SARAH PINSKER
The Sea Never Says It Loves You ¡ª FRAN WILDE (POEM )
Pockets ¡ª AMAL EL-MOHTAR]]> 680 Lynne M. Thomas 159606918X Lin 0 to-read 3.90 2018 The Best of Uncanny
author: Lynne M. Thomas
name: Lin
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[There Is No Antimemetics Division]]> 54870256 Antimemes are real. Think of any piece of information which you wouldn't share with anybody, like passwords, taboos and dirty secrets. Or any piece of information which would be difficult to share even if you complex equations, very boring passages of text, large blocks of random numbers, and dreams... But anomalous antimemes are another matter entirely. How do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight a war against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war? Welcome to the Antimemetics Division. No, this is not your first day.This ebook is an official release by me, qntm from the SCP Foundation wiki! PM me if you require confirmation. This ebook collects all of my Antimemetics Division SCP-055, SCP-2256 and the complete serials There Is No Antimemetics Division and Five Five Five Five Five.]]> 220 qntm Lin 5 for old school /x/ heads and control fans

This starts off a bit goofy but you gotta promise me you¡¯ll stick with it. Actually it¡¯s a FEAT. The longer I read the more consistently I was impressed. Tamysn Muir level twists and turns here ]]> 4.23 2020 There Is No Antimemetics Division
author: qntm
name: Lin
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/06/19
date added: 2022/06/19
shelves:
review:
for old school /x/ heads and control fans

This starts off a bit goofy but you gotta promise me you¡¯ll stick with it. Actually it¡¯s a FEAT. The longer I read the more consistently I was impressed. Tamysn Muir level twists and turns here
]]> Land of Big Numbers: Stories 52782536 A debut collection from an extraordinary new talent that vividly gives voice to the men and women of modern China and its diaspora

Gripping and compassionate, Land of Big Numbers depicts the diverse and legion Chinese people, their history, their government, and how all of that has tumbled¡ªmessily, violently, but still beautifully¡ªinto the present.
?
Cutting between clear-eyed realism and tongue-in-cheek magical realism, Chen¡¯s stories coalesce into a portrait of a people striving for openings where mobility is limited. Twins take radically different paths: one becomes a professional gamer, the other a political activist. A woman moves to the city to work at a government call center and is followed by her violent ex-boyfriend. A man is swept into the high-risk, high-reward temptations of China¡¯s volatile stock exchange. And a group of people sit, trapped for no reason, on a subway platform for months, waiting for official permission to leave.
?
With acute social insight, Te-Ping Chen layers years of experience reporting on the ground in China with incantatory prose in this taut, surprising debut, proving herself both a remarkable cultural critic and an astonishingly accomplished new literary voice.

Lulu --
Hotline girl --
New fruit --
Field notes on a marriage --
Flying machine --
On the street where you live --
Shanghai murmur --
Land of big numbers --
Beautiful country --
Gubeikou spirit]]> 233 Te-Ping Chen 0358272556 Lin 4 3.93 2021 Land of Big Numbers: Stories
author: Te-Ping Chen
name: Lin
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/27
date added: 2022/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency]]> 50755102 ¡°One of the finest writers of the new non-fiction¡± (Harper¡¯s Bazaar) explores the role of art in the tumultuous twenty-first century.

In the age of Trump and Brexit, every crisis is instantly overridden by the next. The turbulent political weather of the twenty-first century generates anxiety and makes it difficult to know how to react. Olivia Laing makes a brilliant, inspiring case for why art matters more than ever, as a force of both resistance and repair. Art, she argues, changes how we see the world. It gives us X-ray vision. It reveals inequalities and offers fertile new ways of living.

Funny Weather brings together a career¡¯s worth of Laing¡¯s writing about art and culture, and their role in our political and emotional lives. She profiles Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georgia O¡¯Keeffe, interviews Hilary Mantel and Ali Smith, writes love letters to David Bowie and Wolfgang Tillmans, and explores loneliness and technology, women and alcohol, sex and the body. With characteristic originality and compassion, Funny Weather celebrates art as an antidote to a terrifying political moment.]]> 272 Olivia Laing 132400570X Lin 5 4.01 2020 Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency
author: Olivia Laing
name: Lin
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/28
date added: 2022/06/08
shelves:
review:
actually a bible. Every household should have a copy for emergencies/life and also the very good CD version where Sophie Aldred does all the different accents in your car, to listen to when you are feeling pallid, beset upon by the modern world, despairing etc.
]]> Nightbitch 55835474
At home full-time with her two-year-old son, an artist finds she is struggling. She is lonely and exhausted. She had imagined - what was it she had imagined? Her husband, always travelling for his work, calls her from faraway hotel rooms. One more toddler bedtime, and she fears she might lose her mind.

Instead, quite suddenly, she starts gaining things, surprising things that happen one night when her child will not sleep. Sharper canines. Strange new patches of hair. New appetites, new instincts. And from deep within herself, a new voice...

With its clear eyes on contemporary womanhood and sharp take on structures of power, Nightbitch is an outrageously original, joyfully subversive read that will make you want to howl in laughter and recognition. Addictive enough to be devoured in one sitting, this is an unforgettable novel from a blazing new talent.]]> 256 Rachel Yoder 0385546815 Lin 5 distasteful-female-leads dogs don't have to think about art!!!]]> 3.46 2021 Nightbitch
author: Rachel Yoder
name: Lin
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/06/08
date added: 2022/06/08
shelves: distasteful-female-leads
review:
im the nightbitch!!
dogs don't have to think about art!!!
]]> <![CDATA[Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #2)]]> 39325105 Harrow the Ninth, the sequel to Gideon the Ninth, turns a galaxy inside out as one necromancer struggles to survive the wreckage of herself aboard the Emperor's haunted space station.

She answered the Emperor's call.

She arrived with her arts, her wits, and her only friend.

In victory, her world has turned to ash.

After rocking the cosmos with her deathly debut, Tamsyn Muir continues the story of the penumbral Ninth House in Harrow the Ninth, a mind-twisting puzzle box of mystery, murder, magic, and mayhem. Nothing is as it seems in the halls of the Emperor, and the fate of the galaxy rests on one woman's shoulders.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her Emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath ¡ª but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her.

Sealed in the gothic gloom of the Emperor's Mithraeum with three unfriendly teachers, hunted by the mad ghost of a murdered planet, Harrow must confront two unwelcome questions: is somebody trying to kill her? And if they succeeded, would the universe be better off?]]> 512 Tamsyn Muir 1250313228 Lin 5 4.30 2020 Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #2)
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: Lin
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/06/08
date added: 2022/06/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Priestdaddy 31920820
When an unexpected crisis forces Lockwood and her husband to move back into her parents' rectory, she must learn to live again with the family's simmering madness, and to reckon with the dark side of her religious upbringing. Pivoting from the raunchy to the sublime, from the comic to the serious, Priestdaddy is an unforgettable story of how we balance tradition against hard-won identity¡ªand of how, having journeyed in the underworld, we can emerge with our levity and our sense of justice intact.]]> 336 Patricia Lockwood 1594633738 Lin 5 3.84 2017 Priestdaddy
author: Patricia Lockwood
name: Lin
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2021/07/06
date added: 2022/05/29
shelves:
review:
trying to be cynical but actually a shining little jewel of a novel, after a while she just gives in and we get to feel it all, what a treat, so exquisitely expressed, also it's lockwood it's so fucking funny
]]> The Cartographers 55004093 What is the purpose of a map?

Nell Young¡¯s whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field and Nell¡¯s personal hero. But she hasn¡¯t seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an old, cheap gas station highway map.

But when Dr. Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, with the very same seemingly worthless map hidden in his desk, Nell can¡¯t resist investigating. To her surprise, she soon discovers that the map is incredibly valuable and exceedingly rare. In fact, she may now have the only copy left in existence... because a mysterious collector has been hunting down and destroying every last one¡ªalong with anyone who gets in the way.

But why?

To answer that question, Nell embarks on a dangerous journey to reveal a dark family secret and discovers the true power that lies in maps...

From the critically acclaimed author of The Book of M, a highly imaginative thriller about a young woman who discovers that a strange map in her deceased father¡¯s belongings holds an incredible, deadly secret¡ªone that will lead her on an extraordinary adventure and to the truth about her family¡¯s dark history.]]> 392 Peng Shepherd 0062910698 Lin 0 to-read 3.62 2022 The Cartographers
author: Peng Shepherd
name: Lin
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/05/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers]]> 665157 354 Xiaolu Guo 0701180382 Lin 0 to-read 3.56 2007 A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
author: Xiaolu Guo
name: Lin
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/05/29
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]]> I Kissed Shara Wheeler 58756420 From the New York Times bestselling author of One Last Stop and Red, White & Royal Blue comes a debut YA romantic comedy about chasing down what you want, only to find what you need...

Chloe Green is so close to winning. After her moms moved her from SoCal to Alabama for high school, she¡¯s spent the past four years dodging gossipy classmates and a puritanical administration at Willowgrove Christian Academy. The thing that¡¯s kept her going: winning valedictorian. Her only rival: prom queen Shara Wheeler, the principal¡¯s perfect progeny.

But a month before graduation, Shara kisses Chloe and vanishes.

On a furious hunt for answers, Chloe discovers she¡¯s not the only one Shara kissed. There¡¯s also Smith, Shara¡¯s longtime quarterback sweetheart, and Rory, Shara¡¯s bad boy neighbor with a crush. The three have nothing in common except Shara and the annoyingly cryptic notes she left behind, but together they must untangle Shara¡¯s trail of clues and find her. It¡¯ll be worth it, if Chloe can drag Shara back before graduation to beat her fair-and-square.

Thrown into an unlikely alliance, chasing a ghost through parties, break-ins, puzzles, and secrets revealed on monogrammed stationery, Chloe starts to suspect there might be more to this small town than she thought. And maybe¡ªprobably not, but maybe¡ªmore to Shara, too.

Fierce, funny, and frank, Casey McQuiston's I Kissed Shara Wheeler is about breaking the rules, getting messy, and finding love in unexpected places.]]> 356 Casey McQuiston 1250244455 Lin 0 to-read 3.87 2022 I Kissed Shara Wheeler
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Lin
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/05/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> She of the Mountains 20702399 Finalist, Lambda Literary Award

In the beginning, there is no he. There is no she.

Two cells make up one cell. This is the mathematics behind creation. One plus one makes one. Life begets life. We are the period to a sentence, the effect to a cause, always belonging to someone. We are never our own.

This is why we are so lonely.


She of the Mountains is a beautifully rendered illustrated novel by Vivek Shraya, the author of the Lambda Literary Award finalist God Loves Hair. Shraya weaves a passionate, contemporary love story between a man and his body, with a re-imagining of Hindu mythology. Both narratives explore the complexities of embodiment and the damaging effects that policing gender and sexuality can have on the human heart.

Illustrations are by Raymond Biesinger, whose work has appeared in such publications as The New Yorker and the New York Times.

Vivek Shraya is a multimedia artist, working in the mediums of music, performance, literature, and film. Her most recent film, What I LOVE about Being QUEER, has been expanded to include an online project and book with contributions from around the world. She is also author of God Loves Hairand Even This Page Is White.]]> 128 Vivek Shraya 1551525607 Lin 0 to-read 4.07 2014 She of the Mountains
author: Vivek Shraya
name: Lin
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/05/29
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]]> <![CDATA[I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness]]> 57155092 A darkly funny, soul-rending novel of love in an epoch of collapse--one woman's furious revisiting of family, marriage, work, sex, and motherhood.

Since my baby was born, I have been able to laugh and see the funny side of things. a) As much as I ever did. b) Not quite as much now. c) Not so much now. d) Not at all. Leaving behind her husband and their baby daughter, a writer gets on a flight for a speaking engagement in Reno, not carrying much besides a breast pump and a spiraling case of postpartum depression. Her temporary escape from domestic duties and an opportunity to reconnect with old friends mutates into an extended romp away from the confines of marriage and motherhood, and a seemingly bottomless descent into the past. Deep in the Mojave Desert where she grew up, she meets her ghosts at every turn: the first love whose self-destruction still haunts her; her father, a member of the most famous cult in American history; her mother, whose native spark gutters with every passing year. She can't go back in time to make any of it right, but what exactly is her way forward? Alone in the wilderness, at last she begins to make herself at home in the world.

Bold, tender, and often hilarious, I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness reaffirms Watkins as one of the signal writers of our time.]]> 304 Claire Vaye Watkins 0593330218 Lin 0 to-read 3.13 2021 I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
author: Claire Vaye Watkins
name: Lin
average rating: 3.13
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/05/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Azumanga Daioh, Vol. 1 (Azumanga Daioh, #1)]]> 186031 It's tough to tell the difference between teacher and students in Azuma's comedy. Teacher Yukari Tanizaki is oblivious, immature, emotional and one of the people shaping young minds. Her students face difficulties in school that most never imagined. For example, as one pupil starts to ask a question, Miss Yukari cuts him off, stating she won't talk about her bra size. Another group of students are ready for their lessons, but instead of learning about social studies or science, they learn how Miss Yukari spent her weekend. Maybe that's not so bad, considering Miss Yukari's not the brightest bulb in the bunch and has her students correcting her on many technical points. Her students aren't sure how to react, but their bewilderment is half the charm of this manga. Like the 1980s TV series Head of the Class, Azu has an eclectic mix of pupils ranging from child geniuses to sports enthusiasts to tough girls; each possessing much more than meets the eye. The precocious child genius may be great at academic subjects, but she still draws like a little girl and has the emotions of a kid. The unemotional tough teen melts for tiny animals and longs to have a pet of her own, even if all of the creatures she comes in contact with seem to hate her. The art is simple and minimalistic, but adequately conveys the thought and emotion behind each strip. Azuma's cast has depth, dimension and character, and their story heartily entertains.]]> 172 Kiyohiko Azuma 1413900003 Lin 0 4.21 2000 Azumanga Daioh, Vol. 1 (Azumanga Daioh, #1)
author: Kiyohiko Azuma
name: Lin
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/05/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Out of Time: The Pleasures and the Perils of Ageing]]> 18630619
How old am I? Don¡¯t ask, don¡¯t tell . As the baby boomers approach their sixth or seventh decade, they are faced with new challenges and questions of politics and identity. In the footsteps of Simone de Beauvoir, Out of Time looks at many of the issues facing the aged¡ªthe war of the generations and baby-boomer bashing, the politics of desire, the diminished situation of the older woman, the space on the left for the presence and resistance of the old, the problems of dealing with loss and mortality, and how to find victory in survival.]]> 352 Lynne Segal 1781682992 Lin 5 3.53 2013 Out of Time: The Pleasures and the Perils of Ageing
author: Lynne Segal
name: Lin
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2022/05/29
date added: 2022/05/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World]]> 52768414 A work of history that explores the life of an unconventional woman during the first half of the 19th century in Edo¡ªthe city that would become Tokyo¡ªand a portrait of a great city on the brink of a momentous encounter with the West.

The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in a rural Japanese village and was expected to live a traditional life much like her mother¡¯s. But after three divorces, she ran away to make a life for herself in one of the largest cities in the world: Edo.

In the book we experience the drama and excitement of Edo just prior to the arrival of American Commodore Perry¡¯s fleet, which transformed Japan. During this pivotal moment in Japanese history, Tsuneno bounces from tenement to tenement, marries a masterless samurai, and eventually enters the service of a famous city magistrate. Tsuneno¡¯s life provides a window into 19th-century Japanese culture¡ªand a rare view of an extraordinary woman who sacrificed her family and her reputation to make a new life for herself, in defiance of social conventions.]]> 352 Amy Stanley 1501188526 Lin 4 3.71 2020 Stranger in the Shogun's City: A Japanese Woman and Her World
author: Amy Stanley
name: Lin
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/29
date added: 2022/05/29
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]]> Something New Under the Sun 55905024
LONGLISTED FOR THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE ??ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE The New York Times Book Review, Time, Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Vulture, Thrillist, Literary Hub

¡°An urgent novel about our very near future, and a deeply addictive pleasure.¡±¡ªKatie Kitamura, author of Intimacies

Novelist Patrick Hamlin has come to Los Angeles to oversee the film adaptation of one of his books and try to impress his wife and daughter back home with this last-ditch attempt at professional success. But California is not as he imagined. Drought, wildfire, and corporate corruption are everywhere, and the company behind a mysterious new brand of synthetic water seems to be at the root of it all. Patrick finds an unlikely partner in Cassidy Carter¡ªthe cynical starlet of his film¡ªand the two investigate the sun-scorched city, where they discover the darker side of all that glitters in Hollywood.

Something New Under the Sun is an unmissable novel for our present moment¡ªa bold exploration of environmental catastrophe in the age of alternative facts, and ¡°a ghost story not of the past but of the near future¡± ( The New York Times ).]]> 368 Alexandra Kleeman 1984826301 Lin 5 3.32 2021 Something New Under the Sun
author: Alexandra Kleeman
name: Lin
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/05/29
date added: 2022/05/29
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Strong effort by a woman living in the blood and guts and compromise of the world!!!
]]> The Absolute Book 54735156
A policeman, Jacob Berger, questions her about a cold case. Then there are questions about a fire in the library at her grandparents' house and an ancient scroll box known as the Firestarter, as well as threatening phone calls and a mysterious illness. Finally a shadowy young man named Shift appears, forcing Taryn and Jacob toward a reckoning felt in more than one world.

The Absolute Book is epic, action-packed fantasy in which hidden treasures are recovered, wicked things resurface, birds can talk, and dead sisters are a living force. It is a book of journeys and returns, from contemporary England to Auckland, New Zealand; from a magical fairyland to Purgatory. Above all, it is a declaration of love for stories and the ways in which they shape our worlds and create gods out of morals.]]> 640 Elizabeth Knox 0593296737 Lin 5 3.03 2019 The Absolute Book
author: Elizabeth Knox
name: Lin
average rating: 3.03
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2022/05/27
date added: 2022/05/27
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review:
This was a fabulous book and I want to minus one star because it should have been longer. It took me so long to read because I was enjoying myself so much, really getting into it, and then realised how little book was left and that there was no possible way to resolve or explore all the things I was looking forward to. The last quarter of the book could have and should been a whole other book of similar length and going by what Knox puts down, she had it! She¡¯s a terribly fine writer. Giving this five stars hoping her publisher sees and gives her a proper two book set up next time.
]]> Mrs. Everything 42589678
Jo and Bethie Kaufman were born into a world full of promise.

Growing up in 1950s Detroit, they live in a perfect ¡°Dick and Jane¡± house, where their roles in the family are clearly defined. Jo is the tomboy, the bookish rebel with a passion to make the world more fair; Bethie is the pretty, feminine good girl, a would-be star who enjoys the power her beauty confers and dreams of a traditional life.

But the truth ends up looking different from what the girls imagined. Jo and Bethie survive traumas and tragedies. As their lives unfold against the background of free love and Vietnam, Woodstock and women¡¯s lib, Bethie becomes an adventure-loving wild child who dives headlong into the counterculture and is up for anything (except settling down). Meanwhile, Jo becomes a proper young mother in Connecticut, a witness to the changing world instead of a participant. Neither woman inhabits the world she dreams of, nor has a life that feels authentic or brings her joy. Is it too late for the women to finally stake a claim on happily ever after?]]> 480 Jennifer Weiner 1501133489 Lin 0 to-read 3.85 2019 Mrs. Everything
author: Jennifer Weiner
name: Lin
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/05/22
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]]> Too Much Lip 40229412 A dark and funny new novel from the multi-award-winning author of Mullumbimby.

Wise-cracking Kerry Salter is part of an Aboriginal family living on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. She has spent a lifetime avoiding two things - her hometown and prison. But now her Pop is dying and she's an inch away from the lockup, so she heads south on a stolen Harley. Kerry plans to spend 24 hours, tops, over the border.

She quickly discovers, though, that Bundjalung country has a funny way of grabbing on to people. Old family wounds open as the Salters fight to stop the development of their beloved river. And the unexpected arrival on the scene of a good-looking dugai fella intent on loving her up only adds more trouble - but then trouble is Kerry's middle name. Gritty and darkly hilarious, Too Much Lip offers redemption and forgiveness where none seemed possible.]]> 328 Melissa Lucashenko 0702259969 Lin 4 4.03 2018 Too Much Lip
author: Melissa Lucashenko
name: Lin
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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date added: 2022/03/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast (Machine Mandate, #2)]]> 55111157
Admiral Anoushka was once a ghost. Now she's the universe's most brutal commander with a debt to a godlike AI. To repay it¡ªand to complete her long revenge¡ªshe¡¯s set her sights on the leviathan. Neither the warship¡¯s flesh horrors nor its ruthless ruler will stand in her way.

But all her plans couldn't prepare her for what waits in the belly of the beast: a foe that matches her in ferocity and thirst for vengeance . . . and a deep treachery that may prove her undoing.

Set in the same universe as And Shall Machines Surrender.]]> 86 Benjanun Sriduangkaew 1607015412 Lin 4 4.22 2020 Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast (Machine Mandate, #2)
author: Benjanun Sriduangkaew
name: Lin
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/03/19
date added: 2022/03/19
shelves:
review:

]]> The Final Girl Support Group 55829194 In horror movies, the final girls are the ones left standing?when the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives¡­but what happens after?

Like his bestselling novel The Southern Book Club¡¯s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix¡¯s latest is a fast-paced, frightening, and wickedly humorous thriller. From?chain?saws to summer camp slayers, The Final Girl Support Group pays tribute to and slyly subverts our most popular horror films¡ªmovies like The Texas?Chainsaw Massacre, A?Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream.

Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she¡¯s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized¡ªsomeone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.

But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.]]> 352 Grady Hendrix 059320123X Lin 5 3.49 2021 The Final Girl Support Group
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Lin
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/02
date added: 2022/03/12
shelves:
review:
whoa did a woman write this I thought as I devoured it in like one weekend away in the mountains at my family lodge¡­swapping between the audiobook and the paperback depending if I was driving or not. I really love that there is a little crew of horror bros just writing amazing books about women in horror, turns out he¡¯s mates with the guy who wrote chainsaw heart so makes sense¡­ keep at it fellas. good work this fucken ripped
]]> The Book of Accidents 55782435
Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn¡¯t have¡ªand is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures.

Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania.

Now, Nate and Maddie Graves are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver.

And now what happened long ago is happening again . . . and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic.

This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family¡ªand perhaps for all of the world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this battle: their love for one another.]]> 530 Chuck Wendig 0399182136 Lin 3 3.70 2021 The Book of Accidents
author: Chuck Wendig
name: Lin
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/03/06
date added: 2022/03/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Some Things I Still Can't Tell You: Poems]]> 58315381
This book is a compilation of small observations and musings. It's filled with moments of reflection and a love letter to simple joys: passing a simple blade of grass on the sidewalk, the freedom of peeing outdoors late at night, or the way a hand-built ceramic mug feels when it's full of warm tea on a chilly morning. It's a catalog and a compendium that examines the complicated experience of being all too human and interacting with a complex, confounding, breathtaking world ¡­ and a reminder to stop and be awake and alive in yourself.]]> 144 Misha Collins 1524870544 Lin 0 to-read 4.08 2021 Some Things I Still Can't Tell You: Poems
author: Misha Collins
name: Lin
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/03/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Tales from the Caf¨¦ (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #2)]]> 54373691 In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a caf¨¦ which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time...

From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold comes a story of four new customers each of whom is hoping to take advantage of Cafe Funiculi Funicula's time-travelling offer.

Among some faces that will be familiar to readers of Kawaguchi's previous novel, we will be introduced to:

The man who goes back to see his best friend who died 22 years ago
The son who was unable to attend his own mother¡¯s funeral
The man who travelled to see the girl who he could not marry
The old detective who never gave his wife that gift...

This beautiful, simple tale tells the story of people who must face up to their past, in order to move on with their lives. Kawaguchi once again invites the reader to ask themselves: what would you change if you could travel back in time?]]> 192 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1529050863 Lin 0 to-read 3.98 2017 Tales from the Caf¨¦ (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #2)
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: Lin
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/03/12
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Amnesty (The Amberlough Dossier, #3)]]> 39863305
Now, a rising politician is determined to bring Amberlough¡¯s traitors to justice.

Including double agent Cyril DePaul.

Everyone believes Cyril deserves to suffer for his crimes... except an old lover and an estranged sister. Soon, they become entangled in another web of high-stakes politics, underground crime, and personal deceit. Only the most extreme actions can save them from the iron reach of the law, before it is too late.]]> 384 Lara Elena Donnelly 1250173620 Lin 0 currently-reading 4.15 2019 Amnesty (The Amberlough Dossier, #3)
author: Lara Elena Donnelly
name: Lin
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/03/12
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Æí¤ê¤ÎÄ»¤¬Ï¤ê¤ë•r[Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki] (¼ÓÙR¹§Ò»ÀÉ, #10)]]> 18759721 From the acclaimed author of Malice and Newcomer, a confounding murder in Tokyo is connected to the mystery of the disappearance and death of Detective Kaga's own mother.

A decade ago, Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga went to collect the ashes of his recently deceased mother. Years before, she ran away from her husband and son without explanation or any further contact, only to die alone in an apartment far away, leaving her estranged son with many unanswered questions.

Now in Tokyo, Michiko Oshitani is found dead many miles from home. Strangled to death, left in the bare apartment rented under a false name by a man who has disappeared without a trace. Oshitani lived far away in Sendai, with no known connection to Tokyo - and neither her family or friends have any idea why she would have gone there.

Hers is the second strangulation death in that approximate area of Tokyo - the other was a homeless man, killed and his body burned in a tent by the river. As the police search through Oshitani's past for any clue that might shed some light, one of the detectives reaches out to Detective Kaga for advice. As the case unfolds an unexpected connective emerges between the murder (or murders) now and the long ago case of the missing mother of Detective Kaga.

The Final Curtain, one of Keigo Higashino's most acclaimed mysteries, brings the story of Detective Kaga to a surprising conclusion in a series of rich, surprising twists.]]> 386 Keigo Higashino 4062185369 Lin 0 currently-reading 4.14 2013 Æí¤ê¤ÎÄ»¤¬Ï¤ê¤ë•r[Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki] (¼ÓÙR¹§Ò»ÀÉ, #10)
author: Keigo Higashino
name: Lin
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/28
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Saha Mansion 57361815 294 Cho Nam-Joo 6020650669 Lin 0 to-read 2.69 2019 Saha Mansion
author: Cho Nam-Joo
name: Lin
average rating: 2.69
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Girls Against God 49130720 At once a time-travelling horror story and a fugue-like feminist manifesto, this is a singular, genre-warping new novel from the author of the acclaimed Paradise Rot.

¡°It¡¯s 1992 and I¡¯m the Gloomiest Child Queen.¡±

Welcome to 1990s Norway. White picket fences run in neat rows and Christian conservatism runs deep. But as the Artist considers her past, her practice and her hatred, things start stirring themselves up around her. In a corner of Oslo, a coven of witches begins cooking up some curses. A time-travelling Edvard Munch arrives in town to join a black metal band, closely pursued by the teenaged subject of his painting Puberty, who has murder on her mind. Meanwhile, out deep in the forest, a group of school girls get very lost and things get very strange. Awful things happen in aspic.

Jenny Hval¡¯s latest novel is a radical fusion of feminist theory and experimental horror, and a unique treatise on magic, gender and art.]]> 240 Jenny Hval Lin 0 to-read 3.01 2018 Girls Against God
author: Jenny Hval
name: Lin
average rating: 3.01
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/02/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent]]> 52514416 A provocative, elegantly written analysis of female desire, consent, and sexuality in the age of MeToo

Women are in a bind. They are told that in the name of sexual consent and feminist empowerment, they must proclaim their desires clearly and confidently. Sex researchers tell us that women don't know what they want. And men are on hand to persuade women that what they want is, in fact, exactly what men want. In this environment, how can women possibly know what they want¡ªand how can they be expected to?

In this elegantly written, searching book Katherine Angel surveys medical and psychoanalytic understandings of female desire, from Freud to Kinsey to present-day science; MeToo-era debates over consent, assault, and feminism; and popular culture, TV, and film to challenge our assumptions about female desire. Why, she asks, do we expect desire to be easily understood? Why is there not space for the unsure, the tentative, the maybe, the let's just see? In contrast to the endless exhortation to know what we want, Angel proposes that sex can be a conversation, requiring insight, interaction, and mutual vulnerability¡ªa shared collaboration into the unknown.

In this crucial moment of renewed attention to violence and power, Angel urges that we remake our thinking about sex, pleasure, and autonomy without any illusions of perfect self-knowledge. Only then will we bring about Michel Foucault's sardonic promise, in 1976, that "tomorrow sex will be good again."]]> 160 Katherine Angel Lin 0 to-read 4.07 2021 Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent
author: Katherine Angel
name: Lin
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/02/20
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]]> Homesick for Another World 30079724 An electrifying first collection from one of the most exciting short story writers of our time

Ottessa Moshfegh's debut novel Eileen was one of the literary events of 2015. Garlanded with critical acclaim, it was named a book of the year by The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle, nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. But as many critics noted, Moshfegh is particularly held in awe for her short stories. Homesick for Another World is the rare case where an author's short story collection is if anything more anticipated than her novel.
And for good reason. There's something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh's stories, something almost dangerous, while also being delightful, and even laugh-out-loud funny. Her characters are all unsteady on their feet in one way or another; they all yearn for connection and betterment, though each in very different ways, but they are often tripped up by their own baser impulses and existential insecurities. Homesick for Another World is a master class in the varieties of self-deception across the gamut of individuals representing the human condition.

But part of the unique quality of her voice, the echt Moshfeghian experience, is the way the grotesque and the outrageous are infused with tenderness and compassion. Moshfegh is our Flannery O'Connor, and Homesick for Another World is her Everything That Rises Must Converge or A Good Man is Hard to Find. The flesh is weak; the timber is crooked; people are cruel to each other, and stupid, and hurtful. But beauty comes from strange sources. And the dark energy surging through these stories is powerfully invigorating. We're in the hands of an author with a big mind, a big heart, blazing chops, and a political acuity that is needle-sharp. The needle hits the vein before we even feel the prick.

Bettering myself --
Mr. Wu --
Malibu --
The weirdos --
A dark and winding road --
No place for good people --
Slumming --
An honest woman --
The beach boy --
Nothing ever happens here --
Dancing in the moonlight --
The surrogate --
The locked room --
A better place]]> 294 Ottessa Moshfegh 0399562885 Lin 0 to-read 3.63 2017 Homesick for Another World
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Lin
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/02/20
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]]> Sweet Bean Paste 33376821
Until, that is, Tokue comes into his life. An elderly woman with disfigured hands and a troubled past, she makes the best sweet bean paste Sentaro has ever tasted. The unlikeliest of friendships blossoms, but it will take all of their resolve ¨C and plenty of pancakes ¨C to protect themselves when Tokue's dark secret comes to light.]]> 216 Durian Sukegawa 1786071959 Lin 0 to-read 4.07 2013 Sweet Bean Paste
author: Durian Sukegawa
name: Lin
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/20
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]]> Boy Parts 49083140
Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina¡¯s relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention¡­

Boy Parts is the incendiary debut novel from Eliza Clark, a pitch-black comedy both shocking and hilarious, fearlessly exploring the taboo regions of sexuality and gender roles in the twenty-first century.]]> 304 Eliza Clark 1910312649 Lin 0 to-read 3.74 2020 Boy Parts
author: Eliza Clark
name: Lin
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Crying in H Mart 54814676
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother¡¯s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother¡¯s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band ¨C and meeting the man who would become her husband ¨C her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.

It was her mother¡¯s diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner¡¯s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.]]> 243 Michelle Zauner 0525657746 Lin 0 to-read 4.25 2021 Crying in H Mart
author: Michelle Zauner
name: Lin
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A History of My Brief Body 44049371 In this stunning essay-collection-cum-prose-poem-cycle, Belcourt meditates on the difficulty and necessity of finding joy as a queer NDN in a country that denies that joy all too often. Out of the 'ruins of the museum of political depression' springs a 'tomorrow free of the rhetorical trickery of colonizers everywhere.' Happiness, this beautiful book says, is the ultimate act of resistance. --Michelle Hart, O, The Oprah Magazine
The youngest ever winner of the Griffin Prize mines his personal history in a brilliant new essay collection seeking to reconcile the world he was born into with the world that could be.

For readers of Ocean Vuong and Maggie Nelson and fans of Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot, A History of My Brief Body is a brave, raw, and fiercely intelligent collection of essays and vignettes on grief, colonial violence, joy, love, and queerness.

Billy-Ray Belcourt's debut memoir opens with a tender letter to his kokum and memories of his early life in the hamlet of Joussard, Alberta, and on the Driftpile First Nation. Piece by piece, Billy-Ray's writings invite us to unpack and explore the big and broken world he inhabits every day, in all its complexity and a legacy of colonial violence and the joy that flourishes in spite of it; first loves and first loves lost; sexual exploration and intimacy; the act of writing as a survival instinct and a way to grieve. What emerges is not only a profound meditation on memory, gender, anger, shame, and ecstasy, but also the outline of a way forward. With startling honesty, and in a voice distinctly and assuredly his own, Belcourt situates his life experiences within a constellation of seminal queer texts, among which this book is sure to earn its place. Eye-opening, intensely emotional, and excessively quotable, A History of My Brief Body demonstrates over and over again the power of words to both devastate and console us.]]> 192 Billy-Ray Belcourt 1937512940 Lin 0 to-read 4.22 2020 A History of My Brief Body
author: Billy-Ray Belcourt
name: Lin
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Clear: A Transparent Novel 590634
Nicola Barker fearlessly crams all that and more into this ribald and outrageous peep show of a novel, her most irreverent, caustic, up-to-the-minute work yet, laying bare the heart of our contemporary world, a world of illusion, delusion, celebrity, and hunger.]]> 352 Nicola Barker 0060797576 Lin 0 to-read 3.44 2004 Clear: A Transparent Novel
author: Nicola Barker
name: Lin
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> I Am Sovereign 43262079
When Wang Shu and her daughter Ying Yue view the house, Wang Shu is mysteriously struck by a falling oyster shell ¨C the first in a series of seemingly innocuous events distort the reality of the characters¡¯ lives and cause them to question their very existence.

As religious epiphanies bump up against declarations of love, the characters begin to sabotage the fictional world they inhabit, causing our entire understanding of the book ¨C and of the boundaries between fiction and real life ¨C to be radically upended.]]> 209 Nicola Barker 1785152262 Lin 0 to-read 3.50 2019 I Am Sovereign
author: Nicola Barker
name: Lin
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> H(a)ppy 32603519
Could you...might you be happy there?

H(A)PPY is a post-post apocalyptic Alice in Wonderland, a story which tells itself and then consumes itself. It's a place where language glows, where words buzz and sparkle and finally implode. It's a novel which twists and writhes with all the terrifying precision of a tiny fish in an Escher lithograph ¨C a book where the mere telling of a story is the end of certainty.]]> 0 Nicola Barker 1473539307 Lin 5 Yes, you have to put on the songs and CDs of guitar music she recommends. Yes, you have to read it in one sitting.
Sorry! I don't make the rules!!]]> 3.18 2017 H(a)ppy
author: Nicola Barker
name: Lin
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2018/01/01
date added: 2022/02/20
shelves:
review:
One of the most perfect books of all time, for the whole experience.
Yes, you have to put on the songs and CDs of guitar music she recommends. Yes, you have to read it in one sitting.
Sorry! I don't make the rules!!
]]> Pet (Pet, #1) 43568395 A thought-provoking and haunting novel about a creature that escapes from an artist's canvas, whose talent is sniffing out monsters in a world that claims they don't exist anymore. Perfect for fans of Akata Witch and Shadowshaper.

There are no monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. Jam and her best friend, Redemption, have grown up with this lesson all their life. But when Jam meets Pet, a creature made of horns and colors and claws, who emerges from one of her mother's paintings and a drop of Jam's blood, she must reconsider what she's been told. Pet has come to hunt a monster--and the shadow of something grim lurks in Redemption's house. Jam must fight not only to protect her best friend, but also uncover the truth, and the answer to the question How do you save the world from monsters if no one will admit they exist?

In their riveting and timely young adult debut, acclaimed novelist Akwaeke Emezi asks difficult questions about what choices you can make when the society around you is in denial.]]> 208 Akwaeke Emezi 0525647074 Lin 0 to-read 4.14 2019 Pet (Pet, #1)
author: Akwaeke Emezi
name: Lin
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Missing 25487124 Fans of CJ Omololu's The Third Twin will flock to the romantic thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong, now available in paperback.?The only thing Winter Crane likes about Reeve's End is that soon she'll leave it. Like her best friend did. Like her sister did. Like most of the teens born in town have done. There's nothing for them there but abandoned mines and empty futures. They're better off taking a chance elsewhere.What Winter will miss is the woods. Her only refuge. At least it was. Until the day she found Lennon left for dead, bleeding in a tree.But now Lennon is gone too. And he has Winter questioning what she once thought was true. What if nobody left at all? What if they're all missing?"A compelling thriller that keeps the reader hooked until the end." -VOYA, Starred]]> 515 Kelley Armstrong 0399550348 Lin 4 3.92 2017 Missing
author: Kelley Armstrong
name: Lin
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/10
date added: 2022/02/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wolf's Curse (Otherworld Stories #13.9)]]> 52616820 Wolf¡¯s Bane, they got a crash-course in real-life leadership, when the camp imploded and the twins and their new friends fled into the West Virginia forest.

Now, in Wolf¡¯s Curse, the group has taken refuge in a magically warded cabin only to discover that they might have been safer taking their chances with the demon outside. Trapped in a dark witch¡¯s sanctuary, surrounded by hell hounds, the twins will need to hone their leader and team building skills fast. There are battles to be waged and mysteries to be solved. Friendships to be forged in conflict and lost in betrayal. Even romances spark to life amid the turmoil.

It might not be the way Kate and Logan expected to spend their week, but it will certainly be a summer camp to remember.]]> 292 Kelley Armstrong 1989046177 Lin 4 4.13 2020 Wolf's Curse (Otherworld Stories #13.9)
author: Kelley Armstrong
name: Lin
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/08
date added: 2022/02/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stuck in the Middle With You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders]]> 15799171 New York Times bestseller and acclaimed author Jennifer Finney Boylan returns with a remarkable memoir about gender and parenting, including incredible interviews discussing gender, how families are shaped, and the difficulties and wonders of being human.

A father for ten years, a mother for eight, and for a time in between, neither, or both ("the parental version of the schnoodle, or the cockapoo"), Jennifer Finney Boylan has seen parenthood from both sides of the gender divide. When her two children were young, Boylan came out as transgender, and as Jenny transitioned from a man to a woman and from a father to a mother, her family faced unique challenges and questions. In this thoughtful, tear-jerking, hilarious memoir, Jenny asks what it means to be a father, or a mother, and to what extent gender shades our experiences as parents. "It is my hope," she writes, "that having a father who became a woman in turn helped my sons become better men."

Through both her own story and incredibly insightful interviews with others, including Richard Russo, Edward Albee, Ann Beattie, Augusten Burroughs, Susan Minot, Trey Ellis, Timothy Kreider, and more, Jenny examines relationships with fathers and mothers, people's memories of the children they were and the parents they became, and the many different ways a family can be. Followed by an Afterword by Anna Quindlen that includes Jenny and her wife discussing the challenges they've faced and the love they share, Stuck in the Middle with You is a brilliant meditation on raising ¨C and on being ¨C a child.]]> 304 Jennifer Finney Boylan 0767921763 Lin 4 3.75 2013 Stuck in the Middle With You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders
author: Jennifer Finney Boylan
name: Lin
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/14
date added: 2022/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> Females 43517944 106 Andrea Long Chu 1788737377 Lin 3 3.58 2019 Females
author: Andrea Long Chu
name: Lin
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2021/05/09
date added: 2022/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5)]]> 52381770
It worries about the fragile human crew who've grown to trust it, but only where no one can see.

It tells itself that they're only a professional obligation, but when they're captured and an old friend from the past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.

Drastic action it is, then.

]]> 350 Martha Wells 1250229863 Lin 4 4.44 2020 Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries, #5)
author: Martha Wells
name: Lin
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/30
date added: 2022/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> The Twisted Ones 42527596 When a young woman clears out her deceased grandmother¡¯s home in rural North Carolina, she finds long-hidden secrets about a strange colony of beings in the woods.

When Mouse¡¯s dad asks her to clean out her dead grandmother's house, she says yes. After all, how bad could it be?

Answer: pretty bad. Grandma was a hoarder, and her house is stuffed with useless rubbish. That would be horrific enough, but there¡¯s more¡ªMouse stumbles across her step-grandfather¡¯s journal, which at first seems to be filled with nonsensical rants¡­until Mouse encounters some of the terrifying things he described for herself.

Alone in the woods with her dog, Mouse finds herself face to face with a series of impossible terrors¡ªbecause sometimes the things that go bump in the night are real, and they¡¯re looking for you. And if she doesn¡¯t face them head on, she might not survive to tell the tale.

From Hugo Award¨Cwinning author Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher.]]> 385 T. Kingfisher 1534429573 Lin 4 [spoilers removed]]]> 3.60 2019 The Twisted Ones
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Lin
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/30
date added: 2022/01/30
shelves:
review:
This RIPPED. I read a lot of horror novels and it's not often that I have to put the book down because it's so scary.
[spoilers removed]
]]> Love Me Back 20171005 From "5 Under 35" honoree and Rona Jaffe Award-winner comes an urgent, intensely visceral debut novel about a young waitress whose downward spiral is narrated in electric prose

Marie, a young single mother, lands a job at an upscale Dallas steakhouse. She is preternaturally attuned to the appetites of her patrons, but quickly learns to hide her private struggle behind an easy smile and a crisp white apron. In a world of long hours and late nights, where everything runs on a currency of favors, cash and cachet, Marie gives in to brutally self-destructive impulses. She loses herself in a tangle of bodies and the kind of coke that 'napalms your emotional synapses.' But obliteration¡ªnot pleasure¡ªis her goal. Pulsing with fierce, almost feral energy, Love Me Back is an unapologetic portrait of a woman cutting a precarious path through early adulthood.]]> 224 Merritt Tierce 0385538073 Lin 5 distasteful-female-leads I hope this comes back in print in Australia I want to loan it to all my friends. Read this after her NYTimes article far out!!! Everyone needs to read this honestly. We love when the girls write gore.]]> 3.22 2014 Love Me Back
author: Merritt Tierce
name: Lin
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2022/01/25
date added: 2022/01/28
shelves: distasteful-female-leads
review:
MERRITT PLEASE WRITE ANOTHER BOOK
I hope this comes back in print in Australia I want to loan it to all my friends. Read this after her NYTimes article far out!!! Everyone needs to read this honestly. We love when the girls write gore.
]]> What Big Teeth 48560025 Rose Szabo's thrilling debut is a dark and thrilling novel about a teen girl who returns home to her strange, wild family after years of estrangement.

Eleanor Zarrin has been estranged from her wild family for years. When she flees boarding school after a horrifying incident, she goes to the only place she thinks is safe: the home she left behind. But when she gets there, she struggles to fit in with her monstrous relatives, who prowl the woods around the family estate and read fortunes in the guts of birds.

Eleanor finds herself desperately trying to hold the family together ¡ª in order to save them all, Eleanor must learn to embrace her family of monsters and tame the darkness inside her.]]> 394 Rose Szabo Lin 5 3.33 2021 What Big Teeth
author: Rose Szabo
name: Lin
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/01/28
date added: 2022/01/28
shelves:
review:
Someone on twitter said this is a really good monster f****r novel and I was like aw yeah all right!! But it was totally different to that and so much better. Really crisply written; lots of really lovely moments and good characterisation, hit all of the genre beats I do want as a monster fantasy YA lover while also digging into some concepts and themes that felt quite original to me. Enjoyable as an adult but I could also imagine gifting it to a teenage relative for the complex explorations of human (?) behaviour. Can¡¯t wait till their next book is available for pre-order in Australia.
]]> <![CDATA[We All Fall Down (The River City Duology, #1)]]> 56978184 The first book in a dark fantasy YA duology by the author of What Big Teeth, about the power and danger of stories and the untold costs of keeping magic alive, perfect for fans of Aiden Thomas and Marie Rutkoski.

In River City, where magic used to thrive and is now fading, the witches who once ruled the city along with their powerful King have become all but obsolete. The city's crumbling government is now controlled primarily by the new university and teaching hospital, which has grown to take over half of the city.

Moving between the decaying Old City and the ruthless New, four young queer people struggle with the daily hazards of life¨Dwork, school, dodging ruthless cops and unscrupulous scientists¨Dnot realizing that they have been selected to play in an age-old drama that revives the flow of magic through their world. When a mysterious death rocks their fragile peace, the four are brought into each other's orbits as they uncover a deeper magical conspiracy.

Devastating, gorgeous, and utterly unique, We All Fall Down examines the complex network of pain created by power differentials, even between people who love each other¨Dand how it is possible to be queer and turn out just fine.]]> 406 Rose Szabo 0374314322 Lin 0 to-read 2.51 2022 We All Fall Down (The River City Duology, #1)
author: Rose Szabo
name: Lin
average rating: 2.51
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Fake Accounts 45732027 A woman in a post-election tailspin discovers that her boyfriend is an anonymous online conspiracy theorist in this provocative and subversive debut novel that examines social media, sex, feminism, and fiction, the connection they've all promised, and the lies they help us tell.

On the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, a young woman snoops through her boyfriend's phone and makes a startling discovery: he's an anonymous internet conspiracy theorist, and a popular one at that. Already fluent in internet fakery, irony, and outrage, she's not exactly shocked by the revelation. Actually, she's relieved¡ªhe was always a little distant¡ªand she plots to end their floundering relationship while on a trip to the Women's March in DC. But this is only the first in a series of bizarre twists that expose a world whose truths are shaped by online lies.

Suddenly left with no reason to stay in New York and increasingly alienated from her friends and colleagues, our unnamed narrator flees to Berlin, embarking on her own cycles of manipulation in the deceptive spaces of her daily life, from dating apps to expat meetups, open-plan offices to bureaucratic waiting rooms. She begins to think she can't trust anyone--shouldn't the feeling be mutual?

Narrated with seductive confidence and subversive wit, Fake Accounts challenges the way current conversations about the self and community, delusions and gaslighting, and fiction and reality play out in the internet age.]]> 272 Lauren Oyler 1948226928 Lin 1 It¡¯s okay just to tell people it¡¯s autofiction, or even write a memoir. I love autofiction and I love sh*tty female leads and I love heterophobia; I even like being made uncomfortable or having a bad time reading things if the author can convince me of the reason. Read, I dunno, Patricia Lockwood or my year of rest and relaxation or just Hayley Nahman¡¯s newsletters or some angelmoney tweets for a better time. If you want to peer at the ugliness of traditional heterosexual relationships you could cop some JG Ballard or I ?? Ohio or most other literary fiction i guess. This was a gruelling DNF, I had to flip to the end. whyyyy lauren what happened?! did nobody proof this?! ]]> 2.83 2021 Fake Accounts
author: Lauren Oyler
name: Lin
average rating: 2.83
book published: 2021
rating: 1
read at: 2022/01/14
date added: 2022/01/28
shelves:
review:
I was pretty excited for this book, and I like Oyler¡¯s reviews. G-d I hated this even though it should have been perfect. Oyler is so clever. But this book is totally soulless and tooth grinding to read.
It¡¯s okay just to tell people it¡¯s autofiction, or even write a memoir. I love autofiction and I love sh*tty female leads and I love heterophobia; I even like being made uncomfortable or having a bad time reading things if the author can convince me of the reason. Read, I dunno, Patricia Lockwood or my year of rest and relaxation or just Hayley Nahman¡¯s newsletters or some angelmoney tweets for a better time. If you want to peer at the ugliness of traditional heterosexual relationships you could cop some JG Ballard or I ?? Ohio or most other literary fiction i guess. This was a gruelling DNF, I had to flip to the end. whyyyy lauren what happened?! did nobody proof this?!
]]> The Rain Heron 50014902
But when a young soldier comes to the mountains in search of a local myth, Ren is inexorably drawn into her impossible mission. As their lives entwine, unravel and erupt¡ªas myths merge with reality¡ªboth Ren and the soldier are forced to confront what they regret, what they love, and what they fear.

The Rain Heron is the dizzying, dazzling new novel from the author of Flames.]]> 288 Robbie Arnott 1922268771 Lin 5 3.99 2020 The Rain Heron
author: Robbie Arnott
name: Lin
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/01/28
date added: 2022/01/28
shelves:
review:
I¡¯ve read a lot of books lately that meandered or were confused and this was such a pleasure in this regard; a really tightly edited book, with the feeling of a novella or short story but in a proper length and properly plotted. Reading a story that knew where it was going. I read this in tandem with playing Disco Elysium and I can thoroughly recommend them as co-media with the alt history themes. If you like Fiona Mosley, China Mievelle, etc. you¡¯d also enjoy this
]]> Indigenous Species 33098404
Khairani Barokka addresses issues of pollution, consumerism, and habitat destruction with a poet's sensibility, and her frenetic neon artwork, inspired by contemporary glitch artists while also incorporating traditional motifs, aims to overturn our ideas of the jungle as a place of threatening darkness. Indigenous Species is also a bold and necessary experiment in making a sight-impaired-accessible art book: Tilted Axis is producing a separate edition which will feature Braille alongside text for sighted readers, and tactile, embossed imagery.]]> 52 Khairani Barokka 1911284045 Lin 0 to-read 3.98 2016 Indigenous Species
author: Khairani Barokka
name: Lin
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Our Wives Under the Sea 58659343
Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp.

Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from Julia Armfield, the critically acclaimed author of Salt Slow. It¡¯s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep deep sea.]]> 240 Julia Armfield 152901722X Lin 0 to-read 3.75 2022 Our Wives Under the Sea
author: Julia Armfield
name: Lin
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Elmet 35711376 Fresh and distinctive writing from an exciting new voice in fiction, Elmet is an unforgettable novel about family, as well as a beautiful meditation on landscape.

Daniel is heading north. He is looking for someone. The simplicity of his early life with Daddy and Cathy has turned sour and fearful. They lived apart in the house that Daddy built for them with his bare hands. They foraged and hunted. When they were younger, Daniel and Cathy had gone to school. But they were not like the other children then, and they were even less like them now. Sometimes Daddy disappeared, and would return with a rage in his eyes. But when he was at home he was at peace. He told them that the little copse in Elmet was theirs alone. But that wasn't true. Local men, greedy and watchful, began to circle like vultures. All the while, the terrible violence in Daddy grew.

Atmospheric and unsettling, Elmet is a lyrical commentary on contemporary society and one family's precarious place in it, as well as an exploration of how deep the bond between father and child can go.

]]> 311 Fiona Mozley 1473660548 Lin 5 3.77 2017 Elmet
author: Fiona Mozley
name: Lin
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2022/01/11
date added: 2022/01/19
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Descent of Monsters (Tensorate, #3)]]> 36896867 JY Yang continues to redefine the limits of silkpunk fantasy with their Tensorate novellas, which the New York Times lauded as "joyously wild." In this third volume, an investigation into atrocities committed at a classified research facility threaten to expose secrets that the Protectorate will do anything to keep hidden

You are reading this because I am dead.

Something terrible happened at the Rewar Teng Institute of Experimental Methods. When the Tensorate¡¯s investigators arrived, they found a sea of blood and bones as far as the eye could see. One of the institute¡¯s experiments got loose, and its rage left no survivors. The investigators returned to the capital with few clues and two prisoners: the terrorist leader Sanao Akeha and a companion known only as Rider.

Investigator Chuwan faces a puzzle. What really happened at the institute? What drew the Machinists there? What are her superiors trying to cover up? And why does she feel as if her strange dreams are forcing her down a narrowing path she cannot escape?

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

]]> 176 J.Y. Yang 1250165849 Lin 0 3.99 2018 The Descent of Monsters (Tensorate, #3)
author: J.Y. Yang
name: Lin
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/26
date added: 2021/12/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Hatchet (Brian's Saga, #1) 50
Brian had been distraught over his parents' impending divorce and the secret he carries about his mother, but now he is truly desolate and alone. Exhausted, terrified, and hungry, Brian struggles to find food and make a shelter for himself. He has no special knowledge of the woods, and he must find a new kind of awareness and patience as he meets each day's challenges. Is the water safe to drink? Are the berries he finds poisonous?

Slowly, Brian learns to turn adversity to his advantage--an invading porcupine unexpectedly shows him how to make fire, a devastating tornado shows him how to retrieve supplies from the submerged airplane. Most of all, Brian leaves behind the self-pity he has felt about his predicament as he summons the courage to stay alive.

A story of survival and of transformation, this riveting book has sparked many a reader's interest in venturing into the wild.]]> 208 Gary Paulsen 0689840926 Lin 0 3.77 1987 Hatchet (Brian's Saga, #1)
author: Gary Paulsen
name: Lin
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/26
date added: 2021/12/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Hex 50197005
Surrounded by Nell's ex, her best friend, her best friend's boyfriend, and Joan's buffoonish husband, the two scientists are tangled together at the center of a web of illicit relationships, grudges, and obsessions. All six are burdened by desire and ambition, and as they collide on the university campus, their attractions set in motion a domino effect of affairs and heartbreak.

Meanwhile, Nell slowly fills her empty apartment with poisonous plants to study, and she begins to keep a series of notebooks, all dedicated to Joan. She logs her research and how she spends her days, but the notebooks ultimately become a painstaking map of love. In a dazzling and unforgettable voice, Rebecca Dinerstein Knight has written a spellbinding novel of emotional and intellectual intensity.]]> 224 Rebecca Dinerstein Knight 1984877372 Lin 5 distasteful-female-leads 3.21 2020 Hex
author: Rebecca Dinerstein Knight
name: Lin
average rating: 3.21
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/12/14
date added: 2021/12/19
shelves: distasteful-female-leads
review:
What a perfect and sharp little book. And it¡¯s really fucken weird; lots of gross and spiky little moments; also serenely beautiful. I¡¯m so mad this was marketed as cute dark academia and I¡¯m only just reading it bc I also love dark academia and wanted a brain vacation. This ain¡¯t it. I want Nell to be my bad friend and tell me about plants and maybe poison me
]]> <![CDATA[My Year of Rest and Relaxation]]> 44279110
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn¡¯t she? She¡¯s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn¡¯t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It¡¯s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.]]> 289 Ottessa Moshfegh 0525522131 Lin 3 distasteful-female-leads 3.62 2018 My Year of Rest and Relaxation
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Lin
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2020/03/08
date added: 2021/12/19
shelves: distasteful-female-leads
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Indian Lake Trilogy, #1)]]> 55711617
That¡¯s not the only thing that¡¯s getting carved up, though ¨C this, Jade knows, is the start of a slasher. But what kind? Who¡¯s wearing the mask? Jade¡¯s got an encyclopedic recall of every horror movie on the shelf, but¡­ will that help her survive? Can she get a final girl trained enough to stop all this from happening? Does she even want to?

Isn¡¯t a slasher exactly what her hometown deserves?

This new novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones, called ¡°one of our most talented living writers¡± by Tommy Orange, explores the changing landscape of the West through his distinct voice of sharp humor and prophetic violence.

Go up the mountain to Proofrock. See if you¡¯ve got what it takes ¨C see if your heart, too, might be a chainsaw.]]> 405 Stephen Graham Jones 1982137630 Lin 0 3.52 2021 My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Indian Lake Trilogy, #1)
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Lin
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/12/19
shelves: to-read, distasteful-female-leads
review:

]]> The Black Cathedral 45892273 Haunting and transcendently twisted, this English-language debut from a Cuban literary star is a tale of race, magic, belief, and fate

The Stuart family moves to a marginal neighborhood of Cienfuegos, a city on the southern coast of Cuba. Arturo Stuart, a charismatic, visionary preacher, discovers soon after arriving that God has given him a mission: to build a temple that surpasses any before seen in Cuba, and to make of Cienfuegos a new Jerusalem.

In a neighborhood that roils with passions and conflicts, at the foot of a cathedral that rises higher day by day, there grows a generation marked by violence, cruelty, and extreme selfishness. This generation will carry these traits beyond the borders of the neighborhood, the city, and the country, unable to escape the shadow of the unfinished cathedral.

Told by a chorus of narrators--including gossips, gangsters, a ghost, and a serial killer--who flirt, lie, argue, and finish one another's stories, Marcial Gala's The Black Cathedral is a darkly comic indictment of modern Cuba, gritty and realistic but laced with magic. It is a portrait of what remains when dreams of utopia have withered away.]]> 224 Marcial Gala 0374118019 Lin 5 3.66 2012 The Black Cathedral
author: Marcial Gala
name: Lin
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2021/11/03
date added: 2021/12/14
shelves:
review:
wild ride¡­. good time¡­. I read a lot of books in translation but this is one for sure where the author is bigger than the translator. Not a bad thing. Sometimes it just tastes different. I liked all the different characters so much
]]> <![CDATA[Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More]]> 18144031 Marie Claire magazine published a profile of Janet Mock in which she stepped forward for the first time as a trans woman. Those 2300 words were life-altering for the People.com editor, turning her into an influential and outspoken public figure and a desperately needed voice for an often voiceless community. In these pages, she offers a bold and inspiring perspective on being young, multicultural, economically challenged, and transgender in America.

Welcomed into the world as her parents¡¯ firstborn son, Mock decided early on that she would be her own person¡ªno matter what. She struggled as the smart, determined child in a deeply loving yet ill-equipped family that lacked the money, education, and resources necessary to help her thrive. Mock navigated her way through her teen years without parental guidance, but luckily, with the support of a few close friends and mentors, she emerged much stronger, ready to take on¡ªand maybe even change¡ªthe world.

This powerful memoir follows Mock¡¯s quest for identity, from an early, unwavering conviction about her gender to a turbulent adolescence in Honolulu that saw her transitioning during the tender years of high school, self-medicating with hormones at fifteen, and flying across the world alone for sex reassignment surgery at just eighteen. With unflinching honesty, Mock uses her own experience to impart vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of trans youth and brave girls like herself.

Despite the hurdles, Mock received a scholarship to college and moved to New York City, where she earned a master¡¯s degree, enjoyed the success of an enviable career, and told no one about her past. She remained deeply guarded until she fell for a man who called her the woman of his dreams. Love fortified her with the strength to finally tell her story, enabling her to embody the undeniable power of testimony and become a fierce advocate for a marginalized and misunderstood community. A profound statement of affirmation from a courageous woman, Redefining Realness provides a whole new outlook on what it means to be a woman today, and shows as never before how to be authentic, unapologetic, and wholly yourself.]]> 263 Janet Mock 1476709122 Lin 5 4.28 2014 Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More
author: Janet Mock
name: Lin
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2021/11/14
date added: 2021/12/14
shelves:
review:

]]> The Well 444972 192 Elizabeth Jolley 0140089012 Lin 3 3.51 1986 The Well
author: Elizabeth Jolley
name: Lin
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1986
rating: 3
read at: 2021/09/09
date added: 2021/12/14
shelves:
review:
Gay in a sad and uncomfortable way but I did feel like I had Read More Australian Literature by the end and understood our colonial milieu?
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