m.'s bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 10 Apr 2025 21:01:33 -0700 60 m.'s bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Beach Read 52867387 A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no-one will fall in love. Really.]]> 400 Emily Henry 1984806734 m. 1 2021, 1-star 3.99 2020 Beach Read
author: Emily Henry
name: m.
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 1
read at: 2021/07/22
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: 2021, 1-star
review:
the more i think about this book the less i like it. the writing style was very millennial, with jokes that didn't land properly, and the pace of their relationship felt clunky and awkward. every step they took romantically resulted in weird tension and miscommunication and overall the book was so overfilled with different plotlines that it was hard to care about all of them, which in the end just made me not care about anything. and while i understood a lot of january's feelings it was hard for me to feel sorry for her when gus brushes her off. like babes his divorce has nothing to do with you. get a life! also, their kid would 100% be an ipad baby. i don't need to elaborate
]]> Tess of The D'Urbervilles 5998714 508 Thomas Hardy 0140623701 m. 5 tess of the d'urbervilles has become one of my new favorite books. hardy weaves a tale that is delicate and heartfelt just as it is absolutely horrific. he writes with such care and tenderness, each word is an apology—he doesn't mean to make tess suffer, he hates it as much as we do. only, he can't help it. her story demands to be written, and so it demands to be read. and read it was. i devoured this book, and i lived it for a week, and i never wish to live it again. but i miss tess. and i worry for her, and i feel for her, and i love her. to quote the man himself, i have never been able to put on paper all that she is, or was to me. so i won't try anymore.]]> 3.88 1891 Tess of The D'Urbervilles
author: Thomas Hardy
name: m.
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1891
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/04
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: 2025, 5-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:
i've always been drawn to tragedies, so it's no wonder tess of the d'urbervilles has become one of my new favorite books. hardy weaves a tale that is delicate and heartfelt just as it is absolutely horrific. he writes with such care and tenderness, each word is an apology—he doesn't mean to make tess suffer, he hates it as much as we do. only, he can't help it. her story demands to be written, and so it demands to be read. and read it was. i devoured this book, and i lived it for a week, and i never wish to live it again. but i miss tess. and i worry for her, and i feel for her, and i love her. to quote the man himself, i have never been able to put on paper all that she is, or was to me. so i won't try anymore.
]]> Moby-Dick or, The Whale 153747 "It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it."

So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author's lifelong meditation on America. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.

This edition of Moby-Dick, which reproduces the definitive text of the novel, includes invaluable explanatory notes, along with maps, illustrations, and a glossary of nautical terms.]]> 720 Herman Melville 0142437247 m. 0 currently-reading 3.53 1851 Moby-Dick or, The Whale
author: Herman Melville
name: m.
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1851
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Picture of Dorian Gray 10518145 214 Oscar Wilde 143512975X m. 0 2021, no-rating, heart-tagged 4.20 1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray
author: Oscar Wilde
name: m.
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1890
rating: 0
read at: 2021/05/06
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: 2021, no-rating, heart-tagged
review:

]]> Detransition, Baby 48890225 A whipsmart debut about three women—transgender and cisgender—whose lives collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires around gender, motherhood, and sex.

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?

This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.]]> 337 Torrey Peters 0593133374 m. 0 2025, no-rating 3.94 2021 Detransition, Baby
author: Torrey Peters
name: m.
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: 2025, no-rating
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

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

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

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 382 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 m. 3 2025, 3-stars, heart-tagged 4.64 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: m.
average rating: 4.64
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: 2025, 3-stars, heart-tagged
review:
guys the sentimentality got to me i can't stand it... took a while to get going and lost me at the end (the epilogue was very sweet but not really necessary). as much as i love these books and will continue to read them as long as collins continues to write them, i think it's time to rest ❤️
]]> Vanishing World 216989442
But when Amane and her husband hear about Eden, an experimental town where residents are selected at random to be artificially inseminated en masse (including men who are fitted with artificial wombs), the family unit does not exist and children are raised collectively and anonymously, they decide to try living there. But can this bold experiment build the brave new world Amane desires, or will it push her to breaking point?]]> 240 Sayaka Murata 1803511176 m. 4 vanishing world has only served to solidify her standing as one of the greats. her succint style serves the bleak, sterile narrative well. she paints a world where sex is no longer needed, where men and women alike give birth by means of artificial insemination. the family structure is shattered and disposed of—babies are born and treated as pets, an entire city is full of "mothers" who take care of the children as a community. the dystopian society is a perfect metaphor for the loneliness epidemic that accompanies the digital age, and it's a striking commentary on the current social situation in japan. murata discusses sex, masturbation, love, family and the human body in a way that enthralls and amazes. her work is original and intelligent, even if a bit heavy handed at times (especially in this novel). i will anxiously wait for every new release. i've always had this image of you being the last eve, amane. i mean, while everyone else is returning to paradise, you're the last human left having sex. ]]> 3.65 2015 Vanishing World
author: Sayaka Murata
name: m.
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: 2025, 4-stars, arcs, heart-tagged
review:
i've been a fan of murata's work for years now, and vanishing world has only served to solidify her standing as one of the greats. her succint style serves the bleak, sterile narrative well. she paints a world where sex is no longer needed, where men and women alike give birth by means of artificial insemination. the family structure is shattered and disposed of—babies are born and treated as pets, an entire city is full of "mothers" who take care of the children as a community. the dystopian society is a perfect metaphor for the loneliness epidemic that accompanies the digital age, and it's a striking commentary on the current social situation in japan. murata discusses sex, masturbation, love, family and the human body in a way that enthralls and amazes. her work is original and intelligent, even if a bit heavy handed at times (especially in this novel). i will anxiously wait for every new release. i've always had this image of you being the last eve, amane. i mean, while everyone else is returning to paradise, you're the last human left having sex.
]]> Zofloya, or The Moor 2852363 Zofloya, or The Moor (1806), a tale of lust, betrayal, and multiple murder set in Venice in the last days of the fifteenth century. The novel follows Victoria's progress from spoilt daughter of indulgent aristocrats, through a period of abuse and captivity, to a career of deepening criminality conducted under Satan's watchful eye. Charlotte Dacre's narrative deftly displays her heroine's movement from the vitalized position of Ann Radcliffe's heroines to a fully conscious commitment to vice that goes beyond that of `Monk' Lewis's deluded Ambrosio. The novel's most daring aspect is its anatomy of Victoria's intense sexual attraction to her Moorish servant Zofloya that transgresses taboos both of class and race. A minor scandal on its first publication, and a significant influence on Byron and Shelley, Zofloya has been unduly neglected. Contradicting idealized stereotypes of women's writing, the novel's portrait of indulged desire, gratuitous cruelty, and monumental self-absorption retains considerable power to disturb. The introduction to this edition, the first for nearly 200 years, examines why Zofloya deserves to be read alongside established Gothic classics as the highly original work of an intriguing and unconventional writer.]]> 280 Charlotte Dacre 0199549737 m. 4 zofloya, or the moor? deception! adultery! intrigue! murder! the rotten nature of men on display! dacre spins a tale of how our parent's sins influence us into adulthood, and warns us of the dangers of selfishness and cruelty. truly a page turner, and the most fun i've had in a long time.]]> 3.50 1806 Zofloya, or The Moor
author: Charlotte Dacre
name: m.
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1806
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/05
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: 2025, 4-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:
everyone loves to read about horrible women nowadays, but have you even read the og, zofloya, or the moor? deception! adultery! intrigue! murder! the rotten nature of men on display! dacre spins a tale of how our parent's sins influence us into adulthood, and warns us of the dangers of selfishness and cruelty. truly a page turner, and the most fun i've had in a long time.
]]> Cecilia 198429776 A surreal novella about the intensity and eroticism of girlhood friendships, the ecstasy of desire and disgust, and matriarchal mythmaking.

Seven, who works as a cleaner at a chiropractor’s office, reencounters Cecilia, a woman who has obsessed her since their school days. As the two of them board the same bus—each dubiously claiming not to be following the other—their chance meeting spurs a series of intensely vivid and corporeal memories. In the defamiliarization that follows, the narrator begins to experience queerness itself as an alienation from normative time.

Smart, subversive, and gripping, Cecilia is a winding, misty road trip through bodily transformation, inextricable histories of desire and violence, diaspora, and obsessive love.]]> 160 K-Ming Chang m. 0 2025, heart-tagged, no-rating 3.10 2024 Cecilia
author: K-Ming Chang
name: m.
average rating: 3.10
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: 2025, heart-tagged, no-rating
review:

]]> Klara and the Sun 54112560 ‘The Sun always has ways to reach us.'

From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change for ever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.

In Klara and the Sun, his first novel since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly-changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?]]> 307 Kazuo Ishiguro 057136487X m. 2 2-stars, 2025 3.74 2021 Klara and the Sun
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: m.
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: 2-stars, 2025
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland]]> 49771934
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. From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.
--penguinrandomhousehighereducation.com]]> 464 Patrick Radden Keefe m. 0 2025, heart-tagged, no-rating 4.39 2018 Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: m.
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves: 2025, heart-tagged, no-rating
review:

]]> Dependency 50914964 'Utterly, agonisingly compulsive ... a masterpiece' Liz Jensen, Guardian

The final volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, the searing portrait of a woman's journey through love, friendship, ambition and addiction, from one of Denmark's most celebrated twentieth-century writers

Tove is only twenty, but she's already famous, a published poet and wife of a much older literary editor. Her path in life seems set, yet she has no idea of the struggles ahead - love affairs, wanted and unwanted pregnancies, artistic failure and destructive addiction. As the years go by, the central tension of Tove's life comes into painful focus: the terrible lure of dependency, in all its forms, and the possibility of living freely and fearlessly - as an artist on her own terms.

The final volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, and arguably Ditlevsen's masterpiece, Dependency is a dark and blisteringly honest account of addiction, and the way out.

]]> 144 Tove Ditlevsen 024139175X m. 5 the copenhagen trilogy by ditlevsen, which starts with childhood and ends with this volume, dependency, is a searing portrait of a life marked by animosity and conflict, set in pre and post world war II denmark. ditlevsen carefully takes us through significant moments of her life—from a childhood and a youth riddled with insecurities and loneliness—to an adulthood marked with addiction. ditlevsen writes with a cleverness and depth that is hard to describe, and in a way i've never encountered. i hadn't heard of her before, and picked up these books knowing nothing about them (i didn't even know they were autobiographical!) only to put them down feeling heavy hearted and changed for good. turning the last page on dependency felt like losing a friend and a confidant—a feeling literature hasn't given me in years. word by word ditlevsen captivated and transformed me. i fear i will never be the same.]]> 4.47 1971 Dependency
author: Tove Ditlevsen
name: m.
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1971
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: 2025, 5-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:
the copenhagen trilogy by ditlevsen, which starts with childhood and ends with this volume, dependency, is a searing portrait of a life marked by animosity and conflict, set in pre and post world war II denmark. ditlevsen carefully takes us through significant moments of her life—from a childhood and a youth riddled with insecurities and loneliness—to an adulthood marked with addiction. ditlevsen writes with a cleverness and depth that is hard to describe, and in a way i've never encountered. i hadn't heard of her before, and picked up these books knowing nothing about them (i didn't even know they were autobiographical!) only to put them down feeling heavy hearted and changed for good. turning the last page on dependency felt like losing a friend and a confidant—a feeling literature hasn't given me in years. word by word ditlevsen captivated and transformed me. i fear i will never be the same.
]]> Youth 43685220
The second volume in Ditlvesen's autobiographical trilogy, Youth is a sensitive, often funny and almost painfully truthful portrayal of adolescence.]]> 128 Tove Ditlevsen m. 4 2025, 4-stars, heart-tagged 4.06 1967 Youth
author: Tove Ditlevsen
name: m.
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1967
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: 2025, 4-stars, heart-tagged
review:

]]> Childhood 58059502 The first volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, the searing portrait of a woman's journey through love, friendship, ambition and addiction, from one of Denmark's most celebrated twentieth-century writers

Tove knows she is a misfit, whose childhood is made for a completely different girl. In her working-class neighbourhood in Copenhagen, she is enthralled by her wild, red-headed friend Ruth, who initiates her into adult secrets. But Tove cannot reveal her true self to her or to anyone else. For 'long, mysterious words begin to crawl across my soul', and she comes to realize that she has a vocation, something unknowable within her - and that she must one day, painfully but inevitably, leave the narrow street of her childhood behind.

Childhood, the first volume in The Copenhagen Trilogy, is a visceral portrait of girlhood and female friendship, told with lyricism, and vivid intensity.]]> 112 Tove Ditlevsen 0241391946 m. 0 2025, no-rating, heart-tagged 4.15 1967 Childhood
author: Tove Ditlevsen
name: m.
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1967
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: 2025, no-rating, heart-tagged
review:

]]> Simple Passion 57371655 80 Annie Ernaux 1913097552 m. 5 simple passion ernaux deals with desire and unrequited love in a masterful, inspiring way. tiny anectodes shape this novel into a portrait of an all-consuming love affair that lasted years of her life. when i first read this i had never experienced anything like what ernaux described, but i could still sympathize. having recently just gotten out of a similar relationship, i thought it'd make sense to return to this, to remember my experiences aren't singular and i'm not the first person to ever suffer from a broken heart. the story ernaux tells is thrilling yet completely familiar, like when you take your makeup off after a long night and suddenly see a different face, though a face you know well, in the mirror. it brings the author and the reader together—even if you have never experienced a "simple passion" such as this, it's impossible not to feel alongside her. so i can only recommend this book, not just as remedy to help deal with a breakup, but as the blueprint of good, personal, and meaningful literature, that connects and reshapes the way we feel and see things. i discovered what people are capable of, in other words, anything: sublime or deadly desires, lack of dignity, attitudes and beliefs i had found absurd in others until i myself turned to them. without knowing it, he had brought me closer to the world. ]]> 4.05 1991 Simple Passion
author: Annie Ernaux
name: m.
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: 2023, 5-stars, favorites, heart-tagged, 2025, rereads
review:
in simple passion ernaux deals with desire and unrequited love in a masterful, inspiring way. tiny anectodes shape this novel into a portrait of an all-consuming love affair that lasted years of her life. when i first read this i had never experienced anything like what ernaux described, but i could still sympathize. having recently just gotten out of a similar relationship, i thought it'd make sense to return to this, to remember my experiences aren't singular and i'm not the first person to ever suffer from a broken heart. the story ernaux tells is thrilling yet completely familiar, like when you take your makeup off after a long night and suddenly see a different face, though a face you know well, in the mirror. it brings the author and the reader together—even if you have never experienced a "simple passion" such as this, it's impossible not to feel alongside her. so i can only recommend this book, not just as remedy to help deal with a breakup, but as the blueprint of good, personal, and meaningful literature, that connects and reshapes the way we feel and see things. i discovered what people are capable of, in other words, anything: sublime or deadly desires, lack of dignity, attitudes and beliefs i had found absurd in others until i myself turned to them. without knowing it, he had brought me closer to the world.
]]> Letters to Milena 23995378 320 Franz Kafka 0805212671 m. 0 currently-reading 4.18 1952 Letters to Milena
author: Franz Kafka
name: m.
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Olivia 48691348 "I read Olivia many, many times, bought it for many of my friends, and consider it the inspiration for Call Me by Your Name." --Andre Aciman

"Perfectly captures the breathless excitement of adolescent passion." --Sarah Waters, bestselling author of Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet

The classic novel about a teenage girl's infatuation with her headmistress at a boarding school in nineteenth-century Paris

A groundbreaking, passionate, and subtle story of first love, Olivia--based loosely on the author's own life--was first published in 1949 under a pseudonym. It tells the story of Olivia, a sixteen-year-old girl who is sent from England to a Parisian finishing school to broaden her education. Soon after her arrival, she finds herself falling under the spell of her beautiful and charismatic teacher, Mademoiselle Julie, who introduces her to art, literature, and fine cuisine. But Mademoiselle Julie's life is not as straightforward as Olivia imagines. As they grow closer, their relationship is threatened by jealousy and rivalry, and the school year seems destined to end in tragedy.]]> 128 Dorothy Strachey 014313440X m. 2 2-stars, 2021 3.82 1949 Olivia
author: Dorothy Strachey
name: m.
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1949
rating: 2
read at: 2021/08/31
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: 2-stars, 2021
review:

]]> Giovanni's Room 57514637 178 James Baldwin m. 0 2025, no-rating if beale street could talk and the fire next time, and i think giovanni's room pales in comparison to his other work. the prose in giovanni's is beautiful and rich, but wasn't enough to captivate me, especially when it lacks the character work that made beale street an instant favorite. the story dragged, which is surprising considering how short it is, and i doubt any of it will stick with me. can't win them all, i guess.]]> 4.31 1956 Giovanni's Room
author: James Baldwin
name: m.
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1956
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: 2025, no-rating
review:
picked this up hoping it'd offer me some comfort, or some new perspective, to help me deal with my recent heartbreak, so i'm very sorry to say i found this mainly dull and uninspiring. i've been a fan of baldwin since i read if beale street could talk and the fire next time, and i think giovanni's room pales in comparison to his other work. the prose in giovanni's is beautiful and rich, but wasn't enough to captivate me, especially when it lacks the character work that made beale street an instant favorite. the story dragged, which is surprising considering how short it is, and i doubt any of it will stick with me. can't win them all, i guess.
]]> This Mournable Body 53600412
Here we meet Tambudzai, living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare and anxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job. At every turn in her attempt to make a life for herself, she is faced with a fresh humiliation, until the painful contrast between the future she imagined and her daily reality ultimately drives her to a breaking point.]]> 365 Tsitsi Dangarembga 0571355528 m. 0 2025, no-rating 3.25 2018 This Mournable Body
author: Tsitsi Dangarembga
name: m.
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/08
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: 2025, no-rating
review:

]]> The Book of Not 55882502 320 Tsitsi Dangarembga 057136814X m. 0 no-rating, 2025 3.58 2006 The Book of Not
author: Tsitsi Dangarembga
name: m.
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: no-rating, 2025
review:

]]> Sweetbitter 26192646 Sweetbitter, Stephanie Danler deftly conjures with heart-stopping accuracy the nonstop and high-adrenaline world of the restaurant industry and evokes the infinite possibilities, the unbearable beauty, and the fragility and brutality of being young in New York.]]> 356 Stephanie Danler 1101875941 m. 4 i'm giving you permission to take yourself seriously. to take the stuff of this world seriously. and to start having. that's abundance. / whatever beauty i had, it wasn't self-generated, wasn't rooted. it was permeable. / he looked at me. and then he laughed. from that moment on he became unbearable to me. ]]> 3.32 2016 Sweetbitter
author: Stephanie Danler
name: m.
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2020/12/11
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: 2020, 3-5-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:
lackluster plot and frankly just a weird little book but the prose... i'm giving you permission to take yourself seriously. to take the stuff of this world seriously. and to start having. that's abundance. / whatever beauty i had, it wasn't self-generated, wasn't rooted. it was permeable. / he looked at me. and then he laughed. from that moment on he became unbearable to me.
]]> <![CDATA[The Mirror of My Heart: A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women]]> 54732982 An anthology of verse by women poets writing in Persian, most of whom have never been translated into English before, from acclaimed scholar and translator Dick Davis.

A Penguin Classic

The Mirror of My Heart is a unique and captivating collection of eighty-three Persian women poets, many of whom wrote anonymously or were punished for their outspokenness. One of the very first Persian poets was a woman (Rabe'eh, who lived over a thousand years ago) and there have been women poets writing in Persian in virtually every generation since that time until the present. Before the twentieth century they tended to come from society's social extremes--many were princesses, some were entertainers, but many were wives and daughters who wrote simply for their own entertainment, and they were active in many different countries - Iran, India, Afghanistan, and areas of central Asia that are now Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. From Rabe'eh in the tenth century to Fatemeh Ekhtesari in the twenty-first, the women poets found in The Mirror of My Heart write across the millennium on such universal topics as marriage, children, political climate, death, and emancipation, recreating life from hundreds of years ago that is strikingly similar to our own today and giving insight into their experiences as women throughout different points of Persian history. The volume is introduced and translated by Dick Davis, a scholar and translator of Persian literature as well as a gifted poet in his own right.]]> 264 Dick Davis 0143135619 m. 0 4.23 2019 The Mirror of My Heart: A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women
author: Dick Davis
name: m.
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/16
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: 2022, favorites, no-rating, heart-tagged
review:

]]> The Doloriad 60522308 Macabre, provocative, depraved, and unforgettable, The Doloriad marks the debut of Missouri Williams, a terrifyingly talented writer

In the wake of a mysterious environmental cataclysm that has wiped out the rest of humankind, the Matriarch and her brother, and the family descended from their incest, cling to existence on the edges of a ruined city. The Matriarch, ruling with fear and force, dreams of starting humanity over. Her children and the children they have with one another aren’t so sure. Surrounded by the silent forest and dead suburbs, they feel closer to the ruined world than to their parents. Nevertheless, they scavenge supplies, collect fuel, plant seeds, and attempt to cultivate the poisoned earth, brutalizing and caring for one another in equal measure. For entertainment, they watch old VHS tapes of a TV show called Get Aquinas in Here, in which a problem-solving medieval saint faces down a sequence of logical and ethical dilemmas. But as the Matriarch’s fragile order breaks down and her control over the sprawling family weakens, the world of the freewheeling television saint Aquinas and that of the family begin to melt together with terrible consequences.

Told in extraordinary, intricate prose that moves with a life of its own, at times striking with the power of physical force, Missouri Williams’s debut novel is a blazingly original document of depravity and salvation. Gothic and strange, moving and disquieting, and often hilarious, The Doloriad stares down, with narrowed eyes, humanity’s unbreakable commitment to life.]]> 224 Missouri Williams 1911585843 m. 5 if only some flood!!!!! ]]> 3.15 2022 The Doloriad
author: Missouri Williams
name: m.
average rating: 3.15
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/05
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: 2022, favorites, 5-stars, heart-tagged
review:
an extremely complex and convoluted examination of the human psyche in the apocalyptic landcaspe. offers a bleak look into our future—though highly grotesque, it's disturbingly relatable (or maybe i'm just rotten to the core). confusing and disgusting and soooo philosophical but so so excellent. if only some flood!!!!!
]]> The Lottery and Other Stories 49150843
'Shirley Jackson's stories are among the most terrifying ever written' Donna Tartt

In these stories an excellent host finds himself turned out of home by his own guests; a woman spends her wedding day frantically searching for her husband-to-be; and in Shirley Jackson's best-known story, a small farming village comes together for a terrible annual ritual. The creeping unease of lives squandered and the bloody glee of lives lost is chillingly captured in these tales of wasted potential and casual cruelty by a master of the short story.

Shirley Jackson's chilling tales have the power to unsettle and terrify unlike any other. She was born in California in 1916. When her short story The Lottery was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, readers were so horrified they sent her hate mail; it has since become one of the greatest American stories of all time. Her first novel, The Road Through the Wall, was published in the same year and was followed by five more: Hangsaman, The Bird's Nest, The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, widely seen as her masterpiece. Shirley Jackson died in her sleep at the age of 48.

'An amazing writer ... if you haven't read any of her short stories ... you have missed out on something marvellous' Neil Gaiman

'Her stories are stunning, timeless - as relevant and terrifying now as when they were first published ... 'The Lottery' is so much an icon in the history of the American short story that one could argue it has moved from the canon of American twentieth-century fiction directly into the American psyche, our collective unconscious' A. M. Homes]]> 302 Shirley Jackson 0141191430 m. 4 "what is going to help?" mrs. arnold said. "is everyone really crazy but me?" ]]> 3.92 1949 The Lottery and Other Stories
author: Shirley Jackson
name: m.
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1949
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/07
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: 2023, 4-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:
never would i have expected to find out in the year of our lord 2023 that shirley jackson is one of my favorite authors ever, but here we are. the subtlety in her horror, from a teen girl fantasizing about society's impending collapse to a man pushed out of his own home by his dinner guests, showcases her talent in finding the macabre in the mundane, how the everyday fears one encounters as they move through life—the fear of rejection and isolation, of oppressive mannerisms and traditions, of not understanding other people and feeling alone in the world—leaves us and manifests themselves as physical, supernatural, eerie occurrences. she just gets it. "what is going to help?" mrs. arnold said. "is everyone really crazy but me?"
]]> Family and Borghesia 216413549
Carmine, an architect, and Ivana, a translator, lived together long ago and even had a child, but the child died, and their relationship fell apart, and Carmine married Ninetta, and their child is Dodò, who Carmine feels is a little dull, and these days Carmine is still spending every evening with Ivana, but Ninetta has nothing to say about that. Family , the first of these two novellas from the 1970s, is an examination, at first comic, then progressively dark, about how time passes and life goes on and people circle around the opportunities they had missed, missing more as they do, until finally time is up.

Borghesia , about a widow who keeps acquiring and losing the Siamese cats she hopes will keep her company in her loneliness, explores similar ground, along with the confusions of feeling and domestic life that came with the loosening social strictures of the 1970s. “She remembered saying that there were three things in life you should always refuse,� thinks one of Natalia Ginzburg’s characters, beginning to age out of “Hypocrisy, resignation, and unhappiness. But it was impossible to shield yourself from those three things. Life was full of them and there was no holding them back.”]]> 160 Natalia Ginzburg 1914198840 m. 5 borghesia isn't my favorite of ginzburg's works, but reading family felt like coming home after a long time of being away and smelling the familiar scent of your bedroom and feeling completely at ease for the first time in weeks. carmine was holding both her hands, and stroking them. they were thin, pale, nervous hands. he had known them for a very long time. ]]> 3.86 1977 Family and Borghesia
author: Natalia Ginzburg
name: m.
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1977
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: 2024, 5-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:
borghesia isn't my favorite of ginzburg's works, but reading family felt like coming home after a long time of being away and smelling the familiar scent of your bedroom and feeling completely at ease for the first time in weeks. carmine was holding both her hands, and stroking them. they were thin, pale, nervous hands. he had known them for a very long time.
]]> Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen m. 0 to-read 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: m.
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Intermezzo 208931300 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

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.]]> 454 Sally Rooney 0374602638 m. 5 3.87 2024 Intermezzo
author: Sally Rooney
name: m.
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/05
date added: 2024/11/06
shelves: 2024, 5-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:

]]> Nervous Conditions 55882501 Nervous Conditions charts Tambu's journey to personhood in a nation that is also emerging.]]> 298 Tsitsi Dangarembga 0571368123 m. 4 2024, 4-stars, heart-tagged 3.98 1988 Nervous Conditions
author: Tsitsi Dangarembga
name: m.
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2024/11/01
shelves: 2024, 4-stars, heart-tagged
review:

]]> Kairos 62972496 294 Jenny Erpenbeck 0811229343 m. 0 2024, no-rating 3.49 2021 Kairos
author: Jenny Erpenbeck
name: m.
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/23
date added: 2024/11/01
shelves: 2024, no-rating
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1)]]> 42402467
The second story, which is as modern as the first is ancient, and which elevates the book to a tragic plane, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world through the arrival of aggressive, proselytizing European missionaries. These twin dramas are perfectly harmonized, and they are modulated by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul. THINGS FALL APART is the most illuminating and permanent monument we have to the modern African experience as seen from within.]]> 212 Chinua Achebe m. 5 2024, heart-tagged, 4-5-stars the story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. one could almost write a whole chapter on him. perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate. there was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting out details. he had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: the pacification of the primitive tribes of the lower niger. ]]> 3.83 1958 Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1)
author: Chinua Achebe
name: m.
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1958
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/29
date added: 2024/11/01
shelves: 2024, heart-tagged, 4-5-stars
review:
(4.5/5)
the story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. one could almost write a whole chapter on him. perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate. there was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting out details. he had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: the pacification of the primitive tribes of the lower niger.
]]> Blue Mimosa 42398374 100 Parijat m. 3 2023, 3-stars, heart-tagged who can trust a soldier? ]]> 2.67 1965 Blue Mimosa
author: Parijat
name: m.
average rating: 2.67
book published: 1965
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/20
date added: 2024/11/01
shelves: 2023, 3-stars, heart-tagged
review:
(read with tee and che) who can trust a soldier?
]]> The Helios Disaster 52893189 87 Linda Boström Knausgård 1642860654 m. 0 2024, no-rating (read with tee and che) 3.71 2013 The Helios Disaster
author: Linda Boström Knausgård
name: m.
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/11
date added: 2024/11/01
shelves: 2024, no-rating
review:
(read with tee and che)
]]> <![CDATA[Missa do Galo (Portuguese Edition)]]> 68260177 0 Machado de Assis 1624500943 m. 0 2024, no-rating, heart-tagged 0.0 1893 Missa do Galo (Portuguese Edition)
author: Machado de Assis
name: m.
average rating: 0.0
book published: 1893
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/08
date added: 2024/10/08
shelves: 2024, no-rating, heart-tagged
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Beautiful World, Where Are You]]> 56597885 356 Sally Rooney 0374602603 m. 5 3.53 2021 Beautiful World, Where Are You
author: Sally Rooney
name: m.
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/05
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: 2021, 2023, audiobooks, favorites, rereads, 5-stars, made-me-cry, heart-tagged, 2024
review:

]]> The Bell Jar 395040 The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.]]> 244 Sylvia Plath m. 4 2024, 4-stars, heart-tagged 4.07 1963 The Bell Jar
author: Sylvia Plath
name: m.
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/01
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: 2024, 4-stars, heart-tagged
review:

]]> O Diabo no Corpo 17929535
Quando publicado pela primeira vez, em 1923, o livro de estreia de Raymond Radiguet causou sensação nos círculos letrados de Paris - em parte por se tratar da produção de um prodígio, escrita quando seu autor tinha dezessete anos, e por ser considerada uma obra-prima por um autor do quilate de Jean Cocteau. Acrescentando ao clima geral de expectativa em torno do livro antes ainda de seu lançamento, tratava-se de uma história de inspiração autobiográfica - o jovem escritor havia se envolvido em um escandaloso caso de amor com uma professora na adolescência.]]> 136 Raymond Radiguet 8563560689 m. 0 2024, no-rating 3.62 1923 O Diabo no Corpo
author: Raymond Radiguet
name: m.
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1923
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/28
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: 2024, no-rating
review:

]]> Normal People 41057294
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.]]> 273 Sally Rooney 1984822179 m. 5 they sit in silence now, marianne moving the brush methodically through her hair, feeling for knots and slowly, patiently untangling them. there’s no point in being impatient anymore.
you know i love you, says connell. i’m never going to feel the same way for someone else. (...)
she closes her eyes. he probably won’t come back, she thinks. or he will, differently. what they have now they can never have back again. but for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. he brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. they’ve done a lot of good for each other. really, she thinks, really. people can really change one another. ]]> 3.81 2018 Normal People
author: Sally Rooney
name: m.
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/26
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves: 2020, 2023, audiobooks, favorites, rereads, heart-tagged, 2024, 5-stars
review:
they sit in silence now, marianne moving the brush methodically through her hair, feeling for knots and slowly, patiently untangling them. there’s no point in being impatient anymore.
you know i love you, says connell. i’m never going to feel the same way for someone else. (...)
she closes her eyes. he probably won’t come back, she thinks. or he will, differently. what they have now they can never have back again. but for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. he brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. they’ve done a lot of good for each other. really, she thinks, really. people can really change one another.
]]> Little Rabbit 58532214 Little Rabbit first meets the choreographer at an artists' residency in Maine, it's not a match. She finds him loud, conceited, domineering. He thinks her serious, guarded, always running away to write. But when he reappears in her life in Boston and invites her to his dance company's performance, she's compelled to attend. Their interaction at the show sets off a summer of expanding her own body's boundaries: She follows the choreographer to his home in the Berkshires, to his apartment in New York, and into submission during sex. Her body learns to obediently follow his, and his desires quickly become inextricable from her pleasure. This must be happiness, right?

Back in Boston, her roommate Annie's skepticism amplifies her own doubts about these heady weekend retreats. What does it mean for a queer young woman to partner with an older man, for a fledgling artist to partner with an established one? Is she following her own agency, or is she merely following him? Does falling in love mean eviscerating yourself?

Combining the sticky sexual politics of Luster with the dizzying, perceptive intimacy of Cleanness, Little Rabbit is a wholly new kind of coming-of-age story about lust, punishment, artistic drive, and desires that defy the hard-won boundaries of the self.]]> 256 Alyssa Songsiridej 1635578698 m. 2 2-stars, 2022, arcs eARC provided by netgalley in exhange for an honest review.

little rabbit is a suffocating and overwhelming debut that still somehow manages to blend itself into all other books like it, until it all becomes an overbearing wave of abusive relationships and BDSM and unamed narrators with very little originality or thoughtfulness. hand in hand with the likes of sally rooney, little rabbit focuses only on human connection, with the relationship with the narrator and her best friend often mirroring her relationship with her partner, though it lacked any of the nuance that made rooney's work a worldwide phenomenon, reading as surface level discussions of sex and love in its many different forms.]]> 3.72 2022 Little Rabbit
author: Alyssa Songsiridej
name: m.
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2022/02/14
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: 2-stars, 2022, arcs
review:
eARC provided by netgalley in exhange for an honest review.

little rabbit is a suffocating and overwhelming debut that still somehow manages to blend itself into all other books like it, until it all becomes an overbearing wave of abusive relationships and BDSM and unamed narrators with very little originality or thoughtfulness. hand in hand with the likes of sally rooney, little rabbit focuses only on human connection, with the relationship with the narrator and her best friend often mirroring her relationship with her partner, though it lacked any of the nuance that made rooney's work a worldwide phenomenon, reading as surface level discussions of sex and love in its many different forms.
]]> Conversations with Friends 35285193 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780571333134.

Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed and observant. A student in Dublin and an aspiring writer, at night she performs spoken word with her best friend Bobbi, who used to be her girlfriend. When they are interviewed and then befriended by Melissa, a well-known journalist who is married to Nick, an actor, they enter a world of beautiful houses, raucous dinner parties and holidays in Provence, beginning a complex ménage-à-quatre. But when Frances and Nick get unexpectedly closer, the sharply witty and emotion-averse Frances is forced to honestly confront her own vulnerabilities for the first time.]]> 323 Sally Rooney m. 5 i'm praying, i thought. i'm actually sitting here praying for god to help me. i was. please help me, i thought. please. i knew that there were rules about this, that you had to believe in a divine ordering principle before you could appel to it for anything, and i didn't believe. but i make an effort, i thought. i love my fellow human beings. or do i? do i love bobbi, after she tore up my story like that and left me alone? do i love nick, even if he doesn't want to fuck me anymore? do i love melissa? did i ever? do i love my mother and father? could i love everyone and even include bad people? (...)
me, all the clothing i wear, all the language i know. who put me here in this church, thinking these thoughts? other people, some i know very well and others i have never met. am i myself, or am i them? is this me, frances? no, it is not me. it is the others. do i sometimes hurt and harm myself, do i abuse the unearned cultural privilege of whiteness, do i take the labour of others for granted, have i sometimes exploited a reductive iteration of gender theory to avoid serious moral engagement, do i have a troubled relationship with my body, yes. do i want to be free of pain and therefore demand that others also live free of pain, the pain which is mine and therefore also theirs, yes, yes.]]> 3.86 2017 Conversations with Friends
author: Sally Rooney
name: m.
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/20
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: 2021, favorites, 2022, 2023, audiobooks, rereads, heart-tagged, 2024, 5-stars
review:
i'm praying, i thought. i'm actually sitting here praying for god to help me. i was. please help me, i thought. please. i knew that there were rules about this, that you had to believe in a divine ordering principle before you could appel to it for anything, and i didn't believe. but i make an effort, i thought. i love my fellow human beings. or do i? do i love bobbi, after she tore up my story like that and left me alone? do i love nick, even if he doesn't want to fuck me anymore? do i love melissa? did i ever? do i love my mother and father? could i love everyone and even include bad people? (...)
me, all the clothing i wear, all the language i know. who put me here in this church, thinking these thoughts? other people, some i know very well and others i have never met. am i myself, or am i them? is this me, frances? no, it is not me. it is the others. do i sometimes hurt and harm myself, do i abuse the unearned cultural privilege of whiteness, do i take the labour of others for granted, have i sometimes exploited a reductive iteration of gender theory to avoid serious moral engagement, do i have a troubled relationship with my body, yes. do i want to be free of pain and therefore demand that others also live free of pain, the pain which is mine and therefore also theirs, yes, yes.
]]> Briefly, A Delicious Life 59366260
In 1473, fourteen-year-old Blanca dies in a hilltop monastery in Mallorca. Nearly four hundred years later, when George Sand, her two children, and her lover Frederic Chopin arrive in the village, Blanca is still there: a spirited, funny, righteous ghost, she’s been hanging around the monastery since her accidental death, spying on the monks and the townspeople and keeping track of her descendants.

Blanca is enchanted the moment she sees George, and the magical novel unfolds as a story of deeply felt, unrequited longing—a teenage ghost pining for a woman who can’t see her and doesn’t know she exists. As George and Chopin, who wear their unconventionality, in George’s case, literally on their sleeves, find themselves in deepening trouble with the provincial, 19th-century villagers, Blanca watches helplessly and reflects on the circumstances of her own death (which involved an ill-advised love affair with a monk-in-training).

Charming, original, and emotionally moving -- gorgeous and surprising exploration of artistry, desire, and life after death.]]> 304 Nell Stevens 1982190949 m. 3 2022, 3-stars, arcs eARC provided by Netgalley in exhange for an honest review.

Briefly, A Delicious Life is, sadly, another case of a gorgeous cover being wasted on an average book. Surprisingly humorous yet unbearably unemotional, Stevens failed to squeeze out the full potential of her book's premise, instead creating a dull and bland narrative that brings nothing new to the supernatural and/or historical fiction genre. What drew me in at first was the idea of the Blanca, the ghost narrator, falling in love with George, the eccentric, full of live foreigner, but this aspect of the story was underutilized and barely developed in favour of a boring narrative about George's children and lover. The tension between the family and the village folk was also incredibly unintersting, and coupling that with Blanca's backstory, which was completely unimaginative, it made for a boring read that I probably should've just DNF'ed.]]> 3.75 2022 Briefly, A Delicious Life
author: Nell Stevens
name: m.
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2022/02/13
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves: 2022, 3-stars, arcs
review:
eARC provided by Netgalley in exhange for an honest review.

Briefly, A Delicious Life is, sadly, another case of a gorgeous cover being wasted on an average book. Surprisingly humorous yet unbearably unemotional, Stevens failed to squeeze out the full potential of her book's premise, instead creating a dull and bland narrative that brings nothing new to the supernatural and/or historical fiction genre. What drew me in at first was the idea of the Blanca, the ghost narrator, falling in love with George, the eccentric, full of live foreigner, but this aspect of the story was underutilized and barely developed in favour of a boring narrative about George's children and lover. The tension between the family and the village folk was also incredibly unintersting, and coupling that with Blanca's backstory, which was completely unimaginative, it made for a boring read that I probably should've just DNF'ed.
]]> Only a Monster (Monsters, #1) 58210340 With the sweeping romance of Passenger and the dark fantasy edge of This Savage Song, this standout YA contemporary fantasy debut from Vanessa Len, is the first in a planned trilogy.

It should have been the perfect summer. Sent to stay with her late mother’s eccentric family in London, sixteen-year-old Joan is determined to enjoy herself. She loves her nerdy job at the historic Holland House, and when her super cute co-worker Nick asks her on a date, it feels like everything is falling into place.

But she soon learns the truth. Her family aren’t just eccentric: they’re monsters, with terrifying, hidden powers. And Nick isn’t just a cute boy: he’s a legendary monster slayer, who will do anything to bring them down.

As she battles Nick, Joan is forced to work with the beautiful and ruthless Aaron Oliver, heir to a monster family that hates her own. She’ll have to embrace her own monstrousness if she is to save herself, and her family. Because in this story . . .

. . . she is not the hero.]]> 416 Vanessa Len m. 0 did-not-finish, arcs 3.85 2022 Only a Monster (Monsters, #1)
author: Vanessa Len
name: m.
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2018/01/18
date added: 2024/09/14
shelves: did-not-finish, arcs
review:

]]> Earthlings 58041101
But the buried horrors of Natsuki's past are pursuing her. As she flees the suburbs for the Nagano mountains and a reunion with her beloved cousin Yuu, she wonders, what will it take to escape the earthlings?]]> 247 Sayaka Murata m. 4 3.66 2018 Earthlings
author: Sayaka Murata
name: m.
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/10
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: 2022, favorites, 4-stars, heart-tagged
review:

]]> Very Cold People 58082210 "My parents didn't belong in Waitsfield, but they moved there anyway."

For Ruthie, the frozen town of Waitsfield, Massachusetts, is all she has ever known.

Once home to the country's oldest and most illustrious families--the Cabots, the Lowells: the "first, best people"--by the tail end of the twentieth century, it is an unforgiving place awash with secrets.

Forged in this frigid landscape Ruthie has been dogged by feelings of inadequacy her whole life. Hers is no picturesque New England childhood but one of swap meets and factory seconds and powdered milk. Shame blankets her like the thick snow that regularly buries nearly everything in Waitsfield.

As she grows older, Ruthie slowly learns how the town's prim facade conceals a deeper, darker history, and how silence often masks a legacy of harm--from the violence that runs down the family line to the horrors endured by her high school friends, each suffering a fate worse than the last. For Ruthie, Waitsfield is a place to be survived, and a girl like her would be lucky to get out alive.

In her eagerly anticipated debut novel, Sarah Manguso has written, with characteristic precision, a masterwork on growing up in--and out of--the suffocating constraints of a very old, and very cold, small town. At once an ungilded portrait of girlhood at the crossroads of history and social class as well as a vital confrontation with an all-American whiteness where the ice of emotional restraint meets the embers of smoldering rage, Very Cold People is a haunted jewel of a novel from one of our most virtuosic literary writers.]]> 208 Sarah Manguso 0593241223 m. 4 3.37 2022 Very Cold People
author: Sarah Manguso
name: m.
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/23
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: 2023, 4-stars, audiobooks, favorites, heart-tagged
review:
a heartbreaking reminder that to live is to hurt and be hurt, that to be a girl is to live with that hurt inside you, that to be a girl is to be your mother and your father and your best friend and your cousin and all the strangers you run into on the street. like sticking your fingers down your throat and savoring the taste of bile.
]]> Never Let Me Go 6334
Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it’s only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is.

Never Let Me Go breaks through the boundaries of the literary novel. It is a gripping mystery, a beautiful love story, and also a scathing critique of human arrogance and a moral examination of how we treat the vulnerable and different in our society. In exploring the themes of memory and the impact of the past, Ishiguro takes on the idea of a possible future to create his most moving and powerful book to date.]]> 288 Kazuo Ishiguro 1400078776 m. 5 never let me go is the kind of book that sneaks up on you. while i wasn't particularly appreciative of it when i was reading it, it's now one of the books i think about the most, one i always seem to come back to. such a beautiful exploration of connection in times of despair, of what it means to be human and in love with the people around you. thrilling, yet expected.]]> 3.85 2005 Never Let Me Go
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: m.
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2022/06/23
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: 2022, 5-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:
never let me go is the kind of book that sneaks up on you. while i wasn't particularly appreciative of it when i was reading it, it's now one of the books i think about the most, one i always seem to come back to. such a beautiful exploration of connection in times of despair, of what it means to be human and in love with the people around you. thrilling, yet expected.
]]> Misery 233681
Paul Sheldon. He's a bestselling novelist who has finally met his biggest fan. Her name is Annie Wilkes and she is more than a rabid reader � she is Paul's nurse, tending his shattered body after an automobile accident. But she is also his captor, keeping him prisoner in her isolated house.

Now Annie wants Paul to write his greatest work � just for her. She has a lot of ways to spur him on. One is a needle. Another is an ax. And if they don't work, she can get really nasty.]]> 338 Stephen King m. 2 2-stars, 2023 4.04 1987 Misery
author: Stephen King
name: m.
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1987
rating: 2
read at: 2023/11/23
date added: 2024/09/11
shelves: 2-stars, 2023
review:

]]> Promising Young Women 36133254 For readers of THE COWS, SWEETBITTER or CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS - as well as for fans of FLEABAG or SEARCH PARTY - Caroline O'Donoghue's debut is a gothic, darkly witty novel about sex, power, work and being a young woman in a man's world.

"I don't know why it never occurs to me to ask for more: to be taken to dinner, or to be given a promise, or at the very least, an explanation of why things aren't working out with his wife. I know exactly what Jolly would say: I know because I've written words to mistresses before. Hundreds of them."

On the day of her 26th birthday, Jane is recently single, adrift at her job, and intrigued by why Clem - her much older, married boss - is singing to her.

Meanwhile her alter-ego, the online agony aunt Jolly Politely, has all the answers. She's provided thousands of strangers with insightful and occasionally cutting insights to contemporary life's most vexing questions.

When she and Clem kiss at a party, Jane does not follow the advice she would give to her readers as Jolly: instead she plunges head-first into an affair. One that could jeopardise her friendships, her career and even her life.]]> 352 Caroline O'Donoghue 0349009902 m. 3 2021, 3-stars 3.69 2018 Promising Young Women
author: Caroline O'Donoghue
name: m.
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2021/04/11
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: 2021, 3-stars
review:
this was okay, only i was expecting more discussions of power imbalances and less weird stalker subplots that read like a ya mystery novel
]]> Nadja 110457
The principal narrative is an account of the author's relationship with a girl in the city of Paris, the story of an obsessional presence haunting his life. The first-person narrative is supplemented by forty-four photographs which form an integral part of the work -- pictures of various surreal people, places, and objects which the author visits or is haunted by in naja's presence and which inspire him to mediate on their reality or lack of it. The Nadja of the book is a girl, but, like Bertrand Russell's definition of electricity as not so much a thing as a way things happen, Nadja is not so much a person as the way she makes people behave. She has been described as a state of mind, a feeling about reality, k a kind of vision, and the reader sometimes wonders whether she exists at all. yet it is Nadja who gives form and structure to the novel.]]> 160 André Breton 0802150268 m. 0 2024, no-rating 3.57 1928 Nadja
author: André Breton
name: m.
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1928
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/06
date added: 2024/09/06
shelves: 2024, no-rating
review:

]]> Matrix 49198597 Lauren Groff returns with her exhilarating first new novel since the groundbreaking Fates and Furies. Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, 17-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease. At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her: devotion to her sisters, and a conviction in her own divine visions. Marie, born the last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, is determined to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. But in a world that is shifting and corroding in frightening ways, one that can never reconcile itself with her existence, will the sheer force of Marie's vision be bulwark enough? Equally alive to the sacred and the profane, Matrix gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around. Lauren Groff's new novel, her first since Fates and Furies, is a defiant and timely exploration of the raw power of female creativity in a corrupted world.
]]> 260 Lauren Groff 1785151908 m. 0 2024, no-rating 3.65 2021 Matrix
author: Lauren Groff
name: m.
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/28
date added: 2024/08/28
shelves: 2024, no-rating
review:

]]> Rodham 50253429 New York Times bestselling author of American Wife and Eligible, a novel that imagines a deeply compelling what-might-have-been: What if Hillary Rodham hadn’t married Bill Clinton?

In 1971, Hillary Rodham is a young woman full of promise: Life magazine has covered her Wellesley commencement speech, she’s attending Yale Law School, and she’s on the forefront of student activism and the women’s rights movement. And then she meets Bill Clinton. A handsome, charismatic southerner and fellow law student, Bill is already planning his political career. In each other, the two find a profound intellectual, emotional, and physical connection that neither has previously experienced.

In the real world, Hillary followed Bill back to Arkansas, and he proposed several times; although she said no more than once, as we all know, she eventually accepted and became Hillary Clinton.

But in Curtis Sittenfeld’s powerfully imagined tour-de-force of fiction, Hillary takes a different road. Feeling doubt about the prospective marriage, she endures their devastating breakup and leaves Arkansas. Over the next four decades, she blazes her own trail—one that unfolds in public as well as in private, that involves crossing paths again (and again) with Bill Clinton, that raises questions about the tradeoffs all of us must make in building a life.

Brilliantly weaving a riveting fictional tale into actual historical events, Curtis Sittenfeld delivers an uncannily astute and witty story for our times. In exploring the loneliness, moral ambivalence, and iron determination that characterize the quest for political power, as well as both the exhilaration and painful compromises demanded of female ambition in a world still run mostly by men, Rodham is a singular and unforgettable novel.]]> 420 Curtis Sittenfeld 0399590919 m. 2 2-stars, 2024 3.81 2020 Rodham
author: Curtis Sittenfeld
name: m.
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves: 2-stars, 2024
review:
north americans are weird as hell
]]> The Lost Daughter 59684725 The Lost Daughter is Elena Ferrante's most compelling and perceptive meditation on womanhood and motherhood yet. Leda, a middle-aged divorce, is alone for the first time in years when her daughters leave home to live with their father. Her initial, unexpected sense of liberty turns to ferocious introspection following a seemingly trivial occurrence. Ferrante's language is as finely tuned and intense as ever, and she treats her theme with a fierce, candid tenacity.]]> 140 Elena Ferrante 1787704181 m. 3 2022, 3-stars 3.73 2006 The Lost Daughter
author: Elena Ferrante
name: m.
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/06
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: 2022, 3-stars
review:
all respect to miss ferrante whoever she is wherever she may be but the movie was better
]]> Animal Farm 59763989 Librarian's Note: Alternate-cover edition for ISBN 0141182709

'It is the history of a revolution that went wrong � and of the excellent excuses that were forthcoming at every step for the perversion of the original doctrine,' wrote Orwell for the first edition of Animal Farm in 1945. Orwell wrote the novel at the end of 1943, but it almost remained unpublished. Its savage attack on Stalin, at that time Britain's ally, led to the book being refused by publisher after publisher. Orwell's simple, tragic fable, telling what happens when the animals drive out Mr Jones and attempt to run the farm themselves, has since become a world famous classic.]]> 139 George Orwell 0141182709 m. 4 2024, 3-5-stars, heart-tagged animal farm is good in an obvious way. in a way that made people say, whenever i mentioned to anyone that i was reading it, that "it's a classic!" in a very specific tone that doesn't apply to other classics, no matter how much better they are. orwell's masterpiece novella has a compelling cast of characters, well written political commentary and one of the best synopsis in all of literature. but it also drags, which is surprising considering that it's so short, and orwell's style is too dry for my taste (though he does offer have some great lines: all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.) so, what can i say? it's a classic!]]> 4.19 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: m.
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1945
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/16
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: 2024, 3-5-stars, heart-tagged
review:
(3.5/5)
animal farm is good in an obvious way. in a way that made people say, whenever i mentioned to anyone that i was reading it, that "it's a classic!" in a very specific tone that doesn't apply to other classics, no matter how much better they are. orwell's masterpiece novella has a compelling cast of characters, well written political commentary and one of the best synopsis in all of literature. but it also drags, which is surprising considering that it's so short, and orwell's style is too dry for my taste (though he does offer have some great lines: all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.) so, what can i say? it's a classic!
]]> <![CDATA[Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley]]> 25324105 ***AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4***
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER

'A gripping account of the heartbreaks and triumphs of two of history's most formidable female intellectuals, Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. Gordon has reunited mother and daughter through biography, beautifully weaving their narratives for the first time.' Amanda Foreman

English feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and author Mary Shelley were mother and daughter, yet these two extraordinary women never knew one another. Nevertheless, their passionate and pioneering lives remained closely intertwined, their choices, dreams and tragedies eerily similar.

Both women became famous writers and wrote books that changed literary history, had passionate relationships with several men, were single mothers out of wedlock; both lived in exile, fought for their position in society, and interrogated ideas of how we should live.

Romantic Outlaws takes the reader on a vivid journey across revolutionary France and Victorian England to explore in this ground-breaking dual biography of the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and the author who wrote Frankenstein - mother and daughter - a pair of visionary women, who should have shared a life, but who instead share a powerful literary and feminist legacy.]]> 672 Charlotte Gordon 0099592398 m. 5 romantic outlaws is a thoroughly researched and well written examination of two extraordinary women's lives. though gordon does tend to modernize and oversimplify at times (ex. "she didn't need man" appeared on page far more times than i would've liked it to) she does a fantastic job of portraying both mother and daughter in all their splendour and tragedy. for those interested, i cannot recommend gordon's introduction to penguin's frankenstein: the 1818 text enough. not only does it contextualize mother and daughter in the book's narrative, it also serves well as a prologue to this book.]]> 4.62 2015 Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley
author: Charlotte Gordon
name: m.
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/16
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: 2024, 5-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:
romantic outlaws is a thoroughly researched and well written examination of two extraordinary women's lives. though gordon does tend to modernize and oversimplify at times (ex. "she didn't need man" appeared on page far more times than i would've liked it to) she does a fantastic job of portraying both mother and daughter in all their splendour and tragedy. for those interested, i cannot recommend gordon's introduction to penguin's frankenstein: the 1818 text enough. not only does it contextualize mother and daughter in the book's narrative, it also serves well as a prologue to this book.
]]> <![CDATA[Assassinos da Lua das Flores -Petróleo, morte e a criação do FBI]]> 38910237 Então, um a um, os Osage começaram a ser mortos. As primeiras vítimas são a família de Mollie Burkhart, cujos parentes são sucessivamente envenenados ou assassinados a tiros. E isso era apenas o começo, pois mais e mais membros morreriam nos próximos meses, sempre em condições misteriosas.
Nessa parcela remanescente do Velho Oeste, habitada por notórios malfeitores como Al Spencer, conhecido como “o terror fantasma�, e onde homens do petróleo, como J. P. Getty, fizeram fortuna, muitos dos que ousaram investigar os assassinatos também perderam a vida.
É só quando o número de vítimas ultrapassa a segunda dezena que o FBI assume o caso. Fundado havia menos de duas décadas, o Federal Bureau of Investigation ainda não dispunha da experiência e da fama que tem hoje e seus agentes conduzem mal as investigações. Desesperado, o jovem diretor J. Edgar Hoover recorre à ajuda de um antigo Ranger texano chamado Tom White para solucionar o mistério.
White organiza uma equipe secreta, incluindo um dos únicos agentes indígenas do Bureau. Eles se infiltrariam na região lutando para adotar as mais recentes técnicas de investigação e começariam a expor uma das conspirações mais frias da história dos Estados Unidos.]]> 392 David Grann 8535930744 m. 5 2024, 5-stars, heart-tagged 4.35 2017 Assassinos da Lua das Flores -Petróleo, morte e a criação do FBI
author: David Grann
name: m.
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/11
date added: 2024/07/22
shelves: 2024, 5-stars, heart-tagged
review:

]]> Either/Or 58890783 From the acclaimed and bestselling author of The Idiot, the continuation of beloved protagonist Selin's quest for self-knowledge, as she travels abroad and tests the limits of her newfound adulthood

Selin is the luckiest person in her family: the only one who was born in America and got to go to Harvard. Now it's sophomore year, 1996, and Selin knows she has to make it count. The first order of business: to figure out the meaning of everything that happened over the summer. Why did Selin's elusive crush, Ivan, find her that job in the Hungarian countryside? What was up with all those other people in the Hungarian countryside? Why is Ivan's weird ex-girlfriend now trying to get in touch with Selin? On the plus side, it feels like the plot of an exciting novel. On the other hand, why do so many novels have crazy abandoned women in them? How does one live a life as interesting as a novel--a life worthy of becoming a novel--without becoming a crazy abandoned woman oneself?

Guided by her literature syllabus and by her more worldly and confident peers, Selin reaches certain conclusions about the universal importance of parties, alcohol, and sex, and resolves to execute them in practice--no matter what the cost. Next on the list: international travel.

Unfolding with the propulsive logic and intensity of youth, Either/Or is a landmark novel by one of our most brilliant writers. Hilarious, revelatory, and unforgettable, its gripping narrative will confront you with searching questions that persist long after the last page.]]> 368 Elif Batuman 0525557598 m. 5 either/or is filled with humor and sentimentality to equal measures. i've never seen an author write with such care: every word feels specially chosen, every minute detail stands out, whole passages made me want to burst into tears. batuman makes seemingly simple, mundane situations into pure art � tampons were spoken of by older or more sophisticated girls as being somehow more liberared and feminist than maxi pads. "i just put one in and forget about it." i felt troubled by the implication that a person was constantly thinking about their maxi pad. � while also maintaining a rich dialogue about the human condition and love. this is a book about people for people, and i love it with all my heart. was that what was so painful: that nobody had ever come so close to me—nobody had ever seen me, and come right up to me, and kept going, and looked into my eyes so seriously, with so little fear?]]> 4.00 2022 Either/Or
author: Elif Batuman
name: m.
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/15
date added: 2024/07/21
shelves: 2023, audiobooks, favorites, 5-stars, heart-tagged, 2024, rereads
review:
batuman is, for me, one of the best writers of her generation. that becomes clear from the quickness of her style to the clever, heartfelt and sympathetic characterization of selin. not only is she incredibly relatable (as a 20s something wannabe writer in college, i am she and she is me), she is also a well rounded and entertaining character. either/or is filled with humor and sentimentality to equal measures. i've never seen an author write with such care: every word feels specially chosen, every minute detail stands out, whole passages made me want to burst into tears. batuman makes seemingly simple, mundane situations into pure art � tampons were spoken of by older or more sophisticated girls as being somehow more liberared and feminist than maxi pads. "i just put one in and forget about it." i felt troubled by the implication that a person was constantly thinking about their maxi pad. � while also maintaining a rich dialogue about the human condition and love. this is a book about people for people, and i love it with all my heart. was that what was so painful: that nobody had ever come so close to me—nobody had ever seen me, and come right up to me, and kept going, and looked into my eyes so seriously, with so little fear?
]]> The People in the Trees 35396824
Readers of exciting, challenging and visionary literary fiction-including admirers of Norman Rush's Mating, Ann Patchett's State of Wonder, Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, and Peter Matthiessen's At Play in the Fields of the Lord-will be drawn to this astonishingly gripping and accomplished first novel. A decade in the writing, this is an anthropological adventure story that combines the visceral allure of a thriller with a profound and tragic vision of what happens when cultures collide. It is a book that instantly catapults Hanya Yanagihara into the company of young novelists who really, really matter.]]> 476 Hanya Yanagihara 0345803310 m. 4 2024, 4-stars, heart-tagged the people in the trees is a difficult book, meant only for the cold hearted. perina's behaviour throughout is so shamelessly cruel that it borders on comical. from his treatment of the children � constantly refering to them as animals, beasts, dogs etc., and the obvious sexual assault, his descriptions of esme (such brutal, raw misogyny that i myself, like perina, wished she would go away just to be allowed respite from the narrator's constant nagging and diminishment of her) � to, obviously, his colonization of and manner of conduct on the island. just a horrifying tale on all accounts, such that, as with a little life, i found myself constantly disconnected from the narrative and its absurdities. the logical part of my brain knows that things like these happened, happen and will continue to happen in the real world, but my sentimentality makes me unable to process the ideas presented in this book as anything other than pure fiction. can people really be this evil? obviously yanagihara thinks so. and i suppose i must only credit her for creating such a realistic tale. while reading the footnotes i often had to stop myself from googling the characters and the books mentioned. actually wish tallent was a real person so i could read his biography.

but, thankfully, this is fiction, which becomes very obvious in the final chapters. the people in the trees is a meticulously written, thrilling book, and yanagihara's style and cleverness shines � however i found myself drilling into huge qualms i had with the story itself. firstly, and pettiest, the lack of insects and disease during perina's first venture into the island. this is a jungle, in a tropical environment that no one has ever explored before, and not one of them got bitten by a mosquitoe and contracted some unknown illness and died? highly unrealistic and frankly a huge flaw in the idea of the narrative itself (esme's rash barely counts as such an instance, mainly because there is no mention of perina or tallent contracting anything like it. one could argue it is because of perina's unreliability as a narrator, but i'll say that's a poor excuse considering he's an actual doctor and should've been more interested in such things). secondly, kubodera as a character. having read a little life i know yanagihara is prone to writing lush stories of devotion and love. except kubodera's adoration doesn't really work in this context because we see and experience so little of their relationship. kubodera goes on sprawling monologues about perina, to the point of obnoxiousness, and yet perina spares him not a single mention. therefore the epilogue becomes, as even yanagihara admits, in an unsuccessful attempt to redeem herself, melodramatic and, ultimately, stupid, making the entire novel a lesser reading experience than it should've been. but still i am in awe of one's ability to craft such a story � albeit, one that is mostly burrowed from real life � and must gush over the dimensions represented here. the power of literature!]]> 3.93 2013 The People in the Trees
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: m.
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/06
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves: 2024, 4-stars, heart-tagged
review:
the people in the trees is a difficult book, meant only for the cold hearted. perina's behaviour throughout is so shamelessly cruel that it borders on comical. from his treatment of the children � constantly refering to them as animals, beasts, dogs etc., and the obvious sexual assault, his descriptions of esme (such brutal, raw misogyny that i myself, like perina, wished she would go away just to be allowed respite from the narrator's constant nagging and diminishment of her) � to, obviously, his colonization of and manner of conduct on the island. just a horrifying tale on all accounts, such that, as with a little life, i found myself constantly disconnected from the narrative and its absurdities. the logical part of my brain knows that things like these happened, happen and will continue to happen in the real world, but my sentimentality makes me unable to process the ideas presented in this book as anything other than pure fiction. can people really be this evil? obviously yanagihara thinks so. and i suppose i must only credit her for creating such a realistic tale. while reading the footnotes i often had to stop myself from googling the characters and the books mentioned. actually wish tallent was a real person so i could read his biography.

but, thankfully, this is fiction, which becomes very obvious in the final chapters. the people in the trees is a meticulously written, thrilling book, and yanagihara's style and cleverness shines � however i found myself drilling into huge qualms i had with the story itself. firstly, and pettiest, the lack of insects and disease during perina's first venture into the island. this is a jungle, in a tropical environment that no one has ever explored before, and not one of them got bitten by a mosquitoe and contracted some unknown illness and died? highly unrealistic and frankly a huge flaw in the idea of the narrative itself (esme's rash barely counts as such an instance, mainly because there is no mention of perina or tallent contracting anything like it. one could argue it is because of perina's unreliability as a narrator, but i'll say that's a poor excuse considering he's an actual doctor and should've been more interested in such things). secondly, kubodera as a character. having read a little life i know yanagihara is prone to writing lush stories of devotion and love. except kubodera's adoration doesn't really work in this context because we see and experience so little of their relationship. kubodera goes on sprawling monologues about perina, to the point of obnoxiousness, and yet perina spares him not a single mention. therefore the epilogue becomes, as even yanagihara admits, in an unsuccessful attempt to redeem herself, melodramatic and, ultimately, stupid, making the entire novel a lesser reading experience than it should've been. but still i am in awe of one's ability to craft such a story � albeit, one that is mostly burrowed from real life � and must gush over the dimensions represented here. the power of literature!
]]> <![CDATA[Capote's Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era]]> 57005206 New York Times bestselling author Laurence Leamer reveals the complex web of relationships and scandalous true stories behind Truman Capote's never-published final novel, Answered Prayers--the dark secrets, tragic glamour, and Capote's ultimate betrayal of the group of female friends he called his swans.

There are certain women, Truman Capote wrote, who, though perhaps not born rich, are born to be rich. Barbara Babe Paley, Gloria Guinness, Marella Agnelli, Slim Hayward, Pamela Churchill, C. Z. Guest, Lee Radziwill (Jackie Kennedy's sister)--they were the toast of midcentury New York, each beautiful and distinguished in her own way. These women captivated and enchanted Capote--and at times, they infuriated him as well. He befriended them, received their deepest confidences, and ingratiated himself into their lives. Then, in one fell swoop, he betrayed them in the most surprising and shocking way possible.

Bestselling biographer Laurence Leamer delves into the years following the acclaimed publication of Breakfast at Tiffany's in 1958 and In Cold Blood in 1966, when Capote struggled with a crippling case of writer's block. While enjoying all the fruits of his success--including cultivating close friendships with the richest and most admired women of the era--he was struck with an idea for what he was sure would be his most celebrated novel...one based on the remarkable, racy lives of his very, very rich friends.

For years, Capote attempted to write what he believed would have been his magnum opus, Answered Prayers. But when he eventually published a few chapters in Esquire, the thinly fictionalized lives (and scandals) of his closest female confidantes were laid bare for all to see. The blowback incinerated his relationships and banished Capote from their high-society world forever...a world that was already crumbling, though none of them realized it yet. Laurence Leamer recreates in detail the lives of these fascinating swans, their friendships with Capote and one another, and the doomed quest to write what could have been one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
]]> 356 Laurence Leamer 0593328086 m. 3 2024, heart-tagged, 3-stars 3.78 2021 Capote's Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era
author: Laurence Leamer
name: m.
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/27
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves: 2024, heart-tagged, 3-stars
review:
this is a messy book and not in the fun way! maybe it were my own expectations which were misguided but i thought this would've focused more on capote's relationship with his "swans" and their relationships with each other. instead it was more of a collection of vignettes about these women. leamer talks only a little bit about each of their childhoods and instead focuses on delivering a rushed, albeit detailed, account of all their marriages. we really don't learn anything about them except that they dressed well, married rich and were depressed. which, fine, i guess you could argue was all they did anyway. but in the end it just makes this book seem endless and pointless. leamer even just breezes by capote's own life, which even his most avid hater can't help but admit was very interesting, to talk about... what? pamela harriman's third marriage in excruciating, unnecessary detail? again, maybe i'm judging this by a standard it never intended to meet. but one can't help but to get a sour taste in one's mouth when leamer actively chooses to ignore his own central characters even in their deaths. felt rushed and incompleted. yet even through all this, it kept me entertained enough to finish it.
]]> Wandering Souls 60741794 One of Time Magazine's Must-Read Books of the Year
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Fiction 2024
Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023

“A deeply humane and genre-defying work of love and uncompromising hope.� —Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and Time Is a Mother

There are the goodbyes and then the fishing out of the bodies—everything in between is speculation.

After the last American troops leave Vietnam, siblings Anh, Minh, and Thanh journey to Hong Kong with the promise that their parents and younger siblings will soon follow. But when tragedy strikes, the three children are left orphaned, and sixteen-year-old Anh becomes the caretaker for her two younger brothers overnight.

In the years that follow, Anh and her brothers immigrate to the UK, living first in overcrowded camps and resettlement centers and then, later, in a modernizing London plagued by social inequality. Anh works in a factory to pay the bills. Minh loiters about with fellow high school dropouts. Thanh, the youngest, plays soccer with his friends after class. As they mature, each sibling reckons with survivor’s guilt, unmoored by their parents� absence. And with every choice, their paths diverge further, until it’s unclear if love alone can keep them together.

Told through lyrical narrative threads, historical research, voices from lost family, and notes by an unnamed narrator determined to chart these siblings� fates, Wandering Souls captures the lives of a family marked by loss yet relentless in the pursuit of a better future. With urgency and precision, it affirms that the most important stories are those we claim for ourselves, establishing Cecile Pin as a masterful new literary voice.]]> 240 Cecile Pin 1250863465 m. 0 2024, audiobooks, no-rating 4.13 2023 Wandering Souls
author: Cecile Pin
name: m.
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/07/08
shelves: 2024, audiobooks, no-rating
review:

]]> A Little Life 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 m. 0 2020, made-me-cry, no-rating 4.28 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: m.
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2020/02/02
date added: 2024/07/05
shelves: 2020, made-me-cry, no-rating
review:

]]> Cut 52376833 ]]> Catherine Lacey m. 0 2024, heart-tagged, no-rating 4.11 Cut
author: Catherine Lacey
name: m.
average rating: 4.11
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/05
date added: 2024/07/04
shelves: 2024, heart-tagged, no-rating
review:

]]> Pew 60422515 207 Catherine Lacey m. 0 2024, no-rating 3.68 2020 Pew
author: Catherine Lacey
name: m.
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/04
date added: 2024/07/04
shelves: 2024, no-rating
review:

]]> Emma, A Fragment 36152999
Twenty pages of pure Brontë, her final work.]]> 20 Charlotte Brontë m. 0 2023, no-rating, heart-tagged i had not found it in maturity. i was become resigned never to find it. i had lived certain dim years entirely tranquil and unexpectant. and now i was not sure but something was hovering round my hearth which pleased me wonderfully.
look at it, reader. come into my parlor and judge for yourself whether i do right to care for this thing. ]]> 4.08 1860 Emma, A Fragment
author: Charlotte Brontë
name: m.
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1860
rating: 0
read at: 2023/09/13
date added: 2024/07/04
shelves: 2023, no-rating, heart-tagged
review:
you know you have a banger in your hands when a charlotte brontë character address the reader directly. i had not found it in maturity. i was become resigned never to find it. i had lived certain dim years entirely tranquil and unexpectant. and now i was not sure but something was hovering round my hearth which pleased me wonderfully.
look at it, reader. come into my parlor and judge for yourself whether i do right to care for this thing.
]]> The History of Sound 59479999 16 Ben Shattuck m. 2 2-stars, 2021 4.20 2024 The History of Sound
author: Ben Shattuck
name: m.
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2021/10/31
date added: 2024/07/02
shelves: 2-stars, 2021
review:
quite boring. only finished it for my man josh o'connor xx
]]> Our Missing Hearts 60149573 A novel about a mother’s unbreakable love in a world consumed by fear.

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture� in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.

Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.]]> 335 Celeste Ng 0593492544 m. 3 2024, 3-stars, audiobooks 3.74 2022 Our Missing Hearts
author: Celeste Ng
name: m.
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/30
date added: 2024/06/30
shelves: 2024, 3-stars, audiobooks
review:
hard to enjoy a dystopian book when we're currently living in a hellscape. anyway.
]]> <![CDATA[Jade City (The Green Bone Saga, #1)]]> 43587154 JADE CITY is a gripping Godfather-esque saga of intergenerational blood feuds, vicious politics, magic, and kungfu.

The Kaul family is one of two crime syndicates that control the island of Kekon. It's the only place in the world that produces rare magical jade, which grants those with the right training and heritage superhuman abilities.

The Green Bone clans of honorable jade-wearing warriors once protected the island from foreign invasion--but nowadays, in a bustling post-war metropolis full of fast cars and foreign money, Green Bone families like the Kauls are primarily involved in commerce, construction, and the everyday upkeep of the districts under their protection.

When the simmering tension between the Kauls and their greatest rivals erupts into open violence in the streets, the outcome of this clan war will determine the fate of all Green Bones and the future of Kekon itself.]]> 540 Fonda Lee 0316440884 m. 5 4.06 2017 Jade City (The Green Bone Saga, #1)
author: Fonda Lee
name: m.
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2020/12/16
date added: 2024/06/28
shelves: 2020, favorites, 5-stars, heart-tagged
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Jade War (The Green Bone Saga, #2)]]> 41716919 Jade War, the sequel to the World Fantasy Award-winning novel Jade City, the Kaul siblings battle rival clans for honor and control over an Asia-inspired fantasy metropolis.

On the island of Kekon, the Kaul family is locked in a violent feud for control of the capital city and the supply of magical jade that endows trained Green Bone warriors with supernatural powers they alone have possessed for hundreds of years.

Beyond Kekon's borders, war is brewing. Powerful foreign governments and mercenary criminal kingpins alike turn their eyes on the island nation. Jade, Kekon's most prized resource, could make them rich - or give them the edge they'd need to topple their rivals.

Faced with threats on all sides, the Kaul family is forced to form new and dangerous alliances, confront enemies in the darkest streets and the tallest office towers, and put honor aside in order to do whatever it takes to ensure their own survival - and that of all the Green Bones of Kekon.

Jade War is the second book of the Green Bone Saga, an epic trilogy about family, honor, and those who live and die by the ancient laws of blood and jade.]]> 587 Fonda Lee 0316440922 m. 4 4.39 2019 Jade War (The Green Bone Saga, #2)
author: Fonda Lee
name: m.
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2021/05/15
date added: 2024/06/28
shelves: 2021, favorites, made-me-cry, 4-stars, heart-tagged
review:

]]> Sagittarius 180662135 128 Natalia Ginzburg m. 4 2024, heart-tagged, 4-stars 4.03 1957 Sagittarius
author: Natalia Ginzburg
name: m.
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1957
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/27
date added: 2024/06/28
shelves: 2024, heart-tagged, 4-stars
review:

]]> Untethered Sky 60784305 From World Fantasy Award-winning author Fonda Lee comes Untethered Sky, an epic fantasy fable about the pursuit of obsession at all costs.

Ester’s family was torn apart when a manticore killed her mother and baby brother, leaving her with nothing but her father’s painful silence and a single, overwhelming need to kill the monsters that took her family.

Ester’s path leads her to the King’s Royal Mews, where the giant rocs of legend are flown to hunt manticores by their brave and dedicated ruhkers. Paired with a fledgling roc named Zahra, Ester finds purpose and acclaim by devoting herself to a calling that demands absolute sacrifice and a creature that will never return her love. The terrifying partnership between woman and roc leads Ester not only on the empire’s most dangerous manticore hunt, but on a journey of perseverance and acceptance.]]> 150 Fonda Lee 1250842468 m. 4 3.88 2023 Untethered Sky
author: Fonda Lee
name: m.
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/28
date added: 2024/06/28
shelves: 2024, 4-stars, audiobooks, heart-tagged
review:
this is literally me and my cat....
]]> Diário de Pilar na Grécia 24306010 152 Flávia Lins e Silva m. 0 4.00 2010 Diário de Pilar na Grécia
author: Flávia Lins e Silva
name: m.
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/09
date added: 2024/06/27
shelves: 2024, rereads, heart-tagged, no-rating
review:

]]> Didion and Babitz 207293782 Joan Didion is revealed at last in this outrageously provocative and profoundly moving new work on the mutual attractions—and mutual antipathies—of Didion and Didion’s fellow literary titan, Eve Babitz. “Could you write what you write if you weren’t so tiny, Joan?� —Eve Babitz, in a letter to Joan Didion, 1972 Eve Babitz died on December 17, 2021. Found in a closet in the back of an apartment full of wrack, ruin, and filth was a stack of boxes packed by her mother decades before. These boxes were pristine, the seals of duct tape unbroken. journals, photos, scrapbooks, manuscripts, letters. inside a lost world. This world turned for a certain number of years in the late sixties and early seventies, and was centered on a two-story house rented by Joan Didion and her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, in a down-at-heel section of Hollywood. 7406 Franklin Avenue, a combination salon-hotbed-living end where writers and artists mixed with movie stars, rock n� rollers, drug trash. 7406 Franklin Avenue was the making of one great American Joan Didion, cool and reserved behind her oversized sunglasses and storied marriage, a union as tortured as it was enduring. 7406 Franklin Avenue was the breaking and then the remaking—and thus the true making—of another great American Eve Babitz, goddaughter of Igor Stravinsky, nude of Marcel Duchamp, consort of Jim Morrison (among many, many others), who burned so hot she finally almost burned herself alive. The two formed a complicated a friendship that went bad, amity turning to enmity; a friendship that was as rare as true love, as rare as true hate. Didion, in spite of her confessional style, her widespread fame, is so little known or understood. She’s remained opaque, elusive. Until now. With deftness and skill, journalist Lili Anolik uses Babitz—Babitz’s brilliance of observation, Babitz’s incisive intelligence, and, most of all, Babitz’s diary-like letters—as the key to unlocking the mighty and mysterious Didion.]]> 352 Lili Anolik 1668065487 m. 1 1-star, 2024, arcs arc provided by netgalley in exhange for an honest review.

dearest gentle reader,

if one finds themselves in the search for a long winded, harshly written book about a made up rivalry between two literary giants, look no further than anolik's didion and babitz. if one find themselves in the search for a well written, coherent jornalistic piece, i urge: look elsewhere.

to quote anolik herself: she picked a side, and she'll stick with it. that, of course, being eve's side. and i can only wonder why "picking a side" is even necessary. to a normal human being, it wouldn't be. both didion and babitz, personal opinions aside, are wildly regarded as two of the best writers the united states has ever produced. and their circumstances aren't as intertwined as anolik would have you believe. didion and babitz aren't wharton and james. they don't share this insane, symbiotic literary relationship - they were friends. until, of course, babitz decided they weren't. but the question that lingers throughout the entire book is: why should eve's drug induced whims decide the course of an entire literary piece, aka this book, and why should i care?

anolik answers: because it's fun! and this author can't help but agree. there is a reason i read it all, even as a bad taste swirled endlessly in my mouth. but why is it fun? because, dearest reader, there is nothing the world loves more than seeing two women fight one another. even as the battlefield is rigged by anolik's lack of journalistic integrity. didion never stood a chance against babitz and the writer's "love (...) with a fan's unreasoning abandon" for her. now, i can't judge too harshly: both these women are dead. they can't be hurt anymore. and, like it or not, with fame comes the consequences of being splayed out for all to see, crucified as people see fit. but, still. there's a difference between tweeting "joan didion sucks!" and writing an entire book bashing her for... not being like babitz? to quote anolik again: "i respect her work rather than like it; find her persona-part princess, part wet blanket-tough going (...)". so then, i wonder, why would she choose to write an entire book about her?

except, of course, she didn't. for every three pages bestowed on didion, she spends thirty on babitz. goes on incessant monologues - especially towards the end of the book - about how brilliant babitz is. only to turn around and shit on everything didion has ever done, including, but not limited to, biting rants about her personal opinion of didion's books (no one cares!) and frankly cruel analyses of her personal life.

anolik is an impartial narrator and writes a mean spirited, gossip filled book that accomplishes nothing except spread her unfounded theories for all the world to chew on. john dunne was abusive! she shouts. he was gay! ... or, maybe he felt inferior to joan! .... or, maybe he wanted to fuck eve? who really knows! he's dead, after all. he can't defend himself. so why not just gather intel given by random, biased people and write the narrative as i see fit. didion was bitter because she hated femininity, eve represented everything she despised. eve had gigantic tits and was free and didion was small and itsy-bitsy and repressed. eve was everything didion longed to become. didion was a heartless bitch that used her husband's and daughter's deaths to get the one thing she's ever wanted, fame, while eve is a tragic artist, misunderstood, who was thrown aside because she was just too real! that's why these women hate each other, reader. agree with me.

well, i don't, and i won't. it doesn't really matter to me that both of them are dead. nor does it matter that they opened themselves up to speculation. one can't, and must not, make assumptions about real people's lives with little to no facts to back them up. it doesn't matter how much anolik loved babitz, or how much they talked, or how much she knew about her. when you gather a bunch of men to interview (and, oh god, there was so many men), couple that with scattered pieces of unmailed letters (UNMAILED!), and the voices in your head that tell you these women despised each other, you'll end up with a very entertaining novel, but one that holds no value other than spreading cruel gossip and deceptive allegations. (note that i said novel, reader. to call this nonfiction is as deceptive as anolik's claims.)

the introduction of the novel centers around a letter babitz wrote to didion (but never sent), and it's frankly a great piece of writing. could you write what you write if you weren't so tiny, joan? brutal - and interesting. but a tiny quote does not a book make. especially when it's blown way out of proportion. as i mentioned before, this letter was never sent. babitz and didion didn't have a giant fight, didn't despise each other. babitz was an unstable drug addict that up and decided she just didn't like joan anymore after years of friendship. anolik even admits it herself: (...) after 1979, she'd given one thought to eve for every fifty eve's given to her.

so, i must question again. why does this book exist? the only two reasons i can think of: 1) anolik wanted to continue writing about babitz, and 2) the two women together sell more than as individuals. which i can't judge, i was interested in this, after all, as i imagine many more people will be. but the point i must keep making is that anolik clearly doesn't want to write about didion. so, please, please, PLEASE, leave her name out of your mouth. let her rest in peace without having people desecrate her personal life and body of work for cruel, meaningless reasons.

all this to say: this book is mean, useless, and badly written. don't waste your time, reader.]]> 3.21 2024 Didion and Babitz
author: Lili Anolik
name: m.
average rating: 3.21
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2024/06/25
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves: 1-star, 2024, arcs
review:
arc provided by netgalley in exhange for an honest review.

dearest gentle reader,

if one finds themselves in the search for a long winded, harshly written book about a made up rivalry between two literary giants, look no further than anolik's didion and babitz. if one find themselves in the search for a well written, coherent jornalistic piece, i urge: look elsewhere.

to quote anolik herself: she picked a side, and she'll stick with it. that, of course, being eve's side. and i can only wonder why "picking a side" is even necessary. to a normal human being, it wouldn't be. both didion and babitz, personal opinions aside, are wildly regarded as two of the best writers the united states has ever produced. and their circumstances aren't as intertwined as anolik would have you believe. didion and babitz aren't wharton and james. they don't share this insane, symbiotic literary relationship - they were friends. until, of course, babitz decided they weren't. but the question that lingers throughout the entire book is: why should eve's drug induced whims decide the course of an entire literary piece, aka this book, and why should i care?

anolik answers: because it's fun! and this author can't help but agree. there is a reason i read it all, even as a bad taste swirled endlessly in my mouth. but why is it fun? because, dearest reader, there is nothing the world loves more than seeing two women fight one another. even as the battlefield is rigged by anolik's lack of journalistic integrity. didion never stood a chance against babitz and the writer's "love (...) with a fan's unreasoning abandon" for her. now, i can't judge too harshly: both these women are dead. they can't be hurt anymore. and, like it or not, with fame comes the consequences of being splayed out for all to see, crucified as people see fit. but, still. there's a difference between tweeting "joan didion sucks!" and writing an entire book bashing her for... not being like babitz? to quote anolik again: "i respect her work rather than like it; find her persona-part princess, part wet blanket-tough going (...)". so then, i wonder, why would she choose to write an entire book about her?

except, of course, she didn't. for every three pages bestowed on didion, she spends thirty on babitz. goes on incessant monologues - especially towards the end of the book - about how brilliant babitz is. only to turn around and shit on everything didion has ever done, including, but not limited to, biting rants about her personal opinion of didion's books (no one cares!) and frankly cruel analyses of her personal life.

anolik is an impartial narrator and writes a mean spirited, gossip filled book that accomplishes nothing except spread her unfounded theories for all the world to chew on. john dunne was abusive! she shouts. he was gay! ... or, maybe he felt inferior to joan! .... or, maybe he wanted to fuck eve? who really knows! he's dead, after all. he can't defend himself. so why not just gather intel given by random, biased people and write the narrative as i see fit. didion was bitter because she hated femininity, eve represented everything she despised. eve had gigantic tits and was free and didion was small and itsy-bitsy and repressed. eve was everything didion longed to become. didion was a heartless bitch that used her husband's and daughter's deaths to get the one thing she's ever wanted, fame, while eve is a tragic artist, misunderstood, who was thrown aside because she was just too real! that's why these women hate each other, reader. agree with me.

well, i don't, and i won't. it doesn't really matter to me that both of them are dead. nor does it matter that they opened themselves up to speculation. one can't, and must not, make assumptions about real people's lives with little to no facts to back them up. it doesn't matter how much anolik loved babitz, or how much they talked, or how much she knew about her. when you gather a bunch of men to interview (and, oh god, there was so many men), couple that with scattered pieces of unmailed letters (UNMAILED!), and the voices in your head that tell you these women despised each other, you'll end up with a very entertaining novel, but one that holds no value other than spreading cruel gossip and deceptive allegations. (note that i said novel, reader. to call this nonfiction is as deceptive as anolik's claims.)

the introduction of the novel centers around a letter babitz wrote to didion (but never sent), and it's frankly a great piece of writing. could you write what you write if you weren't so tiny, joan? brutal - and interesting. but a tiny quote does not a book make. especially when it's blown way out of proportion. as i mentioned before, this letter was never sent. babitz and didion didn't have a giant fight, didn't despise each other. babitz was an unstable drug addict that up and decided she just didn't like joan anymore after years of friendship. anolik even admits it herself: (...) after 1979, she'd given one thought to eve for every fifty eve's given to her.

so, i must question again. why does this book exist? the only two reasons i can think of: 1) anolik wanted to continue writing about babitz, and 2) the two women together sell more than as individuals. which i can't judge, i was interested in this, after all, as i imagine many more people will be. but the point i must keep making is that anolik clearly doesn't want to write about didion. so, please, please, PLEASE, leave her name out of your mouth. let her rest in peace without having people desecrate her personal life and body of work for cruel, meaningless reasons.

all this to say: this book is mean, useless, and badly written. don't waste your time, reader.
]]> <![CDATA[What Souls Are Made Of: A Wuthering Heights Remix (Remixed Classics)]]> 58484146
Sometimes, lost things find their way home...

Yorkshire, North of England, 1786. As the abandoned son of a lascar―a sailor from India―Heathcliff has spent most of his young life maligned as an "outsider." Now he's been flung into an alien life in the Yorkshire moors, where he clings to his birth father's language even though it makes the children of the house call him an animal, and the maids claim he speaks gibberish.

Catherine is the younger child of the estate's owner, a daughter with light skin and brown curls and a mother that nobody talks about. Her father is grooming her for a place in proper society, and that's all that matters. Catherine knows she must mold herself into someone pretty and good and marriageable, even though it might destroy her spirit.

As they occasionally flee into the moors to escape judgment and share the half-remembered language of their unknown kin, Catherine and Heathcliff come to find solace in each other. Deep down in their souls, they can feel they are the same.

But when Catherine's father dies and the household's treatment of Heathcliff only grows more cruel, their relationship becomes strained and threatens to unravel. For how can they ever be together, when loving each other―and indeed, loving themselves―is as good as throwing themselves into poverty and death?]]> 304 Tasha Suri 1250773504 m. 3 audiobook provided by netgalley in exhange for an honest review.

what souls are made of starts a very interesting conversation regarding england's brutal colonization in India and what it means and takes to reclaim your heritage with suri's typical prose: stunning, smart and very gothic! but it reads more like wuthering heights fanfiction than it does a retelling, (remix?) which i hate. also very dull at parts, particularly heathcliff's chapters, and personally i found both his and cathy's characters unfamiliar and unnervingly different from the source material. and where was the wildness!! the feralness!!! the absolutely crazy unhinged dialogues and insane descriptions!!!! how can you call something wuthering heightsesque without people biting and snarling and yelling and digging out graves!!!!!!!
but overrall good! and even though i have a bitter dislike of retellings (or as suri calls it on the author's note, reimaginings), i did really enjoy it
(narration was also great! but i found that cathy's narrator, while lovely, was wayy too soft spoken for a character like cathy. suri's cathy is much more sad than she is feral, which i guess makes sense but goddamn did i want to hear some snarling)]]> 3.80 2022 What Souls Are Made Of: A Wuthering Heights Remix (Remixed Classics)
author: Tasha Suri
name: m.
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2022/07/06
date added: 2024/06/25
shelves: 2022, 3-stars, arcs, audiobooks, heart-tagged
review:
audiobook provided by netgalley in exhange for an honest review.

what souls are made of starts a very interesting conversation regarding england's brutal colonization in India and what it means and takes to reclaim your heritage with suri's typical prose: stunning, smart and very gothic! but it reads more like wuthering heights fanfiction than it does a retelling, (remix?) which i hate. also very dull at parts, particularly heathcliff's chapters, and personally i found both his and cathy's characters unfamiliar and unnervingly different from the source material. and where was the wildness!! the feralness!!! the absolutely crazy unhinged dialogues and insane descriptions!!!! how can you call something wuthering heightsesque without people biting and snarling and yelling and digging out graves!!!!!!!
but overrall good! and even though i have a bitter dislike of retellings (or as suri calls it on the author's note, reimaginings), i did really enjoy it
(narration was also great! but i found that cathy's narrator, while lovely, was wayy too soft spoken for a character like cathy. suri's cathy is much more sad than she is feral, which i guess makes sense but goddamn did i want to hear some snarling)
]]> Ulysses 60394139
Following the events of one single day in Dublin, the 16th June 1904, and what happens to the characters Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom and his wife Molly, Ulysses is a monument to the human condition. It has survived censorship, controversy and legal action, and even been deemed blasphemous, but remains an undisputed modernist classic: ceaselessly inventive, garrulous, funny, sorrowful, vulgar, lyrical and ultimately redemptive. It confirms Joyce's belief that literature 'is the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man'.

'The most important expression which the present age has found; it is a book to which we are all indebted, and from which none of us can escape' T. S. Eliot

'Intoxicating ... a towering work, in its word play surpassing even Shakespeare' Guardian

(*) New cover edition]]> 1040 James Joyce 0141182806 m. 0 2024, no-rating duty to finish than it being something to just... enjoy. in the end i came out holding nothing. don't even feel like i read this because i understood, processed and cared for so little of it. the worst part is i can't even blame joyce - he accomplished everything he set out to do. really a case of him wanting to make other people look bad. and so he should! if i was capable of writing something like this, i would. anyway looking forward to my old age when i reread this (hopefully having read the odyssey this time)]]> 3.95 1922 Ulysses
author: James Joyce
name: m.
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1922
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/23
date added: 2024/06/24
shelves: 2024, no-rating
review:
was really loving this up until about 400 pages in - then it became more a chore to slug through than an actual book i was reading. didn't even manage to properly appreciate molly's monologue (the one part of this i was looking forward to) because it became more of a duty to finish than it being something to just... enjoy. in the end i came out holding nothing. don't even feel like i read this because i understood, processed and cared for so little of it. the worst part is i can't even blame joyce - he accomplished everything he set out to do. really a case of him wanting to make other people look bad. and so he should! if i was capable of writing something like this, i would. anyway looking forward to my old age when i reread this (hopefully having read the odyssey this time)
]]> American Psycho 437149 American Psycho is bleak, bitter, black comedy about a world we all recognise but do not wish to confront.

Cover Illustration by Marshall Arisman]]> 384 Bret Easton Ellis 0330319922 m. 2 2022, 2-stars see, also: fuck bret easton ellis]]> 3.77 1991 American Psycho
author: Bret Easton Ellis
name: m.
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1991
rating: 2
read at: 2022/06/19
date added: 2024/05/26
shelves: 2022, 2-stars
review:
this is good until you realize ellis has no grip on any concepts other than using the same devices over and over again to illustrate the same one point, which you understand at around the 100 page mark and then gets dragged through 300 more using nonsensical, tired and redundant prose. only truly interesting when you consider the homoerotic subtext, which is missing entirely in the movie, which is such a shame considering it's one of the best adaptations i've seen.
see, also: fuck bret easton ellis
]]> <![CDATA[When He Was Wicked (Bridgerton #6)]]> 10155030
A moment so tremendous, so sharp and breathtaking, that one knows one's life will never be the same. For Michael Stirling, London's most infamous rake, that moment came the first time he laid eyes on Francesca Bridgerton.

After a lifetime of chasing women, of smiling slyly as they chased him, of allowing himself to be caught but never permitting his heart to become engaged, he took one look at Francesca Bridgerton and fell so fast and hard into love it was a wonder he managed to remain standing. Unfortunately for Michael, however, Francesca's surname was to remain Bridgerton for only a mere thirty-six hours longer -- the occasion of their meeting was, lamentably, a supper celebrating her imminent wedding to his cousin.

But that was then . . . Now Michael is the earl and Francesca is free, but still she thinks of him as nothing other than her dear friend and confidant. Michael dares not speak to her of his love . . . until one dangerous night, when she steps innocently into his arms, and passion proves stronger than even the most wicked of secrets . . .]]> 368 Julia Quinn 0061755907 m. 2 2-stars, 2022 3.60 2004 When He Was Wicked (Bridgerton #6)
author: Julia Quinn
name: m.
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2004
rating: 2
read at: 2022/04/29
date added: 2024/05/24
shelves: 2-stars, 2022
review:

]]> Fair Play 8915857 Fair Play is the type of love story that is rarely told, a revelatory depiction of contentment, hard-won and exhilarating.

Mari is a writer and Jonna is an artist, and they live at opposite ends of a big apartment building, their studios connected by a long attic passageway. They have argued, worked, and laughed together for decades. Yet they’ve never really stopped taking each other by surprise. Fair Play shows us Mari and Jona’s intertwined lives as they watch Fassbinder films and Westerns, critique each other’s work, spend time on a solitary island (recognizable to readers of Jansson’s The Summer Book), travel through the American Southwest, and turn life into nothing less than art.]]> 100 Tove Jansson 1590173783 m. 0 2024, heart-tagged, no-rating mari was hardly listening. a daring thought was taking shape in her mind. she began to anticipate a solitude of her own, peaceful and full of possibility. she felt something close to exhilaration, of a kind that people can only permit themselves when they are blessed with love. ]]> 3.99 1989 Fair Play
author: Tove Jansson
name: m.
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/28
date added: 2024/04/28
shelves: 2024, heart-tagged, no-rating
review:
mari was hardly listening. a daring thought was taking shape in her mind. she began to anticipate a solitude of her own, peaceful and full of possibility. she felt something close to exhilaration, of a kind that people can only permit themselves when they are blessed with love.
]]> In Cold Blood 15799209 Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time.

From the Modern Library's new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by Truman Capote—also available are Breakfast at Tiffany's and Other Voices, Other Rooms (in one volume), Portraits and Observations, and The Complete Stories.

Truman Capote's masterpiece, In Cold Blood, created a sensation when it was first published, serially, in The New Yorker in 1965. The intensively researched, atmospheric narrative of the lives of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, and of the two men, Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, who brutally killed them on the night of November 15, 1959, is the seminal work of the "new journalism." Perry Smith is one of the great dark characters of American literature, full of contradictory emotions. "I thought he was a very nice gentleman," he says of Herb Clutter. "Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat." Told in chapters that alternate between the Clutter household and the approach of Smith and Hickock in their black Chevrolet, then between the investigation of the case and the killers' flight, Capote's account is so detailed that the reader comes to feel almost like a participant in the events.]]> 396 Truman Capote 0812994388 m. 5 in cold blood is a chilling and engaging book, though most of its literary merit relies on the fact that it's the first of it's kind. it's undoubtedly well written, well researched and hard to put down once it gets going. but as much as i would love to sit here and feel good about myself for being a kind and decent person who is able to consume true crime media with a critical lense, it's impossible not to admit that i appreciate this book mainly because of capote's depiction of perry smith, which leaks with sympathy and understanding and love, and in the complicated story about them. can one truly hope to understand, and sympathize, with a murderer? and if we do, what does that make us? i don't think capote was really out to answer this question, but it's one that lingers long after the book is finished.]]> 4.19 1966 In Cold Blood
author: Truman Capote
name: m.
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1966
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/22
date added: 2024/04/20
shelves: 2023, 5-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:
how does one talk about this book when the consequences of the crime pictured in it affects holcomb even now? in cold blood is a chilling and engaging book, though most of its literary merit relies on the fact that it's the first of it's kind. it's undoubtedly well written, well researched and hard to put down once it gets going. but as much as i would love to sit here and feel good about myself for being a kind and decent person who is able to consume true crime media with a critical lense, it's impossible not to admit that i appreciate this book mainly because of capote's depiction of perry smith, which leaks with sympathy and understanding and love, and in the complicated story about them. can one truly hope to understand, and sympathize, with a murderer? and if we do, what does that make us? i don't think capote was really out to answer this question, but it's one that lingers long after the book is finished.
]]> Answered Prayers 146486527 Answered Prayers careens from a louche bar in Tangiers to a banquette at La Côte Basque, from literary salons to high-priced whorehouses. It takes in calculating beauties and sadistic husbands along with such real-life supporting characters as Colette, the Duchess of Windsor, Montgomery Clift, and Tallulah Bankhead. Above all, this malevolently funny book displays Capote at his wittiest and most observant.]]> 176 Truman Capote 0593731107 m. 0 2024, no-rating 3.27 1986 Answered Prayers
author: Truman Capote
name: m.
average rating: 3.27
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/20
date added: 2024/04/20
shelves: 2024, no-rating
review:

]]> The Bluest Eye 28807242 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780099759911

Toni Morrison's debut novel immerses us in the tragic, torn lives of a poor black family � Pauline, Cholly, Sam and Pecola � in post-Depression 1940s Ohio. Unlovely and unloved, Pecola prays each night for blue eyes like those of her privileged white schoolfellows. At once intimate and expansive, unsparing in its truth-telling, The Bluest Eye shows how the past savagely defines the present.]]> 212 Toni Morrison m. 4 i did what you did not, could not, would not do: i looked at that ugly little black girl and i loved her. i played you. ]]> 4.11 1970 The Bluest Eye
author: Toni Morrison
name: m.
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1970
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/03
date added: 2024/04/20
shelves: 2022, 4-5-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:
(4.5/5)
i did what you did not, could not, would not do: i looked at that ugly little black girl and i loved her. i played you.
]]> Ethan Frome 5246
Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena's vivacious cousin enters their household as a hired girl, Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent.

In one of American fiction's finest and most intense narratives, Edith Wharton moves this ill-starred trio toward their tragic destinies. Different in both tone and theme from Wharton's other works, Ethan Frome has become perhaps her most enduring and most widely read book.]]> 99 Edith Wharton m. 5 3.42 1911 Ethan Frome
author: Edith Wharton
name: m.
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1911
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/05
date added: 2024/04/18
shelves: 2024, heart-tagged, favorites, 5-stars
review:

]]> Delta of Venus 46268030 This is an alternate cover for the ISBN 9780141182841.

As influential and revelatory in its day as Fifty Shades of Grey is now, Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus is a groundbreaking anthology of erotic short stories, published in Penguin Modern Classics

In Delta of Venus Anaïs Nin conjures up a glittering cascade of sexual encounters. Creating her own 'language of the senses', she explores an area that was previously the domain of male writers and brings to it her own unique perceptions. Her vibrant and impassioned prose evokes the essence of female sexuality in a world where only love has meaning.

This edition includes a preface adapted from Anaïs Nin's diary that establishes a context for the work's gestation, and a postscript to her diary entries in which she explains her desire to use 'women's language, seeing sexual experience from a woman's point of view'.]]> 240 Anaïs Nin m. 4 3.40 1977 Delta of Venus
author: Anaïs Nin
name: m.
average rating: 3.40
book published: 1977
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/18
date added: 2024/04/18
shelves: 2024, 4-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:

]]> The Age of Innocence 337140 366 Edith Wharton 002026478X m. 3 2024, 3-stars, heart-tagged her colour burned deeper, but she held his gaze. "no; i wasn't sure then—but i told her i was. and you see i was right!" she exclaimed, her blue eyes wet with victory. ]]> 3.94 1920 The Age of Innocence
author: Edith Wharton
name: m.
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1920
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/12
date added: 2024/04/12
shelves: 2024, 3-stars, heart-tagged
review:
one thing about me is that i'll always love wharton's wives, and i will always hate their husbands. her colour burned deeper, but she held his gaze. "no; i wasn't sure then—but i told her i was. and you see i was right!" she exclaimed, her blue eyes wet with victory.
]]> The Joys of Motherhood 59452794 265 Buchi Emecheta 0241578132 m. 0 2024, no-rating 4.20 1979 The Joys of Motherhood
author: Buchi Emecheta
name: m.
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/07
date added: 2024/04/07
shelves: 2024, no-rating
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House]]> 38598541
Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 51 Audre Lorde 0241339723 m. 0 2024, no-rating 4.56 2018 The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House
author: Audre Lorde
name: m.
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/01
date added: 2024/04/01
shelves: 2024, no-rating
review:

]]> Letter from Birmingham Jail 36436088 There is an alternate edition published under ISBN13: 9780062509550.

'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'

This landmark missive from one of the greatest activists in history calls for direct, non-violent resistance in the fight against racism, and reflects on the healing power of love.

This edition also contains the sermon 'The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life'.]]> 54 Martin Luther King Jr. 0241339464 m. 0 2024, heart-tagged, no-rating 4.54 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail
author: Martin Luther King Jr.
name: m.
average rating: 4.54
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/30
date added: 2024/03/30
shelves: 2024, heart-tagged, no-rating
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hawthorne Legacy (The Inheritance Games, #2)]]> 50531218 Intrigue, riches, and romance abound in this thrilling sequel to the New York Times bestselling The Inheritance Games perfect for fans of Karen McManus and Holly Jackson.

The Inheritance Games ended with a bombshell, and now heiress Avery Grambs has to pick up the pieces and find the man who might hold the answers to all of her questions - including why Tobias Hawthorne left his entire fortune to Avery, a virtual stranger, rather than to his own daughters or grandsons.

Thanks to a DNA test, Avery knows that she's not a Hawthorne by blood, but clues pile up hinting at a deeper connection to the family than she had ever imagined. As the mystery grows and the plot thickens, Grayson and Jameson, the enigmatic and magnetic Hawthorne grandsons, continue to pull Avery in different directions. And there are threats lurking around every corner, as adversaries emerge who will stop at nothing to see Avery out of the picture - by any means necessary.

With nonstop action, aspirational jet-setting, family intrigue, swoonworthy romance, and billions of dollars hanging in the balance, The Hawthorne Legacy will thrill Jennifer Lynn Barnes fans and new readers alike.]]> 380 Jennifer Lynn Barnes 0241480744 m. 2 2-stars, 2021 4.19 2021 The Hawthorne Legacy (The Inheritance Games, #2)
author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
name: m.
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2021/06/25
date added: 2024/03/27
shelves: 2-stars, 2021
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction]]> 49449926 The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, visionary author Ursula K. Le Guin retells the story of human origin by redefining technology as a cultural carrier bag rather than a weapon of domination.

Hacking the linear, progressive mode of the Techno-Heroic, the Carrier Bag Theory of human evolution proposes: 'before the tool that forces energy outward, we made the tool that brings energy home.' Prior to the preeminence of sticks, swords and the Hero's long, hard, killing tools, our ancestors' greatest invention was the container: the basket of wild oats, the medicine bundle, the net made of your own hair, the home, the shrine, the place that contains whatever is sacred. The recipient, the holder, the story. The bag of stars.

This influential essay opens a portal to terra ignota: unknown lands where the possibilities of human experience and knowledge can be discovered anew.

With a new introduction by Donna Haraway, the eminent cyberfeminist, author of the revolutionary A Cyborg Manifesto and most recently, Staying with the Trouble and Manifestly Haraway. With images by Lee Bul, a leading South Korean feminist artist who had a retrospective at London's Hayward Gallery in 2018.]]> 5 Ursula K. Le Guin m. 0 2024, heart-tagged, no-rating 4.65 1986 The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: m.
average rating: 4.65
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/24
date added: 2024/03/24
shelves: 2024, heart-tagged, no-rating
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Pursuit of Love (Radlett and Montdore, #1)]]> 8041279 Mitford's most enduringly popular novel, The Pursuit of Love is a classic comedy about growing up and falling in love among the privileged and eccentric.

Mitford modeled her characters on her own famously unconventional family. We are introduced to the Radletts through the eyes of their cousin Fanny, who stays with them at Alconleigh, their Gloucestershire estate. Uncle Matthew is the blustering patriarch, known to hunt his children when foxes are scarce; Aunt Sadie is the vague but doting mother; and the seven Radlett children, despite the delights of their unusual childhood, are recklessly eager to grow up.

The first of three novels featuring these characters, The Pursuit of Love follows the travails of Linda, the most beautiful and wayward Radlett daughter, who falls first for a stuffy Tory politician, then an ardent Communist, and finally a French duke named Fabrice.

Featuring an introduction by Zoë Heller.]]> 214 Nancy Mitford 0307740811 m. 0 2024, no-rating, heart-tagged 3.90 1945 The Pursuit of Love (Radlett and Montdore, #1)
author: Nancy Mitford
name: m.
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1945
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/23
date added: 2024/03/23
shelves: 2024, no-rating, heart-tagged
review:

]]> A família Manzoni 35846706
Alessandro Manzoni escreveu um dos grandes clássicos da literatura italiana, o romance histórico Os noivos , de 1840. Viveu 88 anos, foi pai de família dedicado e católico de primeira linha. A primeira mulher, Enrichetta, lhe deu nove filhos. Tudo isso num cenário em que a radicalização das questões nacionais sacudia a Itália. Natalia Ginzburg, uma das principais narradoras italianas do século XX, escolheu um ponto de vista nada épico para contar a história dos Manzoni. E o fez com sua linguagem áspera, no mesmo ritmo plano que esconde, na verdade, uma poesia secreta. A família Manzoni , publicado em 1983, é um romance montado a partir de cartas e relatos históricos. Um mergulho no universo de uma família, belo e profundo em toda a sua humanidade.]]> 496 Natalia Ginzburg 853592910X m. 0 2024, no-rating 3.65 1983 A família Manzoni
author: Natalia Ginzburg
name: m.
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1983
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/22
date added: 2024/03/22
shelves: 2024, no-rating
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Goodnight Punpun Omnibus, Vol. 1]]> 25986929
He wants to win a Nobel Prize and save the world.
He wants to go far away with his true love.
He wants to find some porn.

But Punpun’s life is about to unravel…]]> 426 Inio Asano 1421586207 m. 0 2024, no-rating 4.27 2006 Goodnight Punpun Omnibus, Vol. 1
author: Inio Asano
name: m.
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/08
date added: 2024/03/08
shelves: 2024, no-rating
review:

]]> The Road to the City 58107941
When Nini takes a job in a factory and moves in with a city woman, Delia sees another way of being. But when she discovers she’s pregnant, she agrees to marry the father, seduced by the promise of wealth and comfort. Nothing, not even Nini’s desperate declaration of love, can stop her � but her rejection will be his undoing.

The Road to the City is a short, poignant novel about the dreams of youth, and the cruelty it takes to make them come true.]]> 83 Natalia Ginzburg 1911547631 m. 5 the road to the city did. such an accurate and straightforward representation of girlhood and of how it oppressive it is. ginzburg masterfully narrates the struggle of non-identity, of the "going-alongness" that is being a girl growing into a woman, of not knowing your body and yourself and therefore constantly missing out. 'very well, then, i'm a cold fish. and what are you?' he looked at me for a minute and then said: 'you're just a poor little girl.' ]]> 3.87 1942 The Road to the City
author: Natalia Ginzburg
name: m.
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1942
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/27
date added: 2024/03/07
shelves: 2023, favorites, 5-stars, heart-tagged
review:
over the years i've grown to know exactly if i will like a book before i pick it up, and i'm right almost all the time. so it's always a pleasant surprise when a story creeps up on me like the road to the city did. such an accurate and straightforward representation of girlhood and of how it oppressive it is. ginzburg masterfully narrates the struggle of non-identity, of the "going-alongness" that is being a girl growing into a woman, of not knowing your body and yourself and therefore constantly missing out. 'very well, then, i'm a cold fish. and what are you?' he looked at me for a minute and then said: 'you're just a poor little girl.'
]]> <![CDATA[The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness (Paradigm)]]> 66651 100 Donna J. Haraway 0971757585 m. 0 to-read 3.65 2003 The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness (Paradigm)
author: Donna J. Haraway
name: m.
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me]]> 40864841 All Freddy Riley wants is for Laura Dean to stop breaking up with her.

The day they got together was the best one of Freddy's life, but nothing's made sense since. Laura Dean is popular, funny, and SO CUTE ... but she can be really thoughtless, even mean. Their on-again, off-again relationship has Freddy's head spinning � and Freddy's friends can't understand why she keeps going back.

When Freddy consults the services of a local mystic, the mysterious Seek-Her, she isn't thrilled with the advice she receives. But something's got to give: Freddy's heart is breaking in slow motion, and she may be about to lose her very best friend as well as her last shred of self-respect. Fortunately for Freddy, there are new friends, and the insight of advice columnist Anna Vice, to help her through being a teenager in love.

Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O'Connell bring to life a sweet and spirited tale of young love that asks us to consider what happens when we ditch the toxic relationships we crave to embrace the healthy ones we need.]]> 289 Mariko Tamaki 1250312841 m. 4 2024, heart-tagged, 3-5-stars (3.5/5) 3.86 2019 Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me
author: Mariko Tamaki
name: m.
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/06
date added: 2024/03/06
shelves: 2024, heart-tagged, 3-5-stars
review:
(3.5/5)
]]> <![CDATA[Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil]]> 52090 The New Yorker, Hannah Arendt’s authoritative and stunning report on the trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann sparked a flurry of debate upon its publication.

This revised edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt’s postscript directly addressing the controversy that arose over her account. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence,

Eichmann in Jerusalem is as shocking as it is informative—an unflinching look at one of the most unsettling and unsettled issues of the twentieth century that remains hotly debated to this day.]]> 312 Hannah Arendt m. 4 4.22 1963 Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
author: Hannah Arendt
name: m.
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/05
date added: 2024/03/05
shelves: 2024, 4-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights? (All the Wrong Questions, #4)]]> 24607565 Train travel! Murder! Librarians! A Series Finale!

On all other nights, the train departs from Stain'd Station and travels to the city without stopping. But not tonight. You might ask, why is this night different from all other nights? But that's the wrong question. Instead ask, where is this all heading? And what happens at the end of the line? The final book in Lemony Snicket's bestselling series, All The Wrong Questions.]]> 311 Lemony Snicket 0316123048 m. 4 4.14 2015 Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights? (All the Wrong Questions, #4)
author: Lemony Snicket
name: m.
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/22
date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: 2024, 4-stars, heart-tagged, rereads
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Shouldn't You Be in School? (All the Wrong Questions, #3)]]> 18754759 Is Lemony Snicket a detective or a smoke detector?

Do you smell smoke? Young apprentice Lemony Snicket is investigating a case of arson but soon finds himself enveloped in the ever-increasing mystery that haunts the town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Who is setting the fires? What secrets are hidden in the Department of Education? Why are so many schoolchildren in danger? Is it all the work of the notorious villain Hangfire? How could you even ask that? What kind of education have you had?

Maybe you should be in school?]]> 327 Lemony Snicket 0316123064 m. 0 4.18 2014 Shouldn't You Be in School? (All the Wrong Questions, #3)
author: Lemony Snicket
name: m.
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2024/02/19
date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: 2024, heart-tagged, no-rating, rereads
review:

]]> <![CDATA[When Did You See Her Last? (All the Wrong Questions, #2)]]> 17369219 I should have asked the question "How could someone who was missing be in two places at once?" Instead, I asked the wrong question -- four wrong questions, more or less. This is the account of the second.

In the fading town of Stain'd-by-the-Sea, young apprentice Lemony Snicket has a new case to solve when he and his chaperone are hired to find a missing girl. Is the girl a runaway? Or was she kidnapped? Was she seen last at the grocery store? Or could she have stopped at the diner? Is it really any of your business? These are All The Wrong Questions.]]> 279 Lemony Snicket 0316123056 m. 4 4.09 2013 When Did You See Her Last? (All the Wrong Questions, #2)
author: Lemony Snicket
name: m.
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/18
date added: 2024/02/21
shelves: heart-tagged, rereads, 2024, 4-stars, favorites
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Who Could That Be at This Hour? (All the Wrong Questions, #1)]]> 13477819 Lemony Snicket, in case you don't already know, grew up to be the author of A Series of Unfortunate Events series.]]> 258 Lemony Snicket 0316123080 m. 0 3.84 2012 Who Could That Be at This Hour? (All the Wrong Questions, #1)
author: Lemony Snicket
name: m.
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2024/02/17
date added: 2024/02/21
shelves: 2024, no-rating, rereads, heart-tagged
review:

]]> All Our Yesterdays 61343506
Anna, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl in a small town in northern Italy, finds herself pregnant after a brief romance. To save her reputation, she marries an
eccentric older family friend, Cenzo Rena, and they move to his village in the south. Their relationship is touched by tragedy and grace as the events of their life in the countryside run parallel to the war and the encroaching threat of fascism � and in their wake, a society dealing with anxiety and grief.

At the heart of the novel is a concern with experiences that both deepen and deaden adultery and air raids, neighbourhood quarrels and bombings. With her signature clear-eyed wit, Natalia Ginzburg asks how we can act with integrity when faced with catastrophe, and how we can love well.]]> 304 Natalia Ginzburg 1914198247 m. 5 4.12 1952 All Our Yesterdays
author: Natalia Ginzburg
name: m.
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1952
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/10
date added: 2024/02/10
shelves: 2024, 5-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:

]]> Family Lexicon 193316546
Giuseppe Levi is a Jewish scientist, consumed by his work and a mania for hiking. Impatient and intractable, he is constantly at odds with his impressionable and wistful wife Lidia � yet he cannot be without her. Together they preside over their five children in a house filled with argument and activity, books and politics, visitors, friends and famous faces. But as their children grow up against the backdrop of Mussolini’s Italy, the Levi household must become more than just a home, but a stronghold against fascism.

Intimate, enchanting and comedic, Family Lexicon is an unforgettable novel about language, memory, and the lasting power that family holds over all of us.]]> 316 Natalia Ginzburg m. 5 my parents had five children. we now live in different cities, some of us in foreign countries, and we don't write to each other often. when we do meet up we can be indifferent or distracted. but for us it takes just one word. it takes one word, one sentence, one of the old ones from our childhood, heard and repeated countless times. all it takes is for one of us to say "we haven't come to bergamo on a military campaign," or "sulfuric acid stinks of fart," and we immediately fall back into our old relationships, our childhood, our youth, all inextricably linked to those words or phrases. (...) those phrases are our latin, the dictionary of our past, like they're egyptian or assyro-babylonian hieroglyphics, evidence of a vital core that has ceased to exist but that lives on in its texts, saved from the fury of the waters, the corrosion of time. ]]> 3.89 1963 Family Lexicon
author: Natalia Ginzburg
name: m.
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1963
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/26
date added: 2024/02/10
shelves: 2024, 5-stars, favorites, heart-tagged
review:
my parents had five children. we now live in different cities, some of us in foreign countries, and we don't write to each other often. when we do meet up we can be indifferent or distracted. but for us it takes just one word. it takes one word, one sentence, one of the old ones from our childhood, heard and repeated countless times. all it takes is for one of us to say "we haven't come to bergamo on a military campaign," or "sulfuric acid stinks of fart," and we immediately fall back into our old relationships, our childhood, our youth, all inextricably linked to those words or phrases. (...) those phrases are our latin, the dictionary of our past, like they're egyptian or assyro-babylonian hieroglyphics, evidence of a vital core that has ceased to exist but that lives on in its texts, saved from the fury of the waters, the corrosion of time.
]]> <![CDATA[The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo, #1)]]> 26252859
By making him human.

After angering his father Zeus, the god Apollo is cast down from Olympus. Weak and disorientated, he lands in New York City as a regular teenage boy. Now, without his godly powers, the four-thousand-year-old deity must learn to survive in the modern world until he can somehow find a way to regain Zeus's favour.

But Apollo has many enemies—gods, monsters and mortals who would love to see the former Olympian permanently destroyed. Apollo needs help, and he can think of only one place to go... an enclave of modern demigods known as Camp Half-Blood.]]> 376 Rick Riordan 148473274X m. 0 no-rating 4.13 2016 The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo, #1)
author: Rick Riordan
name: m.
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2018/06/01
date added: 2024/01/30
shelves: no-rating
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Tyrant’s Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4)]]> 28006109 In his penultimate adventure, a devastated but determined Apollo travels to Camp Jupiter, where he must learn what it is to be a hero, or die trying.

It's not easy being Apollo, especially when you've been turned into a human and banished from Olympus. On his path to restoring five ancient oracles and reclaiming his godly powers, Apollo (aka Lester Papadopoulos) has faced both triumphs and tragedies. Now his journey takes him to Camp Jupiter in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the Roman demigods are preparing for a desperate last stand against the evil Triumvirate of Roman emperors. Hazel, Reyna, Frank, Tyson, Ella, and many other old friends will need Apollo's aid to survive the onslaught. Unfortunately, the answer to their salvation lies in the forgotten tomb of a Roman ruler . . . someone even worse than the emperors Apollo has already faced.]]> 439 Rick Riordan 1368001440 m. 3 2019, 3-stars 4.29 2019 The Tyrant’s Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4)
author: Rick Riordan
name: m.
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2019/10/03
date added: 2024/01/30
shelves: 2019, 3-stars
review:

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