� jami �'s bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 06 Apr 2025 20:03:06 -0700 60 � jami �'s bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Martyr! 139400713 Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others—in which a newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum.

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of Tehran in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.]]> 331 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 � jami � 0 to-read 4.22 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Hard Times 24237865 9781853262326

Unusually for Dickens, Hard Times is set, not in London, but in the imaginary mid-Victorian Northern industrial town of Coketown with its blackened factories, downtrodden workers and polluted environment. This is the soulless domain of the strict utilitarian Thomas Gradgrind and the heartless factory owner Josiah Bounderby. However, human joy is not excluded thanks to 'Mr Sleary's Horse-Riding' circus, a gin-soaked and hilarious troupe of open-hearted and affectionate people who act as an antidote to all the drudgery and misery endured by the ordinary citizens of Coketown.

Macaulay attacked Hard Times for its 'sullen socialism', but 20th-century critics such as George Bernard Shaw and F.R. Leavis have praised this book in the highest terms, while readers the world over have found inspiration and enjoyment from what is both Dickens' shortest completed novel and also one of his important statements on Victorian society.]]> 229 Charles Dickens � jami � 0 3.20 1854 Hard Times
author: Charles Dickens
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.20
book published: 1854
rating: 0
read at: 2019/04/23
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: 2019-reads, classics, philosophical-fiction, read-for-school, 1001-btrbyd-read
review:
this is what victorian people had to explain utilitarianism because they didn't have the good place on netflix
]]> <![CDATA[Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection]]> 220341389 John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.

Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.

In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.]]> 208 John Green 0525556575 � jami � 0
I'm sort of the exact target audience (john green fans who like listening to him in a sort of extended podcast format). Probably not it if you want a detailed account of tuberculosis but I found lots of this very fascinating!]]> 4.55 2025 Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
author: John Green
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: 2025-reads, audiobook, non-fiction
review:
everything kinda IS tuberculosis, guys.

I'm sort of the exact target audience (john green fans who like listening to him in a sort of extended podcast format). Probably not it if you want a detailed account of tuberculosis but I found lots of this very fascinating!
]]> <![CDATA[Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly]]> 19501632
With handwritten footnotes and afterthoughts.]]> 362 Anthony Bourdain 1408845040 � jami � 0 4.32 2000 Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
author: Anthony Bourdain
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: 2025-reads, audiobook, memoir, non-fiction
review:
if u ever worked in hospitality for one second u really have met every single guy he describes in this book
]]> <![CDATA[The Golden Raven (All for the Game, #5)]]> 213726350 I do not care what they think of me. I can’t. It only matters that I play.

Jeremy Knox is no stranger to damage control, but his last season on an Exy court is off to a disastrous start. The relentless crusade against his newest teammate threatens the haven he and his friends have worked so hard to build. He promised Jean a fun senior year, but tragedy and ugly truths make every step forward an uphill fight.

Jean Moreau promised the USC Trojans a championship trophy, and he intends to deliver. Granted, it would be significantly easier if they’d slide off their high horses and throw a few elbows on the court. Their steadfast refusal to do things his way is nearly as aggravating as their unwanted affection, but maybe they’re not the ones that need to change.

With so many ready to drag him down, how can he learn to fly?]]> 484 Nora Sakavic � jami � 3 4.61 2025 The Golden Raven (All for the Game, #5)
author: Nora Sakavic
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: 2025-reads, contemporary, series, series-to-complete
review:
guys, I love these characters but listen. WHERE WAS THE PLOT?
]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 229280598 When you've been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

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

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

When Haymitch's name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He's torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who's nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town.

As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he's been set up to fail. But there's something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 390 Suzanne Collins 1761641174 � jami � 4
]]> 4.63 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/21
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves:
review:
I can’t believe there was a time I thought we were never getting more hunger games and now we’re experiencing the panem extended universe �.


]]> <![CDATA[Mister Impossible (Dreamer Trilogy, #2)]]> 57633517 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Raven Boys, a mesmerizing story of dreams and desires, death and destiny.

Something is happening to the source of the dreamers' power. It is blocked. Diminished. Weak. If it goes away entirely, what will happen to the dreamers and those who depend on them?

Ronan Lynch isn't planning to wait and find out. Backed by his mentor, Bryde, he is ready to do what needs to be done to save the dreamers and the dreamed . . . even if it takes him far from his family and the boy he loves.

Jordan Hennessy knows she will not survive if the dreaming fails. So she plunges into a dark underworld in order to find an object that may sustain her.

Carmen Farooq-Lane is afraid of the dreamers -- which is why she's agreed to hunt them down. The closer she gets, though, the more complicated her feelings become. Will the dreamers destroy the world . . . or will the world be destroyed trying to eliminate the dreamers?

In the remarkable second book of The Dreamer Trilogy, Maggie Stiefvater pushes her characters to their limits -- and shows what happens when they start to break.]]> 340 Maggie Stiefvater 1407192396 � jami � 0 currently-reading 3.95 2021 Mister Impossible (Dreamer Trilogy, #2)
author: Maggie Stiefvater
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Goodbye to Berlin 60049868 Cabaret, evoking the glamour and sleaze, excess and repression of Berlin society. Isherwood shows the lives of people under threat from the rise of the Nazis: a wealthy Jewish heiress, Natalia Landauer, a gay couple, Peter and Otto, and an English upper-class waif, the divinely decadent Sally Bowles.]]> 252 Christopher Isherwood 1784878103 � jami � 0 currently-reading 3.89 1939 Goodbye to Berlin
author: Christopher Isherwood
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1939
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Favourites 210141949 To the world, they were a scandal. To each other, an obsession.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER � An epic love story set in the sparkling, savage sphere of elite figure skating, starring a woman determined to carve her own path on and off the ice

“P Wuthering Heights and part Daisy Jones & The Six, this novel is as brilliantly choreographed as a gold medal performance and will keep you guessing until its last page.”—Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of By Any Other Name

She might not have a famous name, funding, or her family’s support, but Katarina Shaw has always known that she was destined to become an Olympic skater. When she meets Heath Rocha, a lonely kid stuck in the foster care system, their instant connection makes them a formidable duo on the ice. Clinging to skating—and each other—to escape their turbulent lives, Kat and Heath go from childhood sweethearts to champion ice dancers, captivating the world with their scorching chemistry, rebellious style, and roller-coaster relationship.

Until a shocking incident at the Olympic Games brings their partnership to a sudden end.

As the ten-year anniversary of their final skate approaches, an unauthorized documentary reignites the public obsession with Shaw and Rocha, claiming to uncover the “real story� through interviews with their closest friends and fiercest rivals. Kat wants nothing to do with the documentary, but she can’t stand the thought of someone else defining her legacy. So, after a decade of silence, she’s telling her story: from the childhood tragedies that created her all-consuming bond with Heath to the clash of desires that tore them apart. Sensational rumors have haunted their every step for years, but the truth may be even more shocking than the headlines.]]> 464 Layne Fargo 152992734X � jami � 4

++

okay, this book is absolutely ridiculous especially the tonya harding areas it went into plus it was kinda predictable but unfortunately I had a lot of fun with it so I had to rate it 4 stars. the audiobook was EXCELLENT, don't read this any other way. Loved the documentary framing. It's a 3 star quality wise but here we are. ]]> 4.15 2025 The Favourites
author: Layne Fargo
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: 2025-reads, adult, audiobook, contemporary
review:
daisy jones & the six - the ice skating remix


++

okay, this book is absolutely ridiculous especially the tonya harding areas it went into plus it was kinda predictable but unfortunately I had a lot of fun with it so I had to rate it 4 stars. the audiobook was EXCELLENT, don't read this any other way. Loved the documentary framing. It's a 3 star quality wise but here we are.
]]> <![CDATA[A Dance with Dragons 1: Dreams and Dust (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5, Part 1 of 2)]]> 13337715
Tyrion Lannister, having killed his father, and wrongfully accused of killing his nephew, King Joffrey, has escaped from King’s Landing with a price on his head.

To the north lies the great Wall of ice and stone � a structure only as strong as those guarding it. Eddard Stark's bastard son Jon Snow has been elected 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. But Jon has enemies both inside and beyond the Wall.

And in the east Daenerys Targaryen struggles to hold a city built on dreams and dust.]]> 690 George R.R. Martin � jami � 0 4.33 2011 A Dance with Dragons 1: Dreams and Dust (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5, Part 1 of 2)
author: George R.R. Martin
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: 2025-reads, adult, fantasy, series
review:
whole time reading this I was thinking whats the point next book is never coming but fuck it we ball
]]> <![CDATA[Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women]]> 220337362 An up-close and striking look at modern beauty culture―from Botox and Instagram filters to lip flips and editing apps―and the realities of coming of age online

We live in a new age of beauty. With advancements in cosmetic surgery, walk-in treatments, augmented-reality face filters, photo-editing apps, and exposure to more images than ever, we have the ability to craft the image we want everyone to see. We pinch, pull, squeeze, tweeze, smooth, and slice ourselves beyond recognition. But is modern beauty culture truly empowering? Are we really in control?

In Pixel Flesh, Ellen Atlanta holds a mirror up to our modern beauty ideal and the pressure to present a perfect image, to live in an age of constant comparison and curated feeds. She weaves in her personal story with others� to reconfigure our obsession with the cult of beauty and to explore the reality of living in a world of We know our standards are unhealthy, but following them helps us succeed. We resent social media but continue to scroll. We know digital beauty is artificial, yet we strive for it.

From Love Island to lip filler, "blackfishing" to the "beauty tax," Pixel Flesh exposes what young women face under a dominant industry. Nuanced, unflinching, and razor sharp, it unmasks the absurdities of the standards we suddenly find ourselves upholding and acts as a rallying cry and a refusal to suffer in silence.]]> 384 Ellen Atlanta 1472298772 � jami � 3 2025-reads, non-fiction
I thought the research and the structure was excellent. there is a lot of interesting information here with lengthy and considerate analysis. I liked most her interviews with real women, and the sections focussed on social media, influencers, and the impact of online marketing and beauty culture on young girls. This is where this book shines because it's a genuinely detailed analysis of the cultural and social impacts of this emerging digital landscape.

my one gripe is I feel Atlanta is a little bit of a fence sitter, at times. I would have liked this to perhaps be a little bit more hard hitting and come to some more definitive conclusions. I found the conclusion itself to be extremely weak - with some of her suggestions just being bizarre and unhelpful. along these lines, in general I found the personal sections of this to be disengaging, I don't think her narrative voice is as strong as essay writing. on a more minor note, I thought including quotes by large beauty companies felt incongruent with the rest of the content presented here.

That said, I DID appreciate a lot when this book delved more deeply into choice feminism, class analysis and capitalism than many similar books I've read on this topic. this is NOT a book that says 'botox is okay because if it makes you happy :)' and I was massively relieved by that.

overall would recommend, ESPECIALLY for people new to this topic.
]]> 4.25 2024 Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women
author: Ellen Atlanta
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: 2025-reads, non-fiction
review:
this is one of the most up-to-date explorations of the issue of beauty I've read - it covers a breadth of topics, with a focus on the social media landscape and how this is impacting changes to women's perceptions of themselves. I thought it was relatable, I saw myself & the people I know in the pages of this book.

I thought the research and the structure was excellent. there is a lot of interesting information here with lengthy and considerate analysis. I liked most her interviews with real women, and the sections focussed on social media, influencers, and the impact of online marketing and beauty culture on young girls. This is where this book shines because it's a genuinely detailed analysis of the cultural and social impacts of this emerging digital landscape.

my one gripe is I feel Atlanta is a little bit of a fence sitter, at times. I would have liked this to perhaps be a little bit more hard hitting and come to some more definitive conclusions. I found the conclusion itself to be extremely weak - with some of her suggestions just being bizarre and unhelpful. along these lines, in general I found the personal sections of this to be disengaging, I don't think her narrative voice is as strong as essay writing. on a more minor note, I thought including quotes by large beauty companies felt incongruent with the rest of the content presented here.

That said, I DID appreciate a lot when this book delved more deeply into choice feminism, class analysis and capitalism than many similar books I've read on this topic. this is NOT a book that says 'botox is okay because if it makes you happy :)' and I was massively relieved by that.

overall would recommend, ESPECIALLY for people new to this topic.

]]> The Beauty Myth 39926 368 Naomi Wolf 0060512180 � jami � 0 to-read 3.90 1990 The Beauty Myth
author: Naomi Wolf
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[True stories: Selected non-fiction]]> 1486730
Helen Garner looks at the world with a shrewd and sympathetic eye. Her nonfiction, with its many voices, is always passionate and compelling. True Stories is an extraordinary book, spanning twenty-five years of work, by one of Australia's great writers.]]> 242 Helen Garner 1875847243 � jami � 0 to-read 4.07 1996 True stories: Selected non-fiction
author: Helen Garner
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Yellow Notebook: Diaries Volume I 1978�1986]]> 51067885 Helen Garner has kept a diary for almost all her life. But until now, those exercise books filled with her thoughts, observations, frustrations and joys have been locked away, out of bounds, in a laundry cupboard.

Finally, Garner has opened her diaries and invited readers into the world behind her novels and works of non-fiction. Recorded with frankness, humour and steel-sharp wit, these accounts of her everyday life provide an intimate insight into the work of one of Australia’s greatest living writers.

Yellow Notebook, Diaries Volume One, in this elegant hardback edition, spans about a decade beginning in the late 1970s just after the publication of her first novel, Monkey Grip. It will delight Garner fans and those new to her work alike.


‘Garner is scrupulous, painstaking, and detailed, with sharp eyes and ears. She is everywhere at once, watching and listening, a recording angel at life’s secular apocalypses…her unillusioned eye makes her clarity compulsive.� James Wood, New Yorker

‘On the page, Garner is uncommonly fierce, though this usually has the effect on me of making her seem all the more likable. I relish her fractious, contrarian streak � she wears it as a chef would a bloody apron � even as I worry about what it would be like to have to face it down.� Guardian

‘[Garner’s] writing expresses a hard-won grace. It brings you closer to the world, and shows you how to love it.� Monthly

]]> 1 Helen Garner 1925774910 � jami � 0 to-read 4.19 2019 Yellow Notebook: Diaries Volume I 1978–1986
author: Helen Garner
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> This House of Grief 22814793 Anyone can see the place where the children died. You take the Princes Highway past Geelong, and keep going west in the direction of Colac. Late in August 2006, soon after I had watched a magistrate commit Robert Farquharson to stand trial before a jury on three charges of murder, I headed out that way on a Sunday morning, across the great volcanic plain.


On the evening of 4 September 2005, Father's Day, Robert Farquharson, a separated husband, was driving his three sons home to their mother, Cindy, when his car left the road and plunged into a dam. The boys, aged ten, seven and two, drowned. Was this an act of revenge or a tragic accident? The court case became Helen Garner's obsession. She followed it on its protracted course until the final verdict.


In this utterly compelling book, Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life. She presents the theatre of the courtroom with its actors and audience, all gathered for the purpose of bearing witness to the truth, players in the extraordinary and unpredictable drama of the quest for justice.


This House of Grief is a heartbreaking and unputdownable book by one of Australia's most admired writers.

]]> 300 Helen Garner 1922079200 � jami � 0 to-read 4.04 2014 This House of Grief
author: Helen Garner
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Evenings and Weekends 217494743 For fans of Sally Rooney and Torrey Peters, a taut and profoundly moving debut that follows a cast of intricately linked characters during a heatwave in London as simmering tensions and secrets come to a head over one life-changing weekend.

London, 2019. It’s the hottest June on record, and a whale is stuck in the Thames River. In the streets of the city, four old acquaintances want more from life than they’ve been given. On the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, their paths will intersect at a party that will change their lives forever�

Maggie, a once-hopeful artist turned waitress, is pregnant and preparing to move back to her hometown with her boyfriend and father-to-be Ed, leaving the city she loves and the life she imagined for herself.

Ed, coasting through life as a barely competent bike courier, is ready for a new start with Maggie and their baby, if only to finally leave behind his secret past of hooking up with strange men in train station bathrooms—and his secret past with Maggie’s best friend, Phil.

Phil, who sleepwalks through his office job and lives for the weekends, is on the brink of achieving his first real relationship with his roommate Keith. The two live in an illegal warehouse commune with other quirky creatives and idealists—the site of the party to end all parties.

As the temperature continues to climb, Maggie, Ed, and Phil will have to confront their shared pasts, current desires, and limits of their future lives together before the weekend is over.

Strikingly heartfelt, sexually charged, and disarmingly comic, Oisín McKenna’s addictive, page-turning debut is a mesmerizing dive into the soul of a city and a critical look at the political, emotional, and financial hurdles facing young adults trying to build lives there and often living for their evenings and weekends.]]> 344 Oisín McKenna 0008604185 � jami � 4 4.02 2024 Evenings and Weekends
author: Oisín McKenna
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves: 2025-reads, adult, contemporary, lgbtqiap
review:
to me there is just something so special about books set in a specific time and place... you can almost smell the heat of the summer radiating off the concrete and hear the tube rattling under london and feel every emotion these characters are having in your own chest. oisin mckenna I will be seated for the next one
]]> <![CDATA[The Unhoneymooners (Unhoneymooners, #1)]]> 42201431
Olive braces herself to get through 24 hours of wedding hell before she can return to her comfortable, unlucky life. But when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning from eating bad shellfish, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. And now there’s an all-expenses-paid honeymoon in Hawaii up for grabs.

Putting their mutual hatred aside for the sake of a free vacation, Olive and Ethan head for paradise, determined to avoid each other at all costs. But when Olive runs into her future boss, the little white lie she tells him is suddenly at risk to become a whole lot bigger. She and Ethan now have to pretend to be loving newlyweds, and her luck seems worse than ever. But the weird thing is that she doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, she feels kind of... lucky.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781501128035.]]> 432 Christina Lauren 1501128035 � jami � 2
The first half wasn't bad - it follows Olive, who's twin sister Ami is getting married. When everyone falls sick after the wedding from eating shellfish, everyone except Olive and Ethan, Ami's new husband's brother. Olive and Ethan don't like each other but in the interest of getting free shit they decide to pretend to be married to go on Ami and Dane's honeymoon. The premise was fun and even if it was slightly ridiculous, I enjoyed it.

The first 50% is essentially just Olive and Ethan getting to know eachother better, sorting out some misunderstandings between them and pretending to be married. Some truly ridiculous shit happens (Ethan's ex AND Olive's new boss both happen to be there) and while it was unrealistic, I can't say I didn't enjoy it.

I guess where this book falls apart is I didn't get the CHEMISTRY. these two people are way too horny for their own good, and all they really do is make horny jokes and their entire relationship is based off of Ethan thinking Olive has good titties and Olive thinking Ethan has good abs. And it's not that I can't necessarily get behind that, but I did find it boring here. I felt I was reading it like 'yep, that sure is another paragraph about how he's hot' but there was no spark or real connection that made me feel anything about it. I also found a lot of their banter cringey and their characterisation was so predictable (she's an awkward klutz who says silly things before thinking, he's a stoic brooding type with a heart of gold ect)

That said, the majority of the first half was fun and silly and I liked the progression of their relationship and the things they had to do to avoid getting caught out as not being married. And the massage scene did kind of slap.

The second half, however .... this is where my rating dropped from a "it's not great but it's a three star because I'm liking it" to a "god, I liked it at first but can it end already" two stars. It's hard to talk about the second half without spoiling everything but lets just say it was non-stop nonsense, misunderstandings, and people Doing Bad Things that shouldn't have been forgiven as easily as they were.

There was also some frankly questionable choices made regarding representation, like the plus-sized rep really only there when it was convenient for the plot, and the queer rep ..... well the stereotypical gay side character and the discussion about lesbians ....... yikes. It was unnecessary and made me wince. The final grand gesture scene was also so cringe-worth I had that visceral second-hand embarrassment reaction and I DON'T enjoy feeling that way.

“The problem with lying about relationships is that humans are fickle, fickle creatures.�


special mention to the part where the MC makes a harry potter joke and the LI replies with a harry potter joke and the MC is like "omg ... I knew he liked reading but he likes THE SAME BOOKS AS ME ........... the perfection of this man" like first of all calm down everyone knows harry potter Ethan isn't indie he isn't special .. you're living in america everyone understands harry potter references. second of all since when is 'harry potter' a type of book like skfksk. this shit made me roll my eyes so hard.

So there we go: I didn't really love reading this super hyped romance book and its like a 2.5 star for me purely because I Did genuinely have fun with the beginning to the middle even if it was ridiculous.

Do I dislike romance in general, is this a bad book, are horny straight people annoying, or am I just so tired of hetero people writing books about hetero nonsense? chime off in the comments]]> 3.88 2019 The Unhoneymooners (Unhoneymooners, #1)
author: Christina Lauren
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2019/12/21
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: romance, 2019-reads, adult, audiobook
review:
man idk if I just don't like romances in general or if I just find straight horny people to be incredibly boring or what it is but these hyped up romance novels keep letting me down

The first half wasn't bad - it follows Olive, who's twin sister Ami is getting married. When everyone falls sick after the wedding from eating shellfish, everyone except Olive and Ethan, Ami's new husband's brother. Olive and Ethan don't like each other but in the interest of getting free shit they decide to pretend to be married to go on Ami and Dane's honeymoon. The premise was fun and even if it was slightly ridiculous, I enjoyed it.

The first 50% is essentially just Olive and Ethan getting to know eachother better, sorting out some misunderstandings between them and pretending to be married. Some truly ridiculous shit happens (Ethan's ex AND Olive's new boss both happen to be there) and while it was unrealistic, I can't say I didn't enjoy it.

I guess where this book falls apart is I didn't get the CHEMISTRY. these two people are way too horny for their own good, and all they really do is make horny jokes and their entire relationship is based off of Ethan thinking Olive has good titties and Olive thinking Ethan has good abs. And it's not that I can't necessarily get behind that, but I did find it boring here. I felt I was reading it like 'yep, that sure is another paragraph about how he's hot' but there was no spark or real connection that made me feel anything about it. I also found a lot of their banter cringey and their characterisation was so predictable (she's an awkward klutz who says silly things before thinking, he's a stoic brooding type with a heart of gold ect)

That said, the majority of the first half was fun and silly and I liked the progression of their relationship and the things they had to do to avoid getting caught out as not being married. And the massage scene did kind of slap.

The second half, however .... this is where my rating dropped from a "it's not great but it's a three star because I'm liking it" to a "god, I liked it at first but can it end already" two stars. It's hard to talk about the second half without spoiling everything but lets just say it was non-stop nonsense, misunderstandings, and people Doing Bad Things that shouldn't have been forgiven as easily as they were.

There was also some frankly questionable choices made regarding representation, like the plus-sized rep really only there when it was convenient for the plot, and the queer rep ..... well the stereotypical gay side character and the discussion about lesbians ....... yikes. It was unnecessary and made me wince. The final grand gesture scene was also so cringe-worth I had that visceral second-hand embarrassment reaction and I DON'T enjoy feeling that way.

“The problem with lying about relationships is that humans are fickle, fickle creatures.�


special mention to the part where the MC makes a harry potter joke and the LI replies with a harry potter joke and the MC is like "omg ... I knew he liked reading but he likes THE SAME BOOKS AS ME ........... the perfection of this man" like first of all calm down everyone knows harry potter Ethan isn't indie he isn't special .. you're living in america everyone understands harry potter references. second of all since when is 'harry potter' a type of book like skfksk. this shit made me roll my eyes so hard.

So there we go: I didn't really love reading this super hyped romance book and its like a 2.5 star for me purely because I Did genuinely have fun with the beginning to the middle even if it was ridiculous.

Do I dislike romance in general, is this a bad book, are horny straight people annoying, or am I just so tired of hetero people writing books about hetero nonsense? chime off in the comments
]]> The Season 214273049

She’s a passionate Western Bulldogs fan (with an imperfect grasp of the rules) who loves the epic theatre of AFL football. But her devotion to the under-16s offers her something else. This is her chance to connect with her youngest grandchild, to be close to him before he rushes headlong into manhood. To witness his triumphs and defeats, to fear for his safety in battle, to gasp and to cheer for his team as it fights for a place in the finals.


With her sharp eye, her generous wit and her warm humour, Garner documents this pivotal moment, both as part of the story and as silent witness. The Season is an unexpected and exuberant a celebration of the nobility, grace and grit of team spirit, a reflection on the nature of masculinity, and a tribute to the game’s power to thrill us.]]> 0 Helen Garner 1922791814 � jami � 5
“Really I’m trying to write about footy and my grandson and me. About boys at dusk. A little life-hymn. A poem. A record of a season we are spending together before he turns into a man and I die.�


when one of your favourite authors writes about your favourite sport... I love AFL I knew I'd love this book but it hit me even harder than I expected. "A nanna's book about football" I found myself so touched by the relationship between Garner and her grandson, the contemplation on the cycles of life - he growing up as she's preparing for her death, love and friendship and the idea of sport as something that can bring us together. I was actually moved by this, of my favourite pieces of media on sport ever! Switched to the audiobook halfway through which I recommend because she narrates it herself. 5/5.]]> 4.13 2024 The Season
author: Helen Garner
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: 2025-reads, adult, audiobook, australian, non-fiction
review:
“Really I’m trying to write about footy and my grandson and me. About boys at dusk. A little life-hymn. A poem. A record of a season we are spending together before he turns into a man and I die.�


when one of your favourite authors writes about your favourite sport... I love AFL I knew I'd love this book but it hit me even harder than I expected. "A nanna's book about football" I found myself so touched by the relationship between Garner and her grandson, the contemplation on the cycles of life - he growing up as she's preparing for her death, love and friendship and the idea of sport as something that can bring us together. I was actually moved by this, of my favourite pieces of media on sport ever! Switched to the audiobook halfway through which I recommend because she narrates it herself. 5/5.
]]> <![CDATA[Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking]]> 30753841
In the tradition of The Joy of Cooking and How to Cook Everything comes Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, an ambitious new approach to cooking by a major new culinary voice. Chef and writer Samin Nosrat has taught everyone from professional chefs to middle school kids to author Michael Pollan to cook using her revolutionary, yet simple, philosophy. Master the use of just four elements—Salt, which enhances flavor; Fat, which delivers flavor and generates texture; Acid, which balances flavor; and Heat, which ultimately determines the texture of food—and anything you cook will be delicious. By explaining the hows and whys of good cooking, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will teach and inspire a new generation of cooks how to confidently make better decisions in the kitchen and cook delicious meals with any ingredients, anywhere, at any time.

Echoing Samin’s own journey from culinary novice to award-winning chef, Salt, Fat Acid, Heat immediately bridges the gap between home and professional kitchens. With charming narrative, illustrated walkthroughs, and a lighthearted approach to kitchen science, Samin demystifies the four elements of good cooking for everyone. Refer to the canon of 100 essential recipes—and dozens of variations—to put the lessons into practice and make bright, balanced vinaigrettes, perfectly caramelized roast vegetables, tender braised meats, and light, flaky pastry doughs.

Featuring 150 illustrations and infographics that reveal an atlas to the world of flavor by renowned illustrator Wendy MacNaughton, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will be your compass in the kitchen. Destined to be a classic, it just might be the last cookbook you’ll ever need.

With a foreword by Michael Pollan.]]> 480 Samin Nosrat 1476753830 � jami � 0 2025-reads, non-fiction 4.39 2017 Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking
author: Samin Nosrat
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: 2025-reads, non-fiction
review:
good foundational cookbook. sort of knew a lot of these things from messing around in the kitchen but still interesting to learn some of the "why" behind what we do. probably aimed toward people who cook less than I do. I think she's a cutie tho! Love her show
]]> The Ardent Swarm 56449198
Sidi lives a hermetic life as a bee whisperer, tending to his beloved “girls� on the outskirts of the desolate North African village of Nawa. He wakes one morning to find that something has attacked one of his beehives, brutally killing every inhabitant. Heartbroken, he soon learns that a mysterious swarm of vicious hornets committed the mass murder—but where did they come from, and how can he stop them? If he is going to unravel this mystery and save his bees from annihilation, Sidi must venture out into the village and then brave the big city and beyond in search of answers.

Along the way, he discovers a country and a people turned upside down by their new post–Arab Spring reality as Islamic fundamentalists seek to influence votes any way they can on the eve of the country’s first democratic elections. To succeed in his quest, and find a glimmer of hope to protect all that he holds dear, Sidi will have to look further than he ever imagined.

In this brilliantly accessible modern-day parable, Yamen Manai uses a masterful blend of humor and drama to reveal what happens in a country shaken by revolutionary change after the world stops watching.]]> 174 Yamen Manai 1542020468 � jami � 0 to-read 4.10 2017 The Ardent Swarm
author: Yamen Manai
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Beyond the Rice Fields 34466659
Fara and her father’s slave, Tsito, have been close since her father bought the boy after his forest village was destroyed. Now in Sahasoa, amongst the cattle and rice fields, everything is new for Tsito, and Fara at last has a companion. But as Tsito looks forward to the bright promise of freedom and Fara, backward to a dark, long-denied family history, a rift opens between them just as British Christian missionaries and French industrialists arrive and violence erupts across the country. Love and innocence fall away, and Tsito and Fara’s world becomes enveloped by tyranny, superstition, and fear.

With captivating lyricism, propulsive urgency, and two unforgettable characters at the story’s core, Naivo unflinchingly delves into the brutal history of nineteenth-century Madagascar. Beyond the Rice Fields is a tour de force that has much to teach us about human bondage and the stories we tell to face―and hide from―ourselves, each other, our pasts, and our destinies.]]> 368 Naivo 1632061317 � jami � 0 to-read 3.75 2016 Beyond the Rice Fields
author: Naivo
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Sad Girl Novel 123659261
' Stays one step ahead of the reader by critiquing the genre's tropes and trademarks along the way ' Guardian

' A book about finding yourself, losing yourself and everything in between . . . Will have you laughing, crying and wanting more' The Urban

'An irreverent voice that will have you reaching for a pen to underline every second sentence ' Books + Publishing

' While Kimberley Mueller spends a lot of time wondering whether she's talented , Finkemeyer need have no such doubts. Finkemeyer's narrator . . . is a stroke of genius .' Diana Reid, author of Love & Virtue]]> 292 Pip Finkemeyer � jami � 0 australian, to-read 3.04 2023 Sad Girl Novel
author: Pip Finkemeyer
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.04
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: australian, to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland]]> 40163119
Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

Patrick Radden Keefe writes an intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.]]> 441 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385521316 � jami � 0 currently-reading 4.47 2018 Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Katabasis 210223811 Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own.

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality—her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world—that is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.]]> 400 R.F. Kuang � jami � 0 to-read 4.12 2025 Katabasis
author: R.F. Kuang
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Listeners 56988057
January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles.

Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. The Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, have trained her well. But when the family heir makes a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats, June must persuade her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the front lines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile.

Meanwhile FBI Agent Tucker Minnick, whose coal tattoo hints at an Appalachian past, presses his ears to the hotel’s walls, listening for the diplomats� secrets. He has one of his own, which is how he knows that June’s balancing act can have dangerous consequences: the sweetwater beneath the hotel can threaten as well as heal.

June has never met a guest she couldn’t delight, but the diplomats are different. Without firing a single shot, they have brought the war directly to her. As clashing loyalties crack the Avallon’s polished veneer, June must calculate the true cost of luxury.]]> 400 Maggie Stiefvater 0593655508 � jami � 0 to-read 4.04 2025 The Listeners
author: Maggie Stiefvater
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Wild Dark Shore 211004089
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.]]> 303 Charlotte McConaghy 1250827957 � jami � 0 to-read 4.32 2025 Wild Dark Shore
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Stolen Queen 211025454 From New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis, an utterly addictive new novel that will transport you from New York City’s most glamorous party to the labyrinth streets of Cairo and back.

Egypt, 1936: When anthropology student Charlotte Cross is offered a coveted spot on an archaeological dig in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, she leaps at the opportunity. But after an unbearable tragedy strikes, Charlotte knows her future will never be the same.

New York City, 1978: Eighteen-year-old Annie Jenkins is thrilled when she lands an opportunity to work for iconic former Vogue fashion editor Diana Vreeland, who’s in the midst of organizing the famous Met Gala, hosted at the museum and known across the city as the “party of the year.� Though Annie soon realizes she’ll have her work cut out for her, scrambling to meet Diana’s capricious demands and exacting standards.

Meanwhile, Charlotte, now leading a quiet life as the associate curator of the Met’s celebrated Department of Egyptian Art, wants little to do with the upcoming gala. She’s consumed with her research on Hathorkare—a rare female pharaoh dismissed by most other Egyptologists as unimportant.

That is, until the night of the gala. When one of the Egyptian art collection’s most valuable artifacts goes missing . . . and there are signs Hathorkare’s legendary curse might be reawakening.

As Annie and Charlotte team up to search for the missing antiquity, a desperate hunch leads the unlikely duo to one place Charlotte swore she’d never return: Egypt. But if they’re to have any hope of finding the artifact, Charlotte will need to confront the demons of her past—which may mean leading them both directly into danger.]]> 352 Fiona Davis 0593474279 � jami � 0 to-read 3.93 2025 The Stolen Queen
author: Fiona Davis
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Night Swim (Rachel Krall, #1)]]> 51169341
The new season of Rachel's podcast has brought her to a small town being torn apart by a devastating rape trial. A local golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been accused of raping the beloved granddaughter of the police chief. Under pressure to make Season 3 a success, Rachel throws herself into her investigation—but the mysterious letters keep coming. Someone is following her, and she won’t stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister twenty-five years ago. Officially, Jenny Stills tragically drowned, but the letters insist she was murdered—and when Rachel starts asking questions, nobody in town wants to answer. The past and present start to collide as Rachel uncovers startling connections between the two cases—and a revelation that will change the course of the trial and the lives of everyone involved.

Electrifying and propulsive, The Night Swim asks: What is the price of a reputation? Can a small town ever right the wrongs of its past? And what really happened to Jenny?]]> 341 Megan Goldin 125021968X � jami � 0 to-read 4.02 2020 The Night Swim (Rachel Krall, #1)
author: Megan Goldin
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Whale Fall 195888522 A stunning debut from an award-winning writer, about loss, isolation, folklore, and the joy and dissonance of finding oneself by exploring life outside one’s community

In 1938, a dead whale washes up on the shores of remote Welsh island. For Manod, who has spent her whole life on the island, it feels like both a portent of doom and a symbol of what may lie beyond the island's shores. A young woman living with her father and her sister (to whom she has reluctantly but devotedly become a mother following the death of their own mother years prior), Manod can't shake her welling desire to explore life beyond the beautiful yet blisteringly harsh islands that her hardscrabble family has called home for generations.

The arrival of two English ethnographers who hope to study the island culture, then, feels like a boon to her—both a glimpse of life outside her community and a means of escape. The longer the ethnographers stay, the more she feels herself pulled towards them, reckoning with a sensual awakening inside herself, despite her misgivings that her community is being misconstrued and exoticized.

With shimmering prose tempered by sharp wit, Whale Fall tells the story of what happens when one person's ambitions threaten the fabric of a community, and what can happen when they are realized. O'Connor paints a portrait of a community and a woman on the precipice, forced to confront an outside world that seems to be closing in on them.]]> 224 Elizabeth O'Connor 0593700910 � jami � 0 to-read 3.81 2024 Whale Fall
author: Elizabeth O'Connor
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Coin 199349912 A bold and unabashed novel about a young Palestinian woman's unraveling, far from home, as she gets caught up in a scheme reselling Birkin bags

The Coin follows a Palestinian woman as she pursues a dream that generations of her family have failed at: to live and thrive in America. She teaches at a school for underprivileged boys in New York, where her eccentric methods cross conventional boundaries. She befriends a homeless swindler and the two participate in a pyramid scheme reselling Birkin bags, the value of which "increases, year by year, regardless of poverty, of war, of famine." The juxtaposition of luxury and the abject engulfs her as she is able to con her way to bag after bag, preoccupied by the suffering she knows of the world.

Eventually, her body and mind go to war. America is stifling her—her willfulness, her sexuality, her ideology. In an attempt to regain control, she becomes preoccupied with purity, cleanliness and self-image, all while drawing her students into her obsessions. In an unforgettable denouement, her childhood memories converge with her feelings of existential statelessness, and the narrator unravels spectacularly.

Enthralling, sensory, and uncanny, The Coin explores materiality, nature and civilization, class, homelessness, sexuality, beauty—and how oppression and inherited trauma manifest in every area of our lives—all while resisting easy moralizing. Provocative and original, humorous and inviting, The Coin marks the arrival of a major new literary voice.]]> 240 Yasmin Zaher 1646222105 � jami � 0 to-read 3.50 2024 The Coin
author: Yasmin Zaher
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Beauty 51284929
You were either fit and trim or you weren't working hard enough. Your body was how you conveyed wealth and status to your peers, it was a personality trait, a symbol of goodness and values: an ethical ideal.

In recent decades women have made momentous progress fighting the patriarchy, yet they are held to ever-stricter, more punishing physical standards. Self-worth still plummets and eating disorders are more deadly for how easily they are dismissed.

In Beauty Bri Lee explores our obsession with thinness and asks how an intrinsically unattainable standard of physical 'perfection' has become so crucial to so many. What happens if you try to reach that impossible goal? Bri did try, and Beauty is what she learned from that battle: a gripping and intelligent rejection of an ideal that diminishes us all.]]> 160 Bri Lee 1760876526 � jami � 0
I think this is a very hard book to rate - and even to talk about. at the end of the day, a lot of it is taken from her personal experiences with anorexia and bulimia, and I think some of the reviews calling her 'self-absorbed' ect are missing the very point these essays are making which is that disordered eating, body image issues ect are much more about control and turning perfectionist tendencies inward than it really is about weight, looks and the good or bad things you have in your life. So I found her honesty and rawness to be somewhat impressive, she admits things in here you'd never ever pull out of me, and such harsh, uncomfortable self-criticism and voyeurism cannot have been easy to write, and the fact it made me extremely uncomfortable at times it probably a testament to how raw it was. I actually think Lee's willingness to admit to horrible thoughts, such as the scene in which she watches a woman eat dumplings and worries that if she did such a thing she may end up "fat like her", is sort of a strength of her writing. I think it's this brutal honesty that makes her non-fiction writing compelling.

And that said, I couldn't help but find this book frustrating at times. Lee's work is very inward-looking, and as soon as it became time to connect this theme to the larger topic of beauty, I found it fell flat. There was a certain lack of self-awareness that I, as someone whose definitely bigger than this author (literally, she gives you the numbers!), found annoying. Perhaps it's just hard for me to sympathise with someone whose entire body image issue is around having to buy size 10 clothes, oh the horror!!

And maybe I'm in the wrong for finding that frustrating - but I do think a book on a topic as wide as beauty should have a little bit more of an external focus. I don't think she adequately examined or covered the topic, aside from a few surface level gestures toward marketing, race and class and feminism and how this connects with the perpetuity of beauty culture and impacts different people in different ways.

Perhaps this book would have been more successful if it was written in a different way, pitched as more of a personal exploration with eating disorders rather than a larger analysis of beauty and how it connects to Bri Lee specifically.

So while I found moments of this interesting and compelling I'm not sure I would ever recommend it. It's not the best work on this theme, I don't think it's actually successful at analysing it's theme at all - and as a personal memoir, while I do admire her brutal honesty, I'm not sure if I exactly gained much out of reading it.

That said, will I be seated for her next book? Of course I will.]]> 3.69 2019 Beauty
author: Bri Lee
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: 2025-reads, adult, audiobook, australian, writing-essays, non-fiction
review:
bri lee is one of australia's most exciting young writers - I've now read all her works. eggshell skull was excellent, who gets to be smart had moments of brilliance even if it lost steam by the end, and even though her fiction debut the work was a letdown this book - beauty, is the one I was most worried about reading. I knew the content would at best annoy me, at worst trigger me.

I think this is a very hard book to rate - and even to talk about. at the end of the day, a lot of it is taken from her personal experiences with anorexia and bulimia, and I think some of the reviews calling her 'self-absorbed' ect are missing the very point these essays are making which is that disordered eating, body image issues ect are much more about control and turning perfectionist tendencies inward than it really is about weight, looks and the good or bad things you have in your life. So I found her honesty and rawness to be somewhat impressive, she admits things in here you'd never ever pull out of me, and such harsh, uncomfortable self-criticism and voyeurism cannot have been easy to write, and the fact it made me extremely uncomfortable at times it probably a testament to how raw it was. I actually think Lee's willingness to admit to horrible thoughts, such as the scene in which she watches a woman eat dumplings and worries that if she did such a thing she may end up "fat like her", is sort of a strength of her writing. I think it's this brutal honesty that makes her non-fiction writing compelling.

And that said, I couldn't help but find this book frustrating at times. Lee's work is very inward-looking, and as soon as it became time to connect this theme to the larger topic of beauty, I found it fell flat. There was a certain lack of self-awareness that I, as someone whose definitely bigger than this author (literally, she gives you the numbers!), found annoying. Perhaps it's just hard for me to sympathise with someone whose entire body image issue is around having to buy size 10 clothes, oh the horror!!

And maybe I'm in the wrong for finding that frustrating - but I do think a book on a topic as wide as beauty should have a little bit more of an external focus. I don't think she adequately examined or covered the topic, aside from a few surface level gestures toward marketing, race and class and feminism and how this connects with the perpetuity of beauty culture and impacts different people in different ways.

Perhaps this book would have been more successful if it was written in a different way, pitched as more of a personal exploration with eating disorders rather than a larger analysis of beauty and how it connects to Bri Lee specifically.

So while I found moments of this interesting and compelling I'm not sure I would ever recommend it. It's not the best work on this theme, I don't think it's actually successful at analysing it's theme at all - and as a personal memoir, while I do admire her brutal honesty, I'm not sure if I exactly gained much out of reading it.

That said, will I be seated for her next book? Of course I will.
]]> <![CDATA[I Want to Go Home But I’m Already There]]> 215073599 Renting is a nightmare...

Áine should be feeling happy with her life. She’s just moved in with Elliot. Their new flat is in an affluent neighbourhood, surrounded by bakeries, yoga studios and organic vegetable shops. They even have a garden. And yet, from the moment they move in, Áine can't shake the sense that there's something not quite right about the place...

It's not just the humourless estate agent and nameless it's the chill that seeps through the draughty windows; the damp spreading from the cellar door; the way the organic fruit and veg never lasts as long as it should. And most of all, it's the upstairs neighbours, whose very existence makes peaceful coexistence very difficult indeed.

The longer Áine spends inside the flat - pretending to work from home; dissecting messages from the friends whose lives seem to have moved on without her - the less it feels like home. And as Áine fixates on the cracks in the ceiling, it becomes harder to ignore the cracks in her relationship with Elliott...

Brilliantly observed and darkly funny, I Want to Go Home But I’m Already There is a ghost story set in the rental crisis. A wonderfully clear-eyed portrait of loneliness, loss and belonging, it examines what it means to feel at home.]]> 288 Róisín Lanigan 0241668557 � jami � 0 to-read 3.65 I Want to Go Home But I’m Already There
author: Róisín Lanigan
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.65
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Thirst Trap 221188099 Sometimes friends hold you together.
Sometimes they’re why you’re falling apart.

Maggie, Harley and Róise are friends on the of triumph, catastrophe, or maybe just finally growing up. Their crumbling Belfast houseshare has been witness to their roaring twenties, filled with questionable one-night stands and ruthless hangovers. But now fault-lines are beginning to show.

The three girls are still grieving the tragic death of their friend, Lydia, whose room remains untouched. Their last big fight hangs heavy over their heads, unspoken since the accident. And now they are all beginning to unravel.

Thirst Trap by Gráinne O'Hare is a blazing, bittersweet, bitingly funny, and painfully relatable story about the friendships that endure through the very best and the very worst of times.]]> 288 Grainne O'Hare 1035046229 � jami � 0 to-read 4.13 2025 Thirst Trap
author: Grainne O'Hare
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil]]> 215020997 London, 1837.
Boston, 2019.

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

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

And all of them grow teeth.]]> 560 Victoria E. Schwab 1035064642 � jami � 0 to-read 4.38 2025 Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend]]> 214152206 From rare book dealer and guest star of the hit show Pawn Stars, a page-turning literary adventure that introduces readers to the women writers who inspired Jane Austen—and investigates why their books have disappeared from our shelves.

Long before she was a rare book dealer, Rebecca Romney was a devoted reader of Jane Austen. She loved that Austen’s books took the lives of women seriously, explored relationships with wit and confidence, and always, allowed for the possibility of a happy ending. She read and reread them, often wishing Austen wrote just one more.

But Austen wasn’t a lone genius. She wrote at a time of great experimentation for women writers—and clues about those women, and the exceptional books they wrote, are sprinkled like breadcrumbs throughout Austen’s work. Every character in Northanger Abbey who isn’t a boor sings the praises of Ann Radcliffe. The play that causes such a stir in Mansfield Park is a real one by the playwright Elizabeth Inchbald. In fact, the phrase “pride and prejudice� came from Frances Burney’s second novel Cecilia. The women that populated Jane Austen’s bookshelf profoundly influenced her work; Austen looked up to them, passionately discussed their books with her friends, and used an appreciation of their books as a litmus test for whether someone had good taste. So where had these women gone? Why hadn’t Romney—despite her training—ever read them? Or, in some cases, even heard of them? And why were they no longer embraced as part of the wider literary canon?

Jane Austen’s Bookshelf investigates the disappearance of Austen’s heroes—women writers who were erased from the Western canon—to reveal who they were, what they meant to Austen, and how they were forgotten. Each chapter profiles a different writer including Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth—and recounts Romney’s experience reading them, finding rare copies of their works, and drawing on connections between their words and Austen’s. Romney collects the once-famed works of these forgotten writers, physically recreating Austen’s bookshelf and making a convincing case for why these books should be placed back on the to-be-read pile of all book lovers today. Jane Austen’s Bookshelf will encourage you to look beyond assigned reading lists, question who decides what belongs there, and build your very own collection of favorite novels.]]> 464 Rebecca Romney 1982190248 � jami � 0 to-read 4.45 2025 Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
author: Rebecca Romney
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Atmosphere 220817728 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s Space Shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s Space Shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.

Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easy-going even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warm-hearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.

As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.

Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.

Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, with complex protagonists, telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love, this time among the stars.]]> 352 Taylor Jenkins Reid 0593158717 � jami � 0 to-read 4.45 2025 Atmosphere
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Emperor of Gladness 219848315 Ocean Vuong returns with a big-hearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.

Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing � formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness � are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.]]> 416 Ocean Vuong 059383187X � jami � 0 to-read 4.37 2025 The Emperor of Gladness
author: Ocean Vuong
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead]]> 51648276
A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is worthy of a voice?

Duration: 11 hours 39 minutes.]]> 274 Olga Tokarczuk � jami � 0 to-read 3.93 2009 Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
author: Olga Tokarczuk
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Birnam Wood 79741780
Περνώντας απαρατήρητοι, οι ακτιβιστές κηπουροί, με αρχηγό τη Μίρα Μπάντινγκ, φυτεύουν λαχανικά, συχνά παραβιάζοντας μεγάλες ιδιοκτησίες. Δεν έχουν όμως υπολογίσει τον αινιγματικό Ρόμπερτ Λεμόιν, μεγιστάνα βιομηχανίας ντρόουν, που ενδιαφέρεται επίσης για το ίδιο κομμάτι γης. Μπορούν να τον εμπιστευτούν; Και, εν τέλει, καθώς μέσα από μια απροσδόκητη διαδικασία δοκιμάζονται βάναυσα οι αρχές και η ιδεολογία τους, μπορούν να εμπιστευτούν ο ένας τον άλλον;

Ένα συναρπαστικό λογοτεχνικό θρίλερ από τη βραβευμένη με Booker Έλενορ Κάττον, σαιξπηρικό ως προς το πνεύμα, τη δραματική πλοκή και την ολοκληρωμένη σκιαγράφηση των χαρακτήρων. Μια έξοχα δομημένη αφήγηση για τις προθέσεις, τις πράξεις και τις συνέπειές τους, και κυρίως για αυτό το ακατανίκητο ένστικτο του ανθρώπου για επιβίωση.]]> 423 Eleanor Catton 178378427X � jami � 4 read around the world challenge: new zealand

really liked this! Character driven eco-thriller set in New Zealand with an explosive third act. I actually enjoyed the slow-burn of this one, the first two thirds is just getting to know the character, seeing threads weave together and letting the politics simmer away but I never really found myself bored. Eleanor Catton has a really engaging and witty writing style that kept me hooked.

My one star dock is just because I wish one of the characters had been a little less one dimensional and it's probably not a new favourite but it's very good and I recommend!]]> 3.92 2023 Birnam Wood
author: Eleanor Catton
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: 2024-reads, adult, contemporary, owned-books, thriller
review:
read around the world challenge: new zealand

really liked this! Character driven eco-thriller set in New Zealand with an explosive third act. I actually enjoyed the slow-burn of this one, the first two thirds is just getting to know the character, seeing threads weave together and letting the politics simmer away but I never really found myself bored. Eleanor Catton has a really engaging and witty writing style that kept me hooked.

My one star dock is just because I wish one of the characters had been a little less one dimensional and it's probably not a new favourite but it's very good and I recommend!
]]> <![CDATA[Underground Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube]]> 13639484
Why is the Victoria Line so hot? What is an Electrical Multiple Unit? Is it really possible to ride from Kings Cross to Kings Cross on the Circle line?The London Underground is the oldest, most sprawling and illogical metropolitan transport system in the world, the result of a series of botch-jobs and improvisations.Yet it transports over one billion passengers every year - and this figure is rising. It is iconic, recognised the world over, and loved and despised by Londoners in equal measure. Blending reportage, humour and personal encounters, Andrew Martin embarks on a wonderfully engaging social history of London's underground railway system (which despite its name, is in fact fifty five per cent overground). Along the way he attempts to untangle the mess that is the Northern Line, visit every station in a single day - and find out which gaps to be especially mindful of.Underground, Overground is a highly enjoyable, witty and informative history of everything you need to know about the Tube.]]> 304 Andrew Martin 1846684773 � jami � 0 to-read 3.76 2012 Underground Overground: A Passenger's History of the Tube
author: Andrew Martin
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Personal Score: Sport, Culture, Identity]]> 125636505 Personal Score is a ground-breaking book that confirms, once again, van Neerven's unrivalled talent, courage and originality.]]> 359 Ellen Van Neerven 070226752X � jami � 0 to-read 4.23 Personal Score: Sport, Culture, Identity
author: Ellen Van Neerven
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.23
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Signs of Damage 219802412 It was as if the present and the past were a spider’s web, wherein a shock to one strand could make the whole structure shake.

The Kelly family’sidyllic holiday in the southofFrance is disturbed when Cass, a thirteen-year-old girl, goes missing.She’s discovered several hours later with no visiblesignsofinjury. Everyone present dismisses the incident as a close brush with tragedy.

Sixteen years later, at a funeral for a memberofthe Kelly family, Cass collapses. The present and the past start to collide as buried secrets come to light and old doubts resurface. What really happened to Cass in the southofFrance? And what’s wrong with her now?

A gripping taleofunravelling memories and moral ambiguities,Signs of Damagewrestles with the difference between understanding other people, and trying to explain them.]]> 304 Diana Reid 176115110X � jami � 0 to-read 3.57 2025 Signs of Damage
author: Diana Reid
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Napalm in the Heart 196674636 Survival is a moral quandary in this jagged, otherworldly debut charting forbidden love during an apocalypse.

In a near future devastated by war and unspecified natural disaster, a young man and his mother cling to survival at the edge of a forest. Society is militarized and dangerous, with men with shaved heads patrolling the land as families are uprooted and nature is all but decimated. The young man spends his days helping his mother, who is traumatized from her experience working in the ominous Factory, and exchanging letters with his lover, Boris, who lives in a city on the other side of the forest. It’s barely a life, but it’s life nonetheless.

After a brutal act of desperate violence and the arrival of armed men at their doorstep, the young man leaves his mother and finds Boris, who travels with him through the forest to the city. Escaping slavers and trekking through the empty landscape, the two find moments of intimacy despite their circumstances. But as their survival comes with increasingly violent demands, the young man is forced to confront whether, in his effort to stay alive, he’s become the very thing he’s fought to escape.

An award-winning, breakout novel from a blazingly original Catalonian poet, Pol Guasch’s Napalm in the Heart is breathtaking in its beauty and devastation. Sparse, quick, and wrestling with big ideas, from the despoiling of the environment and totalitarianism to queerness and manhood, Guasch’s debut is an unrelenting and extraordinarily artful exploration of the moral murkiness of survival.]]> 256 Pol Guasch 0374612951 � jami � 0 to-read 3.45 2021 Napalm in the Heart
author: Pol Guasch
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Maurice 262147
In his introduction, David Leavitt explores the significance of the novel in relation to Forster's own life and as a founding work of modern gay literature. This edition reproduces the Abinger text of the novel, and includes new notes, a chronology and further reading.]]> 232 E.M. Forster 0141441135 � jami � 5
“I think you’re beautiful, the only beautiful person I’ve ever seen. I love your voice and everything to do with you, down to your clothes or the room you are sitting in. I adore you.�


this book sent me all the way through it and I was genuinely moved by the tenderness.. the yearning... the way e.m forster wrote a happy ending for two men because he thought it was time gay men got to be happy in fiction... the explorations of class and freedom and longing... Maurice's journey to self-discovery and coming of age ... the way that clive his first love is depicted and the closure he gets from him .. the fact the end of this book is literally "I fucked your gamekeeper in your bedroom and then in a hotel and now I realise I don't care for you at all gotta bounce!".. also e.m forster has such beautiful and emotional writing

“A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn't have bothered to write otherwise. I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense, Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood.�


I adore this book and e.m forster]]> 4.12 1971 Maurice
author: E.M. Forster
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1971
rating: 5
read at: 2020/01/21
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: classics, lgbtqiap, 2020-reads, gay-mc, owned-books, favorites
review:
“I think you’re beautiful, the only beautiful person I’ve ever seen. I love your voice and everything to do with you, down to your clothes or the room you are sitting in. I adore you.�


this book sent me all the way through it and I was genuinely moved by the tenderness.. the yearning... the way e.m forster wrote a happy ending for two men because he thought it was time gay men got to be happy in fiction... the explorations of class and freedom and longing... Maurice's journey to self-discovery and coming of age ... the way that clive his first love is depicted and the closure he gets from him .. the fact the end of this book is literally "I fucked your gamekeeper in your bedroom and then in a hotel and now I realise I don't care for you at all gotta bounce!".. also e.m forster has such beautiful and emotional writing

“A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn't have bothered to write otherwise. I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense, Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood.�


I adore this book and e.m forster
]]> Seven Days in June 55648820
When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their past buried traumas, but the eyebrows of New York's Black literati. What no one knows is that twenty years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. They may be pretending that everything is fine now, but they can't deny their chemistry - or the fact that they've been secretly writing to each other in their books ever since.

Over the next seven days in the middle of a steamy Brooklyn summer, Eva and Shane reconnect, but Eva's not sure how she can trust the man who broke her heart, and she needs to get him out of New York so that her life can return to normal. But before Shane disappears again, there are a few questions she needs answered...

With its keen observations of Black life and the condition of modern motherhood, as well as the consequences of motherless-ness, Seven Days in June is by turns humorous, warm and deeply sensual.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781538719107.]]> 336 Tia Williams � jami � 3

"a deejay (hidden in the kitchen) played chill but fun tracks a la solange, khalid and sza."

"Eva wore her favourite summertime sexy look: a black romper with a strapless bustier top (it made her legs look endless and her boobs luscious)"

"he was a runner. a capital R runner, and you knew he was serious because he bought Nike Vaporflys, and he was wearing the Garmin Forerunner 945 GPS watch"


We legit neeeeeeeeed to stop giving fanfic writers book deals until they learn how to pen some goddamn prose! especially the ones who also have the secondary deadly affliction of being addicted to book twitter.

I'm still giving it three stars though because I still liked reading it most of the time when it wasn't being ridiculous]]> 3.98 2021 Seven Days in June
author: Tia Williams
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: 2024-reads, adult, contemporary, owned-books
review:
sooo the start of this book and the premise is so fun but the writing sucks SO BAD. girl what the hell is this


"a deejay (hidden in the kitchen) played chill but fun tracks a la solange, khalid and sza."

"Eva wore her favourite summertime sexy look: a black romper with a strapless bustier top (it made her legs look endless and her boobs luscious)"

"he was a runner. a capital R runner, and you knew he was serious because he bought Nike Vaporflys, and he was wearing the Garmin Forerunner 945 GPS watch"


We legit neeeeeeeeed to stop giving fanfic writers book deals until they learn how to pen some goddamn prose! especially the ones who also have the secondary deadly affliction of being addicted to book twitter.

I'm still giving it three stars though because I still liked reading it most of the time when it wasn't being ridiculous
]]> <![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 � jami � 0
Of course some were better than others, but wow some parts of this were so incredibly heartwarming and earnest and I teared up TWICE. Once while listening to John Green playing an audio of the call of a now-extinct bird. WAAHHH. Anyways, I loved how this was general but also clearly pandemic literature in the way it dealt with 2020-2021. The vulnerability, reflection and thoughtfulness was just really good and to me, this is like John Green at his best.

Favourite essays: Auld Lang Syne (!!!! favourite by far), Our Capacity for Wonder, Lascaux Cave Paintings, The Internet, Jerzy Dudek's Performance on May 25, 2005, Indianapolis, Mortification, Super Mario Kart, Whispering, The Hot Dogs of Baejarins Betzu Pylsur and The Kaua'i-o-o]]> 4.37 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/10/27
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: 2021-reads, adult, audiobook, writing-essays, non-fiction
review:
okay, so my relationship with John Green's fiction is hit or miss - but I've ALWAYS loved his YouTube videos. I loved his Crash Course series as well as the series he did with Hank here they'd talk about random things every Tuesday. This essay collection had the same energy as that series and I enjoyed it soo much. It's a series of 'reviews' that read more like essay collections, reviewing literally everything from Sunsets to Teddy Bears to the Penguins of Madagascar.

Of course some were better than others, but wow some parts of this were so incredibly heartwarming and earnest and I teared up TWICE. Once while listening to John Green playing an audio of the call of a now-extinct bird. WAAHHH. Anyways, I loved how this was general but also clearly pandemic literature in the way it dealt with 2020-2021. The vulnerability, reflection and thoughtfulness was just really good and to me, this is like John Green at his best.

Favourite essays: Auld Lang Syne (!!!! favourite by far), Our Capacity for Wonder, Lascaux Cave Paintings, The Internet, Jerzy Dudek's Performance on May 25, 2005, Indianapolis, Mortification, Super Mario Kart, Whispering, The Hot Dogs of Baejarins Betzu Pylsur and The Kaua'i-o-o
]]> <![CDATA[A Christmas Carol (Dyslexia-friendly Classics)]]> 38747621 A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens. It was first published by Chapman & Hall on 19 December 1843. It tells the story of a bitter old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge and his transformation resulting from a supernatural visit by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Yet to Come.

The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim. The book was written and published in early Victorian era Britain, a period when there was strong nostalgia for old Christmas traditions together with the introduction of new customs, such as Christmas trees and greeting cards. Dickens' sources for the tale appear to be many and varied, but are, principally, the humiliating experiences of his childhood, his sympathy for the poor, and various Christmas stories and fairy tales.]]> 248 Charles Dickens 1781127530 � jami � 5 4.18 1843 A Christmas Carol (Dyslexia-friendly Classics)
author: Charles Dickens
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1843
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/21
shelves:
review:

]]> On Women 212342550
On Women brings together Susan Sontag's most fearless and incisive writing on women, a crucial aspect of her work that has not until now received the attention it deserves

Written during the height of second-wave feminism, Sontag's essays remain strikingly relevant to our contemporary conversations. At times powerfully in sync and at others powerfully at odds with them, they are always characteristically original in their examinations of the 'biological division of labour', the double-standard for ageing and the dynamics of women's power and powerlessness.

As Merve Emre writes in her introduction, On Women offers us 'the spectacle of a ferocious intellect setting itself to the task at hand: to articulate the politics and aesthetics of being a woman in the United States, the Americas and the world.']]> 208 Susan Sontag 0241996848 � jami � 3
]]> 3.65 2023 On Women
author: Susan Sontag
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: 2024-reads, non-fiction, owned-books
review:
I liked the first essay about aging a lot, and the one about the aesthetics of facsism was interesting in parts, but beside that I think there are much better essays on most of these topics.


]]> <![CDATA[A Sunny Place for Shady People]]> 203494983 A Sunny Place for Shady People is her first story collection since the International Booker Prize-shortlisted The Dangers of Smoking in Bed. Featuring achingly human characters whose lives intertwine with ghosts, the occult and the macabre, the stories explore love, womanhood, LGBTQ counterculture, parenthood and Argentina's brutal past.]]> 272 Mariana Enríquez � jami � 0 to-read 3.82 2024 A Sunny Place for Shady People
author: Mariana Enríquez
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Juice 207627291
Two fugitives, a man and a child, drive all night across a stony desert. As dawn breaks, they roll into an abandoned mine site. From the vehicle they survey a forsaken place � middens of twisted iron, rusty wire, piles of sun-baked trash. They’re exhausted, traumatised, desperate now. But as a refuge, this is the most promising place they’ve seen. The child peers at the field of desolation. The man thinks to himself, this could work.

Problem is, they’re not alone.

So begins a searing, propulsive journey through a life whose central challenge is not simply a matter of survival, but of how to maintain human decency as everyone around you falls ever further into barbarism.]]> 524 Tim Winton 1035050838 � jami � 0 to-read 3.95 2024 Juice
author: Tim Winton
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Anam 123025358 look after the children? A love story? Or a ghost story � a mystery to be solved?

Moving from 1930s Hanoi through a series of never-ending wars and displacements to Saigon, Paris, Melbourne and Cambridge, Anam is a novel about memory and inheritance, colonialism and belonging, home and exile.

Anam blends fiction and essay, theory and everyday life to imagine that which has been repressed, left out, and forgotten. The grandson mines his family and personal stories to turn over ideas that resonate with all of us around place and home, legacy and expectation, ambition and sacrifice. As he sifts through letters, photographs, government documents and memories, he has his own family to think about: a partner and an infant daughter. Is there a way to remember the past that creates a future for them? Or does coming home always involve a certain amount of forgetting?]]> 352 Andre Dao 176014620X � jami � 0 to-read 3.64 2023 Anam
author: Andre Dao
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> All the Bees in the Hollows 216487768
Marytè is a devoted beekeeper. She lives by the old work with fellow beekeepers, be a good Christian and a good harvest will follow. These rules help her cope with her grief when she inherits her husband's tree hollows. But as harsh conditions and tax increases threaten the harvest, Marytè begins to question her faith, her community and her own sanity.
There is little help to be had from her eldest daughter. Austėja is no worker bee. She takes risks, speaks her mind and dreams of escaping their isolated community. As her mother works, she finds refuge in the ancient forest and the old beliefs instilled in her by her defiant grandmother.
When Austėja discovers the mutilated body of the Hollow Watcher and uncovers a honeycomb of lies and betrayal, she is intent on finding the truth and protecting her family. Will mother and daughter overcome their differences, learn the truth behind the murder and complete the honey harvest?]]> 280 Lauren Keegan 1923135074 � jami � 0 to-read 3.64 All the Bees in the Hollows
author: Lauren Keegan
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.64
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country]]> 90590140 An unprecedented and intimate portrait of Russia and a fearless cri de coeur for journalism in opposition to the global authoritarian turn

To be a journalist is to tell the truth. I Love Russia is Elena Kostyuchenko's fearless and unrelenting attempt to document Putin's Russia as experienced by those whom it systematically and brutally erases: village girls recruited into sex work, queer people in the outer provinces, patients and doctors at a Ukrainian maternity ward, and reporters like herself.

The result is a singular portrait of a nation, and of a young woman who refuses to be silenced. In March 2022, as a reporter for Russia's last free press, Novaya Gazeta, Kostyuchenko crossed the border into Ukraine to cover the war. It was her mission to ensure that Russians witnessed the horrors Putin was committing in their name. She filed her pieces knowing that should she return home, she would likely be prosecuted and sentenced to 15 years in prison--yet driven by the conviction that the greatest form of love and patriotism is criticism, she continues to write, undaunted and with eyes wide open.

I Love Russia stitches together reportage from the past 15 years with personal essays, assembling a kaleidoscopic narrative that Kostyuchenko understands may be the last thing she'll publish for a long time, perhaps ever. She writes because the threat of Putin's Russia extends beyond herself, beyond Crimea, and beyond Ukraine. We fail to understand it at our own peril.]]> 384 Elena Kostyuchenko 0593655265 � jami � 0 to-read 4.31 2023 I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country
author: Elena Kostyuchenko
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution]]> 42815538 From The New Yorker’s fiercely original, Pulitzer Prize–winning culture critic, a provocative collection of new and previously published essays arguing that we are what we watch.

From her creation of the first “Approval Matrix� in New York magazine in 2004 to her Pulitzer Prize–winning columns for The New Yorker, Emily Nussbaum has known all along that what we watch is who we are. In this collection, including two never-before-published essays, Nussbaum writes about her passion for television that began with stumbling upon "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"—a show that was so much more than it appeared—while she was a graduate student studying Victorian literature. What followed was a love affair with television, an education, and a fierce debate about whose work gets to be called “great� that led Nussbaum to a trailblazing career as a critic whose reviews said so much more about our culture than just what’s good on television. Through these pieces, she traces the evolution of female protagonists over the last decade, the complex role of sexual violence on TV, and what to do about art when the artist is revealed to be a monster. And she explores the links between the television antihero and the rise of Donald Trump.

The book is more than a collection of essays. With each piece, Nussbaum recounts her fervent search, over fifteen years, for a new kind of criticism that resists the false hierarchy that elevates one form of culture over another. It traces her own struggle to punch through stifling notions of “prestige television,� searching for a wilder and freer and more varied idea of artistic ambition—one that acknowledges many types of beauty and complexity, and that opens to more varied voices. It’s a book that celebrates television as television, even as each year warps the definition of just what that might mean.]]> 384 Emily Nussbaum 0525508961 � jami � 0 to-read 3.97 2019 I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution
author: Emily Nussbaum
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Kairos 202576816
From a prize-winning German writer, this is the intimate and devastating story of the path of two lovers through the ruins of a relationship, set against the backdrop of a seismic period in European history.]]> 294 Jenny Erpenbeck 1783786132 � jami � 4 - really interesting depiction of east berlin through the central relationship
- wish i knew more about the history to fully engage but did enjoy learning & being able to question / delve into these topics
- 3/4 way through just dragged a bit, did think the final section was well done though
- as a side note.. the goodreads reviews of this.. some people are very stupid i fear]]> 3.26 2021 Kairos
author: Jenny Erpenbeck
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves: 2024-reads, adult, historical-fiction, translated-fiction, world-literatures
review:
- fantastic writing
- really interesting depiction of east berlin through the central relationship
- wish i knew more about the history to fully engage but did enjoy learning & being able to question / delve into these topics
- 3/4 way through just dragged a bit, did think the final section was well done though
- as a side note.. the goodreads reviews of this.. some people are very stupid i fear
]]> The Echoes 202908611 A story about the weight of the past and the promise of the future set between rural Australia and London - from the bestselling author of The Bass Rock

Max didn’t believe in an afterlife. Until he died. Now, as a reluctant ghost trying to work out why he remains, he watches his girlfriend Hannah lost in grief in the flat they shared and begins to realise how much of her life was invisible to him.

In the weeks and months before Max’s death, Hannah is haunted by the secrets she left Australia to escape. A relationship with Max seems to offer the potential of a different story, but the past refuses to stay hidden. It finds expression in the untold stories of the people she grew up with, the details of their lives she never knew and the events that broke her family apart and led her to Max.

Both a celebration and autopsy of a relationship, The Echoes is a novel about stories and who has the right to tell them, asking what of our past can we shrug off and what is fixed forever.]]> 304 Evie Wyld 1529926998 � jami � 0 to-read 3.83 2024 The Echoes
author: Evie Wyld
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Safekeep 199798201
A house is a precious thing...

It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season.

Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation—leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem.

Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, and infused with intrigue, atmosphere, and sex, The Safekeep is a brilliantly plotted and provocative debut novel you won’t soon forget.]]> 272 Yael van der Wouden 1668034344 � jami � 0 to-read 4.05 2024 The Safekeep
author: Yael van der Wouden
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall]]> 226369 328 Anna Funder 1862076553 � jami � 0 to-read 4.20 2003 Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
author: Anna Funder
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England]]> 52855
Following the daily life of a middle-class Victorian house from room to room; from childbirth in the master bedroom through the kitchen, scullery, dining room, and parlor, all the way to the sickroom; Judith Flanders draws on diaries, advice books, and other sources to resurrect an age so close in time yet so alien to our own. 100 illustrations, 32 pages of color.]]> 499 Judith Flanders 0393327639 � jami � 0 to-read 4.16 2003 Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England
author: Judith Flanders
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock]]> 30338791 One of T.S. Eliot’s earliest, and most significant works.

A great achievement of modernist literature, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock takes the form of the complex musings of the titular Prufrock as he considers life and his role in it. The poem draws heavily on allusion to classical works, including Dante’s [ Comedy' (1320)|6656] and Shakespeare’s [ (1601)|1589254].

[ Elliot|18540] was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. Born in 1888 in St. Louis (MO, USA), he is considered one of the 20th century's major poets, and a central figure in English-language Modernist poetry."In ten years' time," wrote Edmund Wilson in [ Castle (1931)|350271], "Elliot has left upon English poetry a mark more unmistakable than that of any other poet writing in English." In 1948, Eliot was awarded the Nobel Price "for his work as a trail-blazing pioneer of modern poetry."]]> 67 T.S. Eliot 1551999218 � jami � 0 let us go then ... you and I

I actually love this poem so much. I read it in high-school and it actually stuck with me so that means something because not all poetry does.

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?


There is a version of this on spotify and the person reading it reads it so well and I love it so much I listen to it all the time because I'm a certified nerd and I'm Extra


In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
]]> 4.30 1915 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
author: T.S. Eliot
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1915
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: read-for-school, western-canon, classics, poetry
review:
let us go then ... you and I


I actually love this poem so much. I read it in high-school and it actually stuck with me so that means something because not all poetry does.

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?


There is a version of this on spotify and the person reading it reads it so well and I love it so much I listen to it all the time because I'm a certified nerd and I'm Extra


In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

]]> The Pairing 199440249 definitely not.

Theo and Kit have been a lot of things: childhood best friends, crushes, in love, and now estranged exes. After a brutal breakup on the transatlantic flight to their dream European food and wine tour, they exited each other's lives once and for all.

Time apart has done them good. Theo has found confidence as a hustling bartender by night and aspiring sommelier by day, with a long roster of casual lovers. Kit, who never returned to America, graduated as the reigning sex god of his pastry school class and now bakes at one of the finest restaurants in Paris. Sure, nothing really compares to what they had, and life stretches out long and lonely ahead of them, but—yeah. It's in the past.

All that remains is the unused voucher for the European tour that never happened, good for 48 months after its original date and about to expire. Four years later, it seems like a great idea to finally take the trip. Solo. Separately.

It's not until they board the tour bus that they discover they've both accidentally had the exact same idea, and now they're trapped with each other for three weeks of stunning views, luscious flavors, and the most romantic cities of France, Spain, and Italy. It's fine. There's nothing left between them. So much nothing that, when Theo suggests a friendly wager to see who can sleep with their hot Italian tour guide first, Kit is totally game. And why stop there? Why not a full-on European hookup competition?

But sometimes a taste of everything only makes you crave what you can't have.]]> 432 Casey McQuiston 1250862744 � jami � 2
fun concept, bad execution.

pros:
- the premise
- how every chapter it set in a different city
- some really fun/silly moments (in a good way)

cons:
- bad writing, too many internetisms
- sex scenes making me go huh
- literally did not gaf about their drama
- kinda too melodramatic for me
- i like how casey clearly met an aussie in europe one time and then proceeded to write the most insane depiction of an australian character ever]]> 3.70 2024 The Pairing
author: Casey McQuiston
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: 2024-reads, adult, contemporary, lgbtqiap, bi-mc, romance
review:
2.5

fun concept, bad execution.

pros:
- the premise
- how every chapter it set in a different city
- some really fun/silly moments (in a good way)

cons:
- bad writing, too many internetisms
- sex scenes making me go huh
- literally did not gaf about their drama
- kinda too melodramatic for me
- i like how casey clearly met an aussie in europe one time and then proceeded to write the most insane depiction of an australian character ever
]]> Our London Lives 208558724 'Huge of heart and soaring of soul' CLAIRE KILROY
'A profound love story...Like Barbara Kingsolver, Hickey captures the pulse of the living moment' COLUM McCANN

1979. In the vast and often unforgiving city of London, two Irish outsiders seeking refuge find one Milly, a teenage runaway, and Pip, a young boxer full of anger and potential who is beginning to drink it all away.

Over the decades their lives follow different paths, interweaving from time to time, often in one another's sight, always on one another's mind, yet rarely together.

Forty years on, Milly is clinging onto the only home she's ever really known while Pip, haunted by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, traipses the streets of London and wrestles with the life of the recovering alcoholic. And between them, perhaps uncrossable, lies the unspoken span of their lives.

Dark and brave, this epic novel offers a rich and moving portrait of an ever-changing city, and a profound inquiry into character, loneliness and the nature of love.]]> 493 Christine Dwyer Hickey 1805461346 � jami � 0 to-read 4.12 2024 Our London Lives
author: Christine Dwyer Hickey
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Roads To Rome: A History 199718613
Bringing together the history of the roads with the author's own travels along these old routes, The Roads to Rome is a journey into that past and an exploration of its legacy through successive centuries, showing how and why this world-shaping network came about and how it transformed the vast panoply of peoples it connected. Along the way we encounter spies and bandits, scheming innkeepers, streetwalkers, postmasters, soldiers and tourists, an exiled king, an aristocratic lady with her family of five, even Mussolini on his motorbike. And that's not to mention the famous names of literature who made their way along the ancient roads: Keats, Germaine de Staël, Goethe, Dickens, George Eliot, and many more. Across space and time we meander and march through a series of worlds that existed at a different pace and yet remain intimately connected to our present.

The Roads to Rome is the first book to tell the full story of these arteries of empire and channels of human activity which marked Rome's 'extraordinary greatness' then and now, a vivid portrait of lives lived and transformed through travel over two thousand years.]]> 464 Catherine Fletcher 1529928427 � jami � 0 to-read 3.29 The Roads To Rome: A History
author: Catherine Fletcher
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.29
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Uncultured: A Memoir 59808316 In the vein of Educated and The Glass Castle, Daniella Mestyanek Young's Uncultured is more than a memoir about an exceptional upbringing, but about a woman who, no matter the lack of tools given to her, is determined to overcome.

Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family’s first communes in Texas. Her mother, at thirteen, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional, and sexual abuse�masked as godly discipline and divine love�and is forbidden from getting a traditional education.

At fifteen years old, fed up with The Family and determined to build a better and freer life for herself, Daniella escapes to Texas. There, she bravely enrolls herself in high school and excels, later graduating as valedictorian of her college class, then electing to join the military to begin a career as an intelligence officer, where she believes she will finally belong.

But she soon learns that her new world�surrounded by men on the sands of Afghanistan�looks remarkably similar to the one she desperately tried to leave behind.

Told in a beautiful, propulsive voice and with clear-eyed honesty, Uncultured explores the dangers unleashed when harmful group mentality goes unrecognized, and is emblematic of the many ways women have to contort themselves to survive.]]> 339 Daniella Mestyanek Young 1250280117 � jami � 0
didn't exactly dislike this I just feel like I got the gist of the point it was making and the second half following her experience in the army I just found to drag a bit and not as engaging.

Read for bookclub, this is probably not the kind of thing I would read of my own volition. ]]> 4.10 2022 Uncultured: A Memoir
author: Daniella Mestyanek Young
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: dnf, 2024-reads, adult, memoir, non-fiction
review:
dnf @ 82%

didn't exactly dislike this I just feel like I got the gist of the point it was making and the second half following her experience in the army I just found to drag a bit and not as engaging.

Read for bookclub, this is probably not the kind of thing I would read of my own volition.
]]> <![CDATA[The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore]]> 201751300 An affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cultural life, from department stores to indies, from highbrow dealers trading in first editions to sidewalk vendors, and from chains to special-interest community destinations

Bookstores have always been unlike any other kind of store, shaping readers and writers, and influencing our tastes, thoughts, and politics. They nurture local communities while creating new ones of their own. Bookshops are powerful spaces, but they are also endangered ones. In The Bookshop, we see those stakes: what has been, and what might be lost.

Evan Friss’s history of the bookshop draws on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, and interviews with leading booksellers to offer a fascinating look at this institution beloved by so many. The story begins with Benjamin Franklin’s first bookstore in Philadelphia and takes us to a range of booksellers including The Strand, Chicago’s Marshall Field & Company, Gotham Book Mart, specialty stores like Oscar Wilde and Drum and Spear, sidewalk sellers of used books, Barnes & Noble, Amazon Books, and Parnassus. The Bookshop is also a history of the leading figures in American bookselling, often impassioned eccentrics, and a history of how books have been marketed and sold over more than two centuries—including, for example, a 3,000-pound elephant who appeared to sign books at Marshall Field’s in 1944.

The Bookshop is a love letter to bookstores, a charming chronicle for anyone who cherishes these sanctuaries of literature, and essential reading to understand how these vital institutions have shaped American life—and why we still need them.]]> 416 Evan Friss 0593299922 � jami � 0 to-read 3.93 2024 The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore
author: Evan Friss
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent]]> 57998249
Women are in a bind. In the name of consent and empowerment, they must proclaim their desires clearly and confidently. Yet sex researchers suggest that women’s desire is often slow to emerge. And men are keen to insist that they know what women—and their bodies—want. Meanwhile, sexual violence abounds. How can women, in this environment, possibly know what they want? And why do we expect them to?

In this elegant, searching book—spanning science and popular culture; pornography and literature; debates on Me-Too, consent and feminism—Katherine Angel challenges our assumptions about women’s desire. Why, she asks, should they be expected to know their desires? And how do we take sexual violence seriously, when not knowing what we want is key to both eroticism and personhood?

In today’s crucial moment of renewed attention to violence and power, Angel urges that we remake our thinking about sex, pleasure, and autonomy without any illusions about perfect self-knowledge. Only then will we fulfil Michel Foucault’s teasing promise, in 1976, that “tomorrow sex will be good again.”]]> 160 Katherine Angel 1788739205 � jami � 0 to-read 3.93 2021 Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent
author: Katherine Angel
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century]]> 56347680 The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century upends the way we discuss—or avoid discussing—the problems and politics of sex.

How should we think about sex? It is a thing we have and also a thing we do; a supposedly private act laden with public meaning; a personal preference shaped by outside forces; a place where pleasure and ethics can pull wildly apart.

How should we talk about sex? Since #MeToo many have fixed on consent as the key framework for achieving sexual justice. Yet consent is a blunt tool. To grasp sex in all its complexity�its deep ambivalences, its relationship to gender, class, race and power�we need to move beyond yes and no, wanted and unwanted.

We do not know the future of sex—but perhaps we could imagine it. Amia Srinivasan’s stunning debut helps us do just that. She traces the meaning of sex in our world, animated by the hope of a different world. She reaches back into an older feminist tradition that was unafraid to think of sex as a political phenomenon. She discusses a range of fraught relationships—between discrimination and preference, pornography and freedom, rape and racial injustice, punishment and accountability, students and teachers, pleasure and power, capitalism and liberation.

The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century is a provocation and a promise, transforming many of our most urgent political debates and asking what it might mean to be free.]]> 241 Amia Srinivasan 0374721033 � jami � 0 to-read 4.27 2021 The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century
author: Amia Srinivasan
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Jules et Jim 10713724
Henri-Pierre Roché was in his mid-seventies when he wrote this, his semi-autobiographical debut novel. The inspiration for the legendary film, it captures perfectly, with excitement and great humour, the tenderness of three people in love with each other and with life.]]> 227 Henri-Pierre Roché 0141194634 � jami � 0 to-read 3.49 1953 Jules et Jim
author: Henri-Pierre Roché
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1953
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Golden Maze 52280876 Beloved ABC broadcaster and bestselling author of Ghost Empire and Saga Land, Richard Fidler is back with a personally curated history of the magical city that is Prague.

In 1989, Richard Fidler was living in London as part of the provocative Australian comedy trio The Doug Anthony All Stars when revolution broke out across Europe. Excited by this galvanising historic, human, moment, he travelled to Prague, where a decrepit police state was being overthrown by crowds of ecstatic citizens. His experience of the Velvet Revolution never let go of him.

Thirty years later Fidler returns to Prague to uncover the glorious and grotesque history of Europe's most instagrammed and uncanny city: a jumble of gothic towers, baroque palaces and zig-zag lanes that has survived plagues, pogroms, Nazi terror and Soviet tanks. Founded in the ninth Century, Prague gave the world the golem, the robot, and the world's biggest statue of Stalin, a behemoth that killed almost everyone who touched it.

Fidler tells the story of the reclusive emperor who brought the world's most brilliant minds to Prague Castle to uncover the occult secrets of the universe. He explores the Black Palace, the wartime headquarters of the Nazi SS, and he meets victims of the communist secret police. Reaching back into Prague's mythic past, he finds the city's founder, the pagan priestess Libussa who prophesised: I see a city whose glory will touch the stars.

Following the story of Prague from its origins in medieval darkness to its uncertain present, Fidler does what he does so well - curates an absolutely engaging and compelling history of a place. You will learn things you never knew, with a tour guide who is erudite, inquisitive, and the best storyteller you could have as your companion.

PRAISE FOR GHOST EMPIRE:

'Fidler displays great charm in the telling of his tale, spicing it with delicious gossip.' - New York Times Book Review

'... thanks to the stylish cleverness of an exceptionally curious and talented man, we can feast on what strange magic the city brought-and still brings today-to the world beyond. I am speechless with admiration.' - Simon Winchester

'Fidler's story leaves its readers with a sense of faith in the renewing, illuminating, social powers of historical narrative.' - Sydney Morning Herald]]> 580 Richard Fidler 0733335268 � jami � 4 4.17 2020 The Golden Maze
author: Richard Fidler
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: 2024-reads, audiobook, history, non-fiction
review:
very interesting - Prague is one of my favourite cities in Europe. It's so beautiful and I loved this biography which focusses on the city itself (though inevitably expands into more general history of Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia). The first half, which is about more medieval history is fascinating. The modern history section was not as strong to me, but still overall quite interesting especially the Cold War sections. I have never learned this much about Czech history in WW2 and the cold war so specifically.
]]> Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen � jami � 0 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dead Weight: Essays on Hunger and Harm]]> 165940214 A personal and cultural look at the dark underbelly of Western beauty standards and the lethal culture of disordered eating they've wreaked

In Dead Weight, Emmeline Clein tells the story of her own disordered eating alongside, and through, other women from history, pop culture and the girls she's known and loved. Tracing the medical and cultural history of anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, and orthorexia, Clein investigates the economic conditions underpinning our eating disorder epidemic, and illuminates the ways racism and today's feminism have been complicit in propping up the thin ideal. While examining Goop, Simone Weil, pro-anorexia blogs, and the flawed logic of our current treatment methods, Clein grapples with the myriad ways disordered eating has affected her own friendships and romantic relationships.

Dead Weight makes the case that we are faced with a culture of suppression and denial that is insidious, pervasive, and dangerous, one that internalizes and promotes the fetish of self-shrinking as a core tenet of the American cult of femininity. This is replicated in our algorithms, our television shows, our novels, and our relationships with one another. Dead Weight is a sharp, perceptive, and revelatory polemic for readers fascinated by the external forces shaping their lives.]]> 288 Emmeline Clein 0593536908 � jami � 0 to-read 3.87 2024 Dead Weight: Essays on Hunger and Harm
author: Emmeline Clein
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Never Lie 62080187
But when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrienne Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace four years earlier, a violent winter storm traps them at the estate� with no chance of escape until the blizzard comes to an end.

In search of a book to keep her entertained until the snow abates, Tricia happens upon a secret room. One that contains audio transcripts from every single patient Dr. Hale has ever interviewed. As Tricia listens to the cassette tapes, she learns about the terrifying chain of events leading up to Dr. Hale’s mysterious disappearance.

Tricia plays the tapes one by one, late into the night. With each one, another shocking piece of the puzzle falls into place, and Dr. Adrienne Hale’s web of lies slowly unravels.

And then Tricia reaches the final cassette.

The one that reveals the entire horrifying truth.]]> 286 Freida McFadden � jami � 3 4.09 2022 Never Lie
author: Freida McFadden
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/20
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: 2024-reads, adult, audiobook, mystery, owned-books
review:
actually surprised me in the end... yippee yippee. prose kinda bad tho you can't have it all
]]> If Beale Street Could Talk 42932973 The inspiration for the upcoming feature film from Oscar award-winning director Barry Jenkins

'Achingly beautiful' Guardian

Harlem, the black soul of New York City, in the era of Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. The narrator of Baldwin's novel is Tish nineteen, and pregnant. Her lover Fonny, father of her child, is in jail accused of rape. Flashbacks from their love affair are woven into the compelling struggle of two families to win justice for Fonny. To this love story James Baldwin brings a spare and impassioned intensity, charging it with universal resonance and power.

'If Beale Street Could Talk affirms not only love between a man and a woman, but love of a type that is dealt with only rarely in contemporary fiction - that between members of a family' Joyce Carol Oates]]> 172 James Baldwin 0140187979 � jami � 5



I LOVE james baldwin]]> 4.34 1974 If Beale Street Could Talk
author: James Baldwin
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.34
book published: 1974
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/17
date added: 2024/11/17
shelves: 2024-reads, adult, classics, owned-books
review:




I LOVE james baldwin
]]> Intermezzo 209311051
Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair and possibility—a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 442 Sally Rooney 0571365469 � jami � 4
]]> 4.03 2024 Intermezzo
author: Sally Rooney
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/06
date added: 2024/11/06
shelves: adult, contemporary, favourite-covers, owned-books
review:
unfortunately, didn't rise to the heights of normal people / BWWAY but there is no doubt she is one of the most thoughtful and skilful writers we've got right now


]]> Green Dot 183470027
Hera Stephen is clawing through her mid-twenties, working as an underpaid comment moderator in an overly air-conditioned newsroom by day and kicking around Sydney with her two best friends by night. Instead of money or stability, she has so far accrued one ex-girlfriend, several hundred hangovers and a dog-eared novel collection.

While everyone around her seems to have slipped effortlessly into adulthood, Hera has spent the years since school caught between feeling that she is purposefully rejecting traditional markers of success to forge a life of her own and wondering if she's actually just being left behind. Then she meets Arthur, an older, married colleague. Intoxicated by the promise of ordinary happiness he represents, Hera falls headlong into a workplace romance that everyone, including her, knows is doomed to fail.

With her daringly specific and intimate voice, Madeleine Gray has created an irresistible and messy love story about the terrible allure of wanting something that promises nothing; about the joys and indignities of coming into adulthood against the pitfalls of the twenty-first century; and about the winding, torturous and often very funny journey we take in deciding who we are and who we want to be.


'I felt so much joy reading this utterly assured writing. Green Dot is written with such poise, such confidence, I could not look away. I was mesmerised by its sheer brilliance.' –Jessie Tu, author of A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing

'I am obsessed with this book. I am obsessed with Hera, with her dad, her friends, her dog. I am obsessed with how funny she is, and how hopeful and dark and tender and bleak the world is through her eyes. Green Dot is a book about love, and how stupid and funny and absolutely beautiful life can be. I would read it forever if I could.' –Laura McPhee-Browne, author of Cherry Beach

'Laugh-out-loud funny and beautifully, brutally relatable - Green Dot is a book that will stay with me for a very long time.' –Ewa Ramsey, author of The Morbids

'Incredibly funny and a bit too real. This debut novel captures the zeitgeist.' –Brigid Delaney, author of Reasons Not to Worry and Wellmania]]> 320 Madeleine Gray 1761187724 � jami � 3 - main character was so pathetic. understand this was the point but wish it hadn't gone on for so long and more time had been dedicated to a catharsis / wrap up because 1 chapter wasn't enough
- london section seemed a little unfocussed
- I've seen this sort of book / story a lot of times and I don't think this was done as skilfully as I've seen it done before.
- australian contemporary novels about white 20 something women all have the same tone and flavour like did everyone go to the same creative writing class? This reminded me so much of no hard feelings (which I preferred)
- that said still fun, read it very quickly
- also think the fact the main character pissed me off so bad works in its favour. got me emotionally involved and thats something]]> 3.81 2024 Green Dot
author: Madeleine Gray
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/06
date added: 2024/11/06
shelves: 2024-reads, adult, audiobook, australian, contemporary
review:
- first half is extremely funny, 4 stars for that section
- main character was so pathetic. understand this was the point but wish it hadn't gone on for so long and more time had been dedicated to a catharsis / wrap up because 1 chapter wasn't enough
- london section seemed a little unfocussed
- I've seen this sort of book / story a lot of times and I don't think this was done as skilfully as I've seen it done before.
- australian contemporary novels about white 20 something women all have the same tone and flavour like did everyone go to the same creative writing class? This reminded me so much of no hard feelings (which I preferred)
- that said still fun, read it very quickly
- also think the fact the main character pissed me off so bad works in its favour. got me emotionally involved and thats something
]]> A Room with a View 815320 A Room with A View is one of E.M. Forster's most celebrated works. Forster explores love among a cast of characters gathered in an Italian pension and a Surrey village. Caught up in a world of social snobbery, Lucy Honeychurch must make a decision that will decide the course of her future: she is forced to choose between convention and passion.]]> 256 E.M. Forster 0140010599 � jami � 4 2024-reads, adult, classics
maurice > a room with a view > where angels fear to tread.]]> 3.90 1908 A Room with a View
author: E.M. Forster
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1908
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/30
date added: 2024/10/30
shelves: 2024-reads, adult, classics
review:
my third forster book - I enjoyed this for it's soapiness and drama. It's also very evocative of place, and funny in places. Liked the commentary on society and social norms (but it's forster, so duh).

maurice > a room with a view > where angels fear to tread.
]]> <![CDATA[A Storm of Swords 1: Steel and Snow (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3, Part 1 of 2)]]> 11734301 An alternate cover edition of this ISBN can be found here.

HBO's hit series A GAME OF THRONES is based on George R R Martin's internationally bestselling series A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, the greatest fantasy epic of the modern age. A STORM OF SWORDS: STEEL AND SNOW is the FIRST part of the third volume in the series. Winter approaches Westeros like an angry beast. The Seven Kingdoms are divided by revolt and blood feud. In the northern wastes, a horde of hungry, savage people steeped in the dark magic of the wilderness is poised to invade the Kingdom of the North where Robb Stark wears his new-forged crown. And Robb's defences are ranged against the South, the land of the cunning and cruel Lannisters, who have his younger sisters in their power. Throughout Westeros, the war for the Iron Throne rages more fiercely than ever, but if the Wall is breached, no king will live to claim it.]]> 623 George R.R. Martin � jami � 4
“Why would the stars want to look down on such as me?�


A Storm of Swords is definitely a lot slower than it's predecessors. In this book, there's a sense everything is just on the verge of falling apart, like everyone is moving into position and soon there will be utter chaos. So I enjoyed the scheming, the political machinations, the set-ups and the lore that we get throughout this book - but I also found parts of it quite slow.

My favourite part of this book was definitely the backstory and history we get about the characters and the world. A lot if about Rhaegar, Aerys and Roberts Rebellion. I always find worldbuilding and history really interesting and engaging in fantasies so these bits really drew me in. While I did know a bit of it from the TV show, getting more was nice. And I really like how much George RR Martin has actually thought out this world and the histories and backstories of the characters. He reveals just enough to transform our perceptions of them without defining them - like Jaime for example, and I think that's fun.

I also noticed George R.R Martins writing a lot more in this. It was a little more poetic than the past two books which I appreciated.

My least favourite bit is how much TRAVELLING there is. Arya and Jaime's chapters are pretty much just them walking around and it was definitely boring. I think there was too many POVs in this with not enough for each of them to do, because although we hear from each character a few times, most of them don't actually have much to do.

My favourite to least favourite POVs are as follows:

Catelyn
Daenerys
Sansa
Tyrion
Bran
Jon
Jaime (except that ONE BATH CHAPTER WHICH DESERVES EVERYTHING)
Davos
Samwell

“The world grows a little darker every day.�


Yes, unpopular opinion but I love Catelyn's chapters. I feel her pain! And I think the entire Stark camp is the one that has the most happening. Also I know whats about to happen and I want to appreciate them while I can.

Daenerys is one of my least favourite characters (another unpopular opinion) but I liked her scenes in this book especially in Qarth. Truly epic and iconic. Also I liked the reflection on Rhaegar/Aerys and the Targaryens reign in Westeros.

Sansa is MY GIRL and I like all the Kings Landing politics. Same reason I liked Tyrion's chapters.

I like Bran. I like Jojen and Meera. Their travel chapters were just more interesting to me than the others and also Bran had Summer with him and I'm just a sucker for those good boy wolves

“I'm not a lady, Arya wanted to tell her, I'm a wolf.�


Anyway, Game of Thrones is like a friendly warm fantasy world to return to. Which, I know sounds weird since it's brutal, but since I know the characters and the world and the majority of the story from the show it's such an easy and fun thing to return to and experience in a new way.

ANYWAYS I'm not sure when I'll get to A Storm of Swords part II. I'll be slowly making my way through this series since I want to catch up and be ready for the new release (when it's hopefully actually coming.)]]> 4.41 2000 A Storm of Swords 1: Steel and Snow (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3, Part 1 of 2)
author: George R.R. Martin
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2019/07/20
date added: 2024/10/27
shelves: series-to-complete, 2019-reads, adult, epic-fantasy, fantasy, owned-books, series
review:
“Why would the stars want to look down on such as me?�


A Storm of Swords is definitely a lot slower than it's predecessors. In this book, there's a sense everything is just on the verge of falling apart, like everyone is moving into position and soon there will be utter chaos. So I enjoyed the scheming, the political machinations, the set-ups and the lore that we get throughout this book - but I also found parts of it quite slow.

My favourite part of this book was definitely the backstory and history we get about the characters and the world. A lot if about Rhaegar, Aerys and Roberts Rebellion. I always find worldbuilding and history really interesting and engaging in fantasies so these bits really drew me in. While I did know a bit of it from the TV show, getting more was nice. And I really like how much George RR Martin has actually thought out this world and the histories and backstories of the characters. He reveals just enough to transform our perceptions of them without defining them - like Jaime for example, and I think that's fun.

I also noticed George R.R Martins writing a lot more in this. It was a little more poetic than the past two books which I appreciated.

My least favourite bit is how much TRAVELLING there is. Arya and Jaime's chapters are pretty much just them walking around and it was definitely boring. I think there was too many POVs in this with not enough for each of them to do, because although we hear from each character a few times, most of them don't actually have much to do.

My favourite to least favourite POVs are as follows:

Catelyn
Daenerys
Sansa
Tyrion
Bran
Jon
Jaime (except that ONE BATH CHAPTER WHICH DESERVES EVERYTHING)
Davos
Samwell

“The world grows a little darker every day.�


Yes, unpopular opinion but I love Catelyn's chapters. I feel her pain! And I think the entire Stark camp is the one that has the most happening. Also I know whats about to happen and I want to appreciate them while I can.

Daenerys is one of my least favourite characters (another unpopular opinion) but I liked her scenes in this book especially in Qarth. Truly epic and iconic. Also I liked the reflection on Rhaegar/Aerys and the Targaryens reign in Westeros.

Sansa is MY GIRL and I like all the Kings Landing politics. Same reason I liked Tyrion's chapters.

I like Bran. I like Jojen and Meera. Their travel chapters were just more interesting to me than the others and also Bran had Summer with him and I'm just a sucker for those good boy wolves

“I'm not a lady, Arya wanted to tell her, I'm a wolf.�


Anyway, Game of Thrones is like a friendly warm fantasy world to return to. Which, I know sounds weird since it's brutal, but since I know the characters and the world and the majority of the story from the show it's such an easy and fun thing to return to and experience in a new way.

ANYWAYS I'm not sure when I'll get to A Storm of Swords part II. I'll be slowly making my way through this series since I want to catch up and be ready for the new release (when it's hopefully actually coming.)
]]> Death at Morning House 199793628 From the bestselling author of the Truly Devious books, Maureen Johnson, comes a new stand-alone YA about a teen who uncovers a mystery while working as a tour guide on an island and must solve it before history repeats itself.

The fire wasn’t Marlowe Wexler’s fault. Dates should be hot, but not hot enough to warrant literal firefighters. Akilah, the girl Marlowe has been in love with for years, will never go out with her again. No one dates an accidental arsonist.

With her house-sitting career up in flames, it seems the universe owes Marlowe a new summer job, and that’s how she ends up at Morning House, a mansion built on an island in the 1920s and abandoned shortly thereafter. It’s easy enough, giving tours. Low risk of fire. High chance of getting bored talking about stained glass and nut cutlets and Prohibition.

Oh, and the deaths. Did anyone mention the deaths?]]> 384 Maureen Johnson 0063255952 � jami � 3 3.71 2024 Death at Morning House
author: Maureen Johnson
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/26
date added: 2024/10/26
shelves: 2024-reads, audiobook, mystery, young-adult
review:
a little predictable but still overall a fun book - a nice palate cleanser
]]> Mirror Mirror 34668234
FRIEND. LOVER. VICTIM. TRAITOR.
WHEN YOU LOOK IN THE MIRROR, WHAT DO YOU SEE?

Sixteen-year-old friends Red, Leo, Rose, and Naomi are misfits; still figuring out who they are and who they want to be. Life isn't perfect, but music unites them, and they're excited about what the future holds for their band, Mirror, Mirror. That is until Naomi vanishes before being pulled unconscious out of the river.

She's left fighting for her life in a coma. The police claim it was a failed suicide attempt, but her friends aren't convinced. Will Naomi ever wake? What -­ or perhaps who - led her to that hospital bed? How did her friends fail to spot the warning signs?

While Rose turns to wild partying and Leo is shrouded by black moods, Red sets out to uncover the truth. It's a journey that will cause Red's world to crack, exposing the group's darkest secrets. Nothing will ever be the same again, because once a mirror is shattered, it can't be fixed.

Cara Delevingne, the voice of her generation, explores identity, friendship and betrayal in this gripping and powerful coming-of-age story. For fans of WE WERE LIARS, THIRTEEN REASONS WHY and THE GIRLS.]]> 368 Cara Delevingne 1409172775 � jami � 0 ]]> 3.52 2017 Mirror Mirror
author: Cara Delevingne
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves:
review:


]]> Night Sky with Exit Wounds 31348271 Night Sky with Exit Wounds is a book of poetry unlike any other. Steeped in war and cultural upheaval and wielding a fresh new language, Vuong writes about the most profound subjects � love and loss, conflict, grief, memory and desire � and attends to them all with lines that feel newly-minted, graceful in their cadences, passionate and hungry in their tender, close attention: ‘…the chief of police/facedown in a pool of Coca-Cola./A palm-sized photo of his father soaking/beside his left ear.� This is an unusual, important book: both gentle and visceral, vulnerable and assured, and its blend of humanity and power make it one of the best first collections of poetry to come out of America in years.

‘These are poems of exquisite beauty, unashamed of romance, and undaunted by looking directly into the horrors of war, the silences of history. One of the most important debut collections for a generation.� Andrew McMillan]]> 80 Ocean Vuong 1911214519 � jami � 0
“Note to self: If Orpheus were a woman I wouldn't be stuck down here.�


“Maybe we pray on our knees because god only listens when we're this close to the devil.�


“The most beautiful part of your body is where it’s headed. & remember, loneliness is still time spent with the world.�


absolute masterpiece collection. every poem was affecting but some of my favourites were Always & Forever, Homewrecker, Threshold, Because It's Summer, Prayer to the Newly Damned, Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong and Devotion. But honestly, every single poem is beautifully written, with visceral imagery and emotion behind them. This collection is so rich and I know I'll think about it / dip in and out of it for a long time to come still]]> 4.11 2016 Night Sky with Exit Wounds
author: Ocean Vuong
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2021/10/16
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: poetry, 2021-reads, adult, favorites, lgbtqiap, owned-books
review:
“Note to self: If Orpheus were a woman I wouldn't be stuck down here.�


“Maybe we pray on our knees because god only listens when we're this close to the devil.�


“The most beautiful part of your body is where it’s headed. & remember, loneliness is still time spent with the world.�


absolute masterpiece collection. every poem was affecting but some of my favourites were Always & Forever, Homewrecker, Threshold, Because It's Summer, Prayer to the Newly Damned, Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong and Devotion. But honestly, every single poem is beautifully written, with visceral imagery and emotion behind them. This collection is so rich and I know I'll think about it / dip in and out of it for a long time to come still
]]> Daydream (Maple Hills, #3) 199798652
When his procrastination lands him in a difficult class with his least favorite professor, Henry Turner knows he’s going to have to work extra hard to survive his junior year of college. And now with his new title of captain for the hockey team—which he didn’t even want—Henry absolutely cannot fail. Enter Halle Jacobs, a fellow junior who finds herself befriended by Henry when he accidentally crashes her book club.

Halle may not have the romantic pursuits of her favorite fictional leads, but she’s an academic superstar, and as soon as she hears about Henry’s problems with his class reading material, she offers to help. Too bad being a private tutor isn’t exactly ideal given her own studies, job, book club, and the novel she’s trying to write. But new experiences are the key to beating her writer’s block, and Henry’s promising to be the one to give them to her.

They just need to stick to their rule book.

Oh, and not fall in love.]]> 433 Hannah Grace 1668026252 � jami � 1 wildfire, I found kinda boring but it was fine
daydream, I DESPISED

I'm sorry - but with henry, I don't get it. he's kind of a wanker like!? I just didn't like him. why was he so rude to her all the time like shut up!? I don't believe that he's supposed to be this lady man/fboy. halle, annoying as fuck. just gave me the ick. their whole fboy/virgin girl dynamic in general gave me the ick. now why was she gifting her virginity to him for christmas. CRAZY and not in a good way. And to top it all off! this book was also boring, like what even happened, despite it being super long? it just pissed me off SO BADDD it could be over for me and hannah grace]]> 3.92 2024 Daydream (Maple Hills, #3)
author: Hannah Grace
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2024/10/14
date added: 2024/10/14
shelves: 2024-reads, adult, audiobook, contemporary, romance
review:
icebreaker, I liked - it's suarr fun
wildfire, I found kinda boring but it was fine
daydream, I DESPISED

I'm sorry - but with henry, I don't get it. he's kind of a wanker like!? I just didn't like him. why was he so rude to her all the time like shut up!? I don't believe that he's supposed to be this lady man/fboy. halle, annoying as fuck. just gave me the ick. their whole fboy/virgin girl dynamic in general gave me the ick. now why was she gifting her virginity to him for christmas. CRAZY and not in a good way. And to top it all off! this book was also boring, like what even happened, despite it being super long? it just pissed me off SO BADDD it could be over for me and hannah grace
]]> Sharp Objects 1343439 321 Gillian Flynn � jami � 0 3.84 2006 Sharp Objects
author: Gillian Flynn
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/25
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: mystery, thriller, adult, random-choice-tbr
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Who Gets to Be Smart: Privilege, Power and Knowledge]]> 57339501 Eggshell Skull, asks Who gets to be smart? in this forensic and hard-hitting exploration of knowledge, power and privilege.

In 2018 Bri Lee's brilliant young friend Damian was named a Rhodes Scholar, an apex of academic achievement. When she goes to visit him and takes a tour of Oxford and Rhodes House, she begins questioning her belief in a system she has previously revered, as she learns the truth behind what Virginia Woolf described almost a century earlier as the 'stream of gold and silver' that flows through elite institutions and dictates decisions about who deserves to be educated there. The question that forms in her mind drives the following two years of conversations and investigations: who gets to be smart?

Interrogating the adage, 'knowledge is power', and calling institutional prejudice to account, Bri once again dives into her own privilege and presumptions to bring us the stark and confronting results. Far from offering any 'equality of opportunity', Australia's education system exacerbates social stratification. The questions Bri asks of politics and society have their answers laid bare in the response to the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, COVID-19, and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.]]> 296 Bri Lee 1760879800 � jami � 3
the first half of this book is much more personal and I liked that section. Some reviewers have criticised her yearning for academic recognition and smarts here but that was kind of the point and also, I hate to say but I related! She talks about visiting her friend, a Rhode Scholar in Oxford, and how she always wanted to do this pilgrimage and how envious she was of those smart enough to make it. I have felt the same! I liked that section, it felt reflective, critical, interesting, nice story telling.

But the book became more and more unfocussed as it went on. Which isn't to say it wasn't interesting - a lot of it was. But I think it needed something more strong to tie all the different ideas she has together. We go down a lot of rabbit holes but I started to get a little lost. I also think for anyone who lives in Australia and has paid attention to politics, a lot of this will be rehash of things you already know. I also thought it could of benefitted from a wider perspective at times.

Overall, I don't think this was as strong as Eggshell Skull but I did still enjoy it. ]]> 3.65 Who Gets to Be Smart: Privilege, Power and Knowledge
author: Bri Lee
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.65
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/25
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: 2024-reads, australian, audiobook, non-fiction
review:
3.5 star*

the first half of this book is much more personal and I liked that section. Some reviewers have criticised her yearning for academic recognition and smarts here but that was kind of the point and also, I hate to say but I related! She talks about visiting her friend, a Rhode Scholar in Oxford, and how she always wanted to do this pilgrimage and how envious she was of those smart enough to make it. I have felt the same! I liked that section, it felt reflective, critical, interesting, nice story telling.

But the book became more and more unfocussed as it went on. Which isn't to say it wasn't interesting - a lot of it was. But I think it needed something more strong to tie all the different ideas she has together. We go down a lot of rabbit holes but I started to get a little lost. I also think for anyone who lives in Australia and has paid attention to politics, a lot of this will be rehash of things you already know. I also thought it could of benefitted from a wider perspective at times.

Overall, I don't think this was as strong as Eggshell Skull but I did still enjoy it.
]]> Mile High (Windy City, #1) 60909831
Chicago hockey isn't complete without me - everyone's favourite player to hate. I know my role, and I play it well. In fact, I thoroughly enjoy spending the majority of my game time in the penalty box before leaving the arena with a new girl on my arm each night.

What I don't like is the new flight attendant on our team's private plane. She works for me, not the other way around. But I'll be sure to remind her of that, and I can guarantee, by the end of the season, she'll be begging to quit her job.

But every road trip blurs the lines, and I can't quite figure out if I keep pushing that flight attendant call button in order to push her buttons, or if it's more than that.

STEVIE

I've been a flight attendant for years. I thought I'd seen it all, but when my new job lands me onboard working for the most egotistical and self-righteous diva in the NHL, I start to second guess everything. Including the promise I made to myself of never hooking up with an athlete again . . . no matter how annoyingly tempting he may be.

Evan Zanders is unfiltered, unapologetic, and too attractive for his own good. He loves his image, but I hate everything about it.

Everything but him.]]> 603 Liz Tomforde � jami � 1
- writing is ATROCIOUS. Just diabolical, and actually so poorly written it was distracting. Badly needed an editor. Dying at the way it would use like a 3-4 paragraph to describe a main character walking into the room to avoid just saying "stevie walked in"
- I hate how the male main characters in these books always have the same cringy personality
- there is no good reason for a romance to be this long. it got so boring and repetitive wrap it UPPP

ultimately I wish tiktok users loved themselves, however I did spend 5 pound on this so I also only have myself to blame]]> 3.98 2022 Mile High (Windy City, #1)
author: Liz Tomforde
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 1
read at: 2024/09/20
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: 2024-reads, adult, contemporary, romance
review:
I bought this in heathrow airport because I had a 21 hour flight and I thought it would be dumb and pass the time and it was dumb and it did pass the time but for a book with SIX HUNDRED PAGES I was expecting it to be way more balls to the walls with the drama.

- writing is ATROCIOUS. Just diabolical, and actually so poorly written it was distracting. Badly needed an editor. Dying at the way it would use like a 3-4 paragraph to describe a main character walking into the room to avoid just saying "stevie walked in"
- I hate how the male main characters in these books always have the same cringy personality
- there is no good reason for a romance to be this long. it got so boring and repetitive wrap it UPPP

ultimately I wish tiktok users loved themselves, however I did spend 5 pound on this so I also only have myself to blame
]]> Princess Bari 27390069 248 Hwang Sok-yong 1859641768 � jami � 4
I realised that life means waiting, enduring the passage of time. Nothing ever quite meets our expectations, yet as long as we are alive, time flows on, and everything eventually comes to pass


Princess Bari is a translated South Korean novel, and the coming of age tale of a North Korean girl, Bari, who escapes with her family to China during the famine before finding herself illegally moving to London. Hwang Sok-yong deals with politics, family trauma and war, drawing out and examining the struggles of refugees, and the politicisation of their plight. Some of the fantasy elements went a little over my head, but I still enjoyed this as border fiction, particularly for it's rendering of North Korea before and after the Korean War, and it's discussion around war and the response from western countries to its victims. ]]> 3.56 2007 Princess Bari
author: Hwang Sok-yong
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2020/08/14
date added: 2024/09/16
shelves: 2020-reads, adult, fiction, historical-fiction, literary, translated-fiction, world-literatures
review:
I realised that life means waiting, enduring the passage of time. Nothing ever quite meets our expectations, yet as long as we are alive, time flows on, and everything eventually comes to pass


Princess Bari is a translated South Korean novel, and the coming of age tale of a North Korean girl, Bari, who escapes with her family to China during the famine before finding herself illegally moving to London. Hwang Sok-yong deals with politics, family trauma and war, drawing out and examining the struggles of refugees, and the politicisation of their plight. Some of the fantasy elements went a little over my head, but I still enjoyed this as border fiction, particularly for it's rendering of North Korea before and after the Korean War, and it's discussion around war and the response from western countries to its victims.
]]> <![CDATA[Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls]]> 1416896 296 Rachel Simmons 0151006040 � jami � 0 2023-reads, non-fiction 3.93 2002 Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls
author: Rachel Simmons
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at: 2023/05/10
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: 2023-reads, non-fiction
review:
3.5 stars - really interesting material but lost steam by the end I feel
]]> <![CDATA[Around the World in Eighty Days]]> 54479 252 Jules Verne 014044906X � jami � 0 3.95 1872 Around the World in Eighty Days
author: Jules Verne
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1872
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/29
shelves: 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die
review:

]]> The Turn of the Key 42080142
What she doesn’t know is that she’s stepping into a nightmare—one that will end with a child dead and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder.

Writing to her lawyer from prison, she struggles to explain the unravelling events that led to her incarceration. It wasn’t just the constant surveillance from the cameras installed around the house, or the malfunctioning technology that woke the household with booming music, or turned the lights off at the worst possible time. It wasn’t just the girls, who turned out to be a far cry from the immaculately behaved model children she met at her interview. It wasn’t even the way she was left alone for weeks at a time, with no adults around apart from the enigmatic handyman, Jack Grant.

It was everything.

She knows she’s made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post, and that her behavior toward the children wasn’t always ideal. She’s not innocent, by any means. But, she maintains, she’s not guilty—at least not of murder. Which means someone else is.

Full of spellbinding menace and told in Ruth Ware’s signature suspenseful style, The Turn of the Key is an unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.]]> 337 Ruth Ware 1501188771 � jami � 2 3.91 2019 The Turn of the Key
author: Ruth Ware
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/20
date added: 2024/08/20
shelves:
review:
Sort of fun at the start - atmospheric and creepy and then it got a little tedious and the ending was SO BAD and PISSED ME OFFFFFF
]]> <![CDATA[Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer Trilogy, #1)]]> 31373184 The dreamers walk among us . . . and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming � they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their own lives � they will sleep forever if their dreamers die.

And then there are those who are drawn to the dreamers. To use them. To trap them. To kill them before their dreams destroy us all.

Ronan Lynch is a dreamer. He can pull both curiosities and catastrophes out of his dreams and into his compromised reality.

Jordan Hennessy is a thief. The closer she comes to the dream object she is after, the more inextricably she becomes tied to it.

Carmen Farooq-Lane is a hunter. Her brother was a dreamer . . . and a killer. She has seen what dreaming can do to a person. And she has seen the damage that dreamers can do. But that is nothing compared to the destruction that is about to be unleashed. . . .]]> 472 Maggie Stiefvater 1338188321 � jami � 4 4.24 2019 Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer Trilogy, #1)
author: Maggie Stiefvater
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/15
date added: 2024/08/20
shelves:
review:
a book in which Ronan Lynch asks, is somebody gonna match my freak ?
]]> <![CDATA[We'll Always Have Summer (Summer, #3)]]> 35896971 320 Jenny Han � jami � 2 3.53 2011 We'll Always Have Summer (Summer, #3)
author: Jenny Han
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/13
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves:
review:
utter shitshow. Just diabolical.
]]> Okay Days 62831265
‘Utterly immersive ... it's reminiscent of Sally Rooney and is a complex and joyous ode to being in love, messing up and finding your way� � Stylist

Sam is 28, Swedish, carefree and chaotic. Doing a work placement in London over the course of three sticky summer months, she falls hard for Lucas, a man she first met as a teenager. Lucas, 27, sensitive and calm, is trying to get a start on adult life while struggling to hold the pieces of his life together. Sam is a gorgeous distraction. But you can only avoid reality for so long, and both Sam and Lucas know their relationship can't last. Nobody can be this happy forever, surely?

Okay Days tells the story of the rise and fall of Sam and Lucas's affection for each other, looks unflinchingly at male body dysmorphia and women's reproductive rights, and the pitfalls of modern love. When is okay good enough? And what are we willing to lose in the search for a life that is much better than just okay?

‘A beautifully-observed portrait of self-discovery and uncertain love. Jenny's sharp and evocative prose gave me a feeling of immense nostalgia for London's long summer days� � Natasha Brown, author of Assembly

‘Fresh and sharply observant ... One of the most intriguing books I've read in some time� � Elaine Feeney, author of How To Build A Boat

‘Tender and spellbinding, Okay Days breaks you all the way open� � Annie Lord, author of Notes on Heartbreak

‘An intimate drama of what matters in stories: relationships. Mustard is a talented portraitist in whose hands these two characters become real, enthralling, and viscerally realized. It is one of the most entertaining novels I have read of the times we live in� � Chigozie Obioma, author of The Fishermen]]> 340 Jenny Mustard 1399713469 � jami � 0 to-read 3.73 2023 Okay Days
author: Jenny Mustard
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Whisky Business (The Macabe Brothers, #1)]]> 98924172
As a child, April Sinclair dreamt of escaping her quiet island life to become a world-famous actress. Now fully grown and with her once-flourishing career at an all-time low, what better way to figure out where it all went wrong than to go back to the beginning? April has her sights set on a new challenge, and that is saving her family’s distillery on the idyllic Scottish Isle of Skye.

What she doesn’t expect to find is Malcolm Macabe, short-tempered and exceedingly attractive, living in the home she has just inherited. He may be a million miles away from the shy teenager she knew growing up, but one thing is for certain: he doesn’t want her around anymore.

Master distiller Mal has three loves in his life: Whisky, his dog and silence. He has no time for the pampered princess poking her nose around his distillery, even if said princess is the one who got away. More comfortable in the shadows than the spotlight, Mal is content to wait her out. She’ll grow bored and run back to her glamorous world of nail salons and take-away coffee eventually. When sparks begin to fly, he tells himself it doesn’t matter…because April Sinclair could never want a man like him, right?]]> 352 Elliot Fletcher � jami � 0 to-read 3.95 Whisky Business (The Macabe Brothers, #1)
author: Elliot Fletcher
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Weak Teeth 124939669 During a long, hot Edinburgh summer, Ellis's world spins out of control. She's dogged by toothache, her ex won't compensate her for the flat and somehow she's found herself stalking his new lover on Facebook.
Will Ellis realise before it's too late that the bite she was born with is worth preserving?]]> 259 Lynsey May � jami � 0 to-read 3.20 Weak Teeth
author: Lynsey May
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.20
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Little Life 25334922 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship� (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST � MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST � WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE �

A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 1447294823 � jami � 0
it's undoubtedly well written but besides that, I truly don't know what to think yet

more thoughts as they come]]> 4.28 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2020/04/10
date added: 2024/08/09
shelves: contemporary, 2020-reads, adult, audiobook, fiction, lgbtqiap, literary, owned-books
review:
well I finished it

it's undoubtedly well written but besides that, I truly don't know what to think yet

more thoughts as they come
]]> <![CDATA[Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism (Molly Moon, #1)]]> 807968
Molly Moon is no ordinary orphan. When she finds a mysterious old book on hypnotism, she discovers she can make people do whatever she wants. But a sinister stranger is watching her every move and he'll do anything to steal her hypnotic secret...]]> 371 Georgia Byng 0060514094 � jami � 0 3.92 2002 Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism (Molly Moon, #1)
author: Georgia Byng
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: childrens-literature, childhood-faves
review:

]]> <![CDATA[World After (Penryn & the End of Days, #2)]]> 12983100 Angelfall, the survivors of the angel apocalypse begin to scrape back together what's left of the modern world.

When a group of people capture Penryn's sister Paige, thinking she's a monster, the situation ends in a massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken.

Penryn drives through the streets of San Francisco looking for Paige. Why are the streets so empty? Where is everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels' secret plans where she catches a glimpse of their motivations, and learns the horrifying extent to which the angels are willing to go.

Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his wings. Without them, he can't rejoin the angels, can't take his rightful place as one of their leaders. When faced with recapturing his wings or helping Penryn survive, which will he choose?]]> 438 Susan Ee � jami � 2 “I'm gonna be sick," I said
"I'm ordering you not to," says Obi.
"Ah, don't say that," says Dee-Dum. "She's a born rebel. She'll puke just to make a point.�

ARRGH !!! Books, why must your frustrate me so. Why can't you all just be great so I don't feel so goddamn conflicted !!!!!

I am so conflicted about this series still. It's literally been a year and I still don't even know if I enjoyed Angelfall ?? like da heck ??

Do I read into these things too much ? ..... probably.
BUT ANYWAY, I'm confused about the sequel to Angelfall as well. I don't know how to feel about World After. I liked bits, I didn't like bits.



-----------------------

Angelfall is probably one of those books I would have loved if .... I just ...... read it during that massive Dystopian stage we all had (yes ALL had, don't tell me you didn't. It's like the teen angst stage for book lovers) after the Hunger Games but here I am in 2016 reading it and that stage is well and truly over.

Or maybe I would have loved it if I read it when I was a little younger and hadn't become bitter and hateful toward couples in books (shut up they just all make me cringe 9/10 times)

Maybe it's just because it reminds me of Supernatural and that show NEEDS TO DIE. IT NEEDS TO GO.

ANYWAY, something about this Angel dystopian just isn't doing it for me. The concept is cool ---- Angels come to Earth and start killing all the people. Civilisations collapse and survivors are left to survive in a war torn world full of hostile Angels. But I just ... cannot get into it.

And it's a shame because EVERYONE ELSE SEEMS TO BE ABLE TO

-------------------------------

I don't think I liked this as much as Angelfall, and I feel like the plot was literally Angelfall rehashed. The events that happened in Angelfall were just repeated .... it felt like someone had regifted a present and tried to hide it by using new wrapping. This definitely felt like a second book slump. Not much happened at all.

REASONS I AM MEH ABOUT THIS


� leaving plots hanging ... . This is SUCH a massive hate of mine. If you're gonna start a MASSIVE plot line .... finish it ?? I hate lose ends. Anyway, there was an enormous plot set up with the prison escape, and it could have been awesome. Instead the whole thing happened off screen and wasn't even concluded or resolved ?? tf ?? I felt that the scorpion victims were the same thing .. just a big plot point that had no resolution. I hate that. If you're gonna start something THEN GODDAMN FINISH IT

� I hate the romance. Penryn and Raffe are the not the worst. I've seen much worse. But not the best either. While I don't hate them all the time, they did make me roll my eyes and cringe and I just HATE THAT.

� The plot wasn't the best. As mentioned, it followed the exact same structure as book 1. Penryn's sister gets kidnapped, Penryn goes to save sister, Penryn goes to party dressed up, Penryn has to leave party. Raffe is there. ALL THE INTERESTING PLOT WAS DROPPED ??? M8 we could of had it all with that Alcatraz plot and instead it was vaguely left behind.

Also, things just happened incredibly conveniently ? Like, everytime a problem arose a quick and easy solution would just .. come along. It just didn't feel realistic to me.

This whole book just felt a bit vague and wishy washy, like it didn't know where it was going itself.

� Speaking of unrealistic ... some things just seem ... stupid. Like Paige became a dedicated vegetarian at the age of THREE. what the fuck she did not. three year olds shove whatever the frick they want in their mouth they do not have the mental ability to be like "shit man, I'm becoming a dedicated vegetarian because the way our agriculture industry treats animals is immoral and cruel"

Also ... Penryn just kills grown ass men or ten at a time and she magically defeats killer Angels out of nowhere and it's like ????? really ?????

THINGS I LIKED


� characters. I genuinely like Penryn as a character. While she has her whiny, annoying moments, overall she is a bamf and I like her sense of humour. I think I complained about her being too Katniss in my Angellfall review? Well, I'm happy to take that back. She stands as her own character and I really like her.

I also really like Dee and Dum. And while they're just support characters they're cool kids and I like them.

� The gore. This is not for the faint of heart. There is some messed up things going on. People becoming scorpion monsters, stitching up kids faces, torturing angels, people getting brutally murdered by aforementioned scorpion people. It's seriously freaky, but also I'm seriously here for it.

� It's heading in a good direction. It feels like the ending did set up the third and final book, End of Days quite well, and introduced an overarching plot which can carry is through to the end. It's unfortunate those didn't come along earlier. Anyway, it looks to be heading for a massive conclusion, and I'm glad there's "more to this" then originally shown.

� yeah thats like it lol.



This book was not BAD by any means, and there were some scenes I genuinely really loved and some plot points that hit that mark a bit better I just thought overall it could have been stronger.

It didn't feel as strong as Angelfall, it just felt a bit directionless. To me, this series isn't shining by any means but it's also not awful. It's just solidly in the middle. I don't see myself picking up the final book with any anticipation, but I also DO see myself finishing this series. It's just a bit hit and miss as a series for me.

FINAL RATING: 2.5]]> 4.24 2013 World After (Penryn & the End of Days, #2)
author: Susan Ee
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2016/12/16
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: young-adult, fantasy, dystopian, paranormal, 2016-reads, apocalyptic, series
review:
“I'm gonna be sick," I said
"I'm ordering you not to," says Obi.
"Ah, don't say that," says Dee-Dum. "She's a born rebel. She'll puke just to make a point.�


ARRGH !!! Books, why must your frustrate me so. Why can't you all just be great so I don't feel so goddamn conflicted !!!!!

I am so conflicted about this series still. It's literally been a year and I still don't even know if I enjoyed Angelfall ?? like da heck ??

Do I read into these things too much ? ..... probably.
BUT ANYWAY, I'm confused about the sequel to Angelfall as well. I don't know how to feel about World After. I liked bits, I didn't like bits.



-----------------------

Angelfall is probably one of those books I would have loved if .... I just ...... read it during that massive Dystopian stage we all had (yes ALL had, don't tell me you didn't. It's like the teen angst stage for book lovers) after the Hunger Games but here I am in 2016 reading it and that stage is well and truly over.

Or maybe I would have loved it if I read it when I was a little younger and hadn't become bitter and hateful toward couples in books (shut up they just all make me cringe 9/10 times)

Maybe it's just because it reminds me of Supernatural and that show NEEDS TO DIE. IT NEEDS TO GO.

ANYWAY, something about this Angel dystopian just isn't doing it for me. The concept is cool ---- Angels come to Earth and start killing all the people. Civilisations collapse and survivors are left to survive in a war torn world full of hostile Angels. But I just ... cannot get into it.

And it's a shame because EVERYONE ELSE SEEMS TO BE ABLE TO

-------------------------------

I don't think I liked this as much as Angelfall, and I feel like the plot was literally Angelfall rehashed. The events that happened in Angelfall were just repeated .... it felt like someone had regifted a present and tried to hide it by using new wrapping. This definitely felt like a second book slump. Not much happened at all.

REASONS I AM MEH ABOUT THIS


� leaving plots hanging ... . This is SUCH a massive hate of mine. If you're gonna start a MASSIVE plot line .... finish it ?? I hate lose ends. Anyway, there was an enormous plot set up with the prison escape, and it could have been awesome. Instead the whole thing happened off screen and wasn't even concluded or resolved ?? tf ?? I felt that the scorpion victims were the same thing .. just a big plot point that had no resolution. I hate that. If you're gonna start something THEN GODDAMN FINISH IT

� I hate the romance. Penryn and Raffe are the not the worst. I've seen much worse. But not the best either. While I don't hate them all the time, they did make me roll my eyes and cringe and I just HATE THAT.

� The plot wasn't the best. As mentioned, it followed the exact same structure as book 1. Penryn's sister gets kidnapped, Penryn goes to save sister, Penryn goes to party dressed up, Penryn has to leave party. Raffe is there. ALL THE INTERESTING PLOT WAS DROPPED ??? M8 we could of had it all with that Alcatraz plot and instead it was vaguely left behind.

Also, things just happened incredibly conveniently ? Like, everytime a problem arose a quick and easy solution would just .. come along. It just didn't feel realistic to me.

This whole book just felt a bit vague and wishy washy, like it didn't know where it was going itself.

� Speaking of unrealistic ... some things just seem ... stupid. Like Paige became a dedicated vegetarian at the age of THREE. what the fuck she did not. three year olds shove whatever the frick they want in their mouth they do not have the mental ability to be like "shit man, I'm becoming a dedicated vegetarian because the way our agriculture industry treats animals is immoral and cruel"

Also ... Penryn just kills grown ass men or ten at a time and she magically defeats killer Angels out of nowhere and it's like ????? really ?????

THINGS I LIKED


� characters. I genuinely like Penryn as a character. While she has her whiny, annoying moments, overall she is a bamf and I like her sense of humour. I think I complained about her being too Katniss in my Angellfall review? Well, I'm happy to take that back. She stands as her own character and I really like her.

I also really like Dee and Dum. And while they're just support characters they're cool kids and I like them.

� The gore. This is not for the faint of heart. There is some messed up things going on. People becoming scorpion monsters, stitching up kids faces, torturing angels, people getting brutally murdered by aforementioned scorpion people. It's seriously freaky, but also I'm seriously here for it.

� It's heading in a good direction. It feels like the ending did set up the third and final book, End of Days quite well, and introduced an overarching plot which can carry is through to the end. It's unfortunate those didn't come along earlier. Anyway, it looks to be heading for a massive conclusion, and I'm glad there's "more to this" then originally shown.

� yeah thats like it lol.



This book was not BAD by any means, and there were some scenes I genuinely really loved and some plot points that hit that mark a bit better I just thought overall it could have been stronger.

It didn't feel as strong as Angelfall, it just felt a bit directionless. To me, this series isn't shining by any means but it's also not awful. It's just solidly in the middle. I don't see myself picking up the final book with any anticipation, but I also DO see myself finishing this series. It's just a bit hit and miss as a series for me.

FINAL RATING: 2.5
]]> North and South 1462327 530 Elizabeth Gaskell 0140430555 � jami � 4 classics, 1001-shortlist 4.09 1855 North and South
author: Elizabeth Gaskell
name: � jami �
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1855
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/29
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves: classics, 1001-shortlist
review:
she really put her whole gaskussy into this
]]> <![CDATA[Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone (Ernest Cunningham, #1)]]> 59799026
I'm Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I'd killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it's a little more complicated than that.

Have I killed someone? Yes. I have.

Who was it?

Let's get started.

EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE

My brother

My stepsister

My wife

My father

My mother

My sister-in-law

My uncle

My stepfather

My aunt

Me]]> 384 Benjamin Stevenson 0143795651 � jami � 0 3.87 2022 Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone (Ernest Cunningham, #1)
author: Benjamin Stevenson
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/20
date added: 2024/07/20
shelves: dnf, 2024-reads, australian, mystery
review:
dnf - hated the narration style
]]> All's Well 61926860 The tragicomic novel of the summer, a ‘dark and insane gem� from the author of the critically acclaimed TikTok sensation Bunny ‘A dazzling wild ride of a novel � daring, fresh, entertaining, and magical.� � George Saunders ‘All's Well is an utterly delicious novel of pain and vitality, Shakespeare and the uncanny.� � Lauren Groff Miranda Fitch’s life is a waking nightmare. The accident that ended her burgeoning acting career left her with excruciating, chronic back pain, a failed marriage, and a deepening dependence on painkillers. And now she’s on the verge of losing her job as a college theater director. Determined to put on Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, the play that promised, and cost, her everything, she faces a mutinous cast hellbent on staging Macbeth instead. Miranda sees her chance at redemption slip through her fingers. That’s when she meets three strange benefactors who have an eerie knowledge of Miranda’s past and a tantalizing promise for her one where the show goes on, her rebellious students get what’s coming to them, and the invisible, doubted pain that’s kept her from the spotlight is made known.With prose Margaret Atwood has described as ‘no punches pulled, no hilarities dodged... genius�, Mona Awad has concocted her most potent, subversive novel yet. All’s Well is the story of a woman at her breaking point and a formidable, piercingly funny indictment of our collective refusal to witness and believe female pain. Longlisted for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award.]]> 368 Mona Awad 1398504920 � jami � 0 dnf 3.88 2021 All's Well
author: Mona Awad
name: � jami �
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/14
date added: 2024/07/14
shelves: dnf
review:
dnf - have been reading for weeks and just can't get into it
]]>