en-US Fri, 04 Apr 2025 20:13:56 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 63126269 266 Lucy Bexley casey 2
also plays into that trend in romance right now where mcs have mental health or substance abuse issues that are used for their main “gimmick� only for it to result in the characters constantly talking with eachother through therapy speak the entire time. just nerfs any chemistry to me personally and is eye roll inducing especially when it’s so surface level. i get this is a romance so im not even expecting them to go deep with shit in the first place, but it’s when they attempt to “go deep� with that nightmare combo of therapy speak and unnatural exposition that it just comes off as sooo corny to me idk idk

]]> 2.50 2020
author: Lucy Bexley
name: casey
average rating: 2.50
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/04
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves:
review:
this kind of had an uphill battle to begin w as i was misled on the genre and havent been in the mood for contemporary romance in ages. but i do like romance!! i swear this isn’t coming from an “all romance bad� perspective lol. i just didn’t think this was good :( didn’t really gaf about either main character and their dynamic felt super rushed esp when this is marketed as enemies to lovers..?

also plays into that trend in romance right now where mcs have mental health or substance abuse issues that are used for their main “gimmick� only for it to result in the characters constantly talking with eachother through therapy speak the entire time. just nerfs any chemistry to me personally and is eye roll inducing especially when it’s so surface level. i get this is a romance so im not even expecting them to go deep with shit in the first place, but it’s when they attempt to “go deep� with that nightmare combo of therapy speak and unnatural exposition that it just comes off as sooo corny to me idk idk


]]> 60243188 A new creation by the author of Severance, the stories in Bliss Montage crash through our carefully built mirages

What happens when fantasy tears through the screen of the everyday to wake us up? Could that waking be our end?

In Bliss Montage, Ling Ma brings us eight wildly different tales of people making their way through the madness and reality of our collective delusions: love and loneliness, connection and possession, friendship, motherhood, the idea of home. From a woman who lives in a house with all of her ex-boyfriends, to a toxic friendship built around a drug that makes you invisible, to an ancient ritual that might heal you of anything if you bury yourself alive, these and other scenarios reveal that the outlandish and the everyday are shockingly, deceptively, heartbreakingly similar.]]> 228 Ling Ma 0374293511 casey 4

favs were office hours, g and peking duck :) ]]> 3.91 2022
author: Ling Ma
name: casey
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves:
review:
miss ma i love you and ur writing�. pls�.. more books im begging�..


favs were office hours, g and peking duck :)
]]> 4961048 Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher tells the true and intoxicating story of her life with inimitable wit. Born to celebrity parents, she was picked to play a princess in a little movie called Star Wars when only 19 years old. "But it isn't all sweetness and light sabres." Alas, aside from a demanding career and her role as a single mother (not to mention the hyperspace hairdo), Carrie also spends her free time battling addiction, weathering the wild ride of manic depression and lounging around various mental institutions. It's an incredible tale—from having Elizabeth Taylor as a stepmother, to marrying (and divorcing) Paul Simon, from having the father of her daughter leave her for a man, to ultimately waking up one morning and finding a friend dead beside her in bed.]]> 163 Carrie Fisher 1439102252 casey 0 to-read 3.80 2008
author: Carrie Fisher
name: casey
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 4031 Lunar Park, is a writer whose first novel Less Than Zero catapulted him to international stardom while he was still in college. In the years that followed, he found himself adrift in a world of wealth, drugs, and fame, as well as dealing with the unexpected death of his abusive father. After a decade of decadence, a chance for salvation arrives; the chance to reconnect with an actress he was once involved with, and their son. But almost immediately his new life is threatened by a freak sequence of events and a bizarre series of murders that all seem to connect to Ellis’s past.

Reality, memoir, and fantasy combine to create not only a fascinating version of this most controversial writer but also a deeply moving novel about love and loss, parents and children, and ultimately forgiveness.]]> 404 Bret Easton Ellis 0375727272 casey 3
“the reason i was there had nothing to do with her but that i was just trying to locate some place where i might find the will to live again�

it’s great happenstance that i picked this up after the shards last year because i think you can see a lot of that book in this! BEE clearly loves to get very specific when it comes to detailing the opulence (and sedation) of the ultra wealthy, here through the eyes of a coked out writer, and i love reading about it so the first 75% of this was really enjoyable. he’s SO good at crafting a creepy atmosphere too, when it came to the part with the videos i had to stop reading that night because i was getting so freaked out lmao.

BEE explains this book as an homage to stephen king and the other horror books he read as a kid, a sort of "haunted house book" that ended up being influenced by the death of his father and the things he had gone through at the time of writing, which explains where this book eventually ends up. unfortunately the back quarter of this book is where it lost me. While I did like some elements of the ending, how we get there and some plot lines didn't feel developed enough to not feel a bit... corny? i don't know if that's how i actually want to describe it but it's hard to explain without giving too much away. i think there were ultimately just too many elements contributing to the "haunting" and it ended up feeling very frenzied and all over the place. granted paranormal has always been a hard sell for me in any book so that plot line at least could be chalked up to personal preference.

the reason i bring up the shards though is that it feels like a more refined take on what he was trying to do here in lunar park when it comes to the mix of autobiographical, fiction and thriller elements. so it's cool to see what he took from here and built off of. i think if you really love the shards and want to scratch that same itch you can get it here for the most part but i would go into this expecting the ending to not land as cleanly. ]]> 3.65 2005
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: casey
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves:
review:
3.5

“the reason i was there had nothing to do with her but that i was just trying to locate some place where i might find the will to live again�

it’s great happenstance that i picked this up after the shards last year because i think you can see a lot of that book in this! BEE clearly loves to get very specific when it comes to detailing the opulence (and sedation) of the ultra wealthy, here through the eyes of a coked out writer, and i love reading about it so the first 75% of this was really enjoyable. he’s SO good at crafting a creepy atmosphere too, when it came to the part with the videos i had to stop reading that night because i was getting so freaked out lmao.

BEE explains this book as an homage to stephen king and the other horror books he read as a kid, a sort of "haunted house book" that ended up being influenced by the death of his father and the things he had gone through at the time of writing, which explains where this book eventually ends up. unfortunately the back quarter of this book is where it lost me. While I did like some elements of the ending, how we get there and some plot lines didn't feel developed enough to not feel a bit... corny? i don't know if that's how i actually want to describe it but it's hard to explain without giving too much away. i think there were ultimately just too many elements contributing to the "haunting" and it ended up feeling very frenzied and all over the place. granted paranormal has always been a hard sell for me in any book so that plot line at least could be chalked up to personal preference.

the reason i bring up the shards though is that it feels like a more refined take on what he was trying to do here in lunar park when it comes to the mix of autobiographical, fiction and thriller elements. so it's cool to see what he took from here and built off of. i think if you really love the shards and want to scratch that same itch you can get it here for the most part but i would go into this expecting the ending to not land as cleanly.
]]> 217896248 From the nationally bestselling author of The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence, a transfixing, intensely atmospheric fever dream of medieval horror.

Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates, offering succor in return for adoration.

Soon, the entire castle is under the sway of their saviors, partaking in intoxicating feasts of terrible origin. The war hero Ser Voyne gives her allegiance to the Constant Lady. Phosyne, a disorganized, paranoid nun-turned-sorceress, races to unravel the mystery of these new visitors and exonerate her experiments as their source. And in the bowels of the castle, a serving girl, Treila, is torn between her thirst for a secret vengeance against Voyne and the desperate need to escape from the horrors that are unfolding within Aymar’s walls.

As the castle descends into bacchanalian madness—forgetting the massed army beyond its walls in favor of hedonistic ecstasy—these three women are the only ones to still see their situation for what it is. But they are not immune from the temptations of the castle’s new masters� or each other; and their shifting alliances and entangled pasts bring violence to the surface. To save the castle, and themselves, will take a reimagining of who they are, and a reorganization of the very world itself.]]> 352 Caitlin Starling 0063418819 casey 0 to-read 4.01 2025
author: Caitlin Starling
name: casey
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217387935 Naomi Novik's Scholomance series meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy by instant national and international bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.

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

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

Walden is good at her job―no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from―is herself.]]> 432 Emily Tesh 1250835011 casey 0 to-read 4.31 2025
author: Emily Tesh
name: casey
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223889073 An extraordinary work from the author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights

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

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

Didion’s journal was crafted with the singular intelligence, precision, and elegance that characterize all of her writing. It is an unprecedently intimate account that reveals sides of her that were unknown, but the voice is unmistakably hers—questioning, courageous, and clear in the face of a wrenchingly painful journey.]]> 224 Joan Didion 0593803671 casey 0 to-read 3.67
author: Joan Didion
name: casey
average rating: 3.67
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216247552 An incendiary, deeply reported exposé of Johnson & Johnson, one of America’s oldest and most trusted pharmaceutical companies—from award-winning investigative journalist Gardiner Harris

One day in 2004, Gardiner Harris, early for a flight, sat down at an airport bar and started talking to the woman on the bar stool beside him. She was a drug sales rep for Johnson & Johnson, and her horrific story about unethical sales practices and the devastating impact they’d had on her family fundamentally changed the nature of how Harris covered the company—and the entire pharmaceutical industry—for The New York Times. His subsequent investigations and ongoing research since that conversation led to new federal laws and ultimately to No More Tears, a blistering exposé of a trusted American institution and the largest healthcare conglomerate in the world.

Harris takes us light years away from the company’s image as the child-friendly “baby company� as he uncovers reams of evidence showing decades of deceitful and dangerous corporate practices that have threatened the lives of millions. He covers multiple disasters: lies and cover-ups regarding baby powder’s link to cancer; the surprising dangers of Tylenol; a criminal campaign to sell dangerous anti-psychotics to children; a popular drug for cancer patients that increases the risk of tumor growth. Deceptive marketing efforts that accelerated opioid addictions rival even those of the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma. All told, Johnson & Johnson's products have helped cause drug crises that have contributed to the deaths of as many as two million people and counting.

Filled with shocking, infuriating, but utterly necessary revelations, No More Tears is a landmark work of investigative journalism that lays bare the deeply rooted corruption behind the image of babies bathing with a smile.]]> 464 Gardiner Harris 059322986X casey 0 to-read 4.40 2025
author: Gardiner Harris
name: casey
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211004838 John Lennon and Paul McCartney knew each other for twenty-three years, from 1957 to 1980. This book is the myth-shattering biography of a relationship that changed the cultural history of the world.

The Beatles shook the world to its core in the 1960’s and, to this day, remain an active ingredient in our cultural bloodstream, as new generations fall in love with their songs and their story. At the heart of this phenomenon lies the dynamic between John and Paul. Few other musical partnerships have been rooted in such a deep, intense and complicated personal relationship.

John and Paul’s relationship was defined by its complexity: compulsive, tender and tempestuous; full of longing, riven by jealousy. Like the band, their relationship was always in motion, never in equilibrium for long. John and Paul traces its twists and turns and reveals how these shifts manifested themselves in the music. Yoko Ono remarked on the resemblance of their friendship to a romantic relationship and suggested that at some point that’s what John wanted it to be. The two of them shared a private language, rooted in the stories, comedy and songs they both loved as teenagers, and later, in the lyrics of Beatles songs.

In John and Paul, acclaimed writer on human psychology and creativity Ian Leslie traces the shared journey of these men before, during and after The Beatles, offering us both a new look at two of the greatest icons in music history, and rich insights into the nature of creativity, collaboration, and human intimacy.]]> 424 Ian Leslie 1250869544 casey 0 to-read 4.49 2025
author: Ian Leslie
name: casey
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211003937 The long-awaited follow-up from one of the most original and hilarious voices writing today.

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

Sucker Punch is about what happens when the life you thought you’d be living radically changes course, everything you thought you knew about the world and yourself has tilted on its axis, and you have to start forging a new path forward. Scaachi employs her signature humor and fierce intelligence to interrogate her previous belief that fighting is the most effective tool for progress. She examines the fights she’s had—with her parents, her ex-husband, her friends, online strangers, and herself—all in an attempt to understand when a fight is worth having, and when it's better to walk away.]]> 272 Scaachi Koul 1250270502 casey 0 to-read 4.07 2025
author: Scaachi Koul
name: casey
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214151601 The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

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

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

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.]]> 192 Agustina Bazterrica 1668051885 casey 0 to-read 3.67 2023
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: casey
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220161576 In this razor-sharp, diabolical debut thriller, a young woman steps into her deceased twin’s influencer life, only to discover dark secrets hidden behind her social media façade.

Julie Chan has nothing. Her twin sister has everything. Except a pulse.

Julie Chan, a supermarket cashier with nothing to lose, finds herself thrust into the glamorous yet perilous world of her late twin sister, Chloe VanHuusen, a popular influencer. Separated at a young age, the identical twins were polar opposites and rarely spoke, except for one viral video that Chloe initiated (Finding My Long-Lost Twin And Buying Her A House #EMOTIONAL). When Julie discovers Chloe’s lifeless body under mysterious circumstances, she seizes the chance to live the life she’s always envied.

Transforming into Chloe is easier than expected. Julie effortlessly adopts Chloe’s luxurious influencer life, complete with designer clothes, a meticulous skincare routine, and millions of adoring followers. However, Julie soon realizes that Chloe’s seemingly picture-perfect life was anything but.

Haunted by Chloe’s untimely death and struggling to fit into the privileged influencer circle, Julie faces mounting challenges during a weeklong island retreat with Chloe’s exclusive group of influencer friends. As events spiral out of control, Julie uncovers the sinister forces that may have led to her sister’s demise and realizes she might be the next target.]]> 320 Liann Zhang 1668067897 casey 0 to-read 3.90 2025
author: Liann Zhang
name: casey
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 35783467 Near to the Wild Heart, Hurricane Clarice let loose something stormier with The Chandelier. In a body of work renowned for its potent idiosyncratic genius, The Chandelier in many ways has pride of place. “It stands out,� her biographer Benjamin Moser noted, “in a strange and difficult body of work, as perhaps her strangest and most difficult book.� Of glacial intensity, consisting almost entirely of interior monologues—interrupted by odd and jarring fragments of dialogue and action—the novel moves in slow waves that crest in moments of revelation. As Virginia seeks freedom via creation, the drama of her isolated life is almost entirely internal: from childhood, she sculpts clay figurines with “the best clay one could desire: white, supple, sticky, cold. She got a clear and tender material from which she could shape a world. How, how to explain the miracle ...� While on one level simply the story of a woman’s life, The Chandelier’s real drama lies in Lispector’s attempt “to find the nucleus made of a single instant ... the tenuous triumph and the defeat, perhaps nothing more than breathing.”�The Chandelier pushes Lispector’s lifelong quest for that nucleus into deeper territories than any of her other amazing works.]]> 304 Clarice Lispector 0811226700 casey 0 to-read 3.95 1946
author: Clarice Lispector
name: casey
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1946
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 11330361
Dugard's memoir is written by the 30-year-old herself and covers the period from the time of her abduction in 1991 up until the present. In her stark, utterly honest and unflinching narrative, Jaycee opens up about what she experienced, including how she feels now, a year after being found. Garrido and his wife Nancy have since pleaded guilty to their crimes.]]> 273 Jaycee Dugard 1451629184 casey 0 3.95 2011
author: Jaycee Dugard
name: casey
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: baby-casey, memoirs, non-fiction
review:

]]> 220114865 A Cosmopolitan book to look out for in 2025
'An immersive story about love and the softening borders around what family can be' Sheena Patel
'An intimate and tender exploration of love's possibilities' Sophie Mackintosh

Jules has been divorced from her ex-husband Leon for five years, but she still works alongside him at Gunk, the grotty student nightclub he owns in central Brighton. She spends her nights serving shots and watching, from behind the bar, as Leon flirts with students on the dancefloor. In the early hours of the morning, she paces home to sleep.

But then Leon hires nineteen-year-old Nim to work the bar with Jules � Nim, with her shaved head and steady pour, her disarming sweetness and sudden distance � and Jules finds herself jolted awake. When Nim discovers she's pregnant, Jules agrees to help. As the months pass, and the relationship between the two women grows increasingly intimate and perplexing, it emerges that Nim has her own unexpected gifts to give.

Now, alone in her small flat, Jules is holding a baby, just twenty-four-hours old, who still smells of Nim. But no one knows where Nim is, or if she's coming back. What could the future � for Jules, Nim, and this unnamed baby � possibly look like?

Raw, exhilarating, tender and wise, Gunk is an electrifying debut novel exploring love and desire, safety and destruction, chaos and control � and family in all its forms.

Praise for Saba Sams
'Sams is the real deal' LUCY KIRKWOOD, GUARDIAN
'A bold new talent' STYLIST
'I can't wait to see what she writes next' PANDORA SYKES]]> Saba Sams 1526621819 casey 0 to-read 3.92
author: Saba Sams
name: casey
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214151534 A hilarious, surreal, and devastating journey into the mind of Reality Kahn, a young woman on a quest to be the greatest girlfriend of all time.

It was decreed from the moment she was born. Twenty-three-year-old Reality Kahn would embark on a quest so great, so bold. She would become the greatest girlfriend of all time. She would be a zine maker, an aspiring notary, the greatest waterslide commercial actress on the Eastern Seaboard. She would receive messages from the beyond in the form of advice from the esteemed and ancient ladies magazine, Girlfriend Weekly.

When she attends a party in Gowanus at a punk venue known as “Paradise,� Reality meets Ariel, who will become her boyfriend. She bravely works for his everlasting affection and joins a clinical trial created by Dr. Zweig Altmann to help her become a more perfect girlfriend. She stars in a new commercial. She learns how to become an indelible host. But Reality will also learn that sheer will and determination, and a very open heart, are not always enough to make true love manifest.

At turns laugh-out-loud funny, tragic, and jarring, Reality’s quest grows ever complicated as the men in her Ariel, her waterpark commercial agent Jethro, and Dr. Altmann himself prove treacherous. Paradise Logic is a thrilling, psychosexual breakdown of our obsession with authentic true love, asking whether that is even possible in a patriarchal world, and announces Sophie Kemp as a wholly original, transformative, and brilliant new voice in fiction.]]> 256 Sophie Kemp 1668057034 casey 0 to-read 4.02
author: Sophie Kemp
name: casey
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61145400 An aging white male college professor develops a dangerous obsession with his new Pakistani colleague in this modern, iconoclastic novel that is as powerful, riveting, and disturbing as Lolita, Disgrace, and A Little Life.

Dr. Oliver Harding, a tenured professor of English, is long settled into the routines of a divorced, aging academic. But his quiet, staid life is upended by his new colleague, Ruhaba Khan, a dynamic Pakistani Muslim law professor.

Ruhaba unexpectedly ignites Oliver’s long-dormant passions, a secret desire that quickly tips towards obsession after her teenaged nephew, Adil Alam, arrives from France to stay with her. Oliver becomes a mentor to Adil, using his friendship with the boy to draw closer to his aunt. Getting to know them, Oliver tries to reconcile his discomfort with the worlds in which they come from, and to quiet his sense of dismay at the encroaching change they represent—both in background and in Ruhaba’s spirited engagement with the student movements on campus.

After protests break out on campus demanding diversity across the university, Harding finds himself and his beliefs under fire, even as his past reveals a picture more complicated than it seems. As Ruhaba seems attainable yet not, and as the women of his past taunt his memory, Harding reacts in ways shocking and devastating.

Sonora Jha has created a complex character both in tune and out of step with our time, an erudite man who inspires and challenges our sympathies. As the novel reaches its astonishing conclusion, Jha compels us to reexamine scenes in a new light, revealing a depth of loneliness in unlikely places, the subjectivity of innocence, and the looming peril of white rage in America.

An explosive, tense, and illuminating work of fiction, The Laughter is a fascinating portrait of privilege, radicalization, class, and modern academia that forces us to confront the assumptions we make, as both readers and as citizens.]]> 320 Sonora Jha 0063240254 casey 4 3.86 2023
author: Sonora Jha
name: casey
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves:
review:
this was good!! definitely fits into the sub genre of reading-from-the-perspective-of-someone-heinous alongside yellow face, tampa and greenwich but is focused on using the perspective of our creepy "nice guy" professor harding to explore the american perception of muslims set amidst the cultural shifts we've seen in the past decade on a college campus. This can be a tough thing to balance, trying to detail a story through the voice of an unreliable character that reveals to the reader the second truth without being too obvious to the point where it betrays the personal bias one would have for their own actions. I thought it was done well here though, and I liked a particular twist at the end that I won't spoil.
]]> 17934530 Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.

The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.]]> 195 Jeff VanderMeer 0374104093 casey 4 3.79 2014
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: casey
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:
an ambiguous fever dream that refuses to explain itself. despite being words on a page this felt technicolour- such a cool reading experience!!!!
]]> 56646330 Go Home vans. Go to Oxbridge, get an education, start a career. Do all the right things. Buy a flat. Buy art. Buy a sort of happiness. But above all, keep your head down. Keep quiet. And keep going.

The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend's family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can't escape the question: is it time to take it all apart?]]> 112 Natasha Brown 0316268267 casey 0 to-read 3.84 2021
author: Natasha Brown
name: casey
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 212491245 A fascinating intellectual history that takes a comparatively little-known but important idea and shows how it affects huge areas of our lives

Thomas Bayes was an eighteenth-century Presbyterian minister and amateur mathematician whose obscure life belied the profound impact of his work. Like most research into probability at the time, his theorem was mainly seen as relevant to games of chance, like dice and cards. But its implications soon became clear.

Bayes' theorem helps explain why highly accurate screening tests can lead to false positives, causing unnecessary anxiety for patients. A failure to account for it in court has put innocent people in jail. But its influence goes far beyond practical applications. A cornerstone of rational thought, Bayesian principles are used in modelling and forecasting. 'Superforecasters', a group of expert predictors who outperform CIA analysts, use a Bayesian approach. And many argue that Bayes' theorem is not just a useful tool, but a description of almost everything - that it is the underlying architecture of rationality, and of the human brain.

Fusing biography, razor-sharp science communication and intellectual history, Everything Is Predictable is a captivating tour of Bayes' theorem and its impact on modern life. From medical testing to artificial intelligence, Tom Chivers shows how a single compelling idea can have far-reaching consequences.]]> 336 Tom Chivers 139960404X casey 0 to-read 4.56 2024
author: Tom Chivers
name: casey
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 224070664
For fans of Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder and Lisa Taddeo's Animal, Shy Girl is a harrowing tale of girlhood, survival, autonomy, and revenge.]]> 247 Mia Ballard casey 0 to-read 4.05 2025
author: Mia Ballard
name: casey
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17194983 Bough Down reports from deep inside the maelstrom of grief. In this profoundly beautiful and intensely moving lament, artist and writer Karen Green conjures the inscrutable space of love and loss, clarity and contradiction, sense and madness. She summons memory and the machination of the interior mind with the emotional acuity of music as she charts her passage through the devastation of her husband's suicide. In crystalline fragments of text, Green's voice is paradoxically confessional and non-confessional: moments in her journey are devastating but also luminous, exacting in sensation but also ambiguous and layered in meaning. Her world is haunted by the unnameable, and yet she renders that world with poetic precision in her struggle to make sense of not only of death but of living. In counterpoint, tiny visual collages punctuate the text, each made of salvaged language and scraps of the material world-pages torn from books, bits of paper refuse, drawings and photographs, old postage stamps and the albums which classify them. Each collage � and the creative act of making it � evinces the reassembling of life. A breathtaking lyric elegy, Bough Down uses music and silence, color and its absence, authority of experience and the doubt that trembles at its center to fulfill a humane artistic vision. This is a lapidary, keenly observed work, awash with the honesty of an open heart.]]> 188 Karen Green 193822101X casey 0 to-read 4.26 2013
author: Karen Green
name: casey
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 215020997 London, 1837.
Boston, 2019.

Three young women, their bodies planted in the same soil, their stories tangling like roots.

One grows high, and one grows deep, and one grows wild.

And all of them grow teeth.]]> 560 Victoria E. Schwab 1035064642 casey 2 arcs
Ughhh i really wanted to like this

The premise seemed so intriguing and the story started off strong but waned quickly for me. I just found that the pacing was clunky and it never really finds its rhythm. If anything the longer this went on you could start to feel in the writing that schwab was trying to rush things forward to the finish line. Unfortunately was super disappointing and the ending was v unsatisfying :( Thank you NetGalley for the arc!

edit: cutting out the spoiler shit cause idk if im allowed to put that in here lmaooo ill add back when it’s out]]> 4.38 2025
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: casey
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: arcs
review:
2.5

Ughhh i really wanted to like this

The premise seemed so intriguing and the story started off strong but waned quickly for me. I just found that the pacing was clunky and it never really finds its rhythm. If anything the longer this went on you could start to feel in the writing that schwab was trying to rush things forward to the finish line. Unfortunately was super disappointing and the ending was v unsatisfying :( Thank you NetGalley for the arc!

edit: cutting out the spoiler shit cause idk if im allowed to put that in here lmaooo ill add back when it’s out
]]> 59774734
With motherhood changing Samsa into a stranger, Boulder must decide where her priorities lie, and whether her yearning for freedom can truly trump her yearning for love.

Once again, Eva Baltasar demonstrates her preeminence as a chronicler of queer voices navigating a hostile world―and in prose as brittle and beautiful as an ancient saga.]]> 105 Eva Baltasar 1913505383 casey 0 currently-reading 4.03 2020
author: Eva Baltasar
name: casey
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 217388284 A riveting debut novel for readers of Celeste Ng, Greenwich explores the nature of desire and complicity against the backdrop of immense wealth and privilege, the ways that whiteness and power protect their own, and the uneasy moral ambiguity of redemption.

Summer, 1999. Rachel Fiske is almost eighteen when she arrives at her aunt and uncle’s mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. Her glamorous aunt is struggling to heal from an injury, and Rachel wants to help—and escape her own troubles back home. But her aunt is oddly spacey and her uncle is consumed with business, and Rachel feels lonely and adrift, excluded from the world of adults and their secrets. The only bright spot is Claudia, a recent college graduate, aspiring artist, and the live-in babysitter for Rachel’s cousin. As summer deepens, Rachel eagerly hopes their friendship might grow into more.

But when a tragic accident occurs, the family turns on Claudia in a desperate bid to salvage their reputation. Caught between her upbringing and her feelings for Claudia, her desire to do the right thing and to protect her future, Rachel must make a pivotal choice. She’s the only one who knows what really happened—and her decision has consequences far beyond what she could have predicted.]]> 304 Kate Broad 1250363047 casey 3 arcs
a fast, pulpy beach read. It’s the type of story where you can already see ahead of time the broad strokes of the plot but it’s entertaining to the point where it doesn’t matter that you know where things are going. I love these types of stories where you're kind of moving backward in knowing the ending but getting to watch how everything falls in line, and mix in a rich family with secrets� very up my alley lol.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the writing style, sometimes it veered into the territory of young adult (no shade, there’s just an ism a lot of those books have that flashed through the writing every so often here). And I think the themes of race and class were honestly quite hamfisted so I wouldn’t go into this expecting any grappling with those topics further than what you’d see in like.. an infographic off instagram. There was one scene specifically in this book that in hindsight after finishing was so� random to throw in there? I have more thoughts on this but I think it would veer into spoiler territory so I’ll hold off lol.

Despite that it was still compulsively readable, I found myself annihilating the first half of this book in one night. Fair warning though I can see people finding the perspective you have to read from very grating. It’s reminiscent of Yellowface and despite both of those books intentionally writing their mcs that way I know some people don’t jive with it so I’d keep that in mind. Good book to get you out of a reading slump though. Thanks NetGalley for the arc!
]]> 3.76
author: Kate Broad
name: casey
average rating: 3.76
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: arcs
review:
3.5

a fast, pulpy beach read. It’s the type of story where you can already see ahead of time the broad strokes of the plot but it’s entertaining to the point where it doesn’t matter that you know where things are going. I love these types of stories where you're kind of moving backward in knowing the ending but getting to watch how everything falls in line, and mix in a rich family with secrets� very up my alley lol.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the writing style, sometimes it veered into the territory of young adult (no shade, there’s just an ism a lot of those books have that flashed through the writing every so often here). And I think the themes of race and class were honestly quite hamfisted so I wouldn’t go into this expecting any grappling with those topics further than what you’d see in like.. an infographic off instagram. There was one scene specifically in this book that in hindsight after finishing was so� random to throw in there? I have more thoughts on this but I think it would veer into spoiler territory so I’ll hold off lol.

Despite that it was still compulsively readable, I found myself annihilating the first half of this book in one night. Fair warning though I can see people finding the perspective you have to read from very grating. It’s reminiscent of Yellowface and despite both of those books intentionally writing their mcs that way I know some people don’t jive with it so I’d keep that in mind. Good book to get you out of a reading slump though. Thanks NetGalley for the arc!

]]> 890 “I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why.�

They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.

While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.

A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]> 107 John Steinbeck 0142000671 casey 0 to-read 3.88 1937
author: John Steinbeck
name: casey
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1937
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18521 A Room of One's Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on the 24th of October, 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women's colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled Women and Fiction, and hence the essay, are considered nonfiction. The essay is seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.]]> 112 Virginia Woolf casey 5 essays, non-fiction
This was sooo rich omfg. I know she’s heralded as a modern writer but I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I would kill to have been in the lecture hall when she said all this nearly a hundred (100!!!!!) years ago like wtf. I spent a lot of this just awestruck over how i’d read a line and think “oh that’s her big one� then two sentences later she’d drop another. It’s very evocative, invigorating, and I can imagine that was experienced ten fold in its original delivery.]]> 4.21 1929
author: Virginia Woolf
name: casey
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1929
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: essays, non-fiction
review:
“The masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.�

This was sooo rich omfg. I know she’s heralded as a modern writer but I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I would kill to have been in the lecture hall when she said all this nearly a hundred (100!!!!!) years ago like wtf. I spent a lot of this just awestruck over how i’d read a line and think “oh that’s her big one� then two sentences later she’d drop another. It’s very evocative, invigorating, and I can imagine that was experienced ten fold in its original delivery.
]]> 134119018 A history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself.

From trendy restaurants to city grids, to TikTok and Netflix feeds the world round, algorithmic recommendations dictate our experiences and choices. The algorithm is present in the familiar neon signs and exposed brick of Internet cafes, be it in Nairobi or Portland, and the skeletal, modern furniture of Airbnbs in cities big and small. Over the last decade, this network of mathematically determined decisions has taken over, almost unnoticed—informing the songs we listen to, the friends with whom we stay in touch—as we’ve grown increasingly accustomed to our insipid new normal.

This ever-tightening web woven by algorithms is called “Filterworld.� Kyle Chayka shows us how online and offline spaces alike have been engineered for seamless consumption, becoming a source of pervasive anxiety in the process. Users of technology have been forced to contend with data-driven equations that try to anticipate their desires—and often get them wrong. What results is a state of docility that allows tech companies to curtail human experiences—human lives—for profit. But to have our tastes, behaviors, and emotions governed by computers, while convenient, does nothing short of call the very notion of free will into question.

In Filterworld, Chayka traces this creeping, machine-guided curation as it infiltrates the furthest reaches of our digital, physical, and psychological spaces. With algorithms increasingly influencing not just what culture we consume, but what culture is produced, urgent questions What happens when shareability supersedes messiness, innovation, and creativity—the qualities that make us human? What does it mean to make a choice when the options have been so carefully arranged for us? Is personal freedom possible on the Internet?

To the last question, Filterworld argues yes—but to escape Filterworld, and even transcend it, we must first understand it.]]> 290 Kyle Chayka casey 3 non-fiction 3.66 2024
author: Kyle Chayka
name: casey
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/22
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: non-fiction
review:
wasnt “bad� by any means just personally found it trite + repetitive for the most part. granted i think i’ve maxed myself out on this topic so it’s a me thing, not really a fault of the book. also just found his personal notes so� grating for some reason? i cant even place why since i typically dont mind interjections like that or when an author comes off snobby. just not for me, probably a good general introductory book though if you like his narrative voice!
]]> 124949084
Dr. Linnea Passaler has helped thousands globally in her digital health program address a wide range of symptoms associated with nervous system dysregulation—from mental symptoms, including anxiety, burnout, and brain fog, to physical symptoms, such as digestive issues, chronic inflammation, and fatigue. In Heal Your Nervous System, Dr. Passaler presents her 5-stage plan, developed over the last decade, to equip you with the knowledge to understand and regulate your unique nervous system.

Despite its advances, conventional medicine has often overlooked the importance of nervous system regulation in our health and quality of life. This is especially true for highly sensitive individuals, who may be more susceptible to a dysregulated nervous system. Instead of merely treating the symptoms, Dr. Passaler shows you how to make a profound shift from reactive treatment to proactive healing.

Grounded in recent scientific advances in neurobiology, chronic stress, trauma, and sensitivity, this is not a short-term or one-size-fits-all solution, but a comprehensive strategy to tackle the source of your symptoms, and restore your physical, cognitive, and emotional health.

In Heal Your Nervous System, you will discover:

- How anxiety, trauma, and chronic stress are not just “in your head,� but manifest in all areas of your health

- How to assess your current level of nervous system dysregulation

- Why nervous system dysregulation can cause both mental and physical symptoms

-How your individual sensitivity profile and past experiences came together to tip your nervous system into a state of dysregulation

-The four most common mistakes people make in their healing journey, and how to avoid them

-Top essential habits that support your nervous system during your healing journey
Simple practices, exercises, and routines that progressively reverse nervous system dysregulation

-How to organize the most effective practices into the right order, a sequence that supports your healing without getting overwhelmed

Your nervous system and health are far more adaptable than you think. With Heal Your Nervous System as your guidebook, you can navigate a fresh path, reverse symptoms, and progressively move towards a robust mind and body.]]> 288 Linnea Passaler 0760385653 casey 0 currently-reading 3.95
author: Linnea Passaler
name: casey
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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

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

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

A brutally funny, propulsive story of power, fantasy, love, and loss, Brittany Newell’s Soft Core is an ode to the heartbroken and unhinged, to those whose appetites lead them astray. It is a hallucinogenic romp about a girl coming undone, whose longing for friendship, romance, and revenge will take her over the edge and back again.]]> 352 Brittany Newell 0374613893 casey 0 to-read, arcs 3.63 2025
author: Brittany Newell
name: casey
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read, arcs
review:

]]> 217192530 ~~~~~~~
A kidnapped baby. The sister left behind. A secret no one would believe.

All Eve Ellaway wants is to escape to college and start a life of her own. To finally sever the connection to her twin sister Gen who disappeared when they were babies. Because while the rest of the world moved on from the kidnapping, Gen’s still very much alive at home.

Most families would grieve their missing child. Some families might create a shrine for their lost daughter. But the Ellaways are not most families.

Every night Eve pretends to be Gen to protect her mother's delicate grasp on reality, dividing her life, her stories, her dreams so there’s enough to make up two people. Maintaining her father’s lie to ease his guilt over Gen’s disappearance. Sacrificing the last threads of her identity and any hope for a normal future.

As the lies propping up Eve’s life start to crumble, she no longer knows what she wants. But Gen does, and she’s ready to take it.]]> Melanie Hooyenga casey 0 to-read, arcs 3.85
author: Melanie Hooyenga
name: casey
average rating: 3.85
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read, arcs
review:

]]> 218153678 An electrifying story of love, betrayal, and the complicated allure of bougie domesticity.

“Dinan writes like some kind of demigod. Her fictions make thinkable new realities for how we live and what we might expect from each other.”� Torrey Peters, author of Detransition Baby

“I don’t know why I feel like I’ve been caught doing something dirty. Cheating on queerness. Fell down the stairs and woke up a trad wife.�
Thirty years old with a lifetime of dysphoria and fuccbois rattling around in her head, Max is plagued by a deep dissatisfaction. Shouldn’t these be the best years of her life? Why doesn’t it feel that way? After taking a spill down the stairs at a New Year’s Eve party, she decides to make some changes. First: a stab at good old-fashioned heteronormativity.

Max thinks she’s found the answer in Vincent. While his corporate colleagues, trad friends, and Chinese parents never pictured their son dating a trans woman, he cares for Max in a way she’d always dismissed as a foolish fantasy. But he is also carrying baggage of his own. When the fall-out of a decades-old entanglement resurfaces, Max must decide what forgiveness really means. Can we be more than our worst mistakes? Is it possible to make peace with the past?

Funny, sharp, and poignant, Disappoint Me is a sweeping exploration of love, loss, trans panic, race, millennial angst, and the relationships—familial and romantic—that make us who we are.]]> 320 Nicola Dinan 0593977874 casey 0 to-read, arcs 4.18 2025
author: Nicola Dinan
name: casey
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read, arcs
review:

]]> 214152402 A moving story about two very different sisters, and a love letter to childhood, growing up, and the power of imagination—from the bestselling author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead and Interesting Facts About Space.

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

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

What unfolds is an unforgettable story of two sisters finding their way back to each other, and a celebration of that transcendent, unshakable bond.]]> 256 Emily R. Austin 1668058146 casey 0 to-read, arcs 4.08 2025
author: Emily R. Austin
name: casey
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read, arcs
review:

]]> 213618149 A journalist investigates a seductive and mysterious cult and its leader, an enigmatic Vietnam War veteran, in this not-to-be-missed novel.

Faruq Zaidi, a young journalist reeling from the recent death of his father, a devout Muslim, takes the opportunity to embed in a cult called The Nameless. Based in the California redwoods and shepherded by an enigmatic Vietnam War-veteran named Odo, The Nameless adhere to the 18 Utterances, including teachings such as “THERE IS NO GOD BUT THE NAMELESS,� “ALL SUFFERING IS DISTORTION,� and “SEE ONLY BEAUTY.� Faruq, skeptical but committed to unraveling the mystery of The Nameless, extends his stay over months, as he gets deeper into the cult's inner workings, compassionate teachings, and closer to Odo. Faruq himself begins to unravel, forced to come-to-terms with the memories he has been running from while trying to resist Odo's spell. 

Told in three seamlessly interwoven threads between Faruq’s present-day investigation, Odo’s time before the formation of the movement as a Black infantryman during the Vietnam War, alongside three other Black soldiers, and a documentary script that recounts The Nameless� clash with a Texan fundamentalist church, O SINNERS! examines both longing and belonging. Ultimately the novel What is it that we seek from cults and, inevitably, from each other?]]> 464 Nicole Cuffy 0593597443 casey 0 to-read, arcs 3.69 2025
author: Nicole Cuffy
name: casey
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read, arcs
review:

]]> 201479229 A transformational, transformative story about videogames, three queer friends, and the code(s) they learn to survive, from the winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Trans Fiction

It is 1998; Lilith, Sash, and Abraxa are teenagers, and they are making Saga of the Sorceress, a game that will change everything, if only for the three of them.

18 years later, Saga of the Sorceress still exists only on the scattered drives of its creators. Lilith might be the first trans woman to ever work as an Assistant Loan Underwriter at Dollarwise Investments in Brooklyn. Sash is in Brooklyn as well, working as a research assistant and part-time webcam dominatrix. Neither knows that the other is there, or that Abraxa, the third member of Invocation LLC, is just across the Hudson River, sleeping on the floor of a friend’s grandparents� Jersey City home. They have never met in person, and have been out of touch for years, but none have forgotten the sorceress, or her quest, still far from finished.

This new book by Lambda Literary Fellow Jeanne Thornton, one of trans America’s brightest literary stars, queers our notion of nostalgia as it expertly blends literature with technology.]]> Jeanne Thornton 1641296046 casey 0 dnf, arcs Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

The easy comparison here considering this is a story about following friends who make a video game together is of course tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. I’d say if you found that one “too technical� on the gaming side though, this executes that ten fold. You get chat logs, diagrams, and pretty detailed explanations on a game level from our mcs. I do think all of this together caused the story to become a bit bloated and unfortunately no matter how many times I tried to pick this back up it just wasn’t sticking for me. Granted the commitment to the lit/tech blend is what makes this unique and that’s tough to pull off in a general sense (where the mere mention of a video game gets people claiming a story is “too gamey� i.e TATAT), let alone as detailed as this is (at least to the point where I had dnf’d). I do like the overall idea behind this though, the rise of stories following how people are shaped and find identity online is one i find really interesting as it’s something I've experienced myself. + while this wasn’t for me, I can see people really loving this.]]> 4.42 2025
author: Jeanne Thornton
name: casey
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: dnf, arcs
review:
DNF @ 22%
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

The easy comparison here considering this is a story about following friends who make a video game together is of course tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. I’d say if you found that one “too technical� on the gaming side though, this executes that ten fold. You get chat logs, diagrams, and pretty detailed explanations on a game level from our mcs. I do think all of this together caused the story to become a bit bloated and unfortunately no matter how many times I tried to pick this back up it just wasn’t sticking for me. Granted the commitment to the lit/tech blend is what makes this unique and that’s tough to pull off in a general sense (where the mere mention of a video game gets people claiming a story is “too gamey� i.e TATAT), let alone as detailed as this is (at least to the point where I had dnf’d). I do like the overall idea behind this though, the rise of stories following how people are shaped and find identity online is one i find really interesting as it’s something I've experienced myself. + while this wasn’t for me, I can see people really loving this.
]]> 52623750 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593189481.

An intimate, revelatory book exploring the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down.

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.

Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.]]> 241 Katherine May casey 3 non-fiction, memoirs 3.82 2020
author: Katherine May
name: casey
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: non-fiction, memoirs
review:
very heartwarming and sweet! these books are always incredibly subjective depending on if you jive w the author’s outlook or if their insights are fresh to you. personally liked the sentiment but just didnt really get what i was looking for out of it.
]]> 176443441
It’s March of 2019, and twenty-eight-year-old Jules Gold—anxious, artistically frustrated, and internet-obsessed—has been living alone in the apartment she once shared with the man she thought she’d marry when her younger sister Poppy comes to crash. Indefinitely. Poppy is a year out from a suicide attempt only Jules knows about, and as she searches for work and meaning in Brooklyn, Jules spends her days hate-scrolling the feeds of Mormon mommy bloggers and waiting for life to happen.

Then the hives that’ve plagued Poppy since childhood flare up. Jules’s uterus turns against her. Poppy brings home a maladjusted rescue dog named Amy Klobuchar. The girls� mother—a newly devout Messianic Jew—starts falling for the same deep-state conspiracy theories as Jules’s online mommies. A trip home to Florida ends in disaster. Amy Klobuchar may or may not have rabies. And Jules struggles halfheartedly to scrape her way to the source of her ennui, slowly and cruelly coming to blame Poppy for her own insufficiencies as a friend, a writer, and a sister. As the year shambles on and a new decade looms near, Jules and Poppy—comrades, competitors, permanent fixtures in each other’s lives—must ask themselves what they want their futures to look like, and whether they’ll spend them together or apart.

Deadpan, dark, and brutally funny, Worry is a sharp portrait of two sisters enduring a dread-filled American moment from a nervy new voice in contemporary fiction.]]> 304 Alexandra Tanner 1668018616 casey 3
kind of like if you wrote Girls today but instead of a friend group you gave hannah horvath a sister lol]]> 3.32 2024
author: Alexandra Tanner
name: casey
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/07
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: girl-who-is-not-going-to-be-okay
review:
3.5/4

kind of like if you wrote Girls today but instead of a friend group you gave hannah horvath a sister lol
]]> 22934314 With this memoir, Hyeonseo Lee becomes one of the first female defectors from North Korea to share her story.

As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by the secretive and brutal communist regime created by dictator Kim Il-Sung and his successors (son Kim Jong-Il and grandson Kim Jong-Un). Although her privileged family background insulated her from the cruelest horrors of the regime, living near the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom. When the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told, “the best on the planet�?Aged seventeen, she decided to escape North Korea. She could not have imagined that it would be twelve years before she was reunited with her family. Rumours of her escape were spreading, and she and her family could incur the punishments of the government authorities—involving imprisonment, torture, and possible public execution—if she returned. Hyeonseo instead remained in China and rapidly learned Chinese in an effort to adapt and survive. This is the unique story not only of Hyeonseo’s escape from the darkness into the light, but also of her coming of age, education and the resolve she found to rebuild her life—not once, but twice—first in China, then in South Korea. Twelve years and two lifetimes later, she would return to the North Korean border in a daring mission to bring her mother and brother to South Korea, risking her own life in the process. Against the odds, she and her family survived one of the most arduous, costly and dangerous journeys imaginable.]]> 304 Hyeonseo Lee 0007554850 casey 0 to-read 4.47 2014
author: Hyeonseo Lee
name: casey
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220517405
Lucy’s brother, Mikey, is dead. Two years ago, when he left their small Eastern Colorado town and moved west to Denver, he’d intended to bring Lucy along. But Lucy has only just arrived, and too late. She arrives in search of Helen, a woman Mikey loved. But when Lucy moves in across the hall, she finds nothing is as she expected: the city is crumbling; the weather is tempestuous; a predator is on the loose; the old woman in the attic needs company; desire is being compressed into pills and distributed like candy; and, most distressing of all, she finds herself becoming obsessed with Helen, who is nothing like she expected―and who has no idea who Lucy really is.

As Helen’s and Lucy’s lives become more entwined, Lucy begins to realize the real reasons she came to Denver are deeper and stranger than a simple desire to understand what happened to her brother. As a storm builds and the city falls apart, Lucy finds herself drawn further to Helen, and farther from her brother, questioning what makes a family and if love can ever really be found.

There Are Reasons for This is a modern love song about the fallibility of love―in all its iterations―about the denial and tethering of desire, about the family we are given and the one we find for ourselves, and to what comes next, whatever that may be.]]> 240 Nini Berndt 1963108264 casey 0 to-read 4.00
author: Nini Berndt
name: casey
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 215570667
Years later Tom makes a decision that ripples through their families' lives in ways he could not have foreseen. As the consequences of that fateful choice unfold, two women's paths become irrevocably intertwined. But when old love clashes with new, who will be left standing? And what happens when your secrets come back to haunt you?]]> 336 Loretta Rothschild 1250381827 casey 0 to-read 4.12 2025
author: Loretta Rothschild
name: casey
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211953309 A dazzling debut novel set in 1980s New York, when cocaine is as easy to get as ice cream, about one young woman’s summer of infinite possibility—and looming danger.

It was the summer of 1986, when the girl was found dead in Central Park behind the Metropolitan Museum—half-naked, legs splayed, arms flung over her head. Larynx crushed.

There are two things Nina Jacobs is determined to do over the summer of 1986: avoid her mother’s depression-fueled rages, and lose her virginity before she starts college in the fall. Both are seemingly impossible—when her mother isn’t lying in bed for days, she’s lashing out at Nina over any perceived slight. And after a blowjob gone spectacularly wrong, Nina is the talk of Flanagan’s, the Upper East Side bar where young Manhattan society congregates. It doesn’t help that she’s Jewish, an outsider among the blue-eyed blondes who populate this rarified world. She can fit in, kind of, with enough alcohol and prescription drugs stolen from her parents� medicine cabinet.

Flanagan’s is where she pines for the handsome, preppy, and charismatic Gardner Reed, whom every girl wants to sleep with and every guy wants to be. After she’s introduced to cocaine, Nina plunges headlong into her pursuit of Gardner, oblivious to the warning signs. When a new medication seemingly frees her mother from darkness, and Nina and Gardner grow closer, it seems like Nina might finally get what she wants. But at what cost?

Freud called cocaine “a gorgeous excitement,� but a gorgeous excitement for the wrong guy can be lethal.]]> 368 Cynthia Weiner 0593798848 casey 0 to-read 3.71
author: Cynthia Weiner
name: casey
average rating: 3.71
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56755560 The Cat Who Saved Books is a heart-warming story about finding courage, caring for others � and the tremendous power of books.

Grandpa used to say it all the time: 'books have tremendous power'. But what is that power really?

Natsuki Books was a tiny second-hand bookshop on the edge of town. Inside, towering shelves reached the ceiling, every one crammed full of wonderful books. Rintaro Natsuki loved this space that his grandfather had created. He spent many happy hours there, reading whatever he liked. It was the perfect refuge for a boy who tended to be something of a recluse.

After the death of his grandfather, Rintaro is devastated and alone. It seems he will have to close the shop. Then, a talking tabby cat called Tiger appears and asks Rintaro for help. The cat needs a book lover to join him on a mission. This odd couple will go on three magical adventures to save books from people who have imprisoned, mistreated and betrayed them. Finally, there is one last rescue that Rintaro must attempt alone . . .

Sosuke Natsukawa's international bestseller, translated from Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai, is a story for those for whom books are so much more than words on paper.]]> 198 SĹŤsuke Natsukawa 0063095726 casey 0 to-read 3.74 2017
author: SĹŤsuke Natsukawa
name: casey
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40539136 The award-winning, bestselling French novel by Philippe Besson about an affair between two teenage boys in 1984 France, translated with subtle beauty and haunting lyricism by the iconic and internationally acclaimed actress/writer Molly Ringwald.

We drive at high speed along back roads, through woods, vineyards, and oat fields. The bike smells like gasoline and makes a lot of noise, and sometimes I’m frightened when the wheels slip on the gravel on the dirt road, but the only thing that matters is that I’m holding on to him, that I’m holding on to him outside.

Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a gorgeous boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Without ever acknowledging they know each other in the halls, they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.

Dazzlingly rendered in English by Ringwald in her first-ever translation, Besson’s powerfully moving coming-of-age story captures the eroticism and tenderness of first love—and the heartbreaking passage of time.]]> 149 Philippe Besson 1501197878 casey 0 to-read 4.25 2017
author: Philippe Besson
name: casey
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214151420 From eldest daughter Shari Franke, the shocking true story behind the viral 8 Passengers family vlog and the hidden abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and how, in the face of unimaginable pain, she found freedom and healing.

Shari Franke’s childhood was a constant battle for survival. Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day life of raising six children for a staggering 2.5 million subscribers. But a darker truth lurked beneath the surface—Ruby’s wholesome online persona masked a more tyrannical parenting style than anyone could have imagined.

As the family’s YouTube notoriety grew, so too did Ruby’s delusions of righteousness. Fueled by the sadistic influence of relationship coach Jodi Hildebrandt, together they implemented an inhumane and merciless disciplinary regime.

Ruby and Jodi were arrested in Utah in 2023 on multiple charges of aggravated child abuse. On that fateful day, Shari shared a photo online of a police car outside their home. Her caption had one word: “Finally.�

For the first time, Shari will reveal the disturbing truth behind 8 Passengers and her family’s devastating involvement with Jodi Hildebrandt’s cultish life coaching program, “ConneXions.� No stone is left unturned as Shari exposes the perils of influencer culture and shares for the first time her battle for truth and survival in the face of her mother’s cruelty.]]> 320 Shari Franke 1668065398 casey 0 to-read 4.44 2025
author: Shari Franke
name: casey
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199798006
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.

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

This unputdownable and spine-tingling novel “is like quicksand: the further you delve into its pages, the more immobilized you become by a spiral of terror. We Used to Live Here will haunt you even after you have finished it� (Agustina Bazterrica, author of Tender Is the Flesh).]]> 312 Marcus Kliewer 1982198788 casey 0 to-read 3.68 2024
author: Marcus Kliewer
name: casey
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 141319102 Less Than Zero and American Psycho, The Rules of Attraction is a startlingly funny, kaleidoscopic novel about three students at a small, affluent liberal-arts college in New England with no plans for the future--or even the present--who become entangled in a curious romantic triangle. Bret Easton Ellis trains his incisive gaze on the kids at self-consciously bohemian Camden College and treats their sexual posturings and agonies with a mixture of acrid hilarity and compassion while exposing the moral vacuum at the center of their lives.

Lauren changes boyfriends every time she changes majors and still pines for Victor who split for Europe months ago and she might or might not be writing anonymous love letter to ambivalent, hard-drinking Sean, a hopeless romantic who only has eyes for Lauren, even if he ends up in bed with half the campus, and Paul, Lauren's ex, forthrightly bisexual and whose passion masks a shrewd pragmatism. They waste time getting wasted, race from Thirsty Thursday Happy Hours to Dressed To Get Screwed parties to drinks at The Edge of the World or The Graveyard. The Rules of Attraction is a poignant, hilarious take on the death of romance.
The basis for the major motion picture starring James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon, Jessica Biel, and Kate Bosworth."]]> 336 Bret Easton Ellis 103501274X casey 0 to-read 3.61 1987
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: casey
average rating: 3.61
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223478303
When We Love You, Bunny opens, Sam has just published her first novel to critical acclaim. But at a New England stop on her book tour, her one-time frenemies, furious at the way they’ve been portrayed, kidnap her. Now a captive audience, it’s her (and our) turn to hear the Bunnies� side of the story. One by one, they take turns holding the axe, and recount the birth throes of their unholy alliance, their discovery of their unusual creative powers—and the phantasmagoric adventure of conjuring their first creation. With a bound and gagged Sam, we embark on a wickedly intoxicating journey into the heart of dark academia: a fairy tale slasher that explores the wonder and horror of creation itself. Not to mention the transformative powers of love and friendship, Bunny.

Frankenstein by way of Heathers, We Love You, Bunny is both a prequel and a sequel, and an unabashedly wild and totally complete stand-alone novel. Open your hearts, Bunny, to another dazzlingly original and darkly hilarious romp in the Bunny-verse from the queen of the fever-dream, Mona Awad.]]> Mona Awad casey 0 to-read 4.58 2025
author: Mona Awad
name: casey
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 34473 56 Jun'ichirĹŤ Tanizaki casey 0 to-read 4.06 1933
author: Jun'ichirĹŤ Tanizaki
name: casey
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1933
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

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

A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, The Memory Police is a stunning new work from one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in any language.]]> 274 YĹŤko Ogawa 1101870605 casey 4
3.5 rounded up ]]> 3.72 1994
author: YĹŤko Ogawa
name: casey
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves:
review:
i knew now that i lacked the courage to rejoin the outside world :(((((

3.5 rounded up
]]> 541521 128 Mary Downing Hahn 0380708655 casey 0 to-read 4.05 1989
author: Mary Downing Hahn
name: casey
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50523477 Empire of Sand and Realm of Ash Tasha Suri's The Jasmine Throne, beginning a new trilogy set in a world inspired by the history and epics of India, in which a captive princess and a maidservant in possession of forbidden magic become unlikely allies on a dark journey to save their empire from the princess's traitor brother.

Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of the powerful, magical deathless waters � but is now little more than a decaying ruin.

Priya is a maidservant, one among several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the Hirana every night to clean Malini’s chambers. She is happy to be an anonymous drudge, so long as it keeps anyone from guessing the dangerous secret she hides.

But when Malini accidentally bears witness to Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled. One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne. The other is a priestess seeking to find her family. Together, they will change the fate of an empire.]]> 533 Tasha Suri 0356515648 casey 0 to-read 4.12 2021
author: Tasha Suri
name: casey
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 203956681 NATIONAL BESTSELLER � An exiled princess teams up with the last man she thought she could trust in the start of a dazzling and unforgettable epic fantasy romance series.

As a child, Elowen Atarah was ripped away from her dragons and imprisoned by her father, King Garrick of Imirath. Years later, Elowen is now a woman determined to free her dragons. Having established a secret kingdom of her own called Aestilian, she’s ready to do what’s necessary to save her people and seek vengeance. Even if that means having to align herself with the Commander of Vareveth, Cayden Veles, the most feared and dangerous man in all the kingdoms of Ravaryn.

Cayden is ruthless, lethal, and secretive, promising to help Elowen if she will stand with him and all of Vareveth in the pending war against Imirath. Despite their contrasting motives, Elowen can’t ignore their undeniable attraction as they combine their efforts and plot to infiltrate the impenetrable castle of Imirath to steal back her dragons and seek revenge on their common enemy.

As the world tries to keep them apart, the pull between Elowen and Cayden becomes impossible to resist. Working together with their crew over clandestine schemes, the threat of war looms, making the imminent heist to free her dragons their most dangerous adventure yet. But for Elowen, her vengeance is a promise signed in blood, and she’ll stop at nothing to see that promise through.

An immersive fantasy filled with a sizzling reluctant-allies-to-lovers romance, a world to get lost in, dangerous quests, dragon bonds, and an entertaining band of characters to root for, Fear the Flames marks the stunning debut of Olivia Rose Darling.]]> 384 Olivia Rose Darling 0593873890 casey 0 dnf
i dont have it in me to finish another variant of fantasy slop ]]> 3.77 2022
author: Olivia Rose Darling
name: casey
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves: dnf
review:
dnf @ 44%

i dont have it in me to finish another variant of fantasy slop
]]> 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 casey 0 to-read 4.14 2021
author: Claire Keegan
name: casey
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62039259 A lonely, lovable, queer mountain lion narrates this star-making fever dream of a novel.

A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Lonely and fascinated by humanity’s foibles, the lion spends their days protecting the welfare of a nearby homeless encampment, observing obnoxious hikers complain about their trauma, and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their gender identity, memories of a vicious father, and the indignities of sentience. “I have so much language in my brain,� our lion says, “and nowhere to put it.�

When a man-made fire engulfs the encampment, the lion is forced from the hills down into the city the hikers call “ellay.� As the lion confronts a carousel of temptations and threats, they take us on a tour that spans the cruel inequalities of Los Angeles and the toll of climate grief, while scrambling to avoid earthquakes, floods, and the noise of their own conflicted psyche. But even when salvation finally seems within reach, they are forced to face down the ultimate question: Do they want to eat a person, or become one?

In elegiac prose woven with humor, imagination, sensuality, and tragedy, Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world told by a lovable mountain lion. Both feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel that brings mythmaking to real life.]]> 160 Henry Hoke 037460987X casey 5 4.02 2023
author: Henry Hoke
name: casey
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves:
review:
this was kind of perfect to me omg�. tender, affecting, and the perfect length too. we love you gay little mountain lion..
]]> 202907408 A year in the life of the unforgettable Catalina Ituralde, a wickedly wry and heartbreakingly vulnerable student at an elite college, forced to navigate an opaque past, an uncertain future, tragedies on two continents, and the tantalizing possibilities of love and freedom

When Catalina is admitted to Harvard, it feels like the fulfillment of destiny: a miracle child escapes death in Latin America, moves to Queens to be raised by her undocumented grandparents, and becomes one of the chosen. But nothing is simple for Catalina, least of all her complicated, contradictory, ruthlessly probing mind. Now a senior, she faces graduation to a world with no place for the undocumented. Her sense of doom intensifies her curiosities and desires. She infiltrates the school’s elite subcultures—internships and literary journals, posh parties, and secret societies—which she observes with the eye of an anthropologist and an interloper’s skepticism: She is both fascinated and repulsed.

Craving a great romance, Catalina finds herself drawn to a fellow student, an actual budding anthropologist eager to teach her about the Latin American world she was born into but never knew, even as her life back in Queens begins to unravel. And every day, the clock ticks closer to the abyss of life after graduation. Can she save her family? Can she save herself? What does it mean to be saved?]]> 224 Karla Cornejo Villavicencio 0593449096 casey 0 to-read 3.58 2024
author: Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
name: casey
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

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

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

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 382 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 casey 0 to-read 4.67 2025
author: Suzanne Collins
name: casey
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55711706
In between trying to memorize the lines to Catholic mass, hiding the fact that she has a new girlfriend, and erecting a dirty dish tower in her crumbling apartment, Gilda strikes up an email correspondence with Grace’s old friend. She can’t bear to ignore the kindly old woman, who has been trying to reach her friend through the church inbox, but she also can’t bring herself to break the bad news. Desperate, she begins impersonating Grace via email. But when the police discover suspicious circumstances surrounding Grace’s death, Gilda may have to finally reveal the truth of her mortifying existence.]]> 256 Emily R. Austin 1982167351 casey 4
hi... im back to write my little blurb. honestly think this is the first time ive read something from the girl-who-is-not-going-to-be-okay genre and not felt like i was permanently under a rain cloud until i finished it lmao. that's not to say this book is happy go lucky, you're still reading from that singular pessimistic voice that feels quite detached from the people in her life and very hopeless about it all but there's something i can't fully pinpoint about austin's writing that i can only really describe as though she cracks open a window and lets some air in, if that makes sense lol.]]> 3.86 2021
author: Emily R. Austin
name: casey
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/13
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves:
review:
rtc

hi... im back to write my little blurb. honestly think this is the first time ive read something from the girl-who-is-not-going-to-be-okay genre and not felt like i was permanently under a rain cloud until i finished it lmao. that's not to say this book is happy go lucky, you're still reading from that singular pessimistic voice that feels quite detached from the people in her life and very hopeless about it all but there's something i can't fully pinpoint about austin's writing that i can only really describe as though she cracks open a window and lets some air in, if that makes sense lol.
]]> 54120408
In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?]]> 340 Kazuo Ishiguro 059331817X casey 4 3.71 2021
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: casey
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves:
review:
while i didn't feel as connected to the characters other than Klara like I had with never let me go, i just really love the way ishiguro writes SDFKJSDJKF he's so good at breadcrumbing and leaving different pieces of the story ambiguous which i'm personally a fan of in any book. He's very subtle at points too which I think postures this as a quaint and quiet story but not in a bad way, just something that doesn't insist upon itself. the longer you think on it the more you realize this is quite unassuming and leaves you with a lot to chew on after you're finished. even the way he tackles science fiction and dystopia is just so up my alley. reminds me of course of NLMG but also distantly of anniebot where you take a dystopian what if but look at it through a more mundane lens rather than concerning the reader with making every aspect of the story as hyper modern as possible.
]]> 61672
La villa est magnifique, l'été brûlant, la Méditerranée toute proche. Cécile a dix-sept ans. Elle ne connaît de l'amour que des baisers, des rendez-vous, des lassitudes. Pas pour longtemps. Son père, veuf, est un adepte joyeux des liaisons passagères et sans importance. Ils s'amusent, ils n'ont besoin de personne, ils sont heureux. La visite d'une femme de cœur, intelligente et calme, vient troubler ce délicieux désordre. Comment écarter la menace ? Dans la pinède embrasée, un jeu cruel se prépare.
C'était l'été 1954. On entendait pour la première fois la voix sèche et rapide d'un « charmant petit monstre » qui allait faire scandale. la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle commençait. Elle serait à l'image de cette adolescente déchirée entre le remords et le culte du plaisir.

Set against the translucent beauty of France in summer, Bonjour Tristesse is a bittersweet tale narrated by Cecile, a seventeen-year-old girl on the brink of womanhood, whose meddling in her father's love life leads to tragic consequences.

Endearing, self-absorbed, seventeen-year-old Cécile is the very essence of untroubled amorality. Freed from the stifling constraints of boarding school, she joins her father—a handsome, still-young widower with a wandering eye—for a carefree, two-month summer vacation in a beautiful villa outside of Paris with his latest mistress. Cécile cherishes the free-spirited moments she and her father share, while plotting her own sexual adventures with a "tall and almost beautiful" law student. But the arrival of her late mother's best friend intrudes upon a young girl's pleasures. And when a relationship begins to develop between the adults, Cécile and her lover set in motion a plan to keep them apart...with tragic, unexpected consequences.

The internationally beloved story of a precocious teenager's attempts to understand and control the world around her, Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse is a beautifully composed, wonderfully ambiguous celebration of sexual liberation, at once sympathetic and powerfully unsparing.]]> 154 Françoise Sagan 2266127748 casey 0 to-read 3.76 1954
author: Françoise Sagan
name: casey
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1954
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53780642 A workplace novel of the 22nd century

The near-distant future. Millions of kilometres from Earth.

The crew of the Six-Thousand ship consists of those who were born, and those who were created. Those who will die, and those who will not. When the ship takes on a number of strange objects from the planet New Discovery, the crew is perplexed to find itself becoming deeply attached to them, and human and humanoid employees alike find themselves longing for the same things: warmth and intimacy. Loved ones who have passed. Our shared, far-away Earth, which now only persists in memory.

Gradually, the crew members come to see themselves in a new light, and each employee is compelled to ask themselves whether their work can carry on as before � and what it means to be truly alive.

Structured as a series of witness statements compiled by a workplace commission, Ravn’s crackling prose is as chilling as it is moving, as exhilarating as it is foreboding. Wracked by all kinds of longing, The Employees probes into what it means to be human, emotionally and ontologically, while simultaneously delivering an overdue critique of a life governed by work and the logic of productivity.]]> 136 Olga Ravn casey 0 to-read 3.69 2018
author: Olga Ravn
name: casey
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 33275357 Caucasia, a subversive and engrossing novel of race, class and manners in contemporary America.

As the twentieth century draws to a close, Maria is at the start of a life she never thought possible. She and Khalil, her college sweetheart, are planning their wedding. They are the perfect couple, "King and Queen of the Racially Nebulous Prom." Their skin is the same shade of beige. They live together in a black bohemian enclave in Brooklyn, where Khalil is riding the wave of the first dot-com boom and Maria is plugging away at her dissertation, on the Jonestown massacre. They've even landed a starring role in a documentary about "new people" like them, who are blurring the old boundaries as a brave new era dawns. Everything Maria knows she should want lies before her--yet she can't stop daydreaming about another man, a poet she barely knows. As fantasy escalates to fixation, it dredges up secrets from the past and threatens to unravel not only Maria's perfect new life but her very persona.

Heartbreaking and darkly comic, New People is a bold and unfettered page-turner that challenges our every assumption about how we define one another, and ourselves.]]> 240 Danzy Senna 159448709X casey 0 to-read 3.24 2017
author: Danzy Senna
name: casey
average rating: 3.24
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 201102398 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593544372

A dark comedy about second acts, creative appropriation, and the racial identity–industrial complex

Jane has high hopes her life is about to turn around. After years of living precariously, she; her painter husband, Lenny; and their two kids have landed a stint as house sitters in a friend’s luxurious home in the hills above Los Angeles, a gig that coincides magically with Jane’s sabbatical. If she can just finish her latest novel, Nusu Nusu, the centuries-spanning epic Lenny refers to as her “mulatto War and Peace,� she’ll have tenure and some semblance of stability and success within her grasp.

But things don’t work out quite as hoped. In search of a plan B, like countless writers before her, Jane turns her desperate gaze to Hollywood. After she meets with a hot young producer to create “diverse content� for a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a “real writer.� She can create what he envisions as the greatest biracial comedy to ever hit the small screen. Things finally seem to be going right for Jane—until they go terribly wrong.]]> 277 Danzy Senna casey 4 2024-favourites
INHALEDDDDD this omg this was impossible to put down i finished it in two sittings ]]> 3.54 2024
author: Danzy Senna
name: casey
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/24
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: 2024-favourites
review:
4.5

INHALEDDDDD this omg this was impossible to put down i finished it in two sittings
]]> 214152353 A propulsive page-turning thriller following the hit reality TV show Garden State Goddesses where secrets are uncovered, intense rivalries surface, and a startling murder propels a producer on a riveting quest for the truth.

One of Huzzah’s most popular shows, Garden State Goddesses, was in need of a refresh. Largely centering on the Sicilian American Fontana family of Shady Pond, New Jersey, showrunner Eden Bennett found a solution that helped her both personally and she introduced lovable bachelor Leo Fontana to her estranged cousin Hope—a blonde beauty and aspiring singer. After a whirlwind romance, they begin the new season with Leo and Hope’s wedding, but not everyone is happy, least of all Hope’s new sister-in-law Carmela, who finds Hope’s lack of family, friends, pop cultural knowledge, and social media presence deeply suspicious. Nevertheless, Hope is joining Carmela, and their other sister-in-law Valeria, a lovable ditz too dependent on cutting Carmela, and wealthy grand dame Birdie St. Clair as a new lead on Garden State Goddesses. Hope quickly bonds with castmate Renée, a down-to-earth single mom whose daughter Ruby aspires to be the next Ariana Grande.

When one of the goddesses collapses while filming at the Broke Not Broken gala at Birdie’s manor, there will be a reality reckoning. Eden will be forced to confront the ways she is emotional manipulation, coercion, and dropping her naïve cousin in this mess while also using her skills as a producer to seek out the truth—uncovering that many of the Fontanas have rivalries and grievances that go back decades, some with serious legal, financial, physical, and romantic consequences.]]> 288 Astrid Dahl 166806488X casey 0 to-read 3.21 2025
author: Astrid Dahl
name: casey
average rating: 3.21
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211287653 Read the pageturning Korean feminist thriller for fans of KIM JIYOUNG BORN 1982 and CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN � soon to be a major Netflix Original TV Series starring Gong Yoo from SQUID GAMES and Seo Hyun-jin

Meet Noh thirty years old, with five wedding rings so far, and she’s never once been in love.

When Inji takes a job at Wedding & Life, the popular matchmaking service, she never imagines role will be with NM, their secretive marriage division that rents out �field husbands and wives� to their wealthiest clientele for a limited time. Just like a real marriage, Inji's assignments involve a wedding, some sex and a bit of housework, there is even a special helpline in case of any DV. It's all tailored exactly to the client’s desires - no legal battles, no fights, no emotional baggage.

In no way is Inji interested in finding real love, despite everyone trying to convince her otherwise- her brazen neighbour Granny, her flirtatious best friend Shi-jeong, and her failed blind date, Tae-seong.

Then one of Inji's old husbands, a mysterious high-profile music producer, requests her back for another year. Soon Inji’s own dark past will begin to unravel � as well as the sinister underbelly of the NM’s management team, who will stop at nothing to preserve their reputation - and that of their clients.]]> 304 Kim Ryeo-ryeong 1335015019 casey 4 2.88 2015
author: Kim Ryeo-ryeong
name: casey
average rating: 2.88
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/21
shelves:
review:
enjoyed this so much! really entertaining blend of romance, suspense and cultural commentary. i found the mc so funny lol. wish i could understand the original translation cause i’d imagine it’s even better
]]> 10365 Billy, Old Dan, and Little Ann—a boy and his two dogs...

A loving threesome, they ranged the dark hills and river bottoms of Cherokee County. Old Dan had the brawn, Little Ann had the brains—and Billy had the will to train them to be the finest hunting team in the valley. Glory and victory were coming to them, but sadness waited too. And close by was the strange and wonderful power that's only found...

Where the Red Fern Grows—An exciting tale of love and adventure you'll never forget.

(from the back cover)]]> 272 Wilson Rawls 0375806814 casey 0 to-read 4.11 1961
author: Wilson Rawls
name: casey
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 275 117 Marguerite Duras casey 0 to-read 3.79 1984
author: Marguerite Duras
name: casey
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 8913370
One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of—passed off as mad, and made to live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum.

With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways...But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.]]> 592 Sarah Waters 1101057025 casey 0 to-read 4.05 2002
author: Sarah Waters
name: casey
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 201033505 From Eliza Clark, the author of the brilliant novels Boy Parts and Penance and one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, comes a fierce, visionary and darkly comic story collection.

A woman welcomes a parasite into her body.

A teenager longs for perfect skin.

A scientist tends to fragile alien flora.

A young man takes the night into his own hands.

Unsettling, revelatory, and laced with her signature dark humor, Eliza Clark’s debut short story collection plumbs the depths of that most basic human feeling: hunger.]]> 240 Eliza Clark 0063393263 casey 3
Pretty solid short story collection! Nightstalkers, Company Man, Extinction Event, She's Always Hungry and The Shadow Over Little Chitaly felt satisfying, with the latter three I think the short length added to the eeriness. STOLC was a cool premise as it was comprised solely of reviews. But then others like Build a Body Like Mine and Shake Well left me wanting to read about them more than they had gone on for. Didn't really care for The Problem Solver, Hollow Bones, The King, or Goth GF tbh]]> 3.81 2024
author: Eliza Clark
name: casey
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves:
review:
3.5

Pretty solid short story collection! Nightstalkers, Company Man, Extinction Event, She's Always Hungry and The Shadow Over Little Chitaly felt satisfying, with the latter three I think the short length added to the eeriness. STOLC was a cool premise as it was comprised solely of reviews. But then others like Build a Body Like Mine and Shake Well left me wanting to read about them more than they had gone on for. Didn't really care for The Problem Solver, Hollow Bones, The King, or Goth GF tbh
]]> 58345 The Awakening shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity. Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken aback by Chopin's daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the confines of her domestic situation.

Aside from its unusually frank treatment of a then-controversial subject, the novel is widely admired today for its literary qualities. Edmund Wilson characterized it as a work "quite uninhibited and beautifully written, which anticipates D. H. Lawrence in its treatment of infidelity." Although the theme of marital infidelity no longer shocks, few novels have plumbed the psychology of a woman involved in an illicit relationship with the perception, artistry, and honesty that Kate Chopin brought to The Awakening.]]> 195 Kate Chopin 0543898083 casey 0 to-read 3.69 1899
author: Kate Chopin
name: casey
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1899
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59366193 All’s Well That Ends Well, the play that promised and cost her everything, she faces a mutinous cast hellbent on staging Macbeth instead. Miranda sees her chance at redemption slip through her fingers.

That’s when she meets three strange benefactors who have an eerie knowledge of Miranda’s past and a tantalizing promise for her future: one where the show goes on, her rebellious students get what’s coming to them, and the invisible doubted pain that’s kept her from the spotlight is made known.]]> 384 Mona Awad 1982169672 casey 4 3.78 2021
author: Mona Awad
name: casey
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: girl-who-is-not-going-to-be-okay
review:
Enjoyed this! i think if you found Bunny a little too out there but like how claustrophobic/anxious Awad’s narrative tone gets this is a really great sweet spot while still retaining that signature strangeness she’s known for. Always down to read a more fantastical/absurdist take on the girl-who-is-not-going-to-be-okay arc with the type of dark satisfaction that starts to feel a little too sweet, to the point where it hurts your stomach. Also found this a lot tighter storytelling wise than Rouge.
]]> 7093654 Antwerp can be viewed as the Big Bang of Roberto Bolaño’s fictional universe. Reading this novel, the reader is present at the birth of Bolaño’s enterprise in prose: all the elements are here, highly compressed, at the moment when his talent explodes. From this springboard—which Bolaño chose to publish in 2002, twenty years after he’d written it (“and even that I can’t be certain of�)—as if testing out a high dive, he would plunge into the unexplored depths of the modern novel.

Antwerp’s fractured narration in 54 sections—voices from a dream, from a nightmare, from passers by, from an omniscient narrator, from “Roberto Bolaño� all speak—moves in multiple directions and cuts to the bone.]]> 78 Roberto Bolaño 0811217175 casey 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.66 2002
author: Roberto Bolaño
name: casey
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> 195468033 116 Munir Hachemi 1804270881 casey 0 to-read, physical-tbr 3.80
author: Munir Hachemi
name: casey
average rating: 3.80
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read, physical-tbr
review:

]]> 50144 Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, is an enchantingly original and deeply affecting book about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine of Kitchen, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, she is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who was once his father), Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale that recalls early Marguerite Duras. Kitchen and its companion story, "Moonlight Shadow," are elegant tales whose seeming simplicity is the ruse of a writer whose voice echoes in the mind and the soul.]]> 160 Banana Yoshimoto 0802142443 casey 3
SO readable (not kidding, finished this in two sittings) and a very quaint and sweet story about death and grief. loved the found family aspect (lol), wish there was more of it but i get why there wasn’t. def can see why people like this so much tho :) ]]> 3.91 1988
author: Banana Yoshimoto
name: casey
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1988
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves:
review:
3.5

SO readable (not kidding, finished this in two sittings) and a very quaint and sweet story about death and grief. loved the found family aspect (lol), wish there was more of it but i get why there wasn’t. def can see why people like this so much tho :)
]]> 57925999 CJ Hauser expands on her viral essay sensation, "The Crane Wife," in a brilliant collection of essays that echo the work of Cheryl Strayed in their revelatory observations of romantic love.

CJ Hauser uses her now-beloved title essay as an anchor around which to explore, through excavation of both her own personal and larger familial hope chest of "love stories," the narratives of romantic love we are taught and which we tell ourselves, and the need to often rewrite those narratives to find an accurate version of ourselves in them. Covering ground ranging from her and her relatives' own romantic pasts to the much wider natural, supernatural, and cultural worlds, CJ relates the family legacies and lessons she imbibed in her youth, and the relationships formed in echo of those lessons, which helped to shape her early understanding of love and life.

Emerging from the rigorous honesty and radical empathy of these twenty pieces, CJ relinquishes the idea of a single, permanent love story--in favor of the metaphor of a happy haunted house as a space that contains many stories, many pasts, and multiple histories. These are hopeful pieces, which address the pain and complication of living in the present while being informed by things that have happened in one's past, and the kind of energy and spirit necessary to attempt love, again and again.]]> 320 C.J. Hauser 0385547072 casey 3 essays, memoirs, non-fiction 4.06 2022
author: C.J. Hauser
name: casey
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: essays, memoirs, non-fiction
review:
reminded me a bit of little weirds by jenny slate, very sweet!
]]> 213395480 From the acclaimed author of Mrs. March comes the riveting tale of a bloodthirsty governess who learns the true meaning of vengeance.

Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family—Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze. Compounded with her disdain for the entitled Pounds children, Winifred finds herself struggling at every turn to stifle the violent compulsions of her past. French tutoring and needlework are one way to pass the time, as is admiring the ugly portraits in the gallery . . . and creeping across the moonlit lawns. . . .

Patience. Winifred must have patience, for Christmas is coming, and she has very special gifts planned for the dear souls of Ensor House. Brimming with sardonic wit and culminating in a shocking conclusion, Victorian Psycho plunges readers into the chilling mind of an iconic new literary psychopath.]]> 208 Virginia Feito 1631498630 casey 0 to-read 3.63 2025
author: Virginia Feito
name: casey
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50736031
Breasts and Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own.

It tells the story of three women: the thirty-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko. Makiko has traveled to Tokyo in search of an affordable breast enhancement procedure. She is accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with growing up. Her silence proves a catalyst for each woman to confront her fears and frustrations.

On another hot summer’s day ten years later, Natsu, on a journey back to her native city, struggles with her own indeterminate identity as she confronts anxieties about growing old alone and childless.]]> 430 Mieko Kawakami 1609455878 casey 0 to-read 3.87 2019
author: Mieko Kawakami
name: casey
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25489025
Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.]]> 188 Han Kang 0553448188 casey 0 to-read 3.61 2007
author: Han Kang
name: casey
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 44527412
Kim Jiyoung has started acting strangely. She is depressed. She is mad. She is her own woman. Kim Jiyoung is every woman.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is the life story of one young woman born at the end of the twentieth century raises questions about endemic misogyny and institutional oppression that are relevant to us all..]]> 176 Cho Nam-Joo 1471184285 casey 0 to-read 4.13 2016
author: Cho Nam-Joo
name: casey
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 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 casey 3
I like low plot, ambiguity and unlikeable characters but something about this just wasn’t connecting together for me :( The last hundred pages are definitely where things got better, I wish we had more of that in the front half or just left this as a novella. Irina just feels too much like a caricature herself, and the bigger issue: a rather uninteresting one, no matter how over specific her reads of people are. There was just grit/bite missing from this that makes it never feel convincing, granted I just read Out a few months ago so maybe I'm subconsciously comparing the two. Got me really excited to read her short story collection though.]]> 3.74 2020
author: Eliza Clark
name: casey
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/02
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: girl-who-is-not-going-to-be-okay, horror-and-thrillers
review:
3.5

I like low plot, ambiguity and unlikeable characters but something about this just wasn’t connecting together for me :( The last hundred pages are definitely where things got better, I wish we had more of that in the front half or just left this as a novella. Irina just feels too much like a caricature herself, and the bigger issue: a rather uninteresting one, no matter how over specific her reads of people are. There was just grit/bite missing from this that makes it never feel convincing, granted I just read Out a few months ago so maybe I'm subconsciously comparing the two. Got me really excited to read her short story collection though.
]]> 170448 Librarian's note: There is an Alternate Cover Edition for this edition of this book here.

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned –a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.
When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.]]> 141 George Orwell 0451526341 casey 0 baby-casey 4.07 1945
author: George Orwell
name: casey
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1945
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: baby-casey
review:

]]> 1672727
This is Jordan and Courtney, totally in love. Sure, they were an unlikely high school couple. But they clicked; it worked. They're even going to the same college, and driving cross-country together for orientation.

Then Jordan dumps Courtney -- for a girl he met on the Internet.

It's too late to change plans, so the road trip is on. Courtney's heartbroken, but figures she can tough it out for a few days. La la la -- this is Courtney pretending not to care.

But in a strange twist, Jordan cares. A lot.

Turns out, he's got a secret or two that he's not telling Courtney. And it has everything to do with why they broke up, why they can't get back together, and how, in spite of it all, this couple is destined for each other.]]> 288 Lauren Barnholdt casey 0 baby-casey 3.79 2007
author: Lauren Barnholdt
name: casey
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: baby-casey
review:

]]> 6408862 It happened like this. I was stolen from an airport. Taken from everything I knew, everything I was used to. Taken to sand and heat, dirt and danger. And he expected me to love him.

This is my story.

A letter from nowhere.

Sixteen-year-old Gemma is kidnapped from Bangkok airport and taken to the Australian Outback. This wild and desolate landscape becomes almost a character in the book, so vividly is it described. Ty, her captor, is no stereotype. He is young, fit and completely gorgeous. This new life in the wilderness has been years in the planning. He loves only her, wants only her. Under the hot glare of the Australian sun, cut off from the world outside, can the force of his love make Gemma love him back?

The story takes the form of a letter, written by Gemma to Ty, reflecting on those strange and disturbing months in the outback. Months when the lines between love and obsession, and love and dependency, blur until they don't exist—almost.]]> 304 Lucy Christopher 1906427135 casey 0 baby-casey 3.90 2009
author: Lucy Christopher
name: casey
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: baby-casey
review:

]]> 662597
Now she's at Sea Pines, a "residential treatment facility" filled with girls struggling with problems of their own. Callie doesn't want to have anything to do with them. She doesn't want to have anything to do with anyone. She won't even speak.

But Callie can only stay silent for so long...]]> 151 Patricia McCormick 0439324599 casey 0 baby-casey 3.77 2000
author: Patricia McCormick
name: casey
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: baby-casey
review:

]]> 39999
Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to encounter one.]]> 224 John Boyne 0385751079 casey 0 baby-casey 4.17 2006
author: John Boyne
name: casey
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: baby-casey
review:

]]> 270730 Crank, Ellen Hopkins chronicles the turbulent and often disturbing relationship between Kristina, a character based on her own daughter, and the "monster," the highly addictive drug crystal meth, or "crank." Kristina is introduced to the drug while visiting her largely absent and ne'er-do-well father. While under the influence of the monster, Kristina discovers her sexy alter-ego, Bree: "there is no perfect daughter, / no gifted high school junior, / no Kristina Georgia Snow. / There is only Bree." Bree will do all the things good girl Kristina won't, including attracting the attention of dangerous boys who can provide her with a steady flow of crank.]]> 537 Ellen Hopkins 0689865198 casey 0 baby-casey 4.17 2004
author: Ellen Hopkins
name: casey
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: baby-casey
review:

]]> 7624 182 William Golding 0140283331 casey 0 baby-casey 3.70 1954
author: William Golding
name: casey
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1954
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: baby-casey
review:

]]> 22738563 We Should All Be Feminists, a personal, eloquently-argued essay—adapted from her much-viewed TEDx talk of the same name—by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the award-winning author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun.

With humor and levity, here Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century—one rooted in inclusion and awareness. She shines a light not only on blatant discrimination, but also the more insidious, institutional behaviors that marginalize women around the world, in order to help readers of all walks of life better understand the often masked realities of sexual politics. Throughout, she draws extensively on her own experiences—in the U.S., in her native Nigeria, and abroad—offering an artfully nuanced explanation of why the gender divide is harmful for women and men, alike.

Argued in the same observant, witty and clever prose that has made Adichie a bestselling novelist, here is one remarkable author’s exploration of what it means to be a woman today—and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.]]> 65 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie casey 0 4.42 2012
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: casey
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: baby-casey, non-fiction, essays
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]]> 17287028
On June 5, 2002, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart, the daughter of a close-knit Mormon family, was taken from her home in the middle of the night by religious fanatic, Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. She was kept chained, dressed in disguise, repeatedly raped, and told she and her family would be killed if she tried to escape. After her rescue on March 12, 2003, she rejoined her family and worked to pick up the pieces of her life.

Now for the first time, in her memoir, MY STORY, she tells of the constant fear she endured every hour, her courageous determination to maintain hope, and how she devised a plan to manipulate her captors and convinced them to return to Utah, where she was rescued minutes after arriving. Smart explains how her faith helped her stay sane in the midst of a nightmare and how she found the strength to confront her captors at their trial and see that justice was served.

In the nine years after her rescue, Smart transformed from victim to advocate, traveling the country and working to educate, inspire and foster change. She has created a foundation to help prevent crimes against children and is a frequent public speaker. In 2012, she married Matthew Gilmour, whom she met doing mission work in Paris for her church, in a fairy tale wedding that made the cover of People magazine.]]> 308 Elizabeth Smart 1250040159 casey 0 3.85 2013
author: Elizabeth Smart
name: casey
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: baby-casey, memoirs, non-fiction
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]]> 18715208
The author of this fictional diary began writing for a class assignment, but soon it became much more to him. As the star player of his high school football team, he faces a lot of pressure and expectation. Not to mention the secret that he’s harboring inside. The secret that could change everything.

And as David quickly learns, nothing stays secret forever.

His innermost thoughts and feelings are chronicled in the diary he left behind.]]> 256 Anonymous 1442489855 casey 3 baby-casey 4.16 2014
author: Anonymous
name: casey
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2014
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: baby-casey
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]]> 23309607
She had a normal life, until one small decision changed everything. Suddenly, there were new possibilities and new experiences.

But not all of those experiences were good.

Read her shocking story in the diary she left behind.]]> 257 Anonymous 1481439014 casey 3 baby-casey 3.80 2015
author: Anonymous
name: casey
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2015
rating: 3
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]]> 12755252 A riveting first-person tale of addiction, in the tradition of Go Ask Alice and Jay’s Journal. The author of this diary began journaling on her sixteenth birthday. She lived in an upper middle class neighborhood in Santa Monica with her mom, dad, and Berkeley-bound older brother. She was a good girl, living a good life...but one party changed everything. One party, where she took one taste—and liked it. Really liked it.Social drinking and drugging lead to more, faster, harder... She convinced herself that she was no different from anyone else who liked to party. But the evidence indicates Soon she was she hanging out with an edgy crowd, blowing off school and everything she used to care about, all to find her next high.But what goes up must come down, and everything—from her first swig, to her last breath—is chronicled in the diary she left behind.]]> 289 Anonymous casey 3 baby-casey 4.01 2012
author: Anonymous
name: casey
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2012
rating: 3
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]]> 46799
Read her diary.

Enter her world.

You will never forget her.

]]> 213 Beatrice Sparks 1416914633 casey 3 baby-casey 3.75 1971
author: Beatrice Sparks
name: casey
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1971
rating: 3
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]]> 9593913 Pandemonium has ignited into an all-out revolution in Requiem, and Lena is at the center of the fight. After rescuing Julian from a death sentence, Lena and her friends fled to the Wilds. But the Wilds are no longer a safe haven. Pockets of rebellion have opened throughout the country, and the government cannot deny the existence of Invalids. Regulators infiltrate the borderlands to stamp out the rebels.

As Lena navigates the increasingly dangerous terrain of the Wilds, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, loveless life in Portland as the fiancée of the young mayor.Requiem is told from the perspectives of both Lena and her friend Hana. They live side by side in a world that divides them until, at last, their stories converge.]]> 391 Lauren Oliver 0062014536 casey 3 baby-casey 3.73 2013
author: Lauren Oliver
name: casey
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2013
rating: 3
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]]> 9593911 Zrozpaczona przystępuje do ruchu oporu, by walczyć o wolność i [miłość]. Na jej drodze staje tajemniczy Julian.

Czy można pokochać największego wroga?]]> 375 Lauren Oliver 006197806X casey 3 baby-casey 4.03 2012
author: Lauren Oliver
name: casey
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2012
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/12/03
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]]> 6482837 New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver emerged as one of today's foremost authors of young adult fiction. Like Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why and Gayle Forman's If I Stay, Before I Fall raises thought-provoking questions about love, death, and how one person's life can affect so many others.

For popular high school senior Samantha Kingston, February 12�"Cupid Day"—should be one big party, a day of valentines and roses and the privileges that come with being at the top of the social pyramid. And it is…until she dies in a terrible accident that night.

However, she still wakes up the next morning. In fact, Sam lives the last day of her life seven times, until she realizes that by making even the slightest changes, she may hold more power than she ever imagined.

Named to numerous state reading lists, this novel was also recognized as a Best Book of the Year by Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, The Daily Beast, NPR, and Publishers Weekly. It has been optioned for film by Fox 2000 Pictures.

Supports the Common Core State Standards.]]> 470 Lauren Oliver 0061726818 casey 3 baby-casey 3.89 2010
author: Lauren Oliver
name: casey
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2010
rating: 3
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]]> 11614718 There is an alternate cover edition for this ISBN13 here.

In an alternate United States, love has been declared a dangerous disease, and the government forces everyone who reaches eighteen to have a procedure called the Cure. Living with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in Portland, Maine, Lena Haloway is very much looking forward to being cured and living a safe, predictable life. She watched love destroy her mother and isn't about to make the same mistake.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena meets enigmatic Alex, a boy from the "Wilds" who lives under the government's radar. What will happen if they do the unthinkable and fall in love?]]> 441 Lauren Oliver 0061726834 casey 3 baby-casey 3.94 2011
author: Lauren Oliver
name: casey
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2011
rating: 3
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]]> 12751687
Nora will never let that happen, so she and Patch make a plan: lead everyone to believe they have broken up, and work the system from the inside. Nora will convince the Nephilim that they are making a mistake in fighting the fallen angels, and Patch will find out everything he can from the opposing side. They will end this war before it can even begin.

But the best-laid plans often go awry. Nora is put through the paces in her new role and finds herself drawn to an addictive power she never anticipated.

As the battle lines are drawn, Nora and Patch must confront the differences that have always been between them and either choose to ignore them or let them destroy the love they have always fought for.]]> 466 Becca Fitzpatrick 1442426675 casey 3 baby-casey 4.12 2012
author: Becca Fitzpatrick
name: casey
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2012
rating: 3
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]]> 10637766
But there is this voice in the back of her head, an idea that she can almost reach out and touch. Visions of angel wings and unearthly creatures that have nothing to do with the life she knows.

And this unshakable feeling that a part of her is missing.

Then Nora crosses paths with a sexy stranger, whom she feels a mesmerizing connection to. He seems to hold all the answers...and her heart. Every minute she spends with him grows more and more intense until she realizes she could be falling in love. Again.]]> 440 Becca Fitzpatrick 1442426640 casey 3 baby-casey 4.08 2011
author: Becca Fitzpatrick
name: casey
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2011
rating: 3
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]]> 7791997
Nora would have hardly noticed Scott Parnell, an old family friend who has moved back to town, if Patch hadn't been acting so distant. Even with Scott's totally infuriating attitude, Nora finds herself drawn to him - despite her lingering feelings that he is hiding something.

If that weren't enough, Nora is haunted by images of her murdered father, and comes to question whether her Nephilim bloodline has anything to do with his death. Desperate to figure out what happened, she puts herself in increasingly dangerous situations to get the answer. But maybe some things are better left buried, because the truth could destroy everything - and everyone - she trusts.]]> 427 Becca Fitzpatrick 1416989439 casey 3 baby-casey 3.99 2010
author: Becca Fitzpatrick
name: casey
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2010
rating: 3
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]]> 6339664 A SACRED OATH
A FALLEN ANGEL
A FORBIDDEN LOVE

Romance was not part of Nora Grey's plan. She's never been particularly attracted to the boys at her school, no matter how hard her best friend, Vee, pushes them at her. Not until Patch comes along. With his easy smile and eyes that seem to see inside her, Patch draws Nora to him against her better judgment.

But after a series of terrifying encounters, Nora's not sure whom to trust. Patch seems to be everywhere she is and seems to know more about her than her closest friends. She can't decide whether she should fall into his arms or run and hide. And when she tries to seek some answers, she finds herself near a truth that is way more unsettling than anything Patch makes her feel.

For she is right in the middle of an ancient battle between the immortal and those that have fallen - and, when it comes to choosing sides, the wrong choice will cost Nora her life.]]> 391 Becca Fitzpatrick 1416989412 casey 3 baby-casey 3.93 2009
author: Becca Fitzpatrick
name: casey
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2009
rating: 3
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shelves: baby-casey
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]]>