Kat's bookshelf: read en-US Fri, 09 May 2025 16:45:38 -0700 60 Kat's bookshelf: read 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Boy Parts 73975634 An incendiary debut novel from a brash new talent—a pitch-black comedy, both shocking and hilarious, which fearlessly explores sexuality and gender roles in the twenty-first century.

“Hallucinogenic, electric and sharp,Boy Partsis a whirlwind exploration of gender, class, and power.”—Jessica Andrews, author of Saltwater

Exiled from the art world and on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle.

But her talent has not gone unnoticed, and Irina is invited to display her work at a fashionable London gallery. It is a chance to revive her career and escape from the rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema she’s fallen into. Yet the news instead triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centered around Irina’s consuming relationship with her best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention. . . .]]> 268 Eliza Clark Kat 0 currently-reading 3.61 2020 Boy Parts
author: Eliza Clark
name: Kat
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/09
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Patient's Secret 57694667
When the battered body of a female jogger is found beneath the cliffs of an idyllic coastal community, these perfect neighbors suddenly don’t seem so perfect�

Lily Bradley is a respected psychotherapist married to a distinguished professor. They live in a dream house with their two children in close-knit Story Cove. Lily lives a well-ordered life. Or so it seems. As a therapist, she knows everyone keeps things hidden. Even her.

Then sensual and free-spirited Arwen Harper rolls into town in her hand-painted VW van, her sixteen-year-old son riding shotgun. Overnight, Story Cove’s secrets are no longer safe. Because Arwen might know her new neighbors better than they know themselves.

Now someone is dead, and it looks like murder. Brutal and personal. The death invites the shrewd eye of Detective Rue Duval. Rue’s job is to expose secrets. But she’s also an expert at keeping them.

As the lives of three women become inexorably entwined, one thing is clear: when it comes to survival, ordinary people can do the most terrible things.]]> 383 Loreth Anne White Kat 0 currently-reading 4.27 2022 The Patient's Secret
author: Loreth Anne White
name: Kat
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/09
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> The Sublet 224277538 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Greer Hendricks comes a chilling story about the hidden cost of perfection.

Anne is barely keeping it together. A frazzled ghostwriter and aspiring novelist, she juggles nine-year-old twins and a listless marriage from an overcrowded Manhattan apartment, spreading herself thinner each day. Just as Anne is about to give up on her dreams, she lands her biggest client Melody Wells.

Melody paints a picture of serenity and empowerment in the lavender haze of her visualization workshops—however, the one thing she can’t manifest are the pages her publisher is demanding for her new motivational book. Enter Anne.

As Melody invites Anne deeper into her magical world, Anne finds herself working impossibly long days and traveling far beyond her comfort zone.

When Melody passes along a lead on a spacious sublet complete with East River views, built-in closets, and three bedrooms, Anne can’t believe her luck. Melody seems to know just what her family needs. But as small, unsettling incidents begin to accumulate, Anne starts to wonder what price she’s willing to pay for the good life.]]> 61 Greer Hendricks 1662528515 Kat 0 3.23 2025 The Sublet
author: Greer Hendricks
name: Kat
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/05/09
date added: 2025/05/09
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]]> The Lies I Tell 59412817
Two women. Many aliases.

Meg Williams. Maggie Littleton. Melody Wilde. Different names for the same person, depending on the town, depending on the job. She's a con artist who erases herself to become whoever you need her to be―a college student. A life coach. A real estate agent. Nothing about her is real. She slides alongside you and tells you exactly what you need to hear, and by the time she's done, you've likely lost everything.

Kat Roberts has been waiting ten years for the woman who upended her life to return. And now that she has, Kat is determined to be the one to expose her. But as the two women grow closer, Kat's long-held assumptions begin to crumble, leaving Kat to wonder who Meg's true target is.

The Lies I Tell is a twisted domestic thriller that dives deep into the psyches and motivations of two women and their unwavering quest to seek justice for the past and rewrite the future.]]> 302 Julie Clark 1728247594 Kat 5 4.05 2022 The Lies I Tell
author: Julie Clark
name: Kat
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/07
date added: 2025/05/07
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]]> The Last Flight 52652923 Two women. Two Flights. One last chance to disappear.

Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan townhouse and a staff of ten, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing is quite as it seems. That perfect husband has a temper that burns as bright as his promising political career, and he's not above using his staff to track Claire's every move, making sure she's living up to his impossible standards. But what he doesn't know is that Claire has worked for months on a plan to vanish.

A chance meeting in an airport bar brings her together with a woman whose circumstances seem equally dire. Together they make a last-minute decision to switch tickets � Claire taking Eva's flight to Oakland, and Eva traveling to Puerto Rico as Claire. They believe the swap will give each of them the head start they need to begin again somewhere far away. But when the flight to Puerto Rico goes down, Claire realizes it's no longer a head start but a new life. Cut off, out of options, with the news of her death about to explode in the media, Claire will assume Eva's identity, and along with it, the secrets Eva fought so hard to keep hidden.

The Last Flight is the story of two women � both alone, both scared � and one agonizing decision that will change thetrajectory of both of their lives.]]> 320 Julie Clark 1728215722 Kat 5 4.02 2020 The Last Flight
author: Julie Clark
name: Kat
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/06
date added: 2025/05/06
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]]> The Heart of a Mother 174670261 41 Julie Clark 1662513763 Kat 0 3.65 2023 The Heart of a Mother
author: Julie Clark
name: Kat
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/05/05
date added: 2025/05/05
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]]> The Swimmer 206766189 A deviously twisty novel of psychological suspense about secrets, neighbors, a need to belong, and murder by the award-winning author of The Maid’s Diary.

Socially awkward Chloe Cooper divides her time between dog walking, bartending, caring for her ailing mother, and at a safe distance, watching people and inventing the stories of their lives. Like Chloe’s new neighbors: glamorous influencer Jemma Spengler and Jemma’s husband, Adam, a renowned surgeon. They’re attractive, wealthy, and in a house of open windows, so exposed.

A move to the Pacific Northwest is supposed to be a fresh start for Jemma and Adam. It’s a renewed commitment to a marriage fractured by secrets. A chance to work through the tragic losses in their past. For Jemma, however, this new beginning also comes with an unnerving sensation that she’s being watched.

Then, on a fog-shrouded beach early in the morning, Chloe witnesses the murder of a swimmer. Her suspicions aroused, she suddenly sees her neighbors in a sinister new light. But as a detective and her partner close in, nothing is quite as it seems. Because the Spenglers are not the only ones with secrets. And Chloe isn’t the only one who’s been watching.]]> 349 Loreth Anne White 1662518919 Kat 4 3.96 2024 The Swimmer
author: Loreth Anne White
name: Kat
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/05
date added: 2025/05/05
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]]> Just Take My Heart 3609537 IN WORLDWIDE BESTSELLING SUSPENSEWRITER MARY HIGGINS CLARK’S SPELLBINDING NEW THRILLER, A BROADWAY STAR’S MURDER IGNITES A SHOCKING SERIES OF DEADLY EVENTS. . . .

After famous actress Natalie Raines is found in her home, dying from a gunshot wound, police immediately suspect her theatrical agent and jealous soon-to-be-ex-husband, Gregg Aldrich. But no charges are brought against him until two years later, when a career criminal suddenly claims Aldrich had tried to hire him to kill her.

The case is a plum assignment for attractive thirty-two-year-old assistant prosecutor Emily Wallace. She spends long hours preparing for the trial, and unaware of a seemingly well-meaning neighbor’s violent past, gives him a key to her home to care for her dog.

The high-profile trial makes headlines, threatening to reveal personal matters about Emily, such as the fact that she had a heart transplant� especially when she experiences eerie sentiments that defy all reason and continue even after the jury decides Gregg Aldrich’s fate.

But little does she know, now her own life is at risk. . . .

]]> 322 Mary Higgins Clark 1416570861 Kat 4 3.77 2009 Just Take My Heart
author: Mary Higgins Clark
name: Kat
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/05
date added: 2025/05/05
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]]> The Cut 211003716
A historic hotel long past its prime and huddled along The Cut, a questionable Lake Erie beach, isn’t Sadie Miles� ideal place to raise a toddler while also navigating her second pregnancy. After finally fleeing her abusive ex-fiancé, though, Sadie’s new housekeeping position and free room at L’Arpin Hotel are the best she can manage.

On her first night, Sadie runs to help a guest struggling in the hotel’s pool only to find the water calm and empty when she gets there, leaving her with a lingering unease. When a guest then goes missing and her manager insists they simply left without checking out, Sadie suspects he’s covering up darker goings-on in the hotel.

After her ex, Sadie won't let anyone convince her that what she’s experiencing isn’t real again. So, she keeps digging, quickly uncovering suspicious interactions with the staff, mysteriously vanishing security cameras, more missing guests, and things that go bump in the night...and drip in the walls, slither in the tub, and squirm in the halls. Everything isn't as it seems within the dim hallways of L’Arpin. Sadie has nowhere to go and nowhere to hide; she'll need to keep her wits about her to survive and keep her toddler and unborn child safe from whatever lurks nearby.]]> 304 C.J. Dotson 1250335442 Kat 0 currently-reading 3.12 2025 The Cut
author: C.J. Dotson
name: Kat
average rating: 3.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> If Something Happens to Me 195790670
With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name, and entered law school. He's put his past behind him.

Until, on a summer trip abroad to Italy with his law-school classmates, Ryan gets a call from his father: Ali's car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in his hometown. Inside are two dead men and a cryptic note with five words written on the envelope in Ali’s handwriting: If something happens to me�

Then, halfway around the world, the unthinkable happens: Ryan sees the man who has haunted his dreams since that night.

As Ryan races from the rolling hills of Tuscany, to a rural village in the UK, to the glittering streets of Paris in search of the truth, he has no idea that his salvation may lie with a young sheriff’s deputy in Kansas working her first case, and a mobster in Philadelphia who’s experienced tragedy of his own.

In classic Alex Finlay form, If Something Happens to Me is told from several distinct, compelling characters whose paths intersect, detonating into a story of twist after pulse-pounding twist. The story cements Finlay as one of the leading thriller writers today.]]> 324 Alex Finlay 1250863791 Kat 4 3.69 2024 If Something Happens to Me
author: Alex Finlay
name: Kat
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
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]]> Nothing to See Here 42519313
Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Lillian is convinced Madison is pulling her leg, but it’s the truth.

Thinking of her dead-end life at home, the life that has consistently disappointed her, Lillian figures she has nothing to lose. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other—and stay cool—while also staying out of the way of Madison’s buttoned-up politician husband. Surprised by her own ingenuity yet unused to the intense feelings of protectiveness she feels for them, Lillian ultimately begins to accept that she needs these strange children as much as they need her—urgently and fiercely. Couldn’t this be the start of the amazing life she’d always hoped for?]]> 288 Kevin Wilson 0062913484 Kat 0 currently-reading 3.95 2019 Nothing to See Here
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Kat
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Last Room on the Left 211399646 The caretaker at an isolated mountain hotel finds herself fighting for her life—and sanity—in this twisty, addictive thriller.

Kerry’s life is in shambles: Her husband has left her, her drinking habit has officially become a problem, and though the deadline for her big book deal—the one that was supposed to change everything—is looming, she can’t write a word. When she sees an ad for a caretaker position at a revitalized roadside motel in the Catskills, she jumps at the chance. It’s the perfect getaway to finish her book and start fresh.

But as she hunkers down in a blizzard, she spots something through the window: a pale arm peeking out from a heap of snow. Trapped in the mountains and alone with a dead, frozen body, Kerry must keep her head and make it out before the killer comes for her too. But is the deadly game of cat-and-mouse all in her mind? The body count begs to differ...]]> 333 Leah Konen 059371590X Kat 4 3.37 2025 The Last Room on the Left
author: Leah Konen
name: Kat
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/12
date added: 2025/04/12
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]]> Famous Last Words 212421066
From the author of Reese’s Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller Wrong Place Wrong Time comes an addictive thriller about a new mother’s world upended when her husband commits a terrifying crime. How well does she truly know the man she loves? And what danger does she face if her entire life has been built on a lie?

It is June 21st, the longest day of the year, and new mother Camilla’s life is about to change forever. After months of maternity leave, she will drop her infant daughter off at daycare for the first time and return to her job as a literary agent. Finally. But, when she wakes, her husband Luke isn’t there, and in his place is a cryptic note.

Then it starts. Breaking news: there's a hostage situation developing in London. The police arrive, and tell her Luke is involved. But he isn't a hostage. Her husband—doting father, eternal optimist—is the gunman.

What she does next is crucial. Because only she knows what the note he left behind that morning says...

Famous Last Words is the story of a crime, a marriage, and more secrets than Camilla ever could have imagined. This novel cements Gillian McAllister’s reputation as “the best at putting her characters in impossible situations and making her readers not only contemplate but feel what it would be like to find themselves in those situations.� (Emily Henry)]]> 336 Gillian McAllister 0063338424 Kat 4 3.70 2025 Famous Last Words
author: Gillian McAllister
name: Kat
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/12
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wild West Village: Not a Memoir—Unless I Win an Oscar, Die Tragically, or Score a Country #1]]> 214438107 In this darkly humorous memoir-in-essays, singer-songwriter Lola Kirke untangles an extraordinary upbringing in a family of eccentric, messy artists and how a girl from the big city went a little bit country.

Born into a dynastic creative family, Lola Kirke grew up around people who maintained glamorous veneers while turbulence rocked their inner worlds. The youngest daughter of a British rock star and socialite designer, Lola and her siblings (including actress Jemima and celebrity doula Domino), spent their childhoods in a sprawling West Village brownstone, which, thanks to the eclectic stylings of its matriarch, became the talk of the City, and was visited by the likes of Courtney Love and David Bowie. But behind the enviable exterior of wealth and coolness, was a family in disarray.

Her parents� marriage was characterized by addiction and affairs. Her sisters� youths marked by their own stints in rehab, and oriented around a relentless pursuit of beauty idealized by their mother. To make sense of all the madness, young Lola turned to chocolate, masturbation, marijuana, and last but not least, the distant sounds of country music, where singers like Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, and Gram Parsons helped her see that the worst things in life are fine if you can make them rhyme. That women can be complicated. And that men sometimes beg for forgiveness.

But before heading south to make music herself, Lola went west to Los Angeles, landing with a career-launching role in Gone Girl that led to starring alongside Greta Gerwig in Mistress America and Gael Garcia Bernal for four seasons on the Golden Globe–winning Mozart in the Jungle. But increasingly dubious of an artistic life lived in only one lane, Lola eventually left LA for Nashville, reconciling the future she was building with the chaotic past she was recalling by writing her own country songs. After a lifetime of trying to fit in with her family and stand out in the world, she finally realized what she really needed was just to be herself—contradictions and all.

Darkly funny, high spirited, and just a little bit country, this is the story of a young woman trying to be someone else while secretly learning to become herself, as well as the story of a family that, in Lola’s own words, puts the “fun� in dysfunctional.]]> 272 Lola Kirke 166803557X Kat 5 3.76 2025 Wild West Village: Not a Memoir—Unless I Win an Oscar, Die Tragically, or Score a Country #1
author: Lola Kirke
name: Kat
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves:
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]]> The Weekend Retreat 75339198 Three couples. Three days. A family getaway to die for.

Every year, the illustrious Van Ness siblings—heirs to a copper fortune—gather at their luxury winery estate for a joint birthday celebration. It's a tradition they've followed nearly all their lives, and now they are back with their significant others for a much-needed weekend of rest and relaxation, away from the public spotlight.

With lavish comforts, gorgeous scenery, and indulgent drinking, the trip should be the perfect escape. But it soon becomes clear that even a remote idyllic getaway can’t keep out the problems simmering in each of their lives. As old tensions are reignited, the three couples are pushed to the edge. Will their secrets destroy them, or will they destroy each other first? And who’s been watching them from beyond the vineyard gates?

When a torrential rainstorm hits, plunging them into darkness, the answers prove all too deadly…]]> 350 Tara Laskowski 1525811452 Kat 4 3.39 2023 The Weekend Retreat
author: Tara Laskowski
name: Kat
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language]]> 220458608 A viral linguist’s account of the ways our vocabularies are evolving, the Internet’s influence on communication, and what our use of language reveals about the modern world

From the rise of leetspeak and words such as unalive to the trend of adding �-core� to different influencer aesthetics, the Internet has ushered in an unprecedented linguistic upheaval. We’re entering an entirely new era of etymology, heralded by the invisible forces driving social media algorithms. Thankfully, Algospeak is here to explain. As a professional linguist, Adam Aleksic understands the gravity of language and the way we use he knows the ways it has morphed and changed, how it reflects society, and how, in its everyday usage, we carry centuries of human history on our tongues. As a social media influencer, Aleksic is also intimately familiar with the Internet’s reach and how social media impacts the way we engage with one another. New slang emerges and goes viral overnight. Accents are shaped or erased on YouTube. Grammatical rules, loopholes, and patterns surface and transform language as we know it. Our interactions—and our social norms and habits—shift into something completely different.

As Aleksic uses original surveys, data, and Internet archival research to usher us through this new linguistic landscape, he also illuminates how communication is changing in both familiar and unprecedented ways. From our use of emojis to sentence structure to the ways younger generations talk about sex and death (see unalive in English and desvivirse in Spanish), we are in a brand-new world, one shaped by algorithms and technology. Algospeak is an energetic, astonishing journey into language, the Internet, and what this intersection means for all of us.]]> 256 Adam Aleksic 0593804074 Kat 0 to-read 4.00 Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language
author: Adam Aleksic
name: Kat
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Maeve in America: Essays by a Girl from Somewhere Else]]> 36906099
Here are stories of not being able to afford a dress for the ball, of learning to live with yourself while you’re still figuring out how to love yourself, of the true significance of realizing what sort of shelter dog you would be. Self-aware and laugh-out-loud funny, this collection is also a fearless exploration of the awkward questions in life, such as: Is clapping too loudly at a gig a good enough reason to break up with somebody? Is it ever really possible to leave home?

Together, the essays in Maeve in America create a startlingly funny and revealing portrait of a woman who aims for the stars but hits the ceiling, and the inimitable city that has helped shape who she is, even as she finds the words to make sense of it all.]]> 256 Maeve Higgins 0143130161 Kat 5 3.57 2018 Maeve in America: Essays by a Girl from Somewhere Else
author: Maeve Higgins
name: Kat
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves:
review:

]]> Julie Chan Is Dead 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 Kat 0 to-read 3.69 2025 Julie Chan Is Dead
author: Liann Zhang
name: Kat
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain]]> 29496435
Phoebe Robinson is a stand-up comic, which means that, often, her everyday experiences become points of comedic fodder. And as a black woman in America, she maintains, sometimes you need to have a sense of humor to deal with the absurdity you are handed on the daily. Robinson has experienced her fair share over the years: she's been unceremoniously relegated to the role of "the black friend," as if she is somehow the authority on all things racial; she's been questioned about her love of U2 and Billy Joel ("isn t that . . . white people music?"); she's been called "uppity" for having an opinion in the workplace; she's been followed around stores by security guards; and yes, people do ask her whether they can touch her hair all. the. time. Now, she's ready to take these topics to the page and she s going to make you laugh as she s doing it.

Using her trademark wit alongside pop-culture references galore, Robinson explores everything from why Lisa Bonet is "Queen. Bae. Jesus," to breaking down the terrible nature of casting calls, to giving her less-than-traditional advice to the future female president, and demanding that the NFL clean up its act, all told in the same conversational voice that launched her podcast, "2 Dope Queens," to the top spot on iTunes. As personal as it is political, "You Can't Touch My Hair" examines our cultural climate and skewers our biases with humor and heart, announcing Robinson as a writer on the rise."]]> 285 Phoebe Robinson 0143129201 Kat 5 3.84 2016 You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain
author: Phoebe Robinson
name: Kat
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[My Life as a Goddess: A Memoir through (Un) Popular Culture]]> 38887475 New York Times bestsellers Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby, a collection of side-splitting yet introspective essays by the popular stand-up comic, Chelsea Lately alum, host of truTV’s The Talk Show Game Show, and writer for The Mindy Project.

From a young age, Guy Branum always felt as if he were on the outside looking in.

Self-taught, introspective, and from a stiflingly boring farm town, he couldn’t relate to his neighbors. While other boys played outside, he stayed indoors reading Greek mythology. And being gay and overweight, he got used to being invisible. But little by little, he started learning from all the sad, strange, lonely outcasts in history who had come before him, and he started to feel hope.

In this collection of personal essays, Guy talks about finding a sense of belonging at Berkeley—and stirring up controversy in a newspaper column that led to a run‑in with the Secret Service. He recounts the pitfalls of being typecast as the “Sassy Gay Friend,� and how, after taking a wrong turn in life (i.e. law school), he found stand‑up comedy and artistic freedom.

Digressing from his personal narratives, Guy also argues why Katy Perry’s “California Girls� is the Aristotelian ideal of a summer jam, and how brunch, as a fundamentally unnecessary but delightful meal, is deeply gay. He analyzes society’s calculated deprivation of personhood from fat people, and though it’s taken him awhile to accept who he is, Guy has learned that with a little patience and a lot of humor, self-acceptance is possible.]]> 289 Guy Branum 1501170244 Kat 5 4.01 2018 My Life as a Goddess: A Memoir through (Un) Popular Culture
author: Guy Branum
name: Kat
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/21
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel]]> 214152325 From a pioneering Black feminist and MacArthur “Genius� Fellow, an urgent and exhilarating memoir-manifesto-handbook about how to rein in the excesses of cancel culture so we can truly communicate and solve problems together.

In 1979, Loretta Ross was a single mother who’d had to drop out of Howard University. She was working at Washington, DC’s Rape Crisis Center when she got a letter from a man in prison saying he wanted to learn how to not be a rapist anymore. At first, she was furious. As a survivor of sexual violence, she wanted to write back pouring out her rage. But instead, she made a different choice, a choice to reject the response her trauma was pushing her towards, a choice that set her on the path towards developing a philosophy that would come to guide her whole rather than calling people out, try to call even your unlikeliest allies in. Hold them accountable—but do so with love.

Calling In is at once a handbook, a manifesto, and a memoir—because the power of Loretta Ross’s message comes from who she is and what she’s lived through. She’s a Black woman who’s deprogrammed white supremacists, a survivor who’s taught convicted rapists the principles of feminism. With stories from her five remarkable decades in activism, she vividly illustrates why calling people in—inviting them into conversation instead of conflict by focusing on your shared values over a desire for punishment—is the more strategic choice if you want to make real change. And she shows you how to do so, whether in the workplace, on a college campus, or in your living room.

Courageous, awe-inspiring, and blisteringly authentic, Calling In is a practical new solution from one of our country’s most extraordinary change-makers—one anyone can learn to use to transform frustrating and divisive conflicts that stand in the way of real connection with the people in your life.]]> 288 Loretta Ross 1982190795 Kat 0 to-read 4.42 Calling In: How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel
author: Loretta Ross
name: Kat
average rating: 4.42
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> Tell Me Everything 62971594 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Washington Post best celebrity memoir of 2023
An Audible best celebrity memoir of 2023

“A timely, urgent portrait of working-class American women.�
—Gabrielle Union

In her highly anticipated memoir Tell Me Everything, Minka Kelly shares a story as powerful as it is page-turning.

Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in these pages, Minka Kelly’s life has been anything but easy.

Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. At times they even lived in storage units. She reconnected with her father, Aerosmith’s Rick Dufay, and eventually made her way to Los Angeles, where she landed the role of a lifetime on Friday Night Lights.

Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer. She has poured her soul into the pages of this book, which ultimately tells a story of triumph over adversity, and how resilience and love are all we have in the end.]]> 288 Minka Kelly 1250852064 Kat 5 4.30 2023 Tell Me Everything
author: Minka Kelly
name: Kat
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/03/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While Also in an Actual Cult!)]]> 208840265 A deliciously witty and inspiring memoir by One Tree Hill star Bethany Joy Lenz about her decade in a cult and her quest to break free.

In the early 2000s, after years of hard work and determination to breakthrough as an actor, Bethany Joy Lenz was finally cast as one of the leads on the hit drama One Tree Hill. Her career was about to take off, but her personal life was slowly beginning to unravel. What none of the show’s millions of fans knew, hidden even from her costars, was her secret double life in a cult.

An only child who often had to fend for herself and always wanted a place to belong, Lenz found the safe haven she’d been searching for in a Bible study group with other Hollywood creatives. However, the group soon morphed into something more sinister—a slowly woven web of manipulation, abuse, and fear under the guise of a church covenant called The Big House Family. Piece by piece, Lenz began to give away her autonomy, ultimately relocating to the Family’s Pacific Northwest compound, overseen by a domineering minister who would convince Lenz to marry one of his sons and steadily drained millions of her TV income without her knowledge. Family “minders� assigned to her on set, “Maoist struggle session”–inspired meetings in the basement of a filthy house, and regular counseling with “Leadership� were just part of the tactics used to keep her loyal.

Only when she became a mother did Lenz find the courage to leave and spare her child from a similar fate. After nearly a decade (and with the unlikely help of a One Tree Hill superfan), she finally managed to escape the family’s grip and begin to heal from the deep trauma that forever altered her relationship with God and her understanding of faith. Written with powerful honesty and dark humor, Dinner for Vampires is an inspiring story about the importance of identity and understanding what you believe.]]> 303 Bethany Joy Lenz 1668067307 Kat 5 4.27 2024 Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While Also in an Actual Cult!)
author: Bethany Joy Lenz
name: Kat
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
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]]> Sociopath: A Memoir 176443093
Patric Gagne realized she made others uncomfortable before she started kindergarten. Something about her caused people to react in a way she didn’t understand. She suspected it was because she didn’t feel things the way other kids did. Emotions like fear, guilt, and empathy eluded her. For the most part, she felt nothing. And she didn’t like the way that “nothing� felt.

She did her best to pretend she was like everyone else, but the constant pressure to conform to a society she knew rejected anyone like her was unbearable. So Patric stole. She lied. She was occasionally violent. She became an expert lock-picker and home-invader. All with the goal of replacing the nothingness with...something.

In college, Patric finally confirmed what she’d long suspected. She was a sociopath. But even though it was the very first personality disorder identified—well over 200 years ago—sociopathy had been neglected by mental health professionals for decades. She was told there was no treatment, no hope for a normal life. She found herself haunted by sociopaths in pop culture, madmen and evil villains who are considered monsters. Her future looked grim.

But when Patric reconnects with an old flame, she gets a glimpse of a future beyond her diagnosis. If she’s capable of love, it must mean that she isn’t a monster. With the help of her sweetheart (and some curious characters she meets along the way) she embarks on a mission to prove that the millions of Americans who share her diagnosis aren’t all monsters either.

This is the inspiring story of her journey to change her fate and how she managed to build a life full of love and hope.]]> 368 Patric Gagne 166800318X Kat 5 3.74 2024 Sociopath: A Memoir
author: Patric Gagne
name: Kat
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Origins of Totalitarianism]]> 396931 Hannah Arendt's definitive work on totalitarianism and an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history

The Origins of Totalitarianism begins with the rise of anti-Semitism in central and western Europe in the 1800s and continues with an examination of European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of World War I. Arendt explores the institutions and operations of totalitarian movements, focusing on the two genuine forms of totalitarian government in our time—Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia—which she adroitly recognizes were two sides of the same coin, rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. From this vantage point, she discusses the evolution of classes into masses, the role of propaganda in dealing with the nontotalitarian world, the use of terror, and the nature of isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total domination.]]> 527 Hannah Arendt Kat 0 to-read 4.30 1951 The Origins of Totalitarianism
author: Hannah Arendt
name: Kat
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1951
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]]> Women's Hotel 199793688 From the New York Times bestselling author and advice columnist, a poignant and funny debut novel about the residents of a women’s hotel in 1960s New York City.

The Beidermeier might be several rungs lower on the ladder than the real-life Barbizon, but its residents manage to occupy one another nonetheless. There’s Katherine, the first-floor manager, lightly cynical and more than lightly suggestible. There’s Lucianne, a workshy party girl caught between the love of comfort and an instinctive bridling at convention, Kitty the sponger, Ruth the failed hairdresser, and Pauline the typesetter. And there’s Stephen, the daytime elevator operator and part-time Cooper Union student.

The residents give up breakfast, juggle competing jobs at rival presses, abandon their children, get laid off from the telephone company, attempt to retrain as stenographers, all with the shared awareness that their days as an institution are numbered, and they’d better make the most of it while it lasts.

As trenchant as the novels of Dawn Powell and Rona Jaffe and as immersive as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Lessons in Chemistry, Women’s Hotel is a modern classic—and it is very, very funny.]]> 272 Daniel M. Lavery 0063343533 Kat 0 to-read 2.84 2024 Women's Hotel
author: Daniel M. Lavery
name: Kat
average rating: 2.84
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/10
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]]> Liquid: A Love Story 215749072 The Marriage Plot meets The Idiot in this brilliant debut, which tells the story of a young Muslim scholar stuck in the mire of adjunct professorship in Los Angeles who decides to give up her career in academia and marry rich, committing herself to 100 dates in the course of a single summer.By midsummer reality hits, taking her—and her project—to Tehran.

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

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

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

For fans of Kaveh Akbar and Elif Batuman, Liquid, A Love Story delivers a modern taleof romance, loss, and belonginglike no other. Mariam Rahmani’s gorgeous high-wire satire explodes off the page with verve and originality in this riveting spin on the classic romantic comedy.]]> 320 Mariam Rahmani 1643756508 Kat 0 to-read 2.94 2025 Liquid: A Love Story
author: Mariam Rahmani
name: Kat
average rating: 2.94
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> Piglet 133287127 A New York Times Book Review Editors� Choice
A Belletrist Book Club Pick

An elegant, razor-sharp debut about women's ambitions and appetites—and the truth about having it all

Outside of a childhood nickname she can’t shake, Piglet’s rather pleased with how her life’s turned out. An up-and-coming cookbook editor at a London publishing house, she’s got lovely, loyal friends and a handsome fiancé, Kit, whose rarefied family she actually, most of the time, likes, despite their upper-class eccentricities. One of the many, many things Kit loves about Piglet is the delicious, unfathomably elaborate meals she’s always cooking.

But when Kit confesses a horrible betrayal two weeks before they’re set to be married, Piglet finds herself suddenly…hungry. The couple decides to move forward with the wedding as planned, but as it nears and Piglet balances family expectations, pressure at work, and her quest to make the perfect cake, she finds herself increasingly unsettled, behaving in ways even she can’t explain. Torn between a life she’s always wanted and the ravenousness that comes with not getting what she knows she deserves, Piglet is, by the day of her wedding, undone, but also ready to look beyond the lies we sometimes tell ourselves to get by.

A stylish, uncommonly clever novel about the things we want and the things we think we want, Piglet is both an examination of women’s often complicated relationship with food and a celebration of the messes life sometimes makes for us.]]> 287 Lottie Hazell Kat 4 3.44 2024 Piglet
author: Lottie Hazell
name: Kat
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Be Ready When the Luck Happens]]> 209192698 In her long-awaited memoir, Ina Garten—aka the Barefoot Contessa, author of thirteen bestselling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and cultural icon—shares her personal story with readers hungry for a seat at her table.

Here, for the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining, and inspiring account of her remarkable journey. Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose.

From a difficult childhood to meeting the love of her life, Jeffrey, and marrying him while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because if you love it you’ll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.]]> 320 Ina Garten 0593799895 Kat 5 4.24 2024 Be Ready When the Luck Happens
author: Ina Garten
name: Kat
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Improvising Adulthood: What I Wish Someone Had Told Me]]> 228271072 What if you could set aside the way your life was “supposed� to look, and instead, create a life that was uniquely and authentically your own?

IMPROVISING ADULTHOOD is a warm and lively guide to applying the wisdom and joy of improv comedy to the way you navigate your life � from the work you do, to the people you spend time with, to the experiences and places you choose to explore. Through a mix of personal stories, practical insights, and creative prompts, author, improvisor, and storytelling expert Amanda Hirsch encourages you

Discover how the principles of improv can help you embrace life’s unpredictability. Question inherited “scripts� and societal rules, and write your own. Tune into your “yes� so you can live with intention. Realize the power you have to carve your own path. Brimming with inspiration, humor, and heart, IMPROVISING ADULTHOOD is for young people just starting out, and for anyone who is ready to live with more intention and joy.]]> 124 Amanda Hirsch Kat 0 currently-reading 4.88 Improvising Adulthood: What I Wish Someone Had Told Me
author: Amanda Hirsch
name: Kat
average rating: 4.88
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date added: 2025/02/27
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]]> People Like Them 174670822
Veronica and Ryan Hartley are the envy of Auburn Drive. When the exclusive neighborhood hosts its annual progressive dinner party, the couple’s perfection is on display. The neighbors are obsessed—entranced by the “it� couple’s movie-star looks and smoldering gazes. But is the perfect pair too good to be true?

People Like Them is part of Obsession, a collection of compulsively readable short stories about people pushed to their extremes. So addictive you won’t be able to put them down—read or listen to each story in a single sitting.]]> 56 Minka Kent 1662515022 Kat 0 4.06 2023 People Like Them
author: Minka Kent
name: Kat
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
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]]> Good Dirt 213618132 The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick

When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well.

The crime was never solved—and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England—the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers, but when Ebby's high profile romance falls apart without any explanation, that's exactly what they get.

So Ebby flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what's happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago—the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family's history—it might also hold the key to unlocking her own future.

In this sweeping, evocative novel, Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life a multi-generational epic that examines how the past informs our present.]]> 368 Charmaine Wilkerson 0593358368 Kat 0 to-read 4.04 2025 Good Dirt
author: Charmaine Wilkerson
name: Kat
average rating: 4.04
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]]> Victorian Psycho 213395480
Whether creeping across the moonlit lawns in her undergarments or gently tormenting the house staff, Winifred struggles at every turn to stifle the horrid compulsions of her past until her chillingly dark imagination breaches the feeble boundary of reality on Christmas morning.

Wielding her signature sardonic wit and a penchant for the gorgeously macabre, Virginia Feito returns with a vengeance in Victorian Psycho.]]> 208 Virginia Feito 1631498630 Kat 0 to-read 3.61 2025 Victorian Psycho
author: Virginia Feito
name: Kat
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/17
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]]> The Birthday Girl 38216157 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Alex & Eliza comes a return to adult fiction, centered around a mysterious woman's birthday celebration—and what it reveals about her past.

Ellie de Florent-Stinson is celebrating her fortieth birthday with a grand celebration in her fabulous house in Palm Springs.

At forty, it appears Ellie has everything she ever wanted: a handsome husband; an accomplished, college-age stepdaughter; a beautiful ten-year-old girl; two adorable and rambunctious six-year-old twin boys; lush, well-appointed homes in Los Angeles, Park City, and Palm Springs; a thriving career as a well-known fashion designer of casual women's wear; and a glamorous circle of friends.

Except everything is not quite as perfect as it looks on the outside—Ellie is keeping many secrets. This isn’t the first of her birthday parties that hasn't gone as planned. Something happened on the night of her sweet sixteenth. Something she’s tried hard to forget.

But hiding the skeletons of her past comes at a cost, and all of Ellie’s secrets come to light on the night of her fabulous birthday party in the desert—where everyone who matters in her life shows up, invited or not. Old and new, friends and frenemies, stepdaughters and business partners, ex-wives and ex-husbands congregate, and the glittering facade of her life crumbles in one eventful night.

Beautifully paced and full of surprises, The Birthday Girl is an enthralling tale of a life lived in shadow, and its unavoidable consequences.]]> 352 Melissa de la Cruz 1524743771 Kat 0 3.16 2019 The Birthday Girl
author: Melissa de la Cruz
name: Kat
average rating: 3.16
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
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]]> The Last Party 205837684 A loving mother. A notorious murderer. They both have reasons to hide their secrets in a novel of escalating shock and suspense by New York Times bestselling author A. R. Torre.

Perla Wultz lives with her husband, Grant, and their precious daughter, Sophie, in a gated Pasadena community. Affluent, sociable, and accomplished, Perla plays the part of loving wife and mother to perfection. It seems an ideal life, if not for a decades-old crime that has become Perla’s dark and consuming secret obsession.

Twenty-three years ago, Leewood Folcrum confessed to murdering two young girls during a birthday party. Though he’s been condemned to a life sentence, his crime is not forgotten. Not by Perla, nor by an inquisitive doctoral student interviewing Folcrum for his dissertation. He’s getting the killer to open up—about his motives, his confession, and the truth of what really happened on that horrible night.

As the past and the present entwine, the deceptions behind the infamous murder begin to surface. But who’s deceiving who now? And why? And as an ingeniously twisted plan is set in motion, who will be the next to die?]]> 349 A.R. Torre 1662519583 Kat 0 4.08 2024 The Last Party
author: A.R. Torre
name: Kat
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
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]]> I Hope This Finds You Well 62066104 In this wildly funny and heartwarming office comedy, an admin worker accidentally gains access to her colleagues� private emails and DMs and decides to use this intel to save her job—a laugh-till-you-cry debut novel you’ll be eager to share with your entire list of contacts, perfect for fans of Anxious People and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.

As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don’t seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text color to white so no one can see. That is until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions.

When an IT mix-up grants her access to her entire department’s private emails and DMs, Jolene knows she should report it, but who could resist reading what their coworkers are really saying? And when she discovers layoffs are coming, she realizes this might just be the key to saving her job. The plan is simple: gain her boss’s favor, convince HR she’s Supershops material, and beat out the competition.

But as Jolene is drawn further into her coworkers' private worlds and realizes they are each keeping secrets, her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble—especially around Cliff, who she definitely cannot have feelings for. Eventually she will need to decide if she’s ready to leave the comfort of her cubicle, even if that means coming clean to her colleagues.

Crackling with laugh-out-loud dialogue and relatable observations, I Hope This Finds You Well is a fresh and surprisingly tender comedy about loneliness and love beyond our computer screens. This sparkling debut novel will open your heart to the everyday eccentricities of work culture and the undeniable human connection that comes along with it.]]> 349 Natalie Sue 006332038X Kat 0 currently-reading 3.85 2024 I Hope This Finds You Well
author: Natalie Sue
name: Kat
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

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

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Kat 5 4.15 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Kat
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> Worry 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 Kat 0 to-read 3.32 2024 Worry
author: Alexandra Tanner
name: Kat
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Murder in the Dollhouse: The Jennifer Dulos Story]]> 217387932 An investigation into the mysterious disappearance of Jennifer Dulos and the aftershocks that shook a wealthy suburb

One morning, suburban mother Jennifer Dulos dropped off her kids at the New Canaan Country School and then vanished. Her body has never been found.

Dulos was in the middle of an ugly divorce—one of the most contentious in Connecticut state history. The Duloses, a beautiful, highly connected pair, met at Brown University, had five children, and led what appeared to be a charmed life. In the wake of her disappearance, Dulos’s husband and his girlfriend were arrested. He killed himself on the day he was supposed to report to court; she was tried and convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. A gripping story of status, wealth, love, and hate, Murder in the Dollhouse peers beneath the sparkling veneer of propriety that surrounded the Duloses to uncover the origins and motivations of a crime that became a national obsession.]]> 352 Rich Cohen 0374608067 Kat 0 to-read 3.93 2025 Murder in the Dollhouse: The Jennifer Dulos Story
author: Rich Cohen
name: Kat
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/08
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]]> The Midnight Feast 199743738 Secrets. Lies. Murder. Let the festivities begin...

It’s the opening night of The Manor, and no expense, small or large, has been spared. The infinity pool sparkles; crystal pouches for guests� healing have been placed in the Seaside Cottages and Woodland Hutches; the “Manor Mule� cocktail (grapefruit, ginger, vodka, and a dash of CBD oil) is being poured with a heavy hand. Everyone is wearing linen.

But under the burning midsummer sun, darkness stirs. Old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. Just outside the Manor’s immaculately kept grounds, an ancient forest bristles with secrets. And the Sunday morning of opening weekend, the local police are called. Something’s not right with the guests. There’s been a fire. A body’s been discovered.

THE FOUNDER * THE HUSBAND * THE MYSTERY GUEST * THE KITCHEN HELP

It all began with a secret, fifteen years ago. Now the past has crashed the party. And it’ll end in murder at� The Midnight Feast.]]> 354 Lucy Foley 0063003104 Kat 0 3.55 2024 The Midnight Feast
author: Lucy Foley
name: Kat
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Tales from the Café (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #2)]]> 54373691 In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time...

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

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

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

This beautiful, simple tale tells the story of people who must face up to their past, in order to move on with their lives. Kawaguchi once again invites the reader to ask themselves: what would you change if you could travel back in time?]]> 192 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1529050863 Kat 0 to-read 3.98 2017 Tales from the Café (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #2)
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: Kat
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/08
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Win a Million Dollars and BEEP Glitter! A Mostly True Misadventure]]> 221740851 "The combination of memoir with a perceptive judgment of America’s often-empty vision of success is powerful.� —�Publisher’s Weekly / BookLife (Score: 9.5 out of 10!)

Amazon #1 Best Seller: How to Win a Million Dollars is a madcap, self-deprecating, laugh-out-loud, mostly true misadventure that takes readers on an adventure through the wildly inventive, sometimes-questionable, but always entertaining schemes of a boy who would do anything to make it big.�

Growing up as a gay Catholic schoolboy in a tiny Mississippi River town surrounded by cornfields, Luke’s imagination was constantly set on fire by million-dollar daydreams and DIY hustles. Whether it was hunting down the missing Cap’n Crunch or gaming McDonald’s Monopoly, no scheme was too ridiculous, no shortcut too far-fetched. With his trusty Hustler bike and a mountain of determination, Luke didn’t just dream—he plotted.�

Set in the 1980’s, this is the story of a kid with a knack for scamming, hustling, and occasionally crashing and burning—all in the pursuit of that elusive big win. Dragging his little sister—turned faithful sidekick—into trouble at every turn, her sweet voice was always in his ear, making us wonder: Is he conning her, or is she saving him from himself?�

As Luke grew up, so did the schemes—evolving into a real-life Broadway Cinderella story (dirty hands and all), a stint as an artist in Paris, and even facing a curse from a vengeful Hawaiian goddess. With razor-sharp wit and heartfelt vulnerability, How to Win a Million Dollars and BEEP Glitter! explores the glittering highs and crushing lows of chasing the American Dream in a world shaped by Reaganomics, dyslexia, and the crumbling façade of opportunity. From paperboy scams to going for broke in the App Store, and even an experimental spin with AI, Luke’s journey proves that while everything can fall apart at any moment, the ride—chaotic, messy, and wildly imperfect—is the real prize. And maybe, just maybe, there’s still a million-dollar dream out there, waiting to be won.

---
Critical Acclaim:

"This is a raucously funny book, with raffish prose full of self-deprecating humor regarding the distance between exalted pretensions and awkward reality... The result is a luminous tribute to the inestimable value of not quite getting what you want." � Kirkus Reviews (Verdict: Get it!)

“Readers who may have thoughtCatcher in the Ryeand other coming-of-age stories held wry humor along with insights will find these classics must take a step back for contemporary authors such as Luke Stoffel.� —�Midwest Book Review (Reviewers Choice)

---

A Note on AI in this Book
This book incorporates AI both as a plot point and as a creative experiment. AI was utilized as an editor and copywriting tool, but the book was written by a human.]]> 264 Luke Stoffel Kat 0 to-read 4.03 How to Win a Million Dollars and BEEP Glitter! A Mostly True Misadventure
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]]> Truth & Beauty 3686 Autobiography of a Face, she wrote about losing part of her jaw to childhood cancer, years of chemotherapy and radiation, and endless reconstructive surgeries. In Truth and Beauty, the story isn’t Lucy’s life or Ann’s life but the parts of their lives they shared. This is a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans twenty years, from the long winters of the Midwest to surgical wards to book parties in New York. Through love, fame, drugs, and despair, this is what it means to be part of two lives that are intertwined--and what happens when one is left behind.]]> 257 Ann Patchett 0060572159 Kat 4 3.97 2004 Truth & Beauty
author: Ann Patchett
name: Kat
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/01/31
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]]> <![CDATA[The Power Pause: How to Plan a Career Break After Kids—and Come Back Stronger Than Ever]]> 211399645 A paradigm-shifting guide to career breaks after kids that rebrands stay-at-home parenthood for a new generation of women and families.

"So, what do you do?"

When Neha Ruch had to answer this seemingly innocent question for the first time after leaving her corporate job to care for her infant son, she drew a shameful blank. She couldn’t find the words to describe this new stage of life she’d just embarked on. She wasn’t a 1950s June Cleaver type, nor was she one of today’s updated stereotypes. (Craft Project Mom? Exhausted-in-Sweatpants Mom?) How, then, was she to navigate this identity shift?

Frustrated, Ruch embarked on a mission to rebrand the stay-at-home mother for a new generation of women who don’t want to leave their ambition behind just because they decide to pause or change their careers post-kids. Her online community, Mother Untitled, has become the leading voice and resource for women navigating this transition. In The Power Pause, Ruch addresses all the questions women face at this inflection point, such as, Can I afford to pause? Who am I without my career indentity? How do I find meaning in the role? And can I ever transition back to paid work?

With expert advice and diverse stories of stay-at-home mothers who buck every stereotype, as well as interactive exercises to help the reader plot a course for the long term, The Power Pause is an essential handbook for a new generation of caregivers.]]> 320 Neha Ruch 0593716191 Kat 0 to-read 4.27 The Power Pause: How to Plan a Career Break After Kids—and Come Back Stronger Than Ever
author: Neha Ruch
name: Kat
average rating: 4.27
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]]> <![CDATA[Make a Scene: Storytelling, Stage Presence, and the Art of Being Unforgettable in Every Spotlight]]> 223145681 "Mike has distilled the art of storytelling into a powerful guide—essential for anyone ready to elevate their voice and presence." Joe Russo Emmy Award Winning Arrested Development End Game; Infinity War; Captain Civil War; Captain The Winter Soldier Academy Award Winning Everywhere All At Once

Elite speaking coach and Former TEDx Executive Producer Mike Ganino brings you an irreverent guide to turn conventional presentation and public speaking advice on its head. In a world that wants you to play small, Make a Scene shows you how to command attention, inspire action, and become unforgettable—whether you’re delivering a keynote, hosting a podcast, or leading a board meeting.

This is not another “imagine them in their underwear� or “count your uhms� public speaking manual. With his Five Stage Languages and Rapid Prototyping Protocol, Ganino reveals the exact framework he’s used to train over 5,000 speakers—from bestselling authors and TED stars to Fortune 500 executives. With equal parts attitude and expertise, he teaches you

Master the art of authentic storytelling that captivates any audience
Transform nervous energy into magnetic stage presence
Own virtual presentations with more impact than a viral TED talk
Turn everyday moments into opportunities to shine
Craft messages so compelling, people forget to check their phones

Make a Scene is for anyone tired of playing it safe and ready to own the spotlight. Whether you’re a professional speaker crafting your next keynote or a leader delivering a crucial presentation, this book will help you stop shrinking and start shining. It’s time to make a scene—and make it count.]]> 382 Mike Ganino Kat 0 to-read 4.33 Make a Scene: Storytelling, Stage Presence, and the Art of Being Unforgettable in Every Spotlight
author: Mike Ganino
name: Kat
average rating: 4.33
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]]> One Perfect Couple 199798953 Harkening to Agatha Christie’s classic And Then There Were None, this high-tension and ingenious thriller follows five couples trapped on a storm-swept island as a killer stalks among them.

Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, The Perfect Couple, she decides to try out with him. A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla find herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples—Bayer and Angel, Dan and Santana, Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana—in order to win a cash prize.

But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real—and the stakes are life or death.

A fast-paced, spellbinding thriller rife with intrigue and characters that feel so true to life, this novel proves yet again that Ruth Ware is the queen of psychological suspense.]]> 385 Ruth Ware 1668025590 Kat 0 3.60 2024 One Perfect Couple
author: Ruth Ware
name: Kat
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Post-Growth Living: For an Alternative Hedonism]]> 55095887
The reality of runaway climate change is inextricably linked with the mass consumerist, capitalist society in which we live. And the cult of endless growth, and endless consumption of cheap disposable commodities, isn’t only destroying the world, it is damaging us and our way of being. How do we stop the impending catastrophe, and how can we create a movement capable of confronting it head-on?

Philosopher Kate Soper offers an urgent plea for a new vision of the good life, one that is capable of delinking prosperity from endless growth. Instead, Soper calls for renewed emphasis on the joys of being that are currently being denied, and shows the way to creating a future that allows not only for more free time, and less conventional and more creative ways of using it, but also for fairer and more fulfilling ways of working and existing. This is an urgent and necessary intervention into debates on climate change.

Reviews]]> 225 Kate Soper 178873887X Kat 0 to-read 3.60 2020 Post-Growth Living: For an Alternative Hedonism
author: Kate Soper
name: Kat
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/27
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sequel (The Book Series, #2)]]> 203578763 The Afterword. After all, how hard can it really be to write a universally lauded bestseller?

But when Anna publishes her book and indulges in her own literary acclaim, she begins to receive excerpts of a novel she never expected to see again, a novel that should no longer exist. Something has gone wrong, and someone out there knows far too much about her late brother, her late husband, and possibly about Anna herself. What does this person want, and what are they prepared to do? She has come too far and worked too hard to lose what she values most: the sole and uncontested right to her own story—and she is, by any standard, a master storyteller.]]> 304 Jean Hanff Korelitz 1250875471 Kat 5 3.59 2024 The Sequel (The Book Series, #2)
author: Jean Hanff Korelitz
name: Kat
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/27
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]]> Good Behaviour 439712
Behind the gates of Temple Alice the aristocratic Anglo-Irish St Charles family sinks into a state of decaying grace. To Aroon St Charles, large and unlovely daughter of the house, the fierce forces of sex, money, jealousy and love seem locked out by the ritual patterns of good behaviour. But crumbling codes of conduct cannot hope to save the members of the St Charles family from their own unruly and inadmissible desires.]]> 291 Molly Keane Kat 0 to-read 3.83 1981 Good Behaviour
author: Molly Keane
name: Kat
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Three Ordinary Girls: The Remarkable Story of Three Dutch Teenagers Who Became Spies, Saboteurs, Nazi Assassins–and WWII Heroes]]> 53866227
May 10, 1940. The Netherlands was swarming with Third Reich troops. In seven days it’s entirely occupied by Nazi Germany. Joining a small resistance cell in the Dutch city of Haarlem were three teenage girls: Hannie Schaft, and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen who would soon band together to form a singular female underground squad.

Smart, fiercely political, devoted solely to the cause, and “with nothing to lose but their own lives,� Hannie, Truus, and Freddie took terrifying direct action against Nazi targets. That included sheltering fleeing Jews, political dissidents, and Dutch resisters. They sabotaged bridges and railways, and donned disguises to lead children from probable internment in concentration camps to safehouses. They covertly transported weapons and set military facilities ablaze. And they carried out the assassinations of German soldiers and traitors–on public streets and in private traps–with the courage of veteran guerilla fighters and the cunning of seasoned spies.

In telling this true story through the lens of a fearlessly unique trio of freedom fighters, Tim Brady offers a never-before-seen perspective of the Dutch resistance during the war. Of lives under threat; of how these courageous young women became involved in the underground; and of how their dedication evolved into dangerous, life-threatening missions on behalf of Dutch patriots–regardless of the consequences.

Harrowing, emotional, and unforgettable, Three Ordinary Girls finally moves these three icons of resistance into the deserved forefront of world history.]]> 336 Tim Brady Kat 0 currently-reading 4.21 2021 Three Ordinary Girls: The Remarkable Story of Three Dutch Teenagers Who Became Spies, Saboteurs, Nazi Assassins–and WWII Heroes
author: Tim Brady
name: Kat
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/22
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]]> Sign Here 59358268 A darkly humorous, surprisingly poignant, and utterly gripping debut novel about a guy who works in Hell (literally) and is on the cusp of a big promotion if only he can get one more member of the wealthy Harrison family to sell their soul.

Peyote Trip has a pretty good gig in the deals department on the fifth floor of Hell. Sure, none of the pens work, the coffee machine has been out of order for a century, and the only drink on offer is Jägermeister, but Pey has a plan—and all he needs is one last member of the Harrison family to sell their soul.

When the Harrisons retreat to the family lake house for the summer, with their daughter Mickey’s precocious new friend, Ruth, in tow, the opportunity Pey has waited a millennium for might finally be in his grasp. And with the help of his charismatic coworker Calamity, he sets a plan in motion.

But things aren’t always as they seem, on Earth or in Hell. And as old secrets and new dangers scrape away at the Harrisons� shiny surface, revealing the darkness beneath, everyone must face the consequences of their choices.]]> 416 Claudia Lux 0593545761 Kat 5 3.78 2022 Sign Here
author: Claudia Lux
name: Kat
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
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]]> Memory Piece 193759650
By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier. As a performance artist, Giselle must navigate an elite social world she never conceived of. As a coder thrilled by the internet’s early egalitarian promise, Jackie must contend with its more sinister shift toward monetization and surveillance. And as a community activist, Ellen confronts the increasing gentrification and policing overwhelming her New York City neighborhood. Over time their friendship matures and changes, their definitions of success become complicated, and their sense of what matters evolves.

Moving from the predigital 1980s to the art and tech subcultures of the 1990s to a strikingly imagined portrait of the 2040s, Memory Piece is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised.]]> 304 Lisa Ko 059354210X Kat 4 3.18 2024 Memory Piece
author: Lisa Ko
name: Kat
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North]]> 25773791 By turns funny and sobering, bold and tender, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube brilliantly recounts Braverman’s adventures in Norway and Alaska. Settling into her new surroundings, Braverman was often terrified that she would lose control of her dog team and crash her sled, or be attacked by a polar bear, or get lost on the tundra. Above all, she worried that, unlike the other, gutsier people alongside her, she wasn’t cut out for life on the frontier. But no matter how out of place she felt, one thing was clear: she was hooked on the North. On the brink of adulthood, Braverman was determined to prove that her fears did not define her—and so she resolved to embrace the wilderness and make it her own.


Assured, honest, and lyrical, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube paints a powerful portrait of self-reliance in the face of extraordinary circumstance. Braverman endures physical exhaustion, survives being buried alive in an ice cave, and drives her dogs through a whiteout blizzard to escape crooked police. Through it all, she grapples with love and violence—navigating a grievous relationship with a fellow musher, and adapting to the expectations of her Norwegian neighbors—as she negotiates the complex demands of being a young woman in a man’s land.


Weaving fast-paced adventure writing and ethnographic journalism with elegantly wrought reflections on identity, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube captures the triumphs and the perils of Braverman’s journey to self-discovery and independence in a landscape that is as beautiful as it is unforgiving.

]]> 274 Blair Braverman Kat 0 to-read 3.76 2016 Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North
author: Blair Braverman
name: Kat
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2016
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date added: 2025/01/12
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]]> Dictee 90894 Dictee is the best-known work of the versatile and important Korean American artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. A classic work of autobiography that transcends the self, Dictee is the story of several women: the Korean revolutionary Yu Guan Soon, Joan of Arc, Demeter and Persephone, Cha's mother Hyung Soon Huo (a Korean born in Manchuria to first-generation Korean exiles), and Cha herself. The elements that unite these women are suffering and the transcendence of suffering. The book is divided into nine parts structured around the Greek Muses. Cha deploys a variety of texts, documents, images, and forms of address and inquiry to explore issues of dislocation and the fragmentation of memory. The result is a work of power, complexity, and enduring beauty.]]> 179 Theresa Hak Kyung Cha 0520231120 Kat 0 currently-reading 4.05 1982 Dictee
author: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
name: Kat
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1982
rating: 0
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]]> Between Two Strangers 62047982 A woman receives a bewildering inheritance that may have something to do with her past in this twisty and addictive psychological thriller from the New York Times bestselling author Entertainment Weekly calls “impossible to outwit.�

Struggling artist Skyler Moore is flabbergasted when she receives a suspicious phone call from a lawyer she’s never met regarding a “private matter.� As soon as she arrives at the law firm’s office, she learns she’s the recipient of a large inheritance, a life-changing sum that will allow her to realize her long-held dream of becoming a mother. But who was her benefactor, Christopher Whaley? The late man’s name means nothing to Skyler, and she has no idea why he would leave her such an enormous bequest.

Looking into his background, Skyler finally realizes they met once at a hotel bar and shared a one-night stand. But they never exchanged numbers, or even last names, and that was over a decade ago. She wonders if the inheritance is meant to be a message of some kind, but can’t imagine what it might be.

Chris� family is confused and suspicious too, and his widow accuses Skyler of having an affair with her late husband, then threatens revenge. In order to protect herself, Skyler has to understand the reason the money was left to her. But as she digs for the truth, it becomes clear that Chris Whaley might have taken other secrets to the grave, ones that could have terrifying consequences for her . . .]]> 304 Kate White 0063247364 Kat 4 3.65 2023 Between Two Strangers
author: Kate White
name: Kat
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
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]]> Gone Again 60126972
On her fortieth birthday, Celia Guest has reason to celebrate. She has a loving marriage, a beautiful Connecticut home, and treasured friends. Celia has everything she’s ever wanted. But among the cards and well-wishes, she discovers a disturbing note: You don’t deserve any of this.

Who could be so cruel, so resentful, so…knowing? Then, in the early morning hours, Celia vanishes without a trace.

As suspicions and concerns rise among Celia’s friends, her sister Genevieve, with whom she shares a fractured and troubling bond, starts to piece together a shattered life that Celia fled from once before. As a foundation of lies begins to crumble, a terrifying childhood secret Celia thought was dead and buried comes to light.

And this time, there’s no getting away from the truth.]]> 239 Minka Kent Kat 0 3.92 2023 Gone Again
author: Minka Kent
name: Kat
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/11
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]]> The Truth Hurts 48613336 In this twisty, compelling thriller, a young woman quickly embarks on what she thinks is the relationship and love of a lifetime, and she’s thrilled when her new husband insists they follow one rule: they don’t talk about the past, but it’s a rule that has dangerous consequences—perfect for fans of A Simple Favor and The Kiss Quotient.

Is her new husband hiding something?

Caught up in a whirlwind romance that starts in sunny Ibiza and leads to the cool corridors of a luxurious English country estate, Poppy barely has time to catch her breath, let alone seriously question if all this is too good to be true. Drew is enamored, devoted, and, okay, a little mysterious—but that's part of the thrill. What's the harm in letting his past remain private?

Maybe he's not the only one�

Fortunately, Drew never seems to wonder why his young wife has so readily agreed to their unusual pact to live only in the here and now and not probe their personal histories. Perhaps he assumes, as others do, that she is simply swept up in the intoxication of infatuation and sudden wealth. What's the harm in letting them believe that?

How far will they go to keep the past buried?

Isolated in Drew's sprawling mansion, Poppy starts to have time to doubt the man she's married, to wonder what in his past might be so terrible that it can't be spoken of, to imagine what harm he might be capable of. She doesn't want this dream to shatter. But Poppy may soon be forced to confront the dark truth that there are sins far more dangerous than the sin of omission�]]> 368 Rebecca Reid 0062997580 Kat 0 3.51 2019 The Truth Hurts
author: Rebecca Reid
name: Kat
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Plot (The Book Series, #1)]]> 56048747 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
The Tonight Show Summer Reads Winner
A New York Times Notable Book of 2021
"Insanely readable." —Stephen King
Hailed as "breathtakingly suspenseful," Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot is a propulsive read about a story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it.

Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he’s teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what’s left of his self-respect; he hasn’t written—let alone published—anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn’t need Jake’s help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then . . . he hears the plot.

Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker’s first but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that—a story that absolutely needs to be told.

In a few short years, all of Evan Parker’s predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an e-mail arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says.

As Jake struggles to understand his antagonist and hide the truth from his readers and his publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student, and what he discovers both amazes and terrifies him. Who was Evan Parker, and how did he get the idea for his “sure thing� of a novel? What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?]]> 317 Jean Hanff Korelitz Kat 5 4.06 2021 The Plot (The Book Series, #1)
author: Jean Hanff Korelitz
name: Kat
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
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]]> A Killing Cold 211004079 A woman invited to her wealthy fiance’s family retreat realizes they are hiding a terrible secret—and that she’s been there before, by the bestselling author of What Lies in the Woods.

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

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

I’ve been here before.
Theo has almost no recollection of her earliest years, but now she begins to piece together the fragments of her memories. Someone here has a shocking secret that they will do anything to keep hidden, and Theo is in terrible danger. Because the Daltons do not lose, and discovering what happened at Idlewood may cost Theo everything.]]> 291 Kate Alice Marshall 1250343054 Kat 0 to-read 3.78 2025 A Killing Cold
author: Kate Alice Marshall
name: Kat
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/08
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]]> The Fiancée 55507008 The New York Times bestselling author returns with an unsettling but riveting psychological thriller about a captivating woman who joins a family and threatens to upend their picture-perfect lives.

They had everything they needed for a perfect family vacation: close-knit relatives, a bucolic setting . . . and a murderer in their midst?

Summer’s looking forward to a break from hustling for acting work in Manhattan when she, her husband Gabe, and Gabe’s nine-year-old son arrive at the annual family get-together at her in-laws� sprawling estate. On the agenda are leisurely gourmet meals, tennis matches, and plenty of relaxation by the pool.

But this year, Gabe’s brother Nick has invited his new flame Hannah, whom Summer immediately recognizes from a few years before. Oddly, her brother-in-law’s girlfriend claims not to know her. Yet she charms the other family members, and after Nick announces that he’s proposed to Hannah, Summer doesn’t have much choice but to grin and bear it.

Then the reunion is rocked by tragedy when a family member is found dead. Though the doctors attribute the loss to natural causes, a grieving Summer fears that the too-good-to-be-true Hannah is involved, even as Gabe dismisses her suspicions.

How far will Summer go to expose the truth? As she investigates just what Nick’s fiancée might have done to keep her perfect image intact, she begins to fear that the first death might only be the beginning . . .]]> 357 Kate White 0062945416 Kat 5 3.56 2021 The Fiancée
author: Kate White
name: Kat
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/07
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]]> You Should Have Told Me 60314811
A devoted father. A loving partner. A suspect for murder...


When Janie's boyfriend Max doesn't come home one night, she's doesn't know what to do. Why would he leave her and their baby daughter, with no explanation?

Then the police turn up, asking questions about the body of a woman found outside a local bar.

They want to know where Max was last night. Where Max is now - but Janie has no idea.

They want answers, but Janie only has questions.

She loves Max more than anything. But did she ever really know him at all?

And if he's capable of disappearing, could he be capable of murder too?

Praise for Leah Konen:

'Intense, unpredictable and completely addictive' T.M. Logan

'The twists keep on coming right up to the final page. I read it in one sitting' Sarah Pinborough

'One White Lie hooked me from the start. This book has everything - engaging characters, a unique story, and an ending that will blow you away' Samantha Downing]]> 352 Leah Konen 0593539958 Kat 0 3.55 2023 You Should Have Told Me
author: Leah Konen
name: Kat
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/07
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]]> Under My Skin 50893851 What if the nightmares are actually memories?

It's been a year since Poppy's husband, Jack, was brutally murdered during his morning run through Manhattan's Riverside Park. In the immediate aftermath, Poppy spiraled into an oblivion of grief, disappearing for several days only to turn up ragged and confused wearing a tight red dress she didn't recognize. What happened to Poppy during those lost days? And more importantly, what happened to Jack?

The case was never solved, and Poppy has finally begun to move on. But those lost days have never stopped haunting her. Poppy starts having nightmares and blackouts--there are periods of time she can't remember, and she's unable to tell the difference between what is real and what she's imagining. When she begins to sense that someone is following her, Poppy is plunged into a game of cat and mouse, determined to unravel the mystery around her husband's death. But can she handle the truth about what really happened?]]> 369 Lisa Unger Kat 5 3.72 2018 Under My Skin
author: Lisa Unger
name: Kat
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love]]> 35249663 Автор делится собственным опытом и техниками, используемыми в работе с самыми известными компаниями в области высоких технологий. Вы узнаете, как ведущие мировые корпорации создают свои лучшие продукты и каким образом можно использовать их опыт.
Книга помогает усвоить главное: как бы хороша ни была ваша команда разработчиков - это не имеет значения, если ей не дают работать над тем, что достойно разработки. Совсем недостаточно просто хорошо трудиться, проектируя продукт. Важно убедиться в том, что этот продукт полезен, удобен в использовании, и его можно воплотить в жизнь.
Книга адресована руководителям и собственникам компаний, ведущим инженерам и дизайнерам, разработчикам программных продуктов - всем, кто принимает участие в процессе управления продуктом и создания того, в чем люди действительно будут нуждаться.
Благодаря информации, собранной в книге, менеджеры по маркетингу продукта и руководители проектов различных отделов производственной организации научатся правильно определять, что именно хотят получить покупатели.
Издание станет полезным для команд разработчиков, занимающихся запуском новых проектов. Методы, представленные в книге, позволят вам создавать абсолютно новые продукты-хиты или совершенствовать уже существующие товары.]]> 349 Marty Cagan 1119387507 Kat 0 to-read 4.22 2008 Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love
author: Marty Cagan
name: Kat
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/03
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]]> <![CDATA[Survival of the Thickest: Essays]]> 52764796 From the stand-up comedian, actress, and host beloved for her cheeky swagger, unique voice, and unapologetic frankness comes a book of comedic essays for fans of Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me by Mindy Kaling and We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union.

If you’ve watched television or movies in the past year, you’ve seen Michelle Buteau. With scene-stealing roles in Always Be My Maybe, First Wives Club, Someone Great, Russian Doll, and Tales of the City; a reality TV show and breakthrough stand-up specials, including her headlining show Welcome to Buteaupia on Netflix, and two podcasts (Late Night Whenever and Adulting), Michelle’s star is on the rise. You’d be forgiven for thinking the road to success—or adulthood or financial stability or self-acceptance or marriage or motherhood—has been easy; but you’d be wrong.

Now, in Survival of the Thickest, Michelle reflects on growing up Caribbean, Catholic, and thick in New Jersey, going to college in Miami (where everyone smells like pineapple), her many friendship and dating disasters, working as a newsroom editor during 9/11, getting started in standup opening for male strippers, marrying into her husband’s Dutch family, IVF and surrogacy, motherhood, chosen family, and what it feels like to have a full heart, tight jeans, and stardom finally in her grasp.

Jersey strong --
Jersey wrong --
Unlikely rom-com --
Ya-Ya sistah hood of the traveling tank top --
Friendship --
Game of heauxs --
9/11 chronicles --
Fisher-Price my first road gig --
Survival of the thickest --
My holland tunnel --
Say yes to the stress --
Tooth be told --
IVF --
Surrogacy --
Motherhood --
Take me to church --
A light load]]> 320 Michelle Buteau 1982122587 Kat 4 4.03 2020 Survival of the Thickest: Essays
author: Michelle Buteau
name: Kat
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/01/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity]]> 615570 The Artist’s Way is the seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today—or perhaps even more so—than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work. In a new introduction to the book, Julia Cameron reflects upon the impact of The Artist’s Way and describes the work she has done during the last decade and the new insights into the creative process that she has gained. Updated and expanded, this anniversary edition reframes The Artist’s Way for a new century.]]> 237 Julia Cameron 1585421464 Kat 5 currently-reading 3.93 2002 The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
author: Julia Cameron
name: Kat
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/05
date added: 2025/01/02
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]]> Keep Your Friends Close 198135616
Isolated and embroiled in a custody battle, Mary needs a friend more than ever. When she meets the charming and enigmatic Willa at a Brooklyn playground, the women’s connection feels fated. Finally, she has someone on her side. During a margarita-fueled moms� night out, though, Mary shares her darkest secret about her ex, George, and Willa simply disappears. No calls, no texts, nothing.

Two months later, Mary’s divorce is almost finalized, and she’s trying to build a new life for her son in upstate New York. On her first day in town, she runs into Willa…only Willa’s name is Annie now, and she’s got an entirely new family in tow. When George turns up dead and Mary becomes the prime suspect, she has no choice but to turn to her only friend in Willa.

As coincidences—and evidence—pile up, Mary begins to wonder whether Willa had something to do with George’s death.Is the other woman a friend or a foe, a confidante or just a con? Mary must uncover the truth before she loses everything.]]> 366 Leah Konen 0593544722 Kat 5 3.59 2024 Keep Your Friends Close
author: Leah Konen
name: Kat
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/02
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]]> Margo's Got Money Troubles 199534613
“[An] enormously entertaining and lovable book.� —Nick Hornby, New York Times Book Review

A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman’s attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world—from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen.

As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.

Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?

Blisteringly funny and filled with sharp insight, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine who’s struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. It’s a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off.

“A wholly original novel. . . . Thorpe is both poetic and profound in the way she brings her remarkable story to an end.� —The Associated Press]]> 304 Rufi Thorpe 0063356589 Kat 0 currently-reading 3.86 2024 Margo's Got Money Troubles
author: Rufi Thorpe
name: Kat
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Expiration Dates 176443178
From the New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years and One Italian Summer comes the romance that will define a generation.

Daphne Bell believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man, she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it—the exact amount of time they will be together. The papers told her she’d spend three days with Martin in Paris; five weeks with Noah in San Francisco; and three months with Hugo, her ex-boyfriend turned best friend. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over twenty years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration. Finally, the night of a blind date at her favorite Los Angeles restaurant, there’s only a name: Jake.

But as Jake and Daphne’s story unfolds, Daphne finds herself doubting the paper’s prediction, and wrestling with what it means to be both committed and truthful. Because Daphne knows things Jake doesn’t, information that—if he found out—would break his heart.

Told with her signature warmth and insight into matters of the heart, Rebecca Serle has finally set her sights on romantic love. The result is a gripping, emotional, passionate, and (yes) heartbreaking novel about what it means to be single, what it means to find love, and ultimately how we define each of them for ourselves. Expiration Dates is the one fans have been waiting for.]]> 272 Rebecca Serle 1982166827 Kat 4 3.58 2024 Expiration Dates
author: Rebecca Serle
name: Kat
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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]]> <![CDATA[When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times]]> 687278
� Using painful emotions to cultivate wisdom, compassion, and courage
� Communicating so as to encourage others to open up rather than shut down
� Practices for reversing habitual patterns
� Methods for working with chaotic situations
� Ways for creating effective social action]]> 148 Pema Chödrön 1570623449 Kat 0 currently-reading 4.26 1996 When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
author: Pema Chödrön
name: Kat
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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]]> Just for the Summer 195834342
Emma hadn't planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too good of an opportunity to pass up, especially when they get to rent an adorable cottage on a private island on Lake Minnetonka.

It's supposed to be a quick fling, just for the summer. But when Emma's toxic mother shows up and Justin has to assume guardianship of his three siblings, they're suddenly navigating a lot more than they expected--including catching real feelings for each other. What if this time Fate has actually brought the perfect pair together?]]> 400 Abby Jimenez Kat 0 to-read 4.47 2024 Just for the Summer
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Kat
average rating: 4.47
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]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Kat 0 to-read 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Kat
average rating: 4.11
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]]> Animal Farm 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 Kat 0 currently-reading 4.07 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: Kat
average rating: 4.07
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]]> <![CDATA[Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-Outs, and Triggers]]> 34885438 196 Faith G. Harper 1621064972 Kat 0 3.27 2017 Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-Outs, and Triggers
author: Faith G. Harper
name: Kat
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> The Mall 40032339
The year is 1991. Scrunchies, mixtapes and 90210 are, like, totally fresh. Cassie Worthy is psyched to spend the summer after graduation working at the Parkway Center Mall. In six weeks, she and her boyfriend head off to college in NYC to fulfill The Plan: higher education and happily ever after.

But you know what they say about the best laid plans...

Set entirely in a classic “monument to consumerism,� the novel follows Cassie as she finds friendship, love, and ultimately herself, in the most unexpected of places. Megan McCafferty, beloved New York Times bestselling author of the Jessica Darling series, takes readers on an epic trip back in time to The Mall.]]> 320 Megan McCafferty 1250209951 Kat 0 3.56 2020 The Mall
author: Megan McCafferty
name: Kat
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/29
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]]> Splinters 155685405
Leslie Jamison has become one of our most beloved contemporary voices, a scribe of the real, the true, the complex. She has been compared to Joan Didion and Susan Sontag, acclaimed for her powerful thinking, deep feeling, and electric prose. But while Jamison has never shied away from challenging material—scouring her own psyche and digging into our most unanswerable questions across four books� Splinters enters a new realm.

In her first memoir, Jamison turns her unrivaled powers of perception on some of the most intimate relationships of her her consuming love for her young daughter, a ruptured marriage once swollen with hope, and the shaping legacy of her own parents� complicated bond. In examining what it means for a woman to be many things at once—a mother, an artist, a teacher, a lover—Jamison places the magical and the mundane side by side in surprising ways: pumping breastmilk in a shared university office, driving the open highway in the throes of new love, growing a tender second skin of consciousness as she watches her daughter come alive to the world. The result is a work of nonfiction like no other, an almost impossibly deep reckoning with the muchness of life and art, and a book that grieves the departure of one love even as it celebrates the arrival of another.

How do we move forward into joy when we are haunted by loss? How do we claim hope alongside the harm we’ve caused? A memoir for which the very term tour de force seems to have been coined, Splinters plumbs these and other pressing questions with writing that is revelatory to the last page. Jamison has delivered a book with the linguistic daring and emotional acuity that made The Empathy Exams and The Recovering instant classics, even as she reaches new depths of understanding, piercing the reader to the core. A master of nonfiction, she evinces once again her ability to “stitch together the intellectual and the emotional with the finesse of a crackerjack surgeon� (NPR).]]> 272 Leslie Jamison 0316374881 Kat 0 to-read 3.79 2024 Splinters
author: Leslie Jamison
name: Kat
average rating: 3.79
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]]> Good Material 96177629
Now he is. . .

Without a home

Waiting for his stand-up career to take off

Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking

Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story�

In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.]]> 345 Dolly Alderton 0241523672 Kat 0 to-read 3.85 2023 Good Material
author: Dolly Alderton
name: Kat
average rating: 3.85
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]]> <![CDATA[Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI]]> 193388249
Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. One of her relatives was shot. Another was poisoned. And this was just the beginning, as more and more Osage were dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered.

As the death toll rose, the newly created FBI took up the case, and the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent who infiltrated the region, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.]]> 338 David Grann 0593470834 Kat 0 to-read 4.12 2017 Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
author: David Grann
name: Kat
average rating: 4.12
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]]> The Stillwater Girls 40258215 The Thinnest Air.

Ignorant of civilization and cautioned against its evils, nineteen-year-old Wren and her two sisters, Sage and Evie, were raised in off-the-grid isolation in a primitive cabin in upstate New York. When the youngest grows gravely ill, their mother leaves with the child to get help from a nearby town. And they never return.

As months pass, hope vanishes. Supplies are low. Livestock are dying. A brutal winter is bearing down. Then comes the stranger. He claims to be looking for the girls� mother, and he’s not leaving without them.

To escape, Wren and her sister must break the rule they’ve grown up with: never go beyond the forest.

Past the thicket of dread, they come upon a house on the other side of the pines. This is where Wren and Sage must confront something more chilling than the unknowable. They’ll discover what’s been hidden from them, what they’re running from, and the secrets that have left them in the dark their entire lives.]]> 273 Minka Kent 1542090105 Kat 0 4.14 2019 The Stillwater Girls
author: Minka Kent
name: Kat
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> After Dark 62929637
Afton Teachout has been an outcast in her small town for twenty years—ever since she was accused of murdering her mother’s lover in a blackout fit of rage. That is, if one believes the malicious lies.

Living with her grandmother, working a hotel night shift, and relying on pills to get a day’s sleep, Afton is due a little luck. It comes in the form of an unexpected financial windfall. With her newfound wealth, Afton sets a secret plan in motion to help her only friend, Sydney, flee a toxic husband. But the best intentions soon spin out of control.

Afton is getting unsettling calls from a restricted number, and someone has been lingering outside her home. As Sydney’s troubled marriage comes into focus, so does Afton’s past. Her second chance—for herself and for Sydney—isn’t what she dreamed of at all. In fact, it’s becoming a nightmare.]]> 284 Minka Kent 1662511418 Kat 0 3.94 2023 After Dark
author: Minka Kent
name: Kat
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> Sandwich 200028726 From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.]]> 240 Catherine Newman 0063345161 Kat 0 to-read 3.54 2024 Sandwich
author: Catherine Newman
name: Kat
average rating: 3.54
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly from the Accidental Icon]]> 198970297
When Lyn Slater started her fashion blog, Accidental Icon, at age sixty-one, she discovered that followers were flocking to her account for more than just her A-list style. As Lyn flaunted gray hair, wrinkles, and a megadose of self-acceptance, they found in her an alternative model of older someone who defied the stereotypes, refused to become invisible, and showed that all women have the opportunity to be relevant and take major risks at any stage of their life. Youth is not the only time we can be experimental.

How to Be Old tells the ten-year story of Lyn’s sixties, the sometimes-glamorous, sometimes-turbulent decade of Accidental Icon. This memoir is about the hopeful and future-oriented process of reinvention. It shows readers that while you can’t control everything, what you can control is the way you think about your age and the creative ways you respond to the changes in your mind and body as they happen. Rather than trying to meet standards of youth and beauty as a measure of successful aging, Lyn promotes a more inclusive and empowering standard to judge our older selves by.

In this paradigm-shifting memoir, Lyn exemplifies that even with its unique challenges, being old is just like any new beginning in your life and can be the best and most invigorating of all of life’s phases, full of rebellion and reinvention, connection and creativity.]]> 272 Lyn Slater 0593471792 Kat 0 to-read 3.34 How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly from the Accidental Icon
author: Lyn Slater
name: Kat
average rating: 3.34
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]]> The Heiress 177478086
But to everyone’s surprise, Cam wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past.

Ten years later, Camden is a McTavish in name only, but a summons in the wake of his uncle’s death brings him and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but coming home reminds Cam why he was so quick to leave in the first place.

Jules, however, has other ideas, and the more she learns about Cam’s estranged family—and the twisted secrets they keep—the more determined she is for her husband to claim everything Ruby once intended for him to have.

But Ruby’s plans were always more complicated than they appeared. As Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what’s written in a will—and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.]]> 281 Rachel Hawkins 1250280044 Kat 0 4.02 2024 The Heiress
author: Rachel Hawkins
name: Kat
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve]]> 195791316 256 Drew Afualo 0374614059 Kat 5 4.33 2024 Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve
author: Drew Afualo
name: Kat
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[You Deserve This Sh!t: Get Unstuck, Find Your Path, and Become the Best Version of Yourself]]> 58027656
In this authentic self-help book, Jordan Tarver, introspective author and world traveler, guides you on a journey of self-discovery. A near-death experience in 2013 and a soul-searching solo backpacking trip taught Jordan how to live. Since then, he's dedicated himself to living a life infused with meaning and empowering others to do the same.

He uses inspiring stories, workable tactics, understandable action steps, and simple language that help you:

� Get unstuck

� Find your path

� Become the best version of yourself

As you progress through its pages, you’ll learn how to create positive change in your life NOW to live the life of your dreams FOREVER.

By the end of You Deserve This Sh!t, you’ll have a newfound awareness of yourself and the world around you, the courage to always go outside your comfort zone, and the passion for living an intentional life. You will feel empowered to make choices that align with your goals and feel deserving of the exact life you want to live.

Let your journey begin. This book is your nudge.

◆◆�

BONUS: Enjoy free content at the end of the book to continue your journey of becoming the best version of yourself.]]> 230 Jordan Tarver Kat 0 currently-reading 3.54 You Deserve This Sh!t: Get Unstuck, Find Your Path, and Become the Best Version of Yourself
author: Jordan Tarver
name: Kat
average rating: 3.54
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]]> <![CDATA[Imaginary Strangers (Dangerous Strangers, #1)]]> 200033465 A woman must keep her family―and her terrifying secrets―safe in a twisting thriller by Washington Post and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Minka Kent.

Camille Prescott has it all. A doting husband, two children, a charming home in a seaside enclave, and a beautiful, fixed smile that exudes normalcy. But behind her polished mask lurks a much different Camille―one with a padlocked vault of secrets. Raised by a vindictive and psychotic woman, Camille has gone to great lengths to bury her past and for good reason: if her mother ever finds her, she will kill her.

But nothing can prepare Camille for the day her six-year-old daughter, Georgie, starts showing signs of unsettlingly familiar behavior, including an imaginary new friend who casts a disturbing influence on everything the little girl says and does. Worse than that, Georgie’s imaginary friend knows things about Camille’s childhood, things Camille has never told a soul. Is it a coincidence or is Georgie’s imaginary friend not so fictional after all?

As the family’s stability cracks, so does Camille’s facade, because the past isn’t just coming for her and everyone she loves―it’s already here.]]> 269 Minka Kent 1662511655 Kat 0 4.07 2024 Imaginary Strangers (Dangerous Strangers, #1)
author: Minka Kent
name: Kat
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Ego Is the Enemy 27036528
Many of us insist the main impediment to a full, successful life is the outside world. In fact, the most common enemy lies within: our ego. Early in our careers, it impedes learning and the cultivation of talent. With success, it can blind us to our faults and sow future problems. In failure, it magnifies each blow and makes recovery more difficult. At every stage, ego holds us back.

The Ego is the Enemy draws on a vast array of stories and examples, from literature to philosophy to history. We meet fascinating figures like Howard Hughes, Katharine Graham, Bill Belichick, and Eleanor Roosevelt, all of whom reached the highest levels of power and success by conquering their own egos. Their strategies and tactics can be ours as well.

But why should we bother fighting ego in an era that glorifies social media, reality TV, and other forms of shameless self-promotion? Armed with the lessons in this book, as Holiday writes, “you will be less invested in the story you tell about your own specialness, and as a result, you will be liberated to accomplish the world-changing work you’ve set out to achieve.”]]> 226 Ryan Holiday 1591847818 Kat 4 4.12 2016 Ego Is the Enemy
author: Ryan Holiday
name: Kat
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> A Very Bad Thing 202991908 From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes a taut thriller about one author at the pinnacle of her career, whose past threatens to destroy everything she has—and everyone she knows.

A great writer knows when to deliver a juicy plot twist. But for one author, the biggest twist of all is her own murder.

With a number of hit titles and a highly anticipated movie tie-in, celebrated novelist Columbia Jones is at the top of her game. Fans around the world adore her. But on the final night of her latest book tour, one face in the crowd makes the author collapse. And by the next morning, she’s lying dead in a pool of blood.

Columbia’s death shocks the world and leaves Darian, her daughter and publicist, reeling. The police have nothing to go on—at first. But then details emerge, pointing to the author’s illicit past. Turns out many people had motive to kill Columbia. And with a hungry reporter and frustrated cop on the trail, her secrets won’t stay buried long. But how many lives will they shatter as the truth comes out?]]> 446 J.T. Ellison 1662520328 Kat 4 4.16 2024 A Very Bad Thing
author: J.T. Ellison
name: Kat
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> The Alchemy Within: Vignettes 215351976 “Jamie came out of nowhere to dominate social media feeds with her incredible wisdom.� —Fǰ

“I’ve fallen in love with Jamie’s words. She is a real light in this world.� —Lucy Hale, Actress

“Jamie Varon's words will change your life.� —Amie McNee, Author @inspiredtowrite

“Jamie takes a sharp, incisive look at the industries that are constantly telling us to do more, be more, and keep striving, pushing, and hustling.� ‱DZܲ

This is a book that inspires deep, healing work. This is a book that, if you take the words seriously, you can transcend your self-doubt and overcome self-sabotage. This is a book that will completely alter your patterns, your defense mechanisms, and your self-destructive habits.

If you let it.

Each vignette will draw you closer to yourself, and change the way you think. Self-awareness is the most valuable insight you can offer yourself. When you avoid yourself, you don’t live fully. When you don’t think of your future self, you are ultimately doomed to create the same patterns over and over.

You can alchemize an entirely new reality from within. Go within. Every single thing you want to change in your life starts from within.

The alchemy—the magic, the shifts, the new—it all starts with the courage to face yourself, your shadows, and come out the other side.

�The Alchemy Within is completely transformative. Jamie’s words are powerful and plant seeds that I can water throughout the day to feel more centered, aligned, and present.� —Monique Coleman, Actress]]> 189 Jamie Varon Kat 0 currently-reading 4.55 The Alchemy Within: Vignettes
author: Jamie Varon
name: Kat
average rating: 4.55
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Pivot Year 139822407 This is the year you change your life.

If you’re in a pivot period—if you’re still bridging the space between where you are and where you want to be—remember that the person you’re becoming is already within you. The journey is convincing your mind to act consistently on what your heart already knows it wants to do.

The Pivot Year is a book of 365 daily meditations on finding the courage to become who you’ve always wanted to be, from the internationally bestselling author of 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think, The Mountain Is You, and more.]]> 372 Brianna Wiest Kat 0 4.49 2023 The Pivot Year
author: Brianna Wiest
name: Kat
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/25
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]]> My Murder 62952152 What if the murder you had to solve was your own?

Lou is a happily married mother of an adorable toddler. She's also the victim of a local serial killer. Recently brought back to life and returned to her grieving family by a government project, she is grateful for this second chance. But as the new Lou re-adapts to her old routines, and as she bonds with other female victims, she realizes that disturbing questions remain about what exactly preceded her death and how much she can really trust those around her.

Now it's not enough to care for her child, love her husband, and work the job she's always enjoyed--she must also figure out the circumstances of her death. Darkly comic, tautly paced, and full of surprises, My Murder is a devour-in-one-sitting, clever twist on the classic thriller.]]> 304 Katie Williams 0593543769 Kat 0 to-read 3.61 2023 My Murder
author: Katie Williams
name: Kat
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dark Side of the Light Chasers: Reclaiming Your Power, Creativity, Brilliance, and Dreams]]> 774565 As threatening as shadow work may seem, it is often very effective in creating transformation. Ford's step-by-step guidebook is modeled on a highly successful course she developed about embracing the shadow. Ultimately, she helps readers illuminate the gifts and strengths that lie within the shadows. Although this works sound vague, clouded in dark metaphors, Ford manages to make it clear and specific. She has the writing gifts of a successful seminar leader--inspirational, trustworthy, and able to convey murky material with grace and ease. --Gail Hudson

]]> 208 Debbie Ford 1402828918 Kat 4 4.10 1998 The Dark Side of the Light Chasers: Reclaiming Your Power, Creativity, Brilliance, and Dreams
author: Debbie Ford
name: Kat
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/24
date added: 2024/12/24
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Do Magic That Works: The Ultimate Technique for Making Things Happen]]> 123226888 works.

Allow me to teach you a simple, magical way to change your day-to-day experience of the world.
A way to affect your life for the better, moment by moment.
A way to get things to go your way.
A ridiculously simple way to make things happen.

I call it ‘The Ultimate Technique�.

Are you looking for better finances, great relationships, resolution of old problems, luck and good fortune, fun, adventure or just a generally happier experience of life? There is no reason why these good things cannot be yours. All that is needed is a little effort to nudge things in the direction you want them to go. This is where The Ultimate Technique come in. It is the easiest and most effective way I know to shift direction, get the magic working and cause massive changes as a result.

This is the sixth book I’ve written on the subject of using magic to create a better life. But this magic is not witchcraft. It does not involve energies or candles or raising spirits. It is simply a way of doing things a little differently. And in a way that leads to an exceptionally fun and effortless life.

I’ve been working with magic for over ten years and I like to think I’ve become pretty good at it. But just occasionally, a flash of insight will still come along and stop me in my tracks. I’ll slap my forehead and wonder, ‘why didn’t I think of that before?�

The Ultimate Technique is the result of one of those insights.

There is a sense of ‘obviousness� about The Ultimate Technique. You may find yourself thinking, ‘Of course it works this way!� or even wondering why you didn’t think of it yourself. The technique can be learnt quickly and started instantly. You could begin using it before you’ve even finished reading the book.

This is an advanced technique, but in many ways, it’s just an extension of what I have taught before. It is a direct development of my 'Magic Words' technique from the book, Magic Words and How to Use Them. Those familiar with my work should find it easy. But even those new to my work should be able to get the hang of it. Anyone can do it, and results tend to come rapidly.

But why the ‘ultimate� technique?

And at some point on this spiritual path, often only after we’ve created all that we could ever want, we get to the stage of no longer needing to change the outside world.

We start to realise we never needed to change the outside world. At this point, the need for techniques, tools and methods for making things better drops away.

So there’s a lot more to this short book than a manifestation technique for changing our physical world. There are also tantalising glimpses of what lies beneath this physical world, to what’s really here, what’s really true.

This is where the Law of Attraction meets nonduality. At the juncture of this place, I offer this, my ultimate technique for making things happen.

I think you’re going to love it.]]> 155 GeneVieve Davis Kat 0 4.22 How to Do Magic That Works: The Ultimate Technique for Making Things Happen
author: GeneVieve Davis
name: Kat
average rating: 4.22
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2024/12/23
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]]> <![CDATA[It Had to Be You (Under Suspicion, #8)]]> 196018873 In the latest thrilling entry in the bestselling Under Suspicion series by Queen of Suspense Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke, television producer Laurie Moran investigates the unsolved murder of a beloved couple celebrating the college graduations of their successful twin sons.

The two identical brothers seemed perfect in every way—handsome, intelligent, popular—until a shocking summer night when one brother killed his parents in cold blood while the other brother had an iron-clad alibi. But which twin was where during the murders? And is it possible the two of them planned the perfect crime together?

Years later, the twins are long estranged, each of them claiming to be convinced that the other is responsible for the death of their parents. Married now with children of their own, they may finally be ready to clear one name at the expense of the other and turn to Laurie Moran and her team to reinvestigate their parents� murder. But as the Under Suspicion crew gets closer to the truth, the danger that was assumed to be left in the past finds its way into the present.

Featuring chilling suspense, a cast of characters whom loyal readers have come to love, and a final jaw-dropping twist, It Had to Be You is not to be missed.]]> 255 Mary Higgins Clark 1982132574 Kat 0 3.95 2024 It Had to Be You (Under Suspicion, #8)
author: Mary Higgins Clark
name: Kat
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2024/12/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Angel's Tip (Ellie Hatcher, #2)]]> 2777577 Angel’s Tip is a riveting read that snaps with the beat of New York�.A knuckle-biting journey that’ll keep you turning pages until the very end.�
—Faye Kellerman, bestselling author of the Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus novels

“Alafair Burke has created a winning heroine in Ellie Hatcher, someone to root for.�
—Tami Hoag, bestselling author of Down the Darkest Road

“Complex plotting, multi-layered characters, a creepy serial killer—in Angel’s Tip, Burke has once again proven herself a terrific storyteller.�
—Sandra Brown, bestselling author of Lethal

Acclaimed thriller writer Alafair Burke delves into the underworld of the Manhattan nightclub scene in Angel’s Tip. Burke is the daughter of crime fiction superstar James Lee Burke, creator of Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux, prompting the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to proclaim that “this fast-paced-but-human thriller proves that writing talent is genetic.� A superb crime novel featuring NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher (“a strong female protagonist in the tradition of Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski and Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone� �Boston Globe), Angel’s Tip follows Ellie’s investigation into the murder of a young college student, quite possibly by a member of New York’s young moneyed elite, and fans of Lisa Gardner, Karin Slaughter, Harlan Coben, and Sue Grafton will most definitely want to trail along.
]]> 352 Alafair Burke 0061561029 Kat 0 3.80 2008 Angel's Tip (Ellie Hatcher, #2)
author: Alafair Burke
name: Kat
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/22
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]]> Beautiful Ugly 211004123 The million-copy bestselling Queen of Twists Alice Feeney returns with a gripping and deliciously dark thriller about marriage. . .
. . . and revenge.

Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.

Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared.

A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible � a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.

Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.]]> 306 Alice Feeney 125033778X Kat 5 3.63 2025 Beautiful Ugly
author: Alice Feeney
name: Kat
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/21
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]]> What I Never Told You 58109049
When Helen Whitmore's stepson brings home a new girlfriend one evening, her already imperfect family begins to tip towards breaking point. Diana is smart, beautiful, feisty and clearly out to cause trouble.

Then an old photograph resurfaces that threatens to uncover a long-buried secret, one that Helen has taken great care to keep hidden in the past. Only one person could have that photograph � and she is dead.

Helen immediately suspects that Diana is connected somehow, but before she can confront her, Diana is found dead and the entire family has motive.

An addictive, page-turning thriller perfect for Lisa Jewell, BA Paris and Louise Candlish.]]> 352 Dawn Goodwin Kat 0 3.80 2021 What I Never Told You
author: Dawn Goodwin
name: Kat
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/21
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]]> <![CDATA[Piece of My Heart (Under Suspicion, #7)]]> 50892230 In the latest thrilling collaboration from #1 New York Times bestselling author and “Queen of Suspense� Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke, television producer Laurie Moran must solve the kidnapping of her fiancée’s nephew—just days before her wedding.

Television producer Laurie Moran and her fiancée, Alex Buckley, the former host of her investigative television show, are just days away from their mid-summer wedding, when things take a dark turn. Alex’s seven-year-old nephew, Johnny, vanishes from the beach. A search party begins and witnesses recall Johnny playing in the water and collecting shells behind the beach shack, but no one remembers seeing him after the morning. As the sun sets, Johnny’s skim board washes up to shore, and everyone realizes that he could be anywhere, even under water.

A ticking clock, a sinister stalker, and fresh romance combine in this exhilarating follow up to the bestselling You Don’t Own Me—another riveting page-turner from the “Queen of Suspense� Mary Higgins Clark and her dazzling partner-in-crime Alafair Burke.]]> 319 Mary Higgins Clark 198213254X Kat 0 3.94 2020 Piece of My Heart (Under Suspicion, #7)
author: Mary Higgins Clark
name: Kat
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/13
date added: 2024/12/13
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]]> Goodbye, Vitamin 27746288 Goodbye, Vitamin is the wry, beautifully observed story of a woman at a crossroads, as Ruth and her friends attempt to shore up her father's career; she and her mother obsess over the ambiguous health benefits - in the absence of a cure - of dried jellyfish supplements and vitamin pills; and they all try to forge a new relationship with the brilliant, childlike, irascible man her father has become.]]> 208 Rachel Khong 1250109167 Kat 4 3.72 2017 Goodbye, Vitamin
author: Rachel Khong
name: Kat
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/12
date added: 2024/12/12
shelves:
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]]> Long Gone 9999576
Everything is perfect until the morning Alice arrives at work to find the gallery gone—the space stripped bare as if it had never existed—and Drew Campbell’s dead body on the floor. Overnight, Alice’s dream job has vanished, and she finds herself at the center of police attention with nothing to prove her innocence. The phone number Drew gave her links back to a disposable phone.

The artist whose work she displayed doesn’t seem to exist. And the dead man she claims is Drew has been identified as someone else.

When police discover ties between the gallery and a missing girl, Alice knows she’s been set up. Now she has to prove it—a dangerous search for answers that will entangle her in a dark, high-tech criminal conspiracy and force her to unearth long-hidden secrets involving her own family� secrets that could cost Alice her life.]]> 368 Alafair Burke 0061999180 Kat 0 3.66 2011 Long Gone
author: Alafair Burke
name: Kat
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/12
date added: 2024/12/12
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]]> Mr. Nobody 44891403 348 Catherine Steadman 1524797685 Kat 0 3.57 2020 Mr. Nobody
author: Catherine Steadman
name: Kat
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/09
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves:
review:

]]>