Cynthia's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 28 Feb 2019 18:28:49 -0800 60 Cynthia's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Little Fires Everywhere 34273236
In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned � from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren � an enigmatic artist and single mother � who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother–daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town � and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at an unexpected and devastating cost . . .]]> 338 Celeste Ng 0735224293 Cynthia 0 4.05 2017 Little Fires Everywhere
author: Celeste Ng
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/02/28
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]]> Close Enough to Touch 30753714 Can you miss something you never had?

Jubilee Jenkins is no ordinary librarian. With a rare allergy to human touch, any skin-to-skin contact could literally kill her. But after retreating into solitude for nearly ten years, Jubilee’s decided to brave the world again, despite the risks. Armed with a pair of gloves, long sleeves, and her trusty bicycle, she finally ventures out the front door—and into her future.

Eric Keegan has troubles of his own. With his daughter from a failed marriage no longer speaking to him, and his brilliant, if psychologically troubled, adopted son attempting telekinesis, Eric’s struggling to figure out how his life got so off course, and how to be the dad—and man—he wants so desperately to be. So when an encounter over the check-out desk at the local library entangles his life with that of a beautiful—albeit eccentric—woman, he finds himself wanting nothing more than to be near her.]]> 306 Colleen Oakley 1501139266 Cynthia 4 women-s-fiction-upm 3.93 2017 Close Enough to Touch
author: Colleen Oakley
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2017
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[The Seven Sisters (The Seven Sisters, #1)]]> 22609358
Eighty years earlier in Rio’s Belle Epoque of the 1920s, Izabela Bonifacio’s father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into the aristocracy. Meanwhile, architect Heitor da Silva Costa is devising plans for an enormous statue, to be called Christ the Redeemer, and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to complete his vision. Izabela—passionate and longing to see the world—convinces her father to allow her to accompany him and his family to Europe before she is married. There, at Paul Landowski’s studio and in the heady, vibrant cafes of Montparnasse, she meets ambitious young sculptor Laurent Brouilly, and knows at once that her life will never be the same again.

In this sweeping, epic tale of love and loss—the first in a unique, spellbinding series of seven novels—Lucinda Riley showcases her storytelling talent like never before.]]> 460 Lucinda Riley 1476759901 Cynthia 0 4.15 2014 The Seven Sisters (The Seven Sisters, #1)
author: Lucinda Riley
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> What We Keep 226858 Talk Before Sleep and The Pull of the Moon, a reunion between two sisters and their mother reveals how the secrets and complexities of the past have shaped the lives of the women in a family.

Ginny Young is on a plane, en route to see her mother, whom she hasn't seen or spoken to for thirty-five years. She thinks back to the summer of 1958, when she and her sister, Sharla, were young girls. At that time, a series of dramatic events--beginning with the arrival of a mysterious and sensual next-door neighbor--divided the family, separating the sisters from their mother. Moving back and forth in time between the girl she once was and the woman she's become, Ginny at last confronts painful choices that occur in almost any woman's life, and learns surprising truths about the people she thought she knew best.

Emotional honesty and a true understanding of people and relationships are combined in this moving and deeply satisfying new book by the novelist who "writes with humor and a big heart about resilience, love and hope. And the transcendence that redeems" (Andre Dubus).]]> 304 Elizabeth Berg 0345423291 Cynthia 0 3.90 1998 What We Keep
author: Elizabeth Berg
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> The Thirteenth Tale 40440
The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself -- all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.

As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.

Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.

The Thirteenth Tale is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.]]> 406 Diane Setterfield 0743298020 Cynthia 0 3.96 2006 The Thirteenth Tale
author: Diane Setterfield
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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]]> Sister 8196732 358 Rosamund Lupton 0749942010 Cynthia 0 3.77 2010 Sister
author: Rosamund Lupton
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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]]> The Memory Keeper's Daughter 10441 401 Kim Edwards 0143037145 Cynthia 0 3.70 2005 The Memory Keeper's Daughter
author: Kim Edwards
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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]]> The Bell 11230 296 Iris Murdoch 0141186690 Cynthia 0 currently-reading 3.92 1958 The Bell
author: Iris Murdoch
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1958
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/01/03
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> The Goldfinch 17333223
Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph - a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate.]]> 771 Donna Tartt 0316055433 Cynthia 5 3.94 2013 The Goldfinch
author: Donna Tartt
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2018/11/20
date added: 2019/01/03
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]]> The Overstory 35187203
In his twelfth novel, National Book Award winner Richard Powers delivers a sweeping, impassioned novel of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of—and paean to—the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond, exploring the essential conflict on this planet: the one taking place between humans and nonhumans. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

The Overstory is a book for all readers who despair of humanity’s self-imposed separation from the rest of creation and who hope for the transformative, regenerating possibility of a homecoming. If the trees of this earth could speak, what would they tell us? "Listen. There’s something you need to hear."]]> 502 Richard Powers 039363552X Cynthia 5 4.14 2018 The Overstory
author: Richard Powers
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2018
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/11/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl]]> 35838277 354 Andrea Lawlor 0986086991 Cynthia 0 3.88 2017 Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
author: Andrea Lawlor
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2018/06/05
date added: 2018/06/05
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]]> Manhattan Beach 34467031
‎Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that once belonged to men, now soldiers abroad. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. One evening at a nightclub, she meets Dexter Styles again, and begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life, the reasons he might have vanished.

With the atmosphere of a noir thriller, Egan’s first historical novel follows Anna and Styles into a world populated by gangsters, sailors, divers, bankers, and union men. Manhattan Beach is a deft, dazzling, propulsive exploration of a transformative moment in the lives and identities of women and men, of America and the world.]]> 438 Jennifer Egan 1476716730 Cynthia 5 3.55 2017 Manhattan Beach
author: Jennifer Egan
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2018/06/04
date added: 2018/06/05
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]]> The Idiot 30962053 A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself.

The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate, Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary. Selin may have barely spoken to Ivan, but with each email they exchange, the act of writing seems to take on new and increasingly mysterious meanings.

At the end of the school year, Ivan goes to Budapest for the summer, and Selin heads to the Hungarian countryside, to teach English in a program run by one of Ivan's friends. On the way, she spends two weeks visiting Paris with Svetlana. Selin's summer in Europe does not resonate with anything she has previously heard about the typical experiences of American college students, or indeed of any other kinds of people. For Selin, this is a journey further inside herself: a coming to grips with the ineffable and exhilarating confusion of first love, and with the growing consciousness that she is doomed to become a writer.]]> 423 Elif Batuman 1594205612 Cynthia 5 3.67 2017 The Idiot
author: Elif Batuman
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2017
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/05/23
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]]> An Equal Music 50366 A Suitable Boy returns with a powerful and deeply romantic tale of two gifted musicians. Michael Holme is a violinist, a member of the successful Maggiore Quartet. He has long been haunted, though, by memories of the pianist he loved and left ten years earlier, Julia McNicholl. Now Julia, married and the mother of a small child, unexpectedly reenters his life and the romance flares up once more.

Against the magical backdrop of Venice and Vienna, the two lovers confront the truth about themselves and their love, about the music that both unites and divides them, and about a devastating secret that Julia must finally reveal. With poetic, evocative writing and a brilliant portrait of the international music scene, An Equal Music confirms Vikram Seth as one of the world's finest and most enticing writers.]]> 383 Vikram Seth 037570924X Cynthia 5 3.81 1999 An Equal Music
author: Vikram Seth
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1999
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/01/30
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]]> All My Puny Sorrows 18339630
You won’t forget Elf and Yoli, two smart and loving sisters. Elfrieda, a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, happily married: she wants to die. Yolandi, divorced, broke, sleeping with the wrong men as she tries to find true love: she desperately wants to keep her older sister alive. Yoli is a beguiling mess, wickedly funny even as she stumbles through life struggling to keep her teenage kids and mother happy, her exes from hating her, her sister from killing herself and her own heart from breaking.

But Elf’s latest suicide attempt is a shock: she is three weeks away from the opening of her highly anticipated international tour. Her long-time agent has been calling and neither Yoli nor Elf’s loving husband knows what to tell him. Can she be nursed back to “health� in time? Does it matter? As the situation becomes ever more complicated, Yoli faces the most terrifying decision of her life.

All My Puny Sorrows, at once tender and unquiet, offers a profound reflection on the limits of love, and the sometimes unimaginable challenges we experience when childhood becomes a new country of adult commitments and responsibilities. In her beautifully rendered new novel, Miriam Toews gives us a startling demonstration of how to carry on with hope and love and the business of living even when grief loads the heart.]]> 321 Miriam Toews 0345808002 Cynthia 5 4.00 2014 All My Puny Sorrows
author: Miriam Toews
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/01/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Lyra's Oxford (His Dark Materials, #3.5)]]> 531197 Lyra's Oxford begins with Lyra and Pantalaimon spotting a witch's dæmon. Lyra shelters the daemon from the pursuit of a frenzied pack of birds, and then attempts to help by guiding the daemon to the home of an alchemist living in a part of Oxford known as Jericho. The journey through Oxford reveals more dangers than Lyra had anticipated.]]> 64 Philip Pullman 0375828192 Cynthia 0 3.63 2003 Lyra's Oxford (His Dark Materials, #3.5)
author: Philip Pullman
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/01/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, #3)]]> 18122
But how can he go looking for Lord Asriel when Lyra is gone? Only with her help can he fathom the myriad plots and intrigues that beset him.

The two great powers of the many worlds are lining up for war, and Will must find Lyra, for together they are on their way to battle, an inevitable journey that will even take them to the world of the dead...]]> 465 Philip Pullman 0440238153 Cynthia 5 4.11 2000 The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, #3)
author: Philip Pullman
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/01/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, #2)]]> 119324
Each is searching—Lyra for the meaning of Dark Matter, Will for his missing father—but what they find instead is a deadly secret, a knife of untold power. And neither Lyra nor Will suspects how tightly their lives, their loves, and their destinies are bound together... until they are split apart.]]> 326 Philip Pullman 0679879250 Cynthia 5 4.12 1997 The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, #2)
author: Philip Pullman
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/01/29
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]]> <![CDATA[The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)]]> 119322
Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want--but what Lyra doesn't know is that to help one of them will be to betray the other.]]> 399 Philip Pullman 0679879242 Cynthia 5 4.02 1995 The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)
author: Philip Pullman
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1995
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/01/29
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]]> <![CDATA[La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust, #1)]]> 34128219
Malcolm's father runs an inn called the Trout, on the banks of the river Thames, and all of Oxford passes through its doors. Malcolm and his dæmon, Asta, routinely overhear news and gossip, and the occasional scandal, but during a winter of unceasing rain, Malcolm catches wind of something new: intrigue.

He finds a secret message inquiring about a dangerous substance called Dust--and the spy it was intended for finds him.

When she asks Malcolm to keep his eyes open, Malcolm sees suspicious characters everywhere; Lord Asriel, clearly on the run; enforcement agents from the Magisterium; an Egyptian named Coram with warnings just for Malcolm; and a beautiful woman with an evil monkey for a dæmon. All are asking about the same thing: a girl--just a baby--named Lyra.

Lyra is the kind of person who draws people in like magnets. And Malcolm will brave any danger, and make shocking sacrifices, to bring her safely through the storm.]]> 449 Philip Pullman 0375815309 Cynthia 4 4.11 2017 La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust, #1)
author: Philip Pullman
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2017
rating: 4
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date added: 2018/01/29
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]]> Sing, Unburied, Sing 32920226 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781501126062

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

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

Sing, Unburied, Sing grapples with the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power, and limitations, of the bonds of family. Rich with Ward’s distinctive, musical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic new work and an essential contribution to American literature.]]> 285 Jesmyn Ward Cynthia 5 4.00 2017 Sing, Unburied, Sing
author: Jesmyn Ward
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 5
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date added: 2018/01/29
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]]> The Weird Sisters 8573020
The Andreas family is one of readers. Their father, a renowned Shakespeare professor who speaks almost entirely in verse, has named his three daughters after famous Shakespearean women. When the sisters return to their childhood home, ostensibly to care for their ailing mother, but really to lick their wounds and bury their secrets, they are horrified to find the others there. See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much. But the sisters soon discover that everything they've been running from-one another, their small hometown, and themselves-might offer more than they ever expected.]]> 320 Eleanor Brown 0399157220 Cynthia 4 women-s-fiction-upm 3.36 2011 The Weird Sisters
author: Eleanor Brown
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2018/01/04
date added: 2018/01/04
shelves: women-s-fiction-upm
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]]> Summer Sisters 22695 🎧Listening Length = 9 hours, 18 minutes

This #1 New York Times bestseller and Read With Jenna book club pick is “a book to return to again and again� (Colleen Hoover). In 1977, Victoria and Caitlin form a bond that changes their lives. Years later, they reunite for a wedding on Martha’s Vineyard � and confront the pitfalls of their friendship. With full-cast narration!

In the summer of 1977, Victoria Leonard's world changed forever—when Caitlin Somers chose her as a friend. Dazzling, reckless Caitlin welcomed Vix into the heart of her sprawling, eccentric family, opening doors to a world of unimaginable privilege, sweeping her away to vacations on Martha's Vineyard, a magical, wind-blown island where two friends became summer sisters...

Now, years later, Vix is working in New York City. Caitlin is getting married on the Vineyard. And the early magic of their long, complicated friendship has faded. But Caitlin has begged Vix to come to her wedding, to be her maid of honor. And Vix knows that she will go—for the friend whose casual betrayals she remembers all too well. Because Vix wants to understand what happened during that last shattering summer. And, after all these years, she needs to know why her best friend—her summer sister—still has the power to break her heart...

Audiobook Cast of Narrators:

Sophie Amoss as Vix
MacLeod Andrews as Bru
Cassandra Campbell as Abby
Michael Crouch as Daniel
Mark Deakins as Ed
Ari Fliakos as Gus
Dawn Harvey as Regina
Rebecca Lowman as Tawny
Saskia Maarleveld as Phoebe
George Newbern as Lamb
Everette Plen as Sharkey
Kirsten Potter as Dorset
Brittany Pressley as Paisley
Xe Sands as Tricia
Phoebe Strole as Maia]]> 416 Judy Blume 0440243750 Cynthia 4 women-s-fiction-upm 3.85 1998 Summer Sisters
author: Judy Blume
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1998
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/11/28
shelves: women-s-fiction-upm
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]]> The Secret Life of Bees 37435 The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.]]> 302 Sue Monk Kidd 0142001740 Cynthia 5 women-s-fiction-upm 4.10 2001 The Secret Life of Bees
author: Sue Monk Kidd
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2001
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/11/28
shelves: women-s-fiction-upm
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]]> <![CDATA[The Summer Girls (Lowcountry Summer, #1)]]> 16130281 From New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe, the heartwarming first installment in the Lowcountry Summer trilogy, a poignant series following three half-sisters and their grandmother.

Three granddaughters. Three months. One summer house.

In this enchanting trilogy set on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe captures the complex relationships between Dora, Carson, and Harper, three half-sisters scattered across the country—and a grandmother determined to help them rediscover their family bonds.

For years, Carson Muir has drifted, never really settling, certain only that a life without the ocean is a life half lived. Adrift and penniless in California, Carson is the first to return to Sea Breeze, wondering where things went wrong…until the sea she loves brings her a minor miracle. Her astonishing bond with a dolphin helps Carson renew her relationships with her sisters and face the haunting memories of her ill-fated father. As the rhythms of the island open her heart, Carson begins to imagine the next steps toward her future.

In this heartwarming novel, three sisters discover the true treasures Sea Breeze offers as surprising truths are revealed, mistakes forgiven, and precious connections made that will endure long beyond one summer.]]> 392 Mary Alice Monroe 1476709009 Cynthia 4 women-s-fiction-upm 3.80 2013 The Summer Girls (Lowcountry Summer, #1)
author: Mary Alice Monroe
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2013
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/11/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Silent Sister (Riley MacPherson, #1)]]> 19286669 352 Diane Chamberlain 1250010713 Cynthia 4 women-s-fiction-upm 3.95 2014 The Silent Sister (Riley MacPherson, #1)
author: Diane Chamberlain
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2017/06/13
date added: 2017/11/28
shelves: women-s-fiction-upm
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]]> Saints for All Occasions 32335977 A sweeping, unforgettable novel from The New York Times best-selling author of Maine, about the hope, sacrifice, and love between two sisters and the secret that drives them apart.

Nora and Theresa Flynn are twenty-one and seventeen when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America.

Nora is the responsible sister; she’s shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn’t sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan—a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.

Fifty years later, Nora is the matriarch of a big Catholic family with four grown children: John, a successful, if opportunistic, political consultant; Bridget, privately preparing to have a baby with her girlfriend; Brian, at loose ends after a failed baseball career; and Patrick, Nora’s favorite, the beautiful boy who gives her no end of heartache. Estranged from her sister and cut off from the world, Theresa is a cloistered nun, living in an abbey in rural Vermont. Until, after decades of silence, a sudden death forces Nora and Theresa to confront the choices they made so long ago.

A graceful, supremely moving novel from one of our most beloved writers, Saints for All Occasions explores the fascinating, funny, and sometimes achingly sad ways a secret at the heart of one family both breaks them and binds them together.]]> 335 J. Courtney Sullivan 0307959570 Cynthia 4 women-s-fiction-upm 3.85 2017 Saints for All Occasions
author: J. Courtney Sullivan
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2017/11/28
date added: 2017/11/28
shelves: women-s-fiction-upm
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]]> Here I Am 31434269 Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

In the book of Genesis, when God calls out, "Abraham!" before ordering him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, Abraham responds, "Here I am." Later, when Isaac calls out, "My father!" before asking him why there is no animal to slaughter, Abraham responds, "Here I am."

How do we fulfill our conflicting duties as father, husband, and son; wife and mother; child and adult? Jew and American? How can we claim our own identities when our lives are linked so closely to others? These are the questions at the heart of Jonathan Safran Foer's first novel in eleven years - a work of extraordinary scope and heartbreaking intimacy.

Unfolding over four tumultuous weeks in present-day Washington, D.C., Here I Am is the story of a fracturing family in a moment of crisis. As Jacob and Julia Bloch and their three sons are forced to confront the distances between the lives they think they want and the lives they are living, a catastrophic earthquake sets in motion a quickly escalating conflict in the Middle East. At stake is the meaning of home - and the fundamental question of how much aliveness one can bear.

Showcasing the same high-energy inventiveness, hilarious irreverence, and emotional urgency that readers loved in his earlier work, Here I Am is Foer's most searching, hard-hitting, and grandly entertaining novel yet. It not only confirms Foer's stature as a dazzling literary talent but reveals a novelist who has fully come into his own as one of our most important writers.]]> 571 Jonathan Safran Foer 0241146186 Cynthia 5 3.65 2016 Here I Am
author: Jonathan Safran Foer
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2016
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/11/17
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]]> The Bridges of Madison County 83674 182 Robert James Waller 0446364495 Cynthia 0 3.67 1992 The Bridges of Madison County
author: Robert James Waller
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/11/15
shelves:
review:

]]> The Joy Luck Club 7763 Alternate cover editions of ISBN 9780143038092 can be found here.

Four mothers, four daughters, four families, whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's telling the stories. In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives � until their own inner crises reveal how much they've unknowingly inherited of their mothers' pasts.

With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.]]> 288 Amy Tan Cynthia 0 3.96 1989 The Joy Luck Club
author: Amy Tan
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/11/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)]]> 38447
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.]]> 311 Margaret Atwood 038549081X Cynthia 0 4.15 1985 The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1985
rating: 0
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]]> The Red Tent 4989 The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of biblical women's society.]]> 324 Anita Diamant 0312353766 Cynthia 5 4.21 1997 The Red Tent
author: Anita Diamant
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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]]> The Time Traveler's Wife 18619684 537 Audrey Niffenegger 1939126010 Cynthia 0 to-read 4.07 2003 The Time Traveler's Wife
author: Audrey Niffenegger
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
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shelves: to-read
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]]> The Secret History 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Cynthia 0 to-read 4.17 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 0
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shelves: to-read
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]]> Possession 6768498 here.

"Literary critics make natural detectives," says Maud Bailey, heroine of a mystery where the clues lurk in university libraries, old letters, and dusty journals. Together with Roland Michell, a fellow academic and accidental sleuth, Maud discovers a love affair between the two Victorian writers the pair has dedicated their lives to studying: Randolph Ash, a literary great long assumed to be a devoted and faithful husband, and Christabel La Motte, a lesser-known "fairy poetess" and chaste spinster. At first, Roland and Maud's discovery threatens only to alter the direction of their research, but as they unearth the truth about the long-forgotten romance, their involvement becomes increasingly urgent and personal. Desperately concealing their purpose from competing researchers, they embark on a journey that pulls each of them from solitude and loneliness, challenges the most basic assumptions they hold about themselves, and uncovers their unique entitlement to the secret of Ash and La Motte's passion.]]> 511 A.S. Byatt Cynthia 0 3.87 1990 Possession
author: A.S. Byatt
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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]]> The Night Circus 9361589
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.]]> 506 Erin Morgenstern Cynthia 0 to-read 4.00 2011 The Night Circus
author: Erin Morgenstern
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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]]> My Ăntonia 17150 219 Willa Cather 1583485090 Cynthia 0 3.82 1918 My Ăntonia
author: Willa Cather
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1918
rating: 0
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]]> Girl with a Pearl Earring 2865
Girl with a Pearl Earring centers on Vermeer's prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel's quietly perceptive heroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. First, the 16-year-old narrator becomes increasingly intimate with her master. Then Vermeer employs her as his assistant—and ultimately has Griet sit for him as a model.]]> 233 Tracy Chevalier 0452287022 Cynthia 5 3.93 1999 Girl with a Pearl Earring
author: Tracy Chevalier
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1999
rating: 5
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]]> Sister Carrie 126609
Theodore Dreiser: Βαθιά πολιτικοποιημένος, ακτιβιĎτής, δούλεĎε για Ď„Îż Χόλυγουντ, ĎυνεĎγάτης του ΤĎάπλιν, Ďτη μαύĎη λίĎτα του ΜακάĎθι.]]> 580 Theodore Dreiser 0393960420 Cynthia 5 3.77 1900 Sister Carrie
author: Theodore Dreiser
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1900
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Mists of Avalon (Avalon, #1)]]> 402045 884 Marion Zimmer Bradley 0345350499 Cynthia 4 4.12 1982 The Mists of Avalon (Avalon, #1)
author: Marion Zimmer Bradley
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at:
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]]> Bastard Out of Carolina 25354 320 Dorothy Allison 0452287057 Cynthia 5 4.14 1992 Bastard Out of Carolina
author: Dorothy Allison
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/11/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit]]> 15055
This is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by her mother as one of God's elect. Zealous and passionate, she seems destined for life as a missionary, but then she falls for one of her converts.

At sixteen, Jeanette decides to leave the church, her home and her family, for the young woman she loves. Innovative, punchy and tender,

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a few days ride into the bizarre outposts of religious excess and human obsession.]]> 176 Jeanette Winterson Cynthia 5 3.76 1985 Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
author: Jeanette Winterson
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1985
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe]]> 9375 Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is a now-classic novel about two women: Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age, and gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode, who is telling her life story. Her tale includes two more women, the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, offering good coffee, southern barbecue, and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present will never be quite the same again.]]> 416 Fannie Flagg 0375508414 Cynthia 5 4.28 1987 Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
author: Fannie Flagg
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1987
rating: 5
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]]> Fingersmith 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 Cynthia 0 to-read 4.05 2002 Fingersmith
author: Sarah Waters
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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]]> Tipping the Velvet 25104465 472 Sarah Waters Cynthia 0 to-read 4.12 1998 Tipping the Velvet
author: Sarah Waters
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> Behind Her Eyes 28965131 Why is everyone talking about the ending of Sarah Pinborough's Behind Her Eyes?

Louise is a single mom, a secretary, stuck in a modern-day rut. On a rare night out, she meets a man in a bar and sparks fly. Though he leaves after they kiss, she’s thrilled she finally connected with someone.

When Louise arrives at work on Monday, she meets her new boss, David. The man from the bar. The very married man from the bar…who says the kiss was a terrible mistake but who still can’t keep his eyes off Louise.

And then Louise bumps into Adele, who’s new to town and in need of a friend, but she also just happens to be married to David. David and Adele look like the picture-perfect husband and wife, but then why is David so controlling, and why is Adele so scared of him?

As Louise is drawn into David and Adele’s orbit, she uncovers more puzzling questions than answers. The only thing that is crystal clear is that something in this marriage is very, very wrong, but Louise can’t guess how wrong―and how far a person might go to protect their marriage’s secrets.]]> 307 Sarah Pinborough 125011117X Cynthia 4 3.79 2017 Behind Her Eyes
author: Sarah Pinborough
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2017
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Strange the Dreamer (Strange the Dreamer, #1)]]> 28449207 The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around�and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.

What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?

The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?

Welcome to Weep.]]> 532 Laini Taylor 0316341681 Cynthia 0 to-read 4.27 2017 Strange the Dreamer (Strange the Dreamer, #1)
author: Laini Taylor
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> June 26236800 From the New York Times bestselling author of Bittersweet comes a novel of suspense and passion about a terrible mistake made sixty years ago that threatens to change a modern family forever. 

Twenty-five-year-old Cassie Danvers is holed up in her family’s crumbling mansion in rural St. Jude, Ohio, mourning the loss of the woman who raised her—her grandmother, June. But a knock on the door forces her out of isolation. Cassie has been named the sole heir to legendary matinee idol Jack Montgomery's vast fortune. How did Jack Montgomery know her name? Could he have crossed paths with her grandmother all those years ago? What other shocking secrets could June’s once-stately mansion hold?

Soon Jack’s famous daughters come knocking, determined to wrestle Cassie away from the inheritance they feel is their due. Together, they all come to discover the true reasons for June’s silence about that long-ago summer, when Hollywood came to town, and June and Jack’s lives were forever altered by murder, blackmail, and betrayal.

As this page-turner shifts deftly between the past and present, Cassie and her guests will be forced to reexamine their legacies, their definition of family, and what it truly means to love someone, steadfastly, across the ages.]]> 379 Miranda Beverly-Whittemore 0553447688 Cynthia 4 3.71 2016 June
author: Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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]]> Bittersweet 18339743 Bittersweet exposes the gothic underbelly of an idyllic world of privilege and an outsider’s hunger to belong.

On scholarship at a prestigious East Coast college, ordinary Mabel Dagmar is surprised to befriend her roommate, the beautiful, wild, blue-blooded Genevra Winslow. Ev invites Mabel to spend the summer at Bittersweet, her cottage on the Vermont estate where her family has been holding court for more than a century; it’s the kind of place where children twirl sparklers across the lawn during cocktail hour. Mabel falls in love with midnight skinny-dipping, the wet dog smell that lingers near the yachts, and the moneyed laughter that carries across the still lake while fireworks burst overhead. Before she knows it, she has everything she’s ever wanted: friendship, a boyfriend, access to wealth, and, most of all, for the first time in her life, the sense that she belongs.

But as Mabel becomes an insider, a terrible discovery leads to shocking violence and reveals what the Winslows may have done to keep their power intact - and what they might do to anyone who threatens them. Mabel must choose: either expose the ugliness surrounding her and face expulsion from paradise, or keep the family’s dark secrets and make Ev’s world her own.]]> 381 Miranda Beverly-Whittemore 0804138567 Cynthia 4 3.40 2014 Bittersweet
author: Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2014
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Practical Magic (Practical Magic, #1)]]> 22896 Alternate cover for ISBN 9780425190371 (currently here).

The Owens sisters confront the challenges of life and love in this bewitching novel from New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman.

For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape.

One will do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they share will bring them back—almost as if by magic...
]]> 286 Alice Hoffman Cynthia 4 3.70 1995 Practical Magic (Practical Magic, #1)
author: Alice Hoffman
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1995
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years #1)]]> 92141 When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

]]> 560 Gregory Maguire 0061350966 Cynthia 5 3.43 1995 Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years #1)
author: Gregory Maguire
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1995
rating: 5
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]]> A Thousand Acres 41193 371 Jane Smiley 1400033837 Cynthia 5 3.82 1991 A Thousand Acres
author: Jane Smiley
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1991
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)]]> 7260188 My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.

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

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

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay—no matter what the personal cost.]]> 390 Suzanne Collins 0439023513 Cynthia 5 4.10 2010 Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 5
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]]> Sense and Sensibility 14935 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141439662

'The more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!'

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

This edition includes explanatory notes, textual variants between the first and second editions, and Tony Tanner's introduction to the original Penguin Classic edition.]]> 409 Jane Austen 0141439661 Cynthia 5 4.10 1811 Sense and Sensibility
author: Jane Austen
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1811
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)]]> 2767052
Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . .

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

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.]]> 374 Suzanne Collins Cynthia 5 4.34 2008 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 5
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]]> Pride and Prejudice 1885 Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780679783268]]> 279 Jane Austen 1441341706 Cynthia 5 4.28 1813 Pride and Prejudice
author: Jane Austen
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1813
rating: 5
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]]> In Calabria 30316199 ―Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and After Alice

From the acclaimed author of The Last Unicorn comes a new, exquisitely-told fable for the modern age.

Claudio Bianchi has lived alone for many years on a hillside in Southern Italy’s scenic Calabria. Set in his ways and suspicious of outsiders, Claudio has always resisted change, preferring farming and writing poetry. But one chilly morning, as though from a dream, an impossible visitor appears at the farm. When Claudio comes to her aid, an act of kindness throws his world into chaos. Suddenly he must stave off inquisitive onlookers, invasive media, and even more sinister influences.

Lyrical, gripping, and wise, In Calabria confirms Peter S. Beagle's continuing legacy as one of fantasy's most legendary authors.]]> 176 Peter S. Beagle 1616962488 Cynthia 5 3.74 2017 In Calabria
author: Peter S. Beagle
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 5
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]]> Kinds of Love 543233
May Sarton's Willard is a small town in the rocky hills of New Hampshire, a place that attracts "the untameable, the wild, the gentle." As Sarton takes us into the lives of the people who live there, we encounter a rich tapestry of characters and relationships. In the center are the deep, prickly friendship between Christina, an old Bostonian, and Ellen, the daughter of a farmer, and the unfolding process by which Christina and her husband "come into their own" in their marriage and become winter people at last.]]> 466 May Sarton 0393311015 Cynthia 4 3.96 1970 Kinds of Love
author: May Sarton
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1970
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/11/02
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]]> The Passion 15047
In her unique and mesmerizing voice, Winterson blends reality with fantasy, dream, and imagination to weave a hypnotic tale with stunning effects.]]> 160 Jeanette Winterson 0802135226 Cynthia 5 4.14 1987 The Passion
author: Jeanette Winterson
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1987
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God]]> 655569 Off the boat, Charlotte, an archaeologist, joins a local excavation to uncover an ancient graveyard. Here she can indulge her passion for reconstructing the past, even as she tries to bury her own recent history. She comes to realize, however, that the currents of time are as fluid and persistent as the water that drifts beneath her comforting new home.]]> 245 Joe Coomer 068482440X Cynthia 5 3.96 1995 Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God
author: Joe Coomer
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1995
rating: 5
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]]> One Vacant Chair: A Novel 805453
It's where you sit down that determines everything in life.

Sarah's aunt Edna paints portraits of chairs. Not people in chairs, just chairs. The old house is filled with the paintings, and the chairs themselves surround her work-a silent yet vigilant audience. At the funeral of Grandma Hutton-whom Edna has cared for through an agonizingly long and vague illness-Sarah begins helping her aunt clean up the last of a life. This includes honoring Grandma's surprising wish to have her ashes scattered in Scotland.

"We were two fat women, eighteen years apart, a chair artist and a designer of Christmas ornaments, who only knew we had troubles and a hot summer to get through," says Sarah. But as it turns out, there is a great deal more to quirky Aunt Edna's troubles than Sarah could possibly imagine. As the novel turns from the hot, oppressive heat of Texas to the misty beauty of Scotland, she learns of her aunt's remarkable secret life and comes to fully understand the fragile business of living, and even of dying.

Praised for his richly drawn characters and as a master storyteller, Joe Coomer is at the height of his powers in One Vacant Chair .

Winner of the S. Mariella Gable Fiction Prize]]> 273 Joe Coomer 155597385X Cynthia 4 3.85 2003 One Vacant Chair: A Novel
author: Joe Coomer
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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]]> The Loop 814215 208 Joe Coomer 0684859041 Cynthia 5 3.80 1992 The Loop
author: Joe Coomer
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1992
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/11/02
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]]> The Mistress of Spices 94669
Now immortal, and living in the gnarled and arthritic body of an old woman, Tilo has set up shop in Oakland, California, where she administers curatives to her customers. But when she's surprised by an unexpected romance with a handsome stranger, she must choose between everlasting life and the vicissitudes of modern society. Spellbinding and hypnotizing, The Mistress of Spices is a tale of joy, sorrow, and one special woman's magical powers.]]> 338 Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni 0385482388 Cynthia 5 3.51 1997 The Mistress of Spices
author: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time]]> 1618 226 Mark Haddon 1400032717 Cynthia 5 3.89 2003 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
author: Mark Haddon
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2003
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/11/02
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]]> The Humans 16130537
He is disgusted by the way humans look, what they eat, and the wars they witness on the news, and is totally baffled by concepts such as love and family. But as time goes on, he starts to realize there may be more to this weird species than he has been led to believe. He drinks wine, reads Emily Dickinson, listens to Talking Heads, and begins to bond with the family he lives with, in disguise. In picking up the pieces of the professor's shattered personal life, the narrator sees hope and redemption in the humans' imperfections and begins to question the very mission that brought him there--a mission that involves not only thwarting human progress...but murder.]]> 285 Matt Haig 1476727910 Cynthia 5 4.05 2013 The Humans
author: Matt Haig
name: Cynthia
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2013
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/11/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?]]> 11395597
Jeanette Winterson's novels have established her as a major figure in world literature. She has written some of the most admired books of the past few decades, including her internationally bestselling first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, the story of a young girl adopted by Pentecostal parents that is now often required reading in contemporary fiction.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a memoir about a life's work to find happiness. It's a book full of stories: about a girl locked out of her home, sitting on the doorstep all night; about a religious zealot disguised as a mother who has two sets of false teeth and a revolver in the dresser, waiting for Armageddon; about growing up in an north England industrial town now changed beyond recognition; about the Universe as Cosmic Dustbin.

It is the story of how a painful past that Jeanette thought she'd written over and repainted rose to haunt her, sending her on a journey into madness and out again, in search of her biological mother.]]> 230 Jeanette Winterson 0307401243 Cynthia 5 3.99 2011 Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
author: Jeanette Winterson
name: Cynthia
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/11/02
shelves:
review:

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