Chad's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 17 Mar 2023 22:51:07 -0700 60 Chad's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Guest List 52656911
The bride � The plus one � The best man � The wedding planner � The bridesmaid � The body

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

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

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?]]>
319 Lucy Foley Chad 4 3.82 2020 The Guest List
author: Lucy Foley
name: Chad
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/03/17
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Midnight Library 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]>
288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Chad 4 3.96 2020 The Midnight Library
author: Matt Haig
name: Chad
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/07/19
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious, #4)]]> 52716736 The Truly Devious series continues as Stevie Bell investigates her first mystery outside of Ellingham Academy in this spine-chilling and hilarious stand-alone mystery.

Amateur sleuth Stevie Bell needs a good murder. After catching a killer at her high school, she’s back at home for a normal (that means boring) summer.

But then she gets a message from the owner of Sunny Pines, formerly known as Camp Wonder Falls—the site of the notorious unsolved case, the Box in the Woods Murders. Back in 1978, four camp counselors were killed in the woods outside of the town of Barlow Corners, their bodies left in a gruesome display. The new owner offers Stevie an invitation: Come to the camp and help him work on a true crime podcast about the case.

Stevie agrees, as long as she can bring along her friends from Ellingham Academy. Nothing sounds better than a summer spent together, investigating old murders.

But something evil still lurks in Barlow Corners. When Stevie opens the lid on this long-dormant case, she gets much more than she bargained for. The Box in the Woods will make room for more victims. This time, Stevie may not make it out alive.]]>
400 Maureen Johnson 0063032627 Chad 3 4.05 2021 The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious, #4)
author: Maureen Johnson
name: Chad
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2021/09/25
shelves:
review:

]]>
Wonder Boys 16707 The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Chabon presents a hilarious and heartbreaking work—the story of the friendship between the "wonder boys"—Grady, an aging writer who has lost his way, and Crabtree, whose relentless debauchery is capsizing his career.]]> 383 Michael Chabon 3423124172 Chad 4 3.94 1995 Wonder Boys
author: Michael Chabon
name: Chad
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/09/25
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[One of Us Is Lying (One of Us is Lying, #1)]]> 32571395 This is an alternate cover edition of ASIN B01M98J44U.
---
One of Us Is Lying is the story of what happens when five strangers walk into detention and only four walk out alive. Everyone is a suspect, and everyone has something to hide.

On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention.

Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule.
Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess.
Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing.
Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher.
And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High's notorious gossip app.

Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention, Simon's dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn't an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he'd planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who's still on the loose?

Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them.]]>
360 Karen M. McManus Chad 4 4.00 2017 One of Us Is Lying (One of Us is Lying, #1)
author: Karen M. McManus
name: Chad
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/09/25
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Guest List 51933429
On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

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

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?]]>
330 Lucy Foley Chad 4 3.64 2020 The Guest List
author: Lucy Foley
name: Chad
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/09/25
shelves:
review:

]]>
Filthy Animals 55801198 A group portrait of young adults enmeshed in desire and violence, a hotly charged, deeply satisfying new work of fiction from the author of Booker Prize finalist Real Life

In the series of linked stories at the heart of Filthy Animals, set among young creatives in the American Midwest, a young man treads delicate emotional waters as he navigates a series of sexually fraught encounters with two dancers in an open relationship, forcing him to weigh his vulnerabilities against his loneliness. In other stories, a young woman battles with the cancers draining her body and her family; menacing undercurrents among a group of teenagers explode in violence on a winter night; a little girl tears through a house like a tornado, driving her babysitter to the brink; and couples feel out the jagged edges of connection, comfort, and cruelty.

One of the breakout literary stars of 2020, Brandon Taylor has been hailed by Roxane Gay as "a writer who wields his craft in absolutely unforgettable ways." With Filthy Animals he renews and expands on the promise made in Real Life, training his precise and unsentimental gaze on the tensions among friends and family, lovers and others. Psychologically taut and quietly devastating, Filthy Animals is a tender portrait of the fierce longing for intimacy, the lingering presence of pain, and the desire for love in a world that seems, more often than not, to withhold it.]]>
288 Brandon Taylor 0525538917 Chad 4 3.65 2021 Filthy Animals
author: Brandon Taylor
name: Chad
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2021/09/25
shelves:
review:

]]>
Fates and Furies 24612118
At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed.]]>
390 Lauren Groff 1594634475 Chad 5 3.55 2015 Fates and Furies
author: Lauren Groff
name: Chad
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/09/25
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Hundred-Year House 18693644
The Hundred-Year House unfolds a generational saga in reverse, leading the reader back in time on a literary scavenger hunt as we seek to uncover the truth about these strange people and this mysterious house. With intelligence and humor, a daring narrative approach, and a lovingly satirical voice, Rebecca Makkai has crafted an unforgettable novel about family, fate and the incredible surprises life can offer.]]>
338 Rebecca Makkai 052542668X Chad 5 3.44 2014 The Hundred-Year House
author: Rebecca Makkai
name: Chad
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2021/09/25
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Fall of a Sparrow 5975 460 Robert Hellenga 0684850273 Chad 0 to-read 3.67 1998 The Fall of a Sparrow
author: Robert Hellenga
name: Chad
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/04/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Crossing Places (Ruth Galloway, #1)]]> 6688087 304 Elly Griffiths 0547229895 Chad 0 to-read 3.88 2009 The Crossing Places (Ruth Galloway, #1)
author: Elly Griffiths
name: Chad
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/08/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Stone Cold Heart (Cat Kinsella, #2)]]> 40221975
But for Cat and Parnell, it’s serious business when a young Australian woman turns up dead after a party thrown by her new boss. The initial investigation of Naomi Lockhart's murder points to Joseph Madden, the owner of a coffee shop around the corner from police headquarters. Madden insists he’s innocent, that he was home with his wife Rachel at the time of the murder. When police question her, Rachel contradicts his alibi, swearing that she was home alone.

While the team builds its case against Joseph, Cat is tasked with getting to the heart of the Maddens� marriage. Cat knows that one of them is lying—but the question of which one, and why, is far more complicated than she could have expected. As she tries to balance the demands of the investigation with a budding romance and unresolved family drama, Cat has to decide how far she’ll go to keep her own past mistakes buried.

With her trademark wit and brilliant plotting, Caz Frear ratchets up the tension and keeps you guessing as she explores the secrets we keep from our loved ones—and the ones we’d kill to keep safe in the dark.]]>
352 Caz Frear 0062849921 Chad 0 to-read 3.85 2019 Stone Cold Heart (Cat Kinsella, #2)
author: Caz Frear
name: Chad
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/08/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The City We Became (Great Cities, #1)]]> 42074525
Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She's got five.

But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the city and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.]]>
437 N.K. Jemisin Chad 0 to-read 3.83 2020 The City We Became (Great Cities, #1)
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Chad
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/08/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Hand on the Wall (Truly Devious, #3)]]> 45240918
She knows who Truly Devious is. She’s solved it. The greatest case of the century.

At least, she thinks she has. With this latest tragedy, it’s hard to concentrate on the past. Not only has someone died in town, but David disappeared of his own free will and is up to something. Stevie is sure that somehow—somehow—all these things connect. The three deaths in the present. The deaths in the past. The missing Alice Ellingham and the missing David Eastman. Somewhere in this place of riddles and puzzles there must be answers.

Then another accident occurs as a massive storm heads toward Vermont. This is too much for the parents and administrators. Ellingham Academy is evacuated. Obviously, it’s time for Stevie to do something stupid. It’s time to stay on the mountain and face the storm—and a murderer.

In the tantalizing finale to the Truly Devious trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson expertly tangles her dual narrative threads and ignites an explosive end for all who’ve walked through Ellingham Academy.

New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson delivers the witty and pulse-pounding conclusion to the Truly Devious series as Stevie Bell solves the mystery that has haunted Ellingham Academy for over 75 years.]]>
369 Maureen Johnson 0062338110 Chad 4 4.12 2020 The Hand on the Wall (Truly Devious, #3)
author: Maureen Johnson
name: Chad
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/08/22
date added: 2020/08/22
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious, #2)]]> 39893545
For her own safety they say. She must move past this obsession with crime. Now that Stevie’s away from the school of topiaries and secret tunnels, and her strange and endearing friends, she begins to feel disconnected from the rest of the world. At least she won’t have to see David anymore. David, who she kissed. David, who lied to her about his identity—son of despised politician Edward King. Then King himself arrives at her house to offer a deal: He will bring Stevie back to Ellingham immediately. In return, she must play nice with David. King is in the midst of a campaign and can’t afford his son stirring up trouble. If Stevie’s at school, David will stay put.

The tantalizing riddles behind the Ellingham murders are still waiting to be unraveled, and Stevie knows she’s so close. But the path to the truth has more twists and turns than she can imagine—and moving forward involves hurting someone she cares for. In New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson’s second novel of the Truly Devious series, nothing is free, and someone will pay for the truth with their life.]]>
369 Maureen Johnson 0062338080 Chad 4 4.12 2019 The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious, #2)
author: Maureen Johnson
name: Chad
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2020/08/19
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Truly, Devious (Truly Devious, #1)]]> 29589074
Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious.� It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history.

True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder. 

The two interwoven mysteries of this first book in the Truly Devious series dovetail brilliantly, and Stevie Bell will continue her relentless quest for the murderers in books two and three.

New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson weaves a delicate tale of murder and mystery in the first book of a striking new series, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and E. Lockhart.]]>
416 Maureen Johnson Chad 4 3.89 2018 Truly, Devious (Truly Devious, #1)
author: Maureen Johnson
name: Chad
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2020/08/19
date added: 2020/08/19
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Deep 42201962 Yetu holds the memories for her people.

Her people, the wajinru � water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slavers � live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one. Save the historian.

Yetu remembers for all the wajinru, and the memories � painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so she flees to the surface, escaping the memories and the expectations and the responsibilities � and discovers a world the wajinru left behind long ago.

Yetu will learn more than she ever expected to about her own past � and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identities � and own who they really are.

Inspired by the hit song by clipping. (comprised of Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes), The Deep will resonate long after the last page is turned.]]>
166 Rivers Solomon 1534439862 Chad 0 to-read 3.78 2019 The Deep
author: Rivers Solomon
name: Chad
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/07/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Red, White & Royal Blue 41150487
As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?]]>
448 Casey McQuiston 1250316774 Chad 4 4.06 2019 Red, White & Royal Blue
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Chad
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/01/14
date added: 2020/07/03
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous]]> 41880609 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born � a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam � and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.]]>
246 Ocean Vuong 0525562028 Chad 4 4.05 2019 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Chad
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2020/07/03
date added: 2020/07/03
shelves:
review:

]]>
A Gentleman in Moscow 34066798 The mega-bestseller with more than 2 million readers—Now a Paramount+ with Showtime series starring Ewan McGregor as Count Alexander Rostov

From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility, a beautifully transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.]]>
462 Amor Towles Chad 0 to-read 4.28 2016 A Gentleman in Moscow
author: Amor Towles
name: Chad
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/05/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[A Curious Beginning (Veronica Speedwell, #1)]]> 28186322
But fate has other plans, as Veronica discovers when she thwarts her own abduction with the help of an enigmatic German baron who has ties to her mysterious past. Promising to reveal in time what he knows of the plot against her, the baron offers her temporary sanctuary in the care of his friend Stoker, a reclusive natural historian as intriguing as he is bad-tempered. But before the baron can deliver on his tantalizing vow to reveal the secrets he has concealed for decades, he is found murdered. Suddenly Veronica and Stoker are forced to go on the run from an elusive assailant as wary partners in search of the villainous truth.]]>
357 Deanna Raybourn 0451476026 Chad 0 to-read 3.94 2015 A Curious Beginning (Veronica Speedwell, #1)
author: Deanna Raybourn
name: Chad
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/05/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
A Little Life 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]>
720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 Chad 0 to-read 4.28 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Chad
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/01/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Suite Française 43944 The first two stories of a masterwork once thought lost, written by a pre-WWII bestselling author who was deported to Auschwitz and died before her work could be completed.

By the early l940s, when Ukrainian-born Irène Némirovsky began working on what would become Suite Française—the first two parts of a planned five-part novel—she was already a highly successful writer living in Paris. But she was also a Jew, and in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz: a month later she was dead at the age of thirty-nine. Two years earlier, living in a small village in central France—where she, her husband, and their two small daughters had fled in a vain attempt to elude the Nazis—she'd begun her novel, a luminous portrayal of a human drama in which she herself would become a victim. When she was arrested, she had completed two parts of the epic, the handwritten manuscripts of which were hidden in a suitcase that her daughters would take with them into hiding and eventually into freedom. Sixty-four years later, at long last, we can read Némirovsky's literary masterpiece

The first part, "A Storm in June," opens in the chaos of the massive 1940 exodus from Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion during which several families and individuals are thrown together under circumstances beyond their control. They share nothing but the harsh demands of survival—some trying to maintain lives of privilege, others struggling simply to preserve their lives—but soon, all together, they will be forced to face the awful exigencies of physical and emotional displacement, and the annihilation of the world they know. In the second part, "Dolce," we enter the increasingly complex life of a German-occupied provincial village. Coexisting uneasily with the soldiers billeted among them, the villagers—from aristocrats to shopkeepers to peasants—cope as best they can. Some choose resistance, others collaboration, and as their community is transformed by these acts, the lives of these these men and women reveal nothing less than the very essence of humanity.

Suite Française is a singularly piercing evocation—at once subtle and severe, deeply compassionate, and fiercely ironic—of life and death in occupied France, and a brilliant, profoundly moving work of art.]]>
431 Irène Némirovsky 1400096278 Chad 0 to-read 3.83 2004 Suite Française
author: Irène Némirovsky
name: Chad
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/01/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
The Martian 18007564
Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error� are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills � and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit � he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

]]>
384 Andy Weir 0804139024 Chad 5 4.41 2011 The Martian
author: Andy Weir
name: Chad
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2020/01/09
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Shades of Magic Series (Shades of Magic, #1-3)]]> 35378411 This discounted ebundle includes: A Darker Shade of Magic, A Gathering of Shadows, A Conjuring of Light

Witness the fate of beloved heroes and notorious foes in V.E. Schwab’s New York Times bestselling Shades of Magic series.

Kell is one of the last Antari—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black. After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.

A Darker Shade of Magic � Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons. Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

A Gathering of Shadows � Restless, and having given up smuggling, Kell is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila, who disappeared from the docks like she always meant to do. And while Red London is caught up in the pageantry and thrills of the Element Games, another London is coming back to life, and those who were thought to be forever gone have returned.

A Conjuring of Light � As darkness sweeps the Maresh Empire, the once precarious balance of power among the four Londons has reached its breaking point. In the wake of tragedy, Kell—once assumed to be the last surviving Antari—begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. Lila Bard has survived and flourished through a series of magical trials. But now she must learn to control the magic, before it bleeds her dry.

Tor books by V. E. Schwab

The Shades of Magic series
A Darker Shade of Magic
A Gathering of Shadows
A Conjuring of Light

The Villains series
Vicious

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

]]>
1534 Victoria E. Schwab Chad 3
Throughout the series, though, I did feel somewhat disappointed with the narrative voice. The majority of the book is very strong, but at times I felt like imagery was clunky/sloppy or repetitive, and a majority of the dialogue felt not of the period, which is the early 1800s.. (though I guess because it is a fantasy series, I needn't be so picky about that? I just felt a little too modern slang-y most of the time) However, I gave up on this grievance early on in the third book, because the story became so interesting and there was so much going on that I was completely wrapped up in following the plot through to its conclusion.]]>
4.53 2016 The Shades of Magic Series (Shades of Magic, #1-3)
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Chad
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2018/01/09
date added: 2020/01/09
shelves:
review:
I really enjoyed this series. Incredibly creative and the world building is vibrant and well illustrated... I fell right into the world(s) of these characters instantly, and by the third book was fully invested in seeing how it played out. Schwab does such a great job in the first book of introducing a diverse range of (seemingly) disconnected characters who all come to a head in one way or another throughout the series. I loved these characters - each drawn with delightful detail - and was genuinely moved by many of the story lines. The darkness in the books is equally balanced by the light each character finds, in their own ways, when the story comes to a close.

Throughout the series, though, I did feel somewhat disappointed with the narrative voice. The majority of the book is very strong, but at times I felt like imagery was clunky/sloppy or repetitive, and a majority of the dialogue felt not of the period, which is the early 1800s.. (though I guess because it is a fantasy series, I needn't be so picky about that? I just felt a little too modern slang-y most of the time) However, I gave up on this grievance early on in the third book, because the story became so interesting and there was so much going on that I was completely wrapped up in following the plot through to its conclusion.
]]>
The Immortalists 30288282 If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?

It's 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children—four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to hear their fortunes.

The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in '80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.

A sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.]]>
346 Chloe Benjamin 0735213186 Chad 4 3.68 2018 The Immortalists
author: Chloe Benjamin
name: Chad
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2020/01/09
date added: 2020/01/09
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Interestings 15815333
The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge.

The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through life at age thirty; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence. Jules Jacobson, an aspiring comic actress, eventually resigns herself to a more practical occupation and lifestyle. Her friend Jonah, a gifted musician, stops playing the guitar and becomes an engineer. But Ethan and Ash, Jules's now-married best friends, become shockingly successful—true to their initial artistic dreams, with the wealth and access that allow those dreams to keep expanding. The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and the shapes their lives have taken.

Wide in scope, ambitious, and populated by complex characters who come together and apart in a changing New York City, The Interestings explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life.]]>
468 Meg Wolitzer 1594488398 Chad 3 3.58 2013 The Interestings
author: Meg Wolitzer
name: Chad
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2019/12/18
date added: 2019/12/18
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Underground Railroad 30555488
In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor--engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey--hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.]]>
320 Colson Whitehead 0385542364 Chad 0 to-read 4.04 2016 The Underground Railroad
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Chad
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/09/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion]]> 43126457 Trick Mirror is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. This is a book about the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly in a culture that revolves around the self. In each essay, Jia writes about the cultural prisms that have shaped her: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the American scammer as millennial hero; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the mandate that everything, including our bodies, should always be getting more efficient and beautiful until we die.]]> 303 Jia Tolentino 0525510540 Chad 0 to-read 4.04 2019 Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
author: Jia Tolentino
name: Chad
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/09/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Ravenmaster: My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London]]> 37877606
The responsibility for ensuring that such a disaster never comes to pass falls to one man: the Ravenmaster. The current holder of the position is Yeoman Warder Christopher Skaife, and in this fascinating, entertaining and touching book he memorably describes the ravens� formidable intelligence, their idiosyncrasies and their occasionally wicked sense of humour. The Ravenmaster is a compelling, inspiring and irreverent story that will delight and surprise anyone with an interest in British history or animal behaviour.

ձ>
256 Christopher Skaife 1443455938 Chad 4 4.00 2018 The Ravenmaster: My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London
author: Christopher Skaife
name: Chad
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2019/09/21
date added: 2019/09/21
shelves:
review:

]]>
All the Light We Cannot See 18143977
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

An alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here]]>
544 Anthony Doerr 1476746583 Chad 5
I love historical fiction that blends a touch of magical realism into the narrative, and, I loved every single character in this book. Doerr paints a perfect picture on every page - of the people, the places, the feelings of a time of turmoil and loss and hope.

Marie-Laure may be my favorite fictional character at this moment. I loved her so, so much. ]]>
4.31 2014 All the Light We Cannot See
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Chad
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2019/09/10
date added: 2019/09/10
shelves:
review:
Beautiful, captivating, thrilling - all the way through. I love Doerr's approach to telling this story: using short chapters that shift perspective between different characters, telling the story through a non-linear narrative... all of which culminates in a highly satisfying (incredibly emotional) conclusion.

I love historical fiction that blends a touch of magical realism into the narrative, and, I loved every single character in this book. Doerr paints a perfect picture on every page - of the people, the places, the feelings of a time of turmoil and loss and hope.

Marie-Laure may be my favorite fictional character at this moment. I loved her so, so much.
]]>
Carry On (Simon Snow, #1) 32768522
That's what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he's probably right.

Half the time, Simon can't even make his wand work, and the other half, he starts something on fire. His mentor's avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there's a magic-eating monster running around, wearing Simon's face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here � it's their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon's infuriating nemesis didn't even bother to show up.

Carry On - The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow is a ghost story, a love story and a mystery. It has just as much kissing and talking as you'd expect from a Rainbow Rowell story - but far, far more monsters.]]>
522 Rainbow Rowell 1250135028 Chad 0 to-read 4.17 2015 Carry On (Simon Snow, #1)
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: Chad
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/09/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik]]> 30734631
Then Noah � gets hypnotized.

Now Noah � sees changes—inexplicable scars, odd behaviors, rewritten histories—in all those around him. All except his Strange Fascinations . . .]]>
414 David Arnold 0425288862 Chad 0 to-read 4.00 2018 The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik
author: David Arnold
name: Chad
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World]]> 137852 224 Anthony Doerr 1416540016 Chad 0 to-read 3.88 2007 Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Chad
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2019/08/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Less (Arthur Less, #1) 32940847 Who says you can't run away from your problems?

You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes--it would be too awkward--and you can't say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.

QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?

ANSWER: You accept them all.

What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last.

Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, LESS is, above all, a love story.

A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," LESS shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.]]>
263 Andrew Sean Greer 0316316121 Chad 2
The end.]]>
3.59 2017 Less (Arthur Less, #1)
author: Andrew Sean Greer
name: Chad
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2019/01/24
date added: 2019/08/13
shelves:
review:
I truly can't believe how boring this PULITZER PRIZE WINNING BOOK was to slog through.

The end.
]]>
<![CDATA[John Dies at the End (John Dies at the End, #1)]]> 1857440 STOP. You should not have touched this flyer with your bare hands. NO, don't put it down. It's too late. They're watching you. My name is David Wong. My best friend is John. Those names are fake. You might want to change yours. You may not want to know about the things you'll read on these pages, about the sauce, about Korrok, about the invasion, and the future. But it's too late. You touched the book. You're in the game. You're under the eye. The only defense is knowledge. You need to read this book, to the end. Even the part with the bratwurst. Why? You just have to trust me.

The important thing is this: The drug is called Soy Sauce and it gives users a window into another dimension. John and I never had the chance to say no. You still do. I'm sorry to have involved you in this, I really am. But as you read about these terrible events and the very dark epoch the world is about to enter as a result, it is crucial you keep one thing in mind: None of this was my fault. ]]>
362 David Wong 0978970764 Chad 4
When David Wong is good, he's really good - if you like the style he's writing in... I'm not totally sure how to describe it exactly; I'm sure others have done it better than me but it's like Stephen King meets nerdy sci-fi / college bro humor (ugh, I know, but in this book I find it acceptable AND entertaining I guess) all rolled up into an engaging mess of a story that actually has a lot of pathos at times.

Very excited to start "This Book is Full of Spiders." ]]>
3.89 2007 John Dies at the End (John Dies at the End, #1)
author: David Wong
name: Chad
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2019/08/13
date added: 2019/08/13
shelves:
review:
Loved this book - fast-paced, action-packed, hilarious on one page and disturbing the next. I read "What the Hell Did I Just Read?" about two years ago... and picked it up only because I loved the cover (yep I'm one of those people) and, after reading the first few pages at the bookstore, was totally hooked and knew my boyfriend would love it. We both read it and then a friend of ours recommend we read the entire trilogy, so, here I am -- finally getting around to reading "John Dies at the End" - the first of three books in the series.

When David Wong is good, he's really good - if you like the style he's writing in... I'm not totally sure how to describe it exactly; I'm sure others have done it better than me but it's like Stephen King meets nerdy sci-fi / college bro humor (ugh, I know, but in this book I find it acceptable AND entertaining I guess) all rolled up into an engaging mess of a story that actually has a lot of pathos at times.

Very excited to start "This Book is Full of Spiders."
]]>
Artemis 34928122
Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.

Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself—and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.]]>
305 Andy Weir 0553448129 Chad 2 3.66 2017 Artemis
author: Andy Weir
name: Chad
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2019/02/10
date added: 2019/02/20
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (Zoey Ashe, #1)]]> 20501606 Nightmarish villains with superhuman enhancements.

An all-seeing social network that tracks your every move.

Mysterious, smooth-talking power players who lurk behind the scenes.

A young woman from the trailer park.

And her very smelly cat.

Together, they will decide the future of mankind.

Get ready for a world in which anyone can have the powers of a god or the fame of a pop star, in which human achievement soars to new heights while its depravity plunges to the blackest depths. A world in which at least one cat smells like a seafood shop's dumpster on a hot summer day.

This is the world in which Zoey Ashe finds herself, navigating a futuristic city in which one can find elements of the fantastic, nightmarish and ridiculous on any street corner. Her only trusted advisor is the aforementioned cat, but even in the future, cats cannot give advice. At least not any that you'd want to follow.

Will Zoey figure it all out in time? Or maybe the better question is, will you? After all, the future is coming sooner than you think.]]>
384 David Wong 1250040191 Chad 3 3.94 2015 Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (Zoey Ashe, #1)
author: David Wong
name: Chad
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2018/12/10
date added: 2018/12/10
shelves:
review:

]]>
The Great Believers 36739329
Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.

The Great Believers has become a critically acclaimed, indelible piece of literature; it was selected as one of New York Times Best 10 Books of the Year, a Washington Post Notable Book, a Buzzfeed Book of the Year, a Skimm Reads pick, and a pick for the New York Public Library’s Best Books of the year.]]>
421 Rebecca Makkai Chad 5 4.29 2018 The Great Believers
author: Rebecca Makkai
name: Chad
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2018/09/08
date added: 2018/09/12
shelves:
review:
This story felt so personal and real. From the second I started it until the moment I finished it, I couldn't stop thinking about it, even when I wasn't actively reading it. This book was really, really special -- Makkai's ability to capture such highly specific and emotional moments is amazing. You'd think she was able to go back in time/travel the world to watch real people living their real lives, and then capture it in this book. It was at turns heartbreaking, hilarious, poignant. Loved it.
]]>
<![CDATA[The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay]]> 3985 639 Michael Chabon 0312282990 Chad 5 4.18 2000 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
author: Michael Chabon
name: Chad
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2018/08/08
date added: 2018/08/08
shelves:
review:
This was a challenging read, but I don't think that was a bad thing. Each character was so fully realized, and the story was so exciting to follow; I never knew where it would take me next, and I certainly had no idea how it would end. I loved it.
]]>
The Illustrated Man 24830 The Illustrated Man has remained in print since being published in 1951 is fair testimony to the universal appeal of Ray Bradbury's work. Only his second collection (the first was Dark Carnival, later reworked into The October Country), it is a marvelous, if mostly dark, quilt of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. In an ingenious framework to open and close the book, Bradbury presents himself as a nameless narrator who meets the Illustrated Man--a wanderer whose entire body is a living canvas of exotic tattoos. What's even more remarkable, and increasingly disturbing, is that the illustrations are themselves magically alive, and each proceeds to unfold its own story, such as "The Veldt," wherein rowdy children take a game of virtual reality way over the edge. Or "Kaleidoscope," a heartbreaking portrait of stranded astronauts about to reenter our atmosphere--without the benefit of a spaceship. Or "Zero Hour," in which invading aliens have discovered a most logical ally--our own children. Even though most were written in the 1940s and 1950s, these 18 classic stories will be just as chillingly effective 50 years from now. --Stanley Wiater

Contents:

· Prologue: The Illustrated Man · ss *
· The Veldt [“The World the Children Made”] · ss The Saturday Evening Post Sep 23 �50
· Kaleidoscope · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct �49
· The Other Foot · ss New Story Magazine Mar �51
· The Highway [as by Leonard Spalding] · ss Copy Spr �50
· The Man · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb �49
· The Long Rain [“Death-by-Rain”] · ss Planet Stories Sum �50
· The Rocket Man · ss Maclean’s Mar 1 �51
· The Fire Balloons [“‘In This Sign...’”] · ss Imagination Apr �51
· The Last Night of the World · ss Esquire Feb �51
· The Exiles [“The Mad Wizards of Mars”] · ss Maclean’s Sep 15 �49; F&SF Win �50
· No Particular Night or Morning · ss *
· The Fox and the Forest [“To the Future”] · ss Colliers May 13 �50
· The Visitor · ss Startling Stories Nov �48
· The Concrete Mixer · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr �49
· Marionettes, Inc. [Marionettes, Inc.] · ss Startling Stories Mar �49
· The City [“Purpose”] · ss Startling Stories Jul �50
· Zero Hour · ss Planet Stories Fll �47
· The Rocket [“Outcast of the Stars”] · ss Super Science Stories Mar �50
· Epilogue · aw *]]>
186 Ray Bradbury 000712774X Chad 5 4.14 1951 The Illustrated Man
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Chad
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1951
rating: 5
read at: 2018/02/28
date added: 2018/07/18
shelves:
review:
Ray Bradbury is excellent (duh). It's amazing how quickly he can build a world, and how closely the anxieties weaved into these 60+ year old stories are pretty much dead-on to what so many of us are feeling today. Great science fiction, great human stories.
]]>
Lost 24929 Winifred Rudge, a bemused writer struggling to get beyond the runaway success of her mass-market astrology book, travels to London to jump-start her new novel about a woman who is being haunted by the ghost of Jack the Ripper. Upon her arrival, she finds that her stepcousin and old friend John Comestor has disappeared, and a ghostly presence seems to have taken over his apartment in the nineteenth-century rowhouse once owned by Winnie's great-great-grandfather. Is it the spirit of this ancestor, who, family legend claims, was Charles Dickens's childhood inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge? Could it be the ghostly remains of Jack the Ripper? Or a phantasm derived from a more arcane and insidious origin?

Winnie begins to investigate, but John's erstwhile girlfriend, Allegra, is aggressively unhelpful, and his downstairs neighbor, the cat-obsessed Mrs. Maddingly, is growing stranger by the day. Gripped by inspiration and desperation alike, Winnie finds herself the unwilling audience for a drama of specters and shades, some from her family's peculiar history and some from her own unvanquished past.

In the spirit of A. S. Byatt's Possession, with dark overtones echoing from A Christmas Carol, Lost presents a rich fictional world that will enrapture Gregory Maguire's eager audience.

]]>
340 Gregory Maguire 0060988649 Chad 2
A few weeks ago, I thought I'd try again.

What I think Maguire does really well: I LOVE his narrative voice. Just a few pages in, you get a picture-perfect sense of who the main character is, how she talks, how she perceives the world, and what her world looks and feels like. I remember feeling this way with Wicked, too, that Maquire just has a magical way with words and really can describe an old store front for paragraphs at a time with such detail and a strong sense of style....... if only that wasn't all that seemed to ever happen in LOST.

I remember with Wicked, too, getting to the middle of the book and feeling like Maquire was just spinning his wheels, having built up such an intricate plot and then needing to wander through Oz and Munchkinland and everywhere else before the story could pick up steam again and race to the conclusion. LOST has the same problem... but it lasts much longer. There's about 100 pages or so in the middle of the book in which nothing significant seems to ever happen. It's beautifully written, and I found it to be the perfect book for reading on the bus to and from work to pass the time, especially considering the story's atmosphere (London, in winter) was the perfect dreary counterpart to my own dreary Chicago this time of year. But unending descriptions of drizzly historic urban cities does not a FULL novel make, in my humble opinion.

That being said, I'm glad I finished the book this time. The story was not what I thought it would be, and once I got through to the end I can see how most of the book was necessary to resolving Winnie's story.

The book makes reference to Christmas Carole, Jack the Ripper, Alice in Wonderland... and several other stories of olde. In this particular context, though, it all felt a bit stretched and jumbled. Like so many other reviewers, I felt LOST myself as I worked my way through the story. Even at its close, I feel like maybe I missed something, or that now that I've finished it I need to start over from the beginning to put the pieces back together now that I've seen the bigger picture.

But I don't think I will.]]>
2.84 2001 Lost
author: Gregory Maguire
name: Chad
average rating: 2.84
book published: 2001
rating: 2
read at: 2018/02/07
date added: 2018/02/07
shelves:
review:
I first picked up LOST when I was 19 or so (I'm now 30). I had just finished reading Wicked and thought this would be another fun, dark fairy-tale-turned-upside-down page turner. About 2/3 of the way through the book, I gave up. The plot began to fizzle as the main character, Winnie, literally wanders in circles in London and I gave up any interest in seeing if her story would ever resolve.

A few weeks ago, I thought I'd try again.

What I think Maguire does really well: I LOVE his narrative voice. Just a few pages in, you get a picture-perfect sense of who the main character is, how she talks, how she perceives the world, and what her world looks and feels like. I remember feeling this way with Wicked, too, that Maquire just has a magical way with words and really can describe an old store front for paragraphs at a time with such detail and a strong sense of style....... if only that wasn't all that seemed to ever happen in LOST.

I remember with Wicked, too, getting to the middle of the book and feeling like Maquire was just spinning his wheels, having built up such an intricate plot and then needing to wander through Oz and Munchkinland and everywhere else before the story could pick up steam again and race to the conclusion. LOST has the same problem... but it lasts much longer. There's about 100 pages or so in the middle of the book in which nothing significant seems to ever happen. It's beautifully written, and I found it to be the perfect book for reading on the bus to and from work to pass the time, especially considering the story's atmosphere (London, in winter) was the perfect dreary counterpart to my own dreary Chicago this time of year. But unending descriptions of drizzly historic urban cities does not a FULL novel make, in my humble opinion.

That being said, I'm glad I finished the book this time. The story was not what I thought it would be, and once I got through to the end I can see how most of the book was necessary to resolving Winnie's story.

The book makes reference to Christmas Carole, Jack the Ripper, Alice in Wonderland... and several other stories of olde. In this particular context, though, it all felt a bit stretched and jumbled. Like so many other reviewers, I felt LOST myself as I worked my way through the story. Even at its close, I feel like maybe I missed something, or that now that I've finished it I need to start over from the beginning to put the pieces back together now that I've seen the bigger picture.

But I don't think I will.
]]>
<![CDATA[This Book Is Full of Spiders (John Dies at the End, #2)]]> 12924261
WARNING:

You may have a huge, invisible spider living in your skull. THIS IS NOT A METAPHOR.

You will dismiss this as ridiculous fear-mongering. Dismissing things as ridiculous fear-mongering is, in fact, the first symptom of parasitic spider infection -- the creature secretes a chemical into the brain to stimulate skepticism, in order to prevent you from seeking a cure. That's just as well, since the "cure" involves learning what a chainsaw tastes like.

You can't feel the spider, because it controls your nerve endings. You can't see it, because it decides what you see. You won't even feel it when it breeds. And it will breed. So what happens when your family, friends and neighbors get mind-controlling skull spiders? We're all about to find out.

Just stay calm, and remember that telling you about the spider situation is not the same as having caused it. I'm just the messenger. Even if I did sort of cause it.

Either way, I won't hold it against you if you're upset. I know that's just the spider talking.]]>
406 David Wong 0312546343 Chad 0 to-read 4.26 2012 This Book Is Full of Spiders (John Dies at the End, #2)
author: David Wong
name: Chad
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/01/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[What the Hell Did I Just Read (John Dies at the End, #3)]]> 33574090
Dave, John and Amy recount what seems like a fairly straightforward tale of a shape-shifting creature from another dimension that is stealing children and brainwashing their parents, but it eventually becomes clear that someone is lying, and that someone is the narrators.

The novel you're reading is a cover-up, and the "true" story reveals itself in the cracks of their hilariously convoluted, and sometimes contradictory, narrative.]]>
375 David Wong 1250040205 Chad 5 4.15 2017 What the Hell Did I Just Read (John Dies at the End, #3)
author: David Wong
name: Chad
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2018/01/30
date added: 2018/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]>
<![CDATA[The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1)]]> 29283884
But as Monty embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice is in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy.

Still it isn’t in Monty’s nature to give up. Even with his younger sister, Felicity, in tow, he vows to make this yearlong escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt that spans across Europe, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.]]>
528 Mackenzi Lee 0062382802 Chad 5 4.03 2017 The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1)
author: Mackenzi Lee
name: Chad
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2018/01/13
date added: 2018/01/14
shelves:
review:
I LOVED this book! Female author, queer love story, strong female character, issues of race and class, 18th Century Europe.... all wrapped up in a gem of a story told through the equal parts charming and sardonic voice of the main character, Monty. It's a "teen novel" (according to Barnes & Noble), so it's an easy read, but Mackenzi Lee really knows how to pace a story. Just when you think you're settling into some gushy romantic interlude, new adventures abound and the main trio of characters is thrown into another haphazard situation that seems inescapable.
]]>
This Monstrous Thing 22811807
In an alternative fantasy world where some men are made from clockwork parts and carriages are steam powered, Alasdair Finch, a young mechanic, does the unthinkable after his brother dies: he uses clockwork pieces to bring Oliver back from the dead.

But the resurrection does not go as planned, and Oliver returns more monster than man. Even worse, the novel Frankenstein is published and the townsfolk are determined to find the real-life doctor and his monster. With few places to turn for help, the dangers may ultimately bring the brothers together—or ruin them forever.]]>
384 Mackenzi Lee Chad 0 to-read 3.74 2015 This Monstrous Thing
author: Mackenzi Lee
name: Chad
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/01/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Vicious (Villains, #1) 13638125 Через десять років Елі так само захоплений ЕкстраОрдинарними, але тепер його мета знищити якомога більше надздібних. Віктор тікає з в’язниц�, аби помститися Елі. Озброєні жахливою силою, спонукані пам’ятт� про зраду та втрату, колишні друзі жадають помсти. Хто ж правий? І хто ж залишиться живим у кінці?]]> 368 Victoria E. Schwab 0765335344 Chad 0 to-read 4.24 2013 Vicious (Villains, #1)
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Chad
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/01/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>
Warm Up (Villains, #0.5) 18248613
He may have survived the avalanche, but the aftermath has been far worse. His wife moved out, taking his son with her, and a devastated David hasn’t left his house since, terrified of the mysterious new power that followed him home from the ill-fated expedition.

After months in seclusion, David’s ready for a fresh start, and ventures out, determined to keep his power in check. But David’s power isn’t the one he needs to worry about.]]>
15 Victoria E. Schwab Chad 0 to-read 3.76 2013 Warm Up  (Villains, #0.5)
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Chad
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/01/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>