en-US Sun, 27 Apr 2025 14:55:45 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 211004089
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.]]> 303 Charlotte McConaghy 1250827957 Iskra 0 currently-reading 4.27 2025
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 43465812 The Book of X tells the tale of Cassie, a girl born with her stomach twisted in the shape of a knot. From childhood with her parents on the family meat farm, to a desk job in the city, to finally experiencing love, she grapples with her body, men, and society, all the while imagining a softer world than the one she is in.]]> 284 Sarah Rose Etter 1937512819 Iskra 0 currently-reading 4.01 2019
author: Sarah Rose Etter
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 22018925
(...)

Este es un ensayo y una obra y una novela y un poemario y una investigación, es escritura y reescritura, es un brutalmente honesto activismo literario que invita a reflexionar más sobre nuestro papel en sociedad, la de Uribe es la lírica de la desesperanza. La autora recurre a las más interesantes –e inquietantes�� fuentes de información sobre los desaparecidos en México."

Sylvia Aguilar Zéleny.


Para descargar gratuitamente:
]]> 112 Sara Uribe Iskra 0 4.50 2012
author: Sara Uribe
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/27
date added: 2025/04/27
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]]> 43190272
Ariadne is one such explorer. As an astronaut on an extrasolar research vessel, she and her fellow crewmates sleep between worlds and wake up each time with different features. Her experience is one of fluid body and stable mind and of a unique perspective on the passage of time. Back on Earth, society changes dramatically from decade to decade, as it always does.

Ariadne may awaken to find that support for space exploration back home has waned, or that her country of birth no longer exists, or that a cult has arisen around their cosmic findings, only to dissolve once more by the next waking. But the moods of Earth have little bearing on their mission: to explore, to study, and to send their learnings home.

Carrying all the trademarks of her other beloved works, including brilliant writing, fantastic world-building and exceptional, diverse characters, Becky's first audiobook outside of the Wayfarers series is sure to capture the imagination of listeners all over the world.]]> 153 Becky Chambers 0062936018 Iskra 0 to-read 4.19 2019
author: Becky Chambers
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216454637 181 Pedro Lemebel 9538398378 Iskra 0 currently-reading 4.38 2001
author: Pedro Lemebel
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 218185743
These days nobody can reach Cora: not her aunt, who wants her to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival; not her weird colleagues; and especially not the slack-jawed shadow lurking around her door frame. After all, it can't be real—can it? After a series of unexplained killings in Chinatown, Cora believes someone might be targeting East Asian women, and something might be targeting Cora herself.]]> 304 Kylie Lee Baker 0778368459 Iskra 0 currently-reading 4.27 2025
author: Kylie Lee Baker
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 199635125
Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the touchiest problems of modern life. The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex, relationships, identity, and the internet.

In “The Feminist,�� a young man’s passionate allyship turns to furious nihilism as he realizes, over thirty lonely years, that it isn’t getting him laid. A young woman’s unrequited crush in “Pics�� spirals into borderline obsession and the systematic destruction of her sense of self. And in “Ahegao; or, The Ballad of Sexual Repression,�� a shy late bloomer’s flailing efforts at a first relationship leads to a life-upending mistake. As the characters pop up in each other’s dating apps and social media feeds, or meet in dimly lit bars and bedrooms, they reveal the ways our delusions can warp our desire for connection.

These brilliant satires explore the underrated sorrows of rejection with the authority of a modern classic and the manic intensity of a manifesto. Audacious and unforgettable, Rejection is a stunning mosaic that redefines what it means to be rejected by lovers, friends, society, and oneself.]]> 272 Tony Tulathimutte 0063337878 Iskra 3 2.75 ⭐️ 3.87 2024
author: Tony Tulathimutte
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/26
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves:
review:
2.75 ⭐️
]]> 220195725 In this razor-sharp, diabolical debut thriller, a young woman steps into her deceased twin’s influencer life, only to discover dark secrets hidden behind her social media façade.

Julie Chan has nothing. Her twin sister has everything. Except a pulse.

Julie Chan, a supermarket cashier with nothing to lose, finds herself thrust into the glamorous yet perilous world of her late twin sister, Chloe VanHuusen, a popular influencer. Separated at a young age, the identical twins were polar opposites and rarely spoke, except for one viral video that Chloe initiated (Finding My Long-Lost Twin And Buying Her A House #EMOTIONAL). When Julie discovers Chloe’s lifeless body under mysterious circumstances, she seizes the chance to live the life she’s always envied.

Transforming into Chloe is easier than expected. Julie effortlessly adopts Chloe’s luxurious influencer life, complete with designer clothes, a meticulous skincare routine, and millions of adoring followers. However, Julie soon realizes that Chloe’s seemingly picture-perfect life was anything but.

Haunted by Chloe’s untimely death and struggling to fit into the privileged influencer circle, Julie faces mounting challenges during a weeklong island retreat with Chloe’s exclusive group of influencer friends. As events spiral out of control, Julie uncovers the sinister forces that may have led to her sister’s demise and realizes she might be the next target.]]> 320 Liann Zhang 1668067919 Iskra 0 to-read 3.82 2025
author: Liann Zhang
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 128714412 A darkly funny and deeply moving debut novel about crimes of desperation, dreams abandoned, and small-town secrets that won’t stay buried

As Ballina in the west of Ireland prepares for its biggest weekend of the year, the simmering feud between small-time dealer Cillian English and County Mayo's fraternal enforcers, Gabe and Sketch Ferdia, spills over into violence and an ugly ultimatum. When the reclusive Dev answers his door on Friday night, he finds Doll—Cillian's bruised, sullen, teenage brother—in the clutches of Gabe and Sketch. Jostled by his nefarious cousins, goaded by his dead mother's dog, and struck by spinning lights, Dev is unwillingly drawn headlong into the Ferdias' revenge fantasy.

Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Nicky can't shake the feeling that something bad has happened to her boyfriend Doll. Hungover, reeling from a fractious Friday night, and plagued by ghosts of her own, Nicky sets out on a feverish mission to save Doll, even as she questions her future in Ballina.]]> 272 Colin Barrett 0802160948 Iskra 0 to-read 3.68 2024
author: Colin Barrett
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 218671839 A spiritual companion to Strange Pictures and a bestselling horror phenomenon in Japan —mysterious spaces, trap doors, windowless children's rooms . . . something is wrong with this house. Can you solve the "mystery" of its floor plan?

A writer fascinated by the macabre is approached by an acquaintance who is considering purchasing a second-hand house in Tokyo. With its bright and spacious interior, the home seems perfect. But looking closer, the building’s floor plan reveals a mysterious "dead space�� hidden between the walls. Seeking a second opinion, the writer shares the floor plan with an architect friend only to discover more “strange spaces�� dotted across the house.

What are these mysterious “strange spaces�� and why do they exist—are they really there, or is there something off with the floor plan? Who is the home’s former resident who suddenly disappeared?

The freelance writer and his architect friend can’t resist the challenge of solving the riddle of these puzzling floor plans . . . and the terrifying plot behind it all.]]> 208 Uketsu 006343315X Iskra 0 to-read 3.89 2021
author: Uketsu
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 65212043 From Alison Rumfitt, the author of Tell Me I’m Worthless �� “a triumph of transgressive queer horror�� (Publishers Weekly) �� comes Brainwyrms, a searing body horror novel of obsession, violence and pleasure.

When a transphobic woman bombs Frankie’s workplace, she blows up Frankie’s life with it. As the media descends like vultures, Frankie tries to cope with the carnage: binge-drinking, fucking strangers, pushing away her friends. Then she meets Vanya. Mysterious, beautiful, terrifying Vanya.

The two hit it off immediately, but as their relationship intensifies, so too does Frankie’s feeling that Vanya is hiding something from her. When Vanya’s secrets threaten to tear them apart, Frankie starts digging, and unearths a sinister, depraved conspiracy, the roots of which go deeper than she ever imagined. Shocking, grotesque, and downright filthy, Brainwyrms confronts the creeping reality of political terrorism while exploring the depths of love, pain and identity.]]> 304 Alison Rumfitt 1250866251 Iskra 0 to-read 3.66 2023
author: Alison Rumfitt
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 201632567
“A gruesome, action-packed monster novel about a mother and daughter with a terrible secret, on the run from an obsessed and crumbling detective . . . Terrific.�� —The New York Times Book Review

In Stuart Neville’s horror debut, a mother's undying love and a daughter's insatiable hunger carve a bloody trail across the highways of the Southwest.

On a snowy December night, single mother Rebecca Carter drives her van into a snowbank to avoid hitting an elk on a desolate mountain highway. She is at the end of her rope, out of money and food. Still, she refuses help from a man in a pickup truck—Rebecca’s adolescent daughter, Moonflower, is on the run from a grisly secret, and the last thing they can afford is to be remembered by anyone they meet.

Meanwhile, Special Agent Marc Donner of the FBI has spent the better part of two years hunting down a gruesome serial killer who drains victims of blood before severing their spinal cords, leaving a trail of bodies throughout the country. As Agent Donner’s investigation brings him closer and closer to where Rebecca and Moonflower are hiding out, in the foothills of Colorado, the life that Rebecca has fought so hard to hold together for her daughter becomes increasingly imperiled.

In this deadly, high-stakes game of cat and mouse, nobody is safe and nothing is certain—not even the line between predator and prey.]]> 375 Stuart Neville 1641295414 Iskra 0 to-read 3.59 2024
author: Stuart Neville
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/16
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]]> 214151601 The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.]]> 192 Agustina Bazterrica 1668051885 Iskra 2 3.64 2023
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/10
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves:
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]]> 216670080
A pregnant woman’s sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning.

A child’s picture of his home contains a dark secret message.

A sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments leads an amateur sleuth down a rabbit hole that will reveal a horrifying reality.

Structured around these nine childlike drawings, every one holding a disturbing clue, this novel invites readers to piece together the harrowing truth behind each and the overarching backstory that connects them all. Strange Pictures is the bestselling international debut from mystery-horror YouTube sensation Uketsu—an enigmatic masked figure who has become one of Japan's most talked about contemporary authors.]]> 236 Uketsu 0063433087 Iskra 4 3.75 ⭐️ 4.05 2022
author: Uketsu
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/10
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves:
review:
3.75 ⭐️
]]> 216698520
Jessamyn St. Germain is meant to be a star. Not an actor who occasionally books yogurt commercials and certainly not a lowly usher at one of Vancouver’s smallest regional theaters. No, she is bound for greatness, and that’s why the part of Maria in the theater’s upcoming production of The Sound of Music is hers. Or it’s going to be.

Jessamyn may have been relegated to the position of childminder for the little brats playing the von Trapp children, but it’s so obvious she’s there for a different reason �� the director wants her close to the role so when Samantha, the lead, inevitably fails, Jessamyn will be there to take her place in the spotlight.

This must be it. Because if it isn’t, well, then every skipped meal, every brutal rehearsal, every inch won against a man attempting to drag her down will have all been for nothing.

Sharp, relentless, and darkly funny, She’s a Lamb! is a cutting satire about the grotesque pall patriarchy casts over one woman’s delusional quest to achieve her dreams and the depths she will sink to for a chance at the life she’s convinced she deserves.]]> 312 Meredith Hambrock 1770417893 Iskra 0 to-read 3.90 2025
author: Meredith Hambrock
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 224070664
For fans of Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder and Lisa Taddeo's Animal, Shy Girl is a harrowing tale of girlhood, survival, autonomy, and revenge.]]> 247 Mia Ballard Iskra 0 to-read 3.98 2025
author: Mia Ballard
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/06
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]]> 59093587 The contestants of a reality television dating show compete for love—and their lives—in this pulse-pounding and viciously funny fiction debut from the GLAAD Award-winning author of Real Queer America.

When the final four women in competition for an aloof, if somewhat sleazy, bachelor's heart arrive on a mysterious island in the Pacific Northwest, they mentally prepare themselves for another week of extreme sleep deprivation, invasive interviews, and of course, the salacious drama that viewers nationwide tune in to eagerly devour. Each woman came on 'The Catch' for her own reasons—brand sponsorships, followers, and yes, even love—and they've all got their eyes steadfastly trained on their respective prizes.

Enter Patricia, a temperamental, but woefully misunderstood local, living alone in the dark, verdant woods and desperate to forge a connection of her own. As the contestants perform for the cameras that surround them, Patricia watches from her place in the shadows, a queer specter haunting the bombastic display of heterosexuality before her. But when the cast and crew at last make her acquaintance atop the island's tallest and most desolate peak, they soon realize that if they're to have any hope of making it to the next Elimination Event, they'll first have to survive the night.

A whirlwind romp careening toward a last-girl-standing conclusion and a scathing indictment of contemporary American media culture, Patricia Wants to Cuddle is also a love story: between star-crossed lesbians who rise above their intolerant town, a deeply ambivalent woman and her budding self-actualization, and a chosen family of misfit islanders forging community against all odds.]]> 256 Samantha Allen 163893004X Iskra 0 to-read 3.52 2022
author: Samantha Allen
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199262999 An aimless young woman starts writing to an accused serial killer while he awaits trial and then, once he’s acquitted, decides to move in with him and take the investigation into her own hands in this dark and irresistibly compelling debut thriller. Recently ghosted and sick of watching her friends fade into the suburbs, thirty-something Hannah finds community in a true-crime forum that’s on a mission to solve the murders of four women in Atlanta. After William, a handsome lawyer, is arrested for the killings, Hannah begins writing him letters. It’s the perfect outlet for her pent-up frustration and rage. The exercise empowers her, and even feels healthy at first. Until William writes back. Hannah’s interest in the case goes from curiosity to obsession, leaving space for nothing else as her life implodes around her. After she loses her job, she heads to Georgia to attend the trial and befriends other true-crime junkies like herself. When a fifth woman is discovered murdered, the jury has no choice but to find William not guilty, and Hannah is the first person he calls upon his release. The two of them quickly fall into a routine of domestic bliss. Well, as blissful as one can feel while secretly investigating their partner for serial murder…]]> 320 Tasha Coryell 0593640276 Iskra 0 to-read 3.28 2024
author: Tasha Coryell
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 204374196 Olga Pavic's house has been requisitioned.
The council will bulldoze it.
Her home will become a monument to a massacre.

But Olga cannot ascertain which massacre. Three different architects visit, each with a proposal to construct a different monument, to memorialise a different horror.

Olga can't allow them to unearth the secrets held in this space, not until she reunites with her children for a final dinner. Her aspirational, distant daughter, Hilde, and her secretly queer son, Danilo, both reluctantly agree to fly back to Belgrade.

Within an atmosphere of razor-sharp political surreality, Lara Haworth spins a tender, magical story of familial love and loss. Via a panoply of perspectives Monumenta compellingly and playfully explores remembrance and how tragedy can be the catalyst for remarkable transformation.]]> 145 Lara Haworth 1837261504 Iskra 0 to-read 3.69
author: Lara Haworth
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.69
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> 209363057 A terrifying tale of supernatural horror set in a cursed Louisiana bayou, from the minds of legendary director George Romero and bestselling author Daniel Kraus.

In 2020, while sifting through University of Pittsburgh Library’s System’s George A. Romero Archival Collection, novelist Daniel Kraus turned up a a half-finished novel called Pay the Piper, a project few had ever heard of. In the years since, Kraus has worked with Romero’s estate to bring this unfinished masterwork to light.

Alligator Point, Louisiana, population 141: Young Renée Pontiac has heard stories of “the Piper”—a murderous swamp entity haunting the bayou—her entire life. But now the legend feels horrifically real: children are being taken and gruesomely slain. To resist, Pontiac and the town’s desperate denizens will need to acknowledge the sins of their ancestors—the infamous slave traders, the Pirates Lafitte. If they don’t... it’s time to pay the piper.  ]]> 328 George A. Romero 1454950897 Iskra 0 to-read 3.59 2024
author: George A. Romero
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> 60779461 In this stunning new collection of four horror stories, award-winning author Rachel Harrison explores themes of body image, complicated female friendship, heartbreak, and hauntings.

In “Reply Hazy, Try Again,�� an indecisive young woman finds a mysterious Magic 8 Ball that might just have the answers she’s been looking for...or might lead her down a path of self-destruction.

In “Bachelorette,�� a bridesmaid attends her childhood best friend’s bachelorette weekend, only to discover the itinerary may demand more than she’s willing to sacrifice.

In “Goblin,�� an unusually brutal dieting app wreaks havoc on the life of an insecure woman preparing to attend her ex’s wedding.

In “Bad Dolls,�� after a death in the family, a wayward young woman comes into possession of a strange porcelain doll that could offer a connection to her lost sister.

These dark tales navigate the complexities of modern life with humor, insight, and the occasional blood sacrifice…]]> 132 Rachel Harrison 0593548523 Iskra 3 2.75 ⭐️ 3.68 2022
author: Rachel Harrison
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves:
review:
2.75 ⭐️
]]> 220817728 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s Space Shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

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

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

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

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

Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, with complex protagonists, telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love, this time among the stars.]]> 352 Taylor Jenkins Reid 0593158717 Iskra 0 to-read 4.45 2025
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> 213570812 "I'm in your blood, and you are in mine��"

The Netherlands, 1887. Lucy's twin sister Sarah is unwell. She refuses to eat, mumbles nonsensically, and is increasingly obsessed with a centuries-old corpse recently discovered on her husband's grand estate. The doctor has diagnosed her with temporary insanity caused by a fever of the brain. To protect her twin from a terrible fate in a lunatic asylum, Lucy must unravel the mystery surrounding her sister's condition, but it's clear her twin is hiding something. Then again, Lucy is harboring secrets of her own, too.

Then, the worst happens. Sarah's behavior takes a turn for the strange. She becomes angry�� and hungry.��

Lucy soon comes to suspect that something is trying to possess her beloved sister. Or is it madness? As Sarah changes before her very eyes, Lucy must reckon with the dark, monstrous truth, or risk losing her forever.]]> 368 Johanna van Veen 1728281571 Iskra 0 to-read 4.01 2025
author: Johanna van Veen
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 229055343
“Tko sam zapravo ja? I koji dio mene sam ja... je li to moja vještina, moja muzika, moje dijete, je li to moja misao, je li to moja nada u još jednu ljubav, je li to plavi iris pored uzglavlja, možda je to mozak jer bez njega nema misli, bez njega nema ni srca, ali i on se trajanjem mijenja...�� Je li to možda radni stol spisateljice kao njezin otok slobode i posljednja linija obrane?

S mnogo humora i bez patetike, slojevito i snažno Ivana Bodrožić u Fikciji ispisuje složeni mozaik ženskog iskustva. Stoga ove priče treba čitati kao istinitu fikciju, ali pritom ne zaboraviti na zid patrijarhalnih normi društva koje uvijek prijeti da će je osporiti.]]> 200 Ivana Bodrožić 9533588012 Iskra 4 4.25⭐️ 4.57
author: Ivana Bodrožić
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.57
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
review:
4.25⭐️
]]> 216867498
But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a beautiful, white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires, and make her own bid for freedom.

With this gothic coming-of-age tale, novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire, and animal instincts—and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.]]> 336 Lucy Rose 1399619713 Iskra 4 3.91 2025
author: Lucy Rose
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 35410511
She’s the sweet-but-silent angel in the adoring eyes of her Daddy. He’s the only person who understands her, and all Hanna wants is to live happily ever after with him. But Mommy stands in her way, and she’ll try any trick she can think of to get rid of her. Ideally for good.

Meet Suzette.

She loves her daughter, really, but after years of expulsions and strained home schooling, her precarious health and sanity are weakening day by day. As Hanna’s tricks become increasingly sophisticated, and Suzette's husband remains blind to the failing family dynamics, Suzette starts to fear that there’s something seriously wrong, and that maybe home isn’t the best place for their baby girl after all.]]> 304 Zoje Stage 1250170753 Iskra 0 to-read 3.56 2018
author: Zoje Stage
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 49878129
Julie is missing, and the missing don't often return. But Elise knows Julie better than anyone, and she feels in her bones that her best friend is out there, and that one day she'll come back. She's right. Two years to the day that Julie went missing, she reappears with no memory of where she's been or what happened to her.]]> 296 Rachel Harrison 0593098668 Iskra 3 3.36 2020
author: Rachel Harrison
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 40679930 144 Rita Indiana 1911508350 Iskra 3 3.5 ⭐️ 3.39 2015
author: Rita Indiana
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves:
review:
3.5 ⭐️
]]> 312915 188 Rosario Ferré 0803268742 Iskra 0 to-read 4.01 1976
author: Rosario Ferré
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 205825264 The new novel from the bestselling author of If We Were Villains and Graveyard Shift—a vivid and immersive tale of one woman’s reckless mission to make sense of the events that shattered her childhood, and made her who she is

Summer, 1989: ten-year-old Suzanne is drawn like a magnet to her father’s forbidden world of electric guitars and tricked-out cars. When her mother remarries, she jumps at the chance to tag along on the concert tour that just might be Gil and the Kills�� wild ride to glory. But fame has sharper fangs than anybody realized, and as the band blazes up the charts, internal power struggles set Gil and his group on a collision course destined for a bloody reckoning—one shrouded in mystery and lore for decades to come.

The only witness to a desperate act of violence, Suzanne spends the next twenty-nine years trying to disappear. She trades the music and mayhem of her youth for the quiet of the suburbs and the company of her mild-mannered husband Rob. But when her father’s sudden death resurrects the troubled past she tried so hard to bury, she leaves it all behind and hits the road in search of answers. Hitching her fate and Gil’s beloved car to two vagabonds who call an old Airstream trailer home, she finds everything she thought she’d lost desire, adventure, and the woman she once wanted to be. But Rob refuses to let her go. Determined to bring her back where she belongs, he chases her across the country—and drives her to a desperation all her own.

Drenched in knock-down drag-out rock and roll, Hot Wax is a raucous, breakneck ride to hell and back—where getting lost might be the only way to find yourself and save your soul.]]> M.L. Rio Iskra 0 to-read 4.33 2025
author: M.L. Rio
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 204041701
When she’s having sex with her boss, Iris likes to have the lights on so he can see how much younger she is than his wife. She likes watching her colleagues eat unhealthy lunches at their desk while her stomach aches with emptiness. She likes coasting at work knowing she’s going to land a big promotion anyway.

So why when it arrives does she find herself sprawled on her hallway floor, crying uncontrollably? Why, instead of a sense of triumph, does a crippling depression threaten to overwhelm her? Why does the support and stability of her family and friends feel so suffocating? And why, torn between her flatmate George �� good, kind, reliable George �� and cold, indifferent Patrick, does she only seem capable of making choices that cause her pain?]]> 352 Emily Slapper 0008629129 Iskra 0 to-read 3.43 2024
author: Emily Slapper
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 221754290 From debut author Ashley Cullins, the definitive story of the Scream movie franchise, with dozens of exclusive interviews from key players and an in-depth exploration of the creation and legacy of the iconic films that rebooted a dying genre.

Its been nearly three decades since Drew Barrymore's iconic scream first pierced through the night, popcorn burning abandoned on the stove, blood soaking her beige sweater and blonde bob, but Scream is as popular today as ever before.��

In Your Favorite Scary Movie, journalist Ashley Cullins examines the history and making of the Scream films with behind-the-scenes insight from the movies' cast and creators (including gleeful descriptions of the backstage summer camp-like atmosphere, and producers threatening to pull the film's funding because early footage wasn't scary.... at all) and sharp analysis on how the movies' special blend of gruesome violence and humorous self-awareness completely rewrote the horror movie playbook.

Perfect for fans of Scream, horror movies, and general film buffs, this is the story of how a little movie about a ghost-faced killer terrorizing highschoolers overcame countless obstacles to become a historic success that still has audiences screaming over twenty-five years later.]]> 352 Ashley Cullins 0593474708 Iskra 0 to-read 4.50 2025
author: Ashley Cullins
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> 58307488
Stupe uti fjord og tjern. Hoppe frå kai og svaberg. Bombe uti naboens basseng. Falle baklengs inn i det blå. Vasse i Atlanterhavet. Svømme i Folkebadet. Bade i Bandak og Sitges og Las Palmas.

I desse tolv sommarnovellene kastar gutar og jenter, menn og kvinner, seg i vatnet for å kjøle seg ned, bare for å oppdage at hovudet framleis kokar avlyst og frykt.]]> 187 Frode Grytten 8249523261 Iskra 0 to-read 3.97 2021
author: Frode Grytten
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> 60506300
“Sandra Antolić u svojim je kratkim proznim tekstovima pokazala veliku jezičnu originalnost, ludičnost i odlično poznavanje kajkavskih idioma �� a sve se te osobine očituju i u njezinu romanu 'Svojevrsna'. Radnja je smještena u Hrvatsko zagorje �� seoski svijet na rubu velegrada koji ga ne poznaje i ne razumije, već doživljava kroz niz klišeja �� o alkoholizmu, pobožnosti, zapuštenosti. Uz poigravanje društvenim i jezičnim stereotipima, autorica taj svijet otkriva kao bogat prostor autentičnih emocija i sudbina.

Osebujan spoj ironije i topline Sandre Antolić očituje se i u izboru glavne junakinje romana, prasice Bebe. Već jedan od uvodnih prizora djela, u kojem pajcek stoji pod nogama Trpećega Stvoritela, analogan velikom triptihu na staklu Ivana Generalića, pokazuje sudar svakodnevnog i simboličnog �� običan slučaj da se sitna stoka mota oko nogu Kristovih kipova uz cestu, skriva duboku teološku dramu u kojoj grešnici pristupaju Stvoritelju. Uz takve dvosmislene situacije roman je pun duhovitih anegdota pa i prave komedije zabune, u kojima se stanovnici Zagorja otkrivaju u svojoj komičnoj egzistenciji �� koju čini tragikomičnom i izbor vremena radnje, 1991. sa svojim ratnim zbivanjima u kojima ljudi zapravo poživotinje.

Glavni životinjski lik prijelomne povijesne događaje promatra iz svoje sužene i snižene vizure, iz svinjske perspektive. Davanje glasa nijemima pravi je etički temelj ove knjige, a izvorni, duhovit i kreativan jezik autoričin njezin je estetski ostvaraj �� nijemim životinjama, a također i ljudima, daje dostojanstvo i sudbinu.�� (iz recenzije Borisa Becka)]]> 176 Sandra Antolić 953286279X Iskra 4 4.47
author: Sandra Antolić
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.47
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 198971441 144 Tea Tulić 9533321687 Iskra 0 to-read 4.18
author: Tea Tulić
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 213395480 From the acclaimed author of Mrs. March comes the riveting tale of a bloodthirsty governess who learns the true meaning of vengeance.

Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family—Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze. Compounded with her disdain for the entitled Pounds children, Winifred finds herself struggling at every turn to stifle the violent compulsions of her past. French tutoring and needlework are one way to pass the time, as is admiring the ugly portraits in the gallery . . . and creeping across the moonlit lawns. . . .

Patience. Winifred must have patience, for Christmas is coming, and she has very special gifts planned for the dear souls of Ensor House. Brimming with sardonic wit and culminating in a shocking conclusion, Victorian Psycho plunges readers into the chilling mind of an iconic new literary psychopath.]]> 208 Virginia Feito 1631498630 Iskra 0 3.62 2025
author: Virginia Feito
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves:
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]]> 228174696 192 Sandra Antolić 9532863702 Iskra 5 ���ٳ���Č����!! 4.50
author: Sandra Antolić
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves:
review:
���ٳ���Č����!!
]]> 55782639
Healthy boundaries. We all know we should have them–in order to achieve work/life balance, cope with toxic people, and enjoy rewarding relationships with partners, friends, and family. But what do “healthy boundaries�� really mean–and how can we successfully express our needs, say “no,�� and be assertive without offending others?

Licensed counselor, sought-after relationship expert, and one of the most influential therapists on Instagram Nedra Glover Tawwab demystifies this complex topic for today’s world. In a relatable and inclusive tone, Set Boundaries, Find Peace presents simple-yet-powerful ways to establish healthy boundaries in all aspects of life. Rooted in the latest research and best practices used in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), these techniques help us identify and express our needs clearly and without apology–and unravel a root problem behind codependency, power struggles, anxiety, depression, burnout, and more.]]> 282 Nedra Glover Tawwab 0593192109 Iskra 0 to-read 4.25 2021
author: Nedra Glover Tawwab
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 203956643 A diabolical collection of stories featuring achingly human characters whose lives intertwine with ghosts, goblins, and the macabre, by “one of Latin America’s most exciting authors�� (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)

On the shores of this river, all the birds that fly, drink, perch on branches, and disturb siestas with the demonic squawking of the possessed—all those birds were once women.

Welcome to Argentina and the fascinating, frightening, fantastical imagination of Mariana Enriquez. In twelve spellbinding new stories, Enriquez writes about ordinary people, especially women, whose lives turn inside out when they encounter terror, the surreal, and the supernatural. A neighborhood nuisanced by ghosts, a family whose faces melt away, a faded hotel haunted by a girl who dissolved in the water tank on the roof, a riverbank populated by birds that used to be women—these and other tales illuminate the shadows of contemporary life, where the line between good and evil no longer exists.

Lyrical and hypnotic, heart-stopping and deeply moving, Enriquez’s stories never fail to enthrall, entertain, and leave us shaken. Translated by the award-winning Megan McDowell, A Sunny Place for Shady People showcases Enriquez’s unique blend of the literary and the horrific, and underscores why Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, calls her “the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for some time.”]]> 257 Mariana Enríquez 0593733258 Iskra 4 3.80 2024
author: Mariana Enríquez
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 150778945 The Burning Girl and the propulsive social interrogation of Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You, Hansbury reckons with gender and class as he delivers a timely and captivating narrative of self-realization amid the everyday violence of small-town intolerance. As the story builds to its explosive conclusion, Some Strange Music Draws Me In illuminates the unexpected ways that queerness can provide a ticket to liberation.]]> 320 Griffin Hansbury 1324050799 Iskra 0 to-read 4.47 2024
author: Griffin Hansbury
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 123193976 U tom se kontekstu odvija veza između muškarca na pragu zrelih godina i djevojke u cvijetu mladosti."
dr. sc. Aleksandar Mijatović]]> 215 Dora Šustić 9535924591 Iskra 0 to-read 3.97 2022
author: Dora Šustić
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199865473
Growing up on a Cuba-esque Caribbean island, Casandra, Calia, and Caleb endure life under two that of their parents, and the Island’s authoritarian dictator, Pop-Pop Mustache. Papa was the dictator's former right-hand man. Now, he’s a political pariah and an ugly parody of a tyrant, treating his home as a nation which he rules with an iron fist. As for Mom, his wife and hateful second in command, she rules from the mind. Obsessed with armchair psychoanalysis, she spends her days reading self-help books and seeks to diagnose the kids, and perhaps even herself.

But within these walls, a rebellion is fomenting. Casandra, a cynical, self-important teenager with the most unlikely of attractions, recruits Caleb, meek yet gifted with a deadly touch, to join her in an insurrection against their father’s arbitrary totalitarianism. Meanwhile, Calia, the silent, youngest sibling who just wants to be left alone to draw animals, may be in league with the flies—whose swarm in and around the house grows larger as Papa’s violence increases.

Equal parts Greek tragedy and horror, with a touch of J.D. Salinger and Luis Buñuel, The Tyranny of Flies is a biting and wholly original subversive masterpiece that examines the inherent violence of authority and the frightening and indelible links between patriarchy, military, and family.

Translated from the Spanish by Kevin Gerry Dunn]]> 256 Elaine Vilar Madruga 0063330733 Iskra 4
I read this one for my book club and it’s hands down one of the best novels I read in 2024! Original, smart, provocative, darkly funny, and incredibly weird. It’s also very heavy on symbolism, which I love. Both the writing and the translation are amazing. I will read anything Madruga publishes in English (and would consider studying Spanish just to be able read her other work).]]> 3.77 2021
author: Elaine Vilar Madruga
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:
4.5!

I read this one for my book club and it’s hands down one of the best novels I read in 2024! Original, smart, provocative, darkly funny, and incredibly weird. It’s also very heavy on symbolism, which I love. Both the writing and the translation are amazing. I will read anything Madruga publishes in English (and would consider studying Spanish just to be able read her other work).
]]> 54304105 The Pisces and So Sad Today.

Rachel is twenty-four, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. By day, she maintains an illusion of existential control, by way of obsessive food rituals, while working as an underling at a Los Angeles talent management agency. At night, she pedals nowhere on the elliptical machine. Rachel is content to carry on subsisting—until her therapist encourages her to take a ninety-day communication detox from her mother, who raised her in the tradition of calorie counting.

Early in the detox, Rachel meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman who works at her favorite frozen yogurt shop and is intent upon feeding her. Rachel is suddenly and powerfully entranced by Miriam—by her sundaes and her body, her faith and her family—and as the two grow closer, Rachel embarks on a journey marked by mirrors, mysticism, mothers, milk, and honey.

Pairing superlative emotional insight with unabashed vivid fantasy, Broder tells a tale of appetites: physical hunger, sexual desire, spiritual longing, and the ways that we as humans can compartmentalize these so often interdependent instincts. Milk Fed is a tender and riotously funny meditation on love, certitude, and the question of what we are all being fed, from one of our major writers on the psyche—both sacred and profane.]]> 304 Melissa Broder 1982142499 Iskra 4 3.56 2021
author: Melissa Broder
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:
A can of worms was opened with this one - now I understand the obsession with Melissa Broder and I’m here for it! This is a story about love, self-acceptance, mental health, toxic relationships, and tradition. It’s a bit heavy on smut at one point, but even that serves a greater purpose. Just bear in mind - the way it discusses the protagonist’s eating disorder can be a bit triggering for some. Audio book was brilliantly narrated by the author.
]]> 59793324 Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata is back with her first collection of short stories ever to be translated into English. In Japan, Murata is particularly admired for her short stories, which are sometimes sweet, sometimes shocking, and always imbued with an otherworldly imagination and uncanniness.

In these twelve stories, Murata mixes an unusual cocktail of humor and horror to portray both the loners and outcasts as well as turning the norms and traditions of society on their head to better question them. Whether the stories take place in modern-day Japan, the future, or an alternate reality is left to the reader’s interpretation, as the characters often seem strange in their normality in a frighteningly abnormal world. In “A First-Rate Material��, Nana and Naoki are happily engaged, but Naoki can’t stand the conventional use of deceased people’s bodies for clothing, accessories, and furniture, and a disagreement around this threatens to derail their perfect wedding day. “Lovers on the Breeze�� is told from the perspective of a curtain in a child’s bedroom that jealously watches the young girl Naoko as she has her first kiss with a boy from her class and does its best to stop her. “Eating the City�� explores the strange norms around food and foraging, while “Hatchling�� closes the collection with an extraordinary depiction of the fractured personality of someone who tries too hard to fit in.

In these strange and wonderful stories of family and friendship, sex and intimacy, belonging and individuality, Murata asks above all what it means to be a human in our world and offers answers that surprise and linger.]]> 256 Sayaka Murata 0802159583 Iskra 3 3.76 2019
author: Sayaka Murata
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:
This short story collection was my third book by Murata, which probably gave me a bit different perspective on the stories. Her works are interconnected to a certain extent, and not only in topics (there is a story that openly resembles the plot from “Earthlings��). Some of the stories were shocking and disturbing in the best possible way, while others didn’t really have an impact on me - that’s to be expected with collections.
]]> 127306444
Iðunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something's not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven't revealed any cause.

When she talks to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same �� have you tried eating better? exercising more? establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a step-counting watch. Nothing helps.

Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on, and wakes up to find she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night . . .

What is happening when she’s asleep? Why is she waking up with increasingly disturbing injuries? And why won’t anyone believe her?]]> 197 Hildur Knútsdóttir 1250322049 Iskra 4
I listened to an audiobook and it was great!]]> 3.30 2021
author: Hildur Knútsdóttir
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:
This was such a fast-paced read - I literally couldn’t put it down! It’s a rather short piece of literature and yet the characters are really well developed. The premise is super interesting and eerie and the story is layered. Really well written and well translated.

I listened to an audiobook and it was great!
]]> 216569321
Dječji je svijet pun suprotnosti; istovremenog užasa i ushita, ranjivosti i prkosa, nevinosti i okrutnosti. Dječji je svijet nerijetko nalik na postapokaliptično igralište na kojem nema pravila, osim onoga da se �� ostane živ.

Obitelj, koja bi trebala biti prostor sigurnosti i povjerenja, ponekad je mjesto gdje nam se zadaje najviše udaraca. Škola i susjedstvo često postanu poprišta užasavajućeg vršnjačkog nasilja. Prepušteni sami sebi, djevojčice i dječaci tada će, kao u pričama Luce Kozine, početi stvarnost promatrati kao kazališnu predstavu, postati žrtve ili nasilnici, upadati u nezdrave odnose, maloljetničke trudnoće, depresiju.

Zbirkom priča Vidjet ćeš kad odrasteš Luca Kozina suočava nas pripovijedajući iz dječje perspektive s nasilnim i licemjernim društvom u kojem živimo, koje pred problemima djece i mladih zatvara oči, iako se neprestano govori o brizi za njih. Svjesna da u gotovo svakom djetinjstvu postoji skriven jedan mali pakao pred kojim okolina zatvara oči, Luca Kozina taj pakao nepretenciozno i uvjerljivo razotkriva dajući autentičan prikaz dječje nemoći, straha, ali i nade.

Koliko god pukotine kroz koju svjetlost može proći bile neznatne, nada je u ovim pričama opipljiva, i skriva se neočekivanim nježnostima, ili prijateljstvu. I ponekad zaista spasi nečiji život.]]> 168 Luca Kozina Iskra 4
Lucin stil pisanja je ogoljen i direktan, istovremeno izuzetno pitak. Priče su vrlo kratke, ali svaka nosi svoju težinu i likovi ne ostaju plošni.

"Vidjet ćeš kad odrasteš" pročitala sam u jednom dahu i završetak svake priče vukao me da krenem na sljedeću. Posebno me se dojmila "Što je donio snijeg".
]]> 4.18
author: Luca Kozina
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:
Ovo je zbirka priča o djeci i tinejdžerima, o onim bolnim dijelovima odrastanja. Ali, isto tako, ovo je zbirka priča o obiteljima i roditeljima, o manjku podrške i razumijevanja. Nekako, u konačnici, ova zbirka je ogledalo društva.. i odraz koji nas gleda iz spomenutog ogledala možda i nije nešto na što bismo trebali biti ponosni.

Lucin stil pisanja je ogoljen i direktan, istovremeno izuzetno pitak. Priče su vrlo kratke, ali svaka nosi svoju težinu i likovi ne ostaju plošni.

"Vidjet ćeš kad odrasteš" pročitala sam u jednom dahu i završetak svake priče vukao me da krenem na sljedeću. Posebno me se dojmila "Što je donio snijeg".

]]> 212994452 'A modern-day Mrs. Caliban, BLOB is a book that looks at identity and desire in profoundly interesting ways'
Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here

A hilarious and moving debut novel about a young woman who decides to turn a sentient blob into her perfect boyfriend...

The daughter of a Taiwanese father and white mother, Vi Liu has never quite fit into her Midwestern college town. Now at twenty-three, after getting dumped and dropping out of college, Vi works as a front desk attendant at a hotel where she refills cucumber water samovars and fends off overtures of friendship from her bubbly blond coworker, Rachel. But when Vi decides to accompany Rachel to a local drag show, her life changes forever. In the alley outside the bar, next to a trash can, is a blob with beady black eyes. Unable to leave it behind, Vi picks up the creature and, in a moment of drunken desperation, takes it home with her.

As her pet blob becomes sentient, Vi realizes it obeys her commands and she decides to mold the blob into her ideal partner. She feeds it sugary cereal and a stream of pop culture, and soon the creature transforms into a movie-star handsome white man. But as Vi's desire to be loved unconditionally threatens to spiral out of control, she is forced to confront her lonely childhood, the ex-boyfriend who has unfriended her, and the racial marginalization that has defined her relationships. Ultimately, Vi embarks on a journey of self-discovery and learns that it's impossible to control those you love.

Blending the familiar with the fantastical, BLOB tells a witty, heartfelt story of what it means to be human.

'An inventive, utterly unique debut'
Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light]]> 256 Maggie Su 0063358646 Iskra 4
What a weirdly unique premise! This is a coming of age story of a young woman who sabotages everything she touches. It's also a story of unhealthy obsessions, finding peace with one's identity, self-love and self-acceptance. The Blob gives a touch of weirdness and magical realism that further enriches the story. I wouldn't have minded if it were a bit weirder, but I loved it nonetheless.

It's a really well written and poignant debut novel and can't wait what else Su has in store for us. I listened to the audio book and it was great!

Read if you like:
�� weird premises
�� literary fiction
�� flawed and unlikeable characters
�� messy women
�� authors like Melissa Broder, Mona Awad, Ottessa Moshfegh
]]> 3.39 2025
author: Maggie Su
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:
This one is for all of my weird lit fic girlies!

What a weirdly unique premise! This is a coming of age story of a young woman who sabotages everything she touches. It's also a story of unhealthy obsessions, finding peace with one's identity, self-love and self-acceptance. The Blob gives a touch of weirdness and magical realism that further enriches the story. I wouldn't have minded if it were a bit weirder, but I loved it nonetheless.

It's a really well written and poignant debut novel and can't wait what else Su has in store for us. I listened to the audio book and it was great!

Read if you like:
�� weird premises
�� literary fiction
�� flawed and unlikeable characters
�� messy women
�� authors like Melissa Broder, Mona Awad, Ottessa Moshfegh

]]> 36214840 Sigurnost, diskrecija i dobra zarada zajamčeni.
Taj će neobični oglas objavljen u Večernjim novostima spojiti dvije potpuno različite osobe. Inženjera koji dobro živi od slučajnog izuma i bankarsku službenicu koja ima kredit u švicarcima, propali brak i oženjenog ljubavnika.
Gospođa Veronika Vinter upravo je u potrazi za dodatnim poslom zbog financijskih problema u koje je zapala zbog sklonosti nerazumnim odlukama. Ali gospođa Vinter vjeruje svojoj intuiciji, a oglasnik joj je već više puta u životu išao na ruku. Leđa su na nezgodnom mjestu, razložio je gospodin Florijan Bauer na prvom susretu s gospođom Veronikom Vinter. Cijeli taj aranžman ustvari je pitanje anatomije �� počešati se po leđima još i možeš, ali milovati nikako.
U svojem šestom romanu, Pitanje anatomije, Marina Vujčić kao temu opet uzima usamljenike, čudake. Ono što se isprva čini kao komedija karaktera i situacije, brzo će se pretvoriti u introspektivnu vivisekciju dva usamljena ljudska bića. Jer Florijanu, ali i Veroniki, ne nedostaje samo milovanje u životu. Mnogo je važnije pitanje što im se krije ispod kože.
Dodiri kod Marine Vujčić �� kao uostalom i riječi �� nisu ni bezazleni, ni nebitni. Ona svojim pričama otima svakodnevni život banalnosti i zaboravu; iz „prosjeka�� izvlači slike, priče i ljude koji se potom duboko usijecaju u čitateljski imaginarij. U pitanju je autorica koja precizno, izbrušenim stilom, finom ironijom i velikom vještinom pisanja razotkriva sve ono što mislimo i osjećamo. I, naravno, skrivamo.]]> 279 Marina Vujčić 9532591796 Iskra 5
Ono što me svaki put zapanji - od naizgled nasumične premise, Marina isplete nevjerojatne životne priče koje se gutaju u jednom dahu. Toliko poetično i dirljivo, da sam se skoro par puta rasplakala od dragosti.

I iako nije žanrovski obojana, ova priča je i napeta i dirljiva i nevjerojatno maštovita. Priča o tome kako smo, u konačnici, stvoreni za zajedništvo i čak i najnasumičniji susreti mogu promijeniti živote.
]]> 4.46
author: Marina Vujčić
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.46
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:
Koja predivna priča! "Sigurna kuća" dobiva konkurenciju na mjestu meni najdraže Marinine knjige.

Ono što me svaki put zapanji - od naizgled nasumične premise, Marina isplete nevjerojatne životne priče koje se gutaju u jednom dahu. Toliko poetično i dirljivo, da sam se skoro par puta rasplakala od dragosti.

I iako nije žanrovski obojana, ova priča je i napeta i dirljiva i nevjerojatno maštovita. Priča o tome kako smo, u konačnici, stvoreni za zajedništvo i čak i najnasumičniji susreti mogu promijeniti živote.

]]> 201033505
A woman welcomes a parasite into her body.

A teenager longs for perfect skin.

A scientist tends to fragile alien flora.

A young man takes the night into his own hands.

Unsettling, revelatory, and laced with her signature dark humor, Eliza Clark’s debut short story collection plumbs the depths of that most basic human feeling: hunger.]]> 240 Eliza Clark 0063393263 Iskra 3
What I liked:
�� the stories range in genre from lit fic, horror, sci-fi, fantasy
�� the stories cover various different though-provoking topics
�� my faves were the first and the last story in the collection

What I disliked:
�� each story had a really good beginning and build-up and then fell short at the end (for me)
�� I've felt like I read similar stories before (but with better execution)]]> 3.80 2024
author: Eliza Clark
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:
I had really high hopes for this short story collection, since I absolutely LOVED both "Boy Parts" and "Penance". Unfortunatelly, this was just not my cup of tea.

What I liked:
�� the stories range in genre from lit fic, horror, sci-fi, fantasy
�� the stories cover various different though-provoking topics
�� my faves were the first and the last story in the collection

What I disliked:
�� each story had a really good beginning and build-up and then fell short at the end (for me)
�� I've felt like I read similar stories before (but with better execution)
]]> 50269327
Now Natsuki is grown. She lives a quiet life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by pretending to be normal. But the demands of Natsuki's family are increasing, her friends wonder why she's still not pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki's childhood are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares herself with a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?]]> 247 Sayaka Murata 1783785675 Iskra 5 �� WTF did I just read?
�� I absolutely loved it! 5⭐️!
�� What does that say about me?

�� I really liked "Convenience Store Woman" but, honestly, I now realise it was just a mild overture into "Earthlings". It feels like Murata had so much more to say on the topic and she found a way, while preserving individuality of both novels.

�� This is a story of unhealed childhood trauma, allienation, and unwillingness to play by the ludicrous rules of a society presented in a very raw and messed up way. It's provocative, bizarre, unhinged, and masterfully written (and translated). The writing is not too emotional, so it gives the reader some distance while explorimg some pretty grave stuff. Still, I would say check trigger warnings before going into this one.]]> 3.59 2018
author: Sayaka Murata
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:
In short:
�� WTF did I just read?
�� I absolutely loved it! 5⭐️!
�� What does that say about me?

�� I really liked "Convenience Store Woman" but, honestly, I now realise it was just a mild overture into "Earthlings". It feels like Murata had so much more to say on the topic and she found a way, while preserving individuality of both novels.

�� This is a story of unhealed childhood trauma, allienation, and unwillingness to play by the ludicrous rules of a society presented in a very raw and messed up way. It's provocative, bizarre, unhinged, and masterfully written (and translated). The writing is not too emotional, so it gives the reader some distance while explorimg some pretty grave stuff. Still, I would say check trigger warnings before going into this one.
]]> 224532460 New Year’s bucket list: party hard, slay harder!

The luxurious, surprisingly affordable party cabin in the isolated, scenic Croatian countryside was all Irma and her friends had hoped for—jacuzzi and no close neighbors included. The recent grads have packed their car chock-full of good music, better booze, and plenty of brownies to guarantee a New Year’s to remember.

The arrival of a second car packed with girls ready to prove their own claim on the cabin seems like a recipe for disaster—until they realize the other group is as hyped-up for New Year’s as they are, upping Irma’s chances of getting her midnight kiss. For once in her chronically-single life, everything seems to be going well�� until the snow outside starts piling up through the night, and her friends�� bodies soon follow suit.

In the blink of an eye, Irma’s New Year’s dream turns into a New Year’s nightmare. Will she live to see another (new) year?

This sapphic horror novella is ready to fill all your snowed-in dreams with some good old slashery feels.]]> 139 Petra Pine 9538360370 Iskra 0 to-read 4.75
author: Petra Pine
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.75
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 600404
When Haitians tell a story, they say "Krik?" and the eager listeners answer "Krak!" In Krik? Krak! Danticat establishes herself as the latest heir to that narrative tradition with nine stories that encompass both the cruelties and the high ideals of Haitian life. They tell of women who continue loving behind prison walls and in the face of unfathomable loss; of a people who resist the brutality of their rulers through the powers of imagination. The result is a collection that outrages, saddens, and transports the reader with its sheer beauty.]]> 224 Edwidge Danticat 067976657X Iskra 0 to-read 4.16 1996
author: Edwidge Danticat
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 669450 The Kingdom of This World records the destruction of the black regime--built on the same corruption and contempt for human life that brought down the French--in an orgy of voodoo, racial hatred, erotomania, and fantastic grandeurs of false elegance.
]]> 186 Alejo Carpentier 0374521972 Iskra 0 3.83 1949
author: Alejo Carpentier
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1949
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 6437644
Baba Jaga uvek spava s mačem pod jastukom. Slovenski čitaoci, a srpski će biti prvi od svih, po svoj prilici će spavati sa ovom knjigom pod jastukom �� kao uspavankom i kao oružjem istovremeno.

Vladislav Bajac

Geopoetika zajedno s još preko četrdeset izdavača iz celog sveta, od Severne i Južne Amerike, preko Azije i Australije, do svih delova Evrope - gradi ediciju Mitovi. Nosilac ideje od 1999. godine jeste škotski izdavač Canongate. Ova serija knjiga sastoji se iz uvodne studije i kratkih romana (ili kraćih proznih formi) naručenih posebno za ovu ediciju. Od pisaca je zatraženo da po slobodnom izboru, kako god to žele, iznova ispričaju već postojeće i znane mitove iz bilo koje kulture sveta. Među autorima su najveća i najzanimljivija imena savremene svetske književnosti. Planovi su da edicija potraje makar do svoje stote knjige.

Dakle, izvornici prevoda na srpski jezik potiču iz rukopisa, a ne objavljenih knjiga, i projekat edicije Mitovi redak je i originalan poduhvat u međunarodnom izdavačkom zajedništvu.]]> 347 Dubravka Ugrešić 8676661413 Iskra 0 to-read 4.03 2007
author: Dubravka Ugrešić
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25904473 So Sad Today, Broder delves deeper into the existential themes she explores on Twitter, grappling with sex, death, love, low self-esteem, addiction, and the drama of waiting for the universe to text you back. With insights as sharp as her humor, Broder explores—in prose that is both gutsy and beautiful, aggressively colloquial and achingly poetic—questions most of us are afraid to even acknowledge, let alone answer, in order to discover what it really means to be a person in this modern world.]]> 206 Melissa Broder 1455562726 Iskra 5 3.81 2016
author: Melissa Broder
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 44451891
In the aftermath of a massive earthquake, a Japanese elementary school is transported into a hostile world where the students and teachers are besieged by terrifying creatures and beset by madness.

Out of nowhere, an entire school vanishes, leaving nothing but a hole in the ground. While parents mourn and authorities investigate, the students and teachers find themselves not dead but stranded in a terrifying wasteland where they must fight to survive.]]> 744 Kazuo Umezz 197470937X Iskra 0 to-read 4.03 1972
author: Kazuo Umezz
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 64217 341 Terry Pratchett 0061020656 Iskra 0 to-read 3.91 1989
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 23492624 Brother follows a teenager determined to break from his family’s unconventional—and deeply disturbing—traditions.

Deep in the heart of Appalachia stands a crooked farmhouse miles from any road. The Morrows keep to themselves, and it’s served them well so far. When girls go missing off the side of the highway, the cops don’t knock on their door. Which is a good thing, seeing as to what’s buried in the Morrows�� backyard.

But nineteen-year-old Michael Morrow isn’t like the rest of his family. He doesn’t take pleasure in the screams that echo through the trees. Michael pines for normalcy, and he’s sure that someday he’ll see the world beyond West Virginia. When he meets Alice, a pretty girl working at a record shop in the small nearby town of Dahlia, he’s immediately smitten. For a moment, he nearly forgets about the monster he’s become. But his brother, Rebel, is all too eager to remind Michael of his place…]]> 319 Ania Ahlborn 147678373X Iskra 1 3.89 2015
author: Ania Ahlborn
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2015
rating: 1
read at: 2024/09/24
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves:
review:
Nope. The twists are too predictable, all of them. And this novel is just so depressing and dark with no point to it, the characters are not as fleshed out as they had the chance to be.. not my cup of tea, unfortunately.
]]> 217927444 From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Prairie Fires comes a terrifying true-crime history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest - a gripping investigation of how a new strain of psychopath emerged out of a toxic landscape of deadly industrial violence

Caroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of Ted Bundy, the most notorious serial murderer of women in American history, surrounded by his hunting grounds and mountain body dumps, in the brooding landscape of the Pacific Northwest. But in the 1970s and 80s, Bundy was just one perpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder across the region. Why so many? Why so weirdly and nightmarishly gruesome? Why the senseless rise and then sudden fall of an epidemic of serial killing?

As Murderland indelibly maps the lives and careers of Bundy and his infamous peers in mayhem - the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, even Charles Manson - Fraser's Northwestern death trip begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction. At ground zero in Ted Bundy's Tacoma, stood one of the most poisonous lead, copper, and arsenic smelters in the world, but it was only one among many that dotted the area.

As Fraser's investigation inexorably proceeds, evidence mounts that the plumes of western smelters not only sickened and blighted millions of lives, but also warped young minds, spawning a generation of serial killers.

A propulsive non-fiction thriller, Murderland transcends true-crime voyeurism and noir mythology, taking readers on a profound quest into the dark heart of the real American berserk.]]> 480 Caroline Fraser 0593657225 Iskra 0 to-read 4.18 2025
author: Caroline Fraser
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 203579211
During a grocery run to her local shopping center, Shell Pine sees a ‘HELP NEEDED�� sign in a flower shop window. She’s just left her fiancé, lost her job, and moved home to her parents�� house. She has to make a change and bring some good into her life, so she goes inside and takes a chance. Shell realizes right away that flowers are just the good thing she's been looking for, as is Neve, the beautiful florist who wrote the sign asking for help. The thing is, Neve needs help more than Shell could possibly imagine.

An orchid growing out of sight in the heart of the mall is watching them closely. His name is Baby, and the beautiful florist belongs to him. He’s young, he’s hungry, and he’ll do just about anything to make sure he can keep growing big and strong. Nothing he eats �� nobody he eats �� can satisfy him, except the thing he most desires. Neve. He adores her and wants to consume her, and will stop at nothing to eat the one he loves.

This is a story about possession, and monstrosity, and working retail. It is about hunger and desire, and other terrible things that grow.]]> 288 Sarah Maria Griffin 1250910692 Iskra 0 to-read 3.81 2025
author: Sarah Maria Griffin
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 228071950
25 years ago, young businessman Ron Jarvis made a sinister deal that changed his life forever. The cost was high... but who can put a price on power?

Now, Ron is the CEO of a global media empire, and one of the richest men in the world. And yet, to help his daughter, Ron will once more seek out the architect of that hideous pact, bringing death, despair, and total destruction to all around him in a jaw-dropping frenzy of outrageous, bloody carnage.

With Death Spell, David Sodergren, author of Maggie’s Grave and Rotten Tommy, will once more plunge you into the depths of insanity and depravity. You have been warned!]]> 258 David Sodergren 1068546379 Iskra 0 to-read 4.68 2025
author: David Sodergren
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.68
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220458657 Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in this eerie multigenerational horror saga from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.

“Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches��: That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva—stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that’s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.

In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.

Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.]]> 368 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0593874323 Iskra 0 to-read 4.35 2025
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54735151 A woman trapped on a mountain attempts to survive more than one kind of monster, in a dread-inducing horror novel from the national bestselling author Christina Henry.

Mattie can't remember a time before she and William lived alone on a mountain together. She must never make him upset. But when Mattie discovers the mutilated body of a fox in the woods, she realizes that they're not alone after all.

There's something in the woods that wasn't there before, something that makes strange cries in the night, something with sharp teeth and claws.

When three strangers appear on the mountaintop looking for the creature in the woods, Mattie knows their presence will anger William. Terrible things happen when William is angry.]]> 321 Christina Henry 0593199766 Iskra 0 to-read 3.69 2021
author: Christina Henry
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 203579301 This is a story of girl meets printer.

A customer service assistant spends her long workdays printing letters. Her one friend is the printer and, in the dark confines of her office, she begins to open up to him, talking about her fears, her past, her hopes and dreams.

To her, it seems like a beautiful friendship is blossoming. To her boss, it seems like she's losing her mind.

Diagnosed with burnout and placed on leave, she faces severance and - worse - separation from her beloved printer. But she's not about to give up on her only friend without a fight. And, it turns out, neither is he...]]> 256 Fien Veldman 1035906449 Iskra 0 to-read 3.21 2023
author: Fien Veldman
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.21
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58724622
But lately, things have been changing inside Mary. Along with the hot flashes and body aches, she can’t look in a mirror without passing out, and the voices in her head have been urging her to do unspeakable things.

Fired from her job in New York, she moves back to her hometown, hoping to reconnect with her past and inner self. Instead, visions of terrifying, mutilated specters overwhelm her with increasing regularity and she begins auto-writing strange thoughts and phrases. Mary discovers that these experiences are echoes of an infamous serial killer.

Then the killings begin again.

Mary’s definitely going to find herself.]]> 405 Nat Cassidy 1250265231 Iskra 0 currently-reading 3.78 2022
author: Nat Cassidy
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 26210508 A breakthrough book. Wonderfully applicable to everything in life, and funny as hell.�� Nassim Nicholas Taleb

To be brilliant, you have to be irrational

Why is Red Bull so popular �� even though everyone hates the taste? Why do countdown boards on platforms take away the pain of train delays? And why do we prefer stripy toothpaste?

We think we are rational creatures. Economics and business rely on the assumption that we make logical decisions based on evidence.

But we aren’t, and we don’t.

In many crucial areas of our lives, reason plays a vanishingly small part. Instead we are driven by unconscious desires, which is why placebos are so powerful. We are drawn to the beautiful, the extravagant and the absurd �� from lavish wedding invitations to tiny bottles of the latest fragrance. So if you want to influence people’s choices you have to bypass reason. The best ideas don’t make rational sense: they make you feel more than they make you think.

Rory Sutherland is the Ogilvy advertising legend whose TED Talks have been viewed nearly 7 million times. In his first book he blends cutting-edge behavioural science, jaw-dropping stories and a touch of branding magic, on his mission to turn us all into idea alchemists. The big problems we face every day, whether as an individual or in society, could very well be solved by letting go of logic and embracing the irrational.]]> 384 Rory Sutherland 0753556510 Iskra 0 4.22 2019
author: Rory Sutherland
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 9809 165 Italo Calvino 0156453800 Iskra 0 to-read 4.16 1972
author: Italo Calvino
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 181866974 Introducing the Bolivian writer Liliana Colanzi, You Glow in the Dark glimmers with an unearthly light and a nearly radioactive power

The seven stories of You Glow in the Dark unfold in a Latin America wrecked and poisoned by human greed, and yet Colanzi’s writing―at once sleek and dense, otherworldly and intensely specific―casts an eerily bright spell over the wreckage. Some stories seem to be set in a near future; all are superbly executed and yet hard to pin down; they often leave the reader wondering: was that realistic or fantastic? Colanzi draws power from Andean cyberpunk just as much as from classic horror writers, and this daring is matched by her energizing simultaneous use of multiplicity and fragmentation―the book's stylistic trademarks. Freely mixing worlds, she uses the Bolivian altiplano as the backdrop for an urban dystopia and blends Aymara with Spanish. Colanzi never gets bogged down; she can be brutal and direct or light-handed and subtle. Her materials are dark, but always there’s the lift of her vivid sense of humor. You Glow in the Dark seizes the reader's attention (from the title on) and holds it: this is a book that announces the arrival of a major new talent.]]> 112 Liliana Colanzi 0811237184 Iskra 0 to-read 3.68 2022
author: Liliana Colanzi
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 204640265 From Vulture's "master of horror" Clay McLeod Chapman, a relentless and emotionally charged social horror novel about a family on the run from a demonic possession epidemic that spreads through media, for fans of The Last of Us and When Evil Lurks

Noah Fairchild has been losing his formerly polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening�� is here, he assumes it’s related to one of the many conspiracy theories she believes in. But when his own phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the long drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles, a fridge full of spoiled food, and his parents locked in a terrifying trance-like state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it and get medical help.

Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.

But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart-–literally-–as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend watching particular channels, using certain apps, or visiting certain websites. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn��-but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?

This ambitious, searing novel from "one of horror's modern masters" holds a mirror to our divided nation, and will shake readers to the core.]]> 384 Clay McLeod Chapman Iskra 0 to-read 3.38 2025
author: Clay McLeod Chapman
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61884779 USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw comes The Salt Grows Heavy, a razor-sharp and bewitching fairytale of discovering the darkness in the world, and the darkness within oneself.

You may think you know how the fairytale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth. And now, her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to ashes.

On the run, the mermaid is joined by a mysterious plague doctor with a darkness of their own. Deep in the eerie, snow-crusted forest, the pair stumble upon a village of ageless children who thirst for blood, and the three 'saints' who control them.

The mermaid and her doctor must embrace the cruelest parts of their true nature if they hope to survive.

Includes the bonus short story, "And In Our Daughters, We Find a Voice", set in the same universe.]]> 106 Cassandra Khaw 1250830915 Iskra 0 to-read 3.55 2023
author: Cassandra Khaw
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 194036469
For Penny, an enthusiastic new hire, working at the store is the opportunity of a lifetime. As she uncovers the workings of this whimsical world, she bonds with a cast of unforgettable characters, including DallerGut, the flamboyant and wise owner, Babynap Rockabye, a famous dream designer, Maxim, a nightmare producer, and the many customers who dream to heal, dream to grow, and dream to flourish.

A captivating story that will leave a lingering magical feeling in readers' minds, this is the first book in a bestselling duology for anyone exhausted from the reality of their daily life.]]> 243 Lee Mi-ye 1035412748 Iskra 0 to-read 3.65 2020
author: Lee Mi-ye
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 59629744 A prizewinning, thrillingly subversive debut novel about a woman in Japan who avoids harassment at work by perpetuating, for nine months and beyond, the lie that she's pregnant

When thirty-four-year-old Ms. Shibata gets a new job in Tokyo to escape sexual harassment at her old one, she finds that, as the only woman at her new workplace--a company that manufactures cardboard tubes--she is expected to do all the menial tasks. One day she announces that she can't clear away her colleagues' dirty cups--because she's pregnant and the smell nauseates her. The only thing is . . . Ms. Shibata is not pregnant.

Pregnant Ms. Shibata doesn't have to serve coffee to anyone. Pregnant Ms. Shibata isn't forced to work overtime. Pregnant Ms. Shibata rests, watches TV, takes long baths, and even joins an aerobics class for expectant mothers. But pregnant Ms. Shibata also has a nine-month ruse to keep up. Helped along by towel-stuffed shirts and a diary app on which she can log every stage of her "pregnancy," she feels prepared to play the game for the long haul. Before long, though, the hoax becomes all-absorbing, and the boundary between her lie and her life begins to dissolve.

A surreal and wryly humorous cultural critique, Diary of a Void is bound to become a landmark in feminist world literature.]]> 213 Emi Yagi 0143136879 Iskra 0 to-read 3.51 2020
author: Emi Yagi
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 205673377 From one of Japan's most brilliant and sensitive contemporary novelists, this speculative fiction masterpiece envisions an Earth where humans are nearing extinction, and rewrites our understanding of reproduction, ecology, evolution, artificial intelligence, communal life, creation, love, and the future of humanity.

In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small tribes across the planet under the observation and care of "Mothers." Some children are made in factories, from cells of rabbits and dolphins; some live by getting nutrients from water and light, like plants. The survival of the race depends on the interbreeding of these and other alien beings--but it is far from certain that connection, love, reproduction, and evolution will persist among the inhabitants of this faltering new world.

Unfolding over fourteen interconnected episodes spanning geological eons, at once technical and pastoral, mournful and utopic, Under the Eye of the Big Bird presents an astonishing vision of the end of our species as we know it.]]> 288 Hiromi Kawakami 1593766114 Iskra 0 to-read 3.77 2016
author: Hiromi Kawakami
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> 18283207 176 Hiromi Kawakami 1846275083 Iskra 0 to-read 3.63 2001
author: Hiromi Kawakami
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> 211004123 The million-copy bestselling Queen of Twists Alice Feeney returns with a gripping and deliciously dark thriller about marriage. . .
. . . and revenge.

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

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

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

Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.]]> 306 Alice Feeney 125033778X Iskra 1 3.63 2025
author: Alice Feeney
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 1
read at: 2025/01/30
date added: 2025/01/30
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]]> 69711 A Small Place magnifies our vision of one small place with Swiftian wit and precision. Jamaica Kincaid's expansive essay candidly appraises the ten-by-twelve-mile island in the British West Indies where she grew up, and makes palpable the impact of European colonization and tourism. The book is a missive to the traveler, whether American or European, who wants to escape the banality and corruption of some large place. Kincaid, eloquent and resolute, reminds us that the Antiguan people, formerly British subjects, are unable to escape the same drawbacks of their own tiny realm—that behind the benevolent Caribbean scenery are human lives, always complex and often fraught with injustice.]]> 81 Jamaica Kincaid 0374527075 Iskra 0 4.06 1988
author: Jamaica Kincaid
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
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]]> 151605
Horacio Quiroga was a master storyteller and author of over two hundred pieces of Latin American fiction that have been compared to the works of Poe, Kipling, and London. Like his stories, his own life from his birth in Uruguay to his suicide in Argentina was filled with adventure, tragedy, and violence.]]> 166 Horacio Quiroga 0299198340 Iskra 0 to-read 4.09 1909
author: Horacio Quiroga
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1909
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 220161593 In this follow-up to #1 New York Times bestselling author Ruth Ware’s multi-million copy mega-hit The Women in Cabin 10, Lo Blacklock returns to attend the opening of a luxury hotel, only to find herself in a white-knuckled race across Europe.

When the invitation to attend the press opening of a luxury Swiss hotel—owned by reclusive billionaire Marcus Leidmann—arrives, it’s like the answer to a prayer. Three years after the birth of her youngest child, Lo Blacklock is ready to reestablish her journalism career, but post-pandemic travel journalism is a very different landscape from the one she left ten years ago.

The chateau on the shores of Lake Geneva is everything Lo’s ever dreamed of, and she hopes she can snag an interview with Marcus. Unfortunately, he proves to be even more difficult to pin down than his reputation suggests. When Lo gets a late-night call asking her to come to Marcus’s hotel room, she agrees despite her own misgivings. She’s greeted, however, by a woman claiming to be Marcus’s mistress, and in life-or-death jeopardy.

What follows is a thrilling cat-and-mouse pursuit across Europe, forcing Lo to ask herself just how much she’s willing to sacrifice to save this woman…and if she can even trust her?]]> 400 Ruth Ware 1668025620 Iskra 0 to-read 3.84 2025
author: Ruth Ware
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 48564330 A stunning, lyrical novel set in the rolling foothills of the Appalachians in which a young girl discovers stark truths that will haunt her for the rest of her life.

"A girl comes of age against the knife."

So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a Cherokee father and white mother, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit is one of poverty and violence--both from outside the family, and also, devastatingly, from within. The lush landscape, rich with birdsong, wild fruit, and blazing stars, becomes a kind of refuge for Betty, but when her family's darkest secrets are brought to light, she has no choice but to reckon with the brutal history hiding in the hills, as well as the heart-wrenching cruelties and incredible characters she encounters in her rural town of Breathed, Ohio.

But despite the hardship she faces, Betty is resilient. Her curiosity about the natural world, her fierce love for her sisters, and her father's brilliant stories are kindling for the fire of her own imagination, and in the face of all she bears witness to, Betty discovers an escape: she begins to write. She recounts the horrors of her family's past and present with pen and paper and buries them deep in the dirt--moments that has stung her so deeply, she could not tell them, until now.

Inspired by the life of her own mother, Tiffany McDaniel sets out to free the past by telling this heartbreaking yet magical story--a remarkable novel that establishes her as one of the freshest and most important voices in American fiction.]]> 480 Tiffany McDaniel 052565707X Iskra 0 to-read 4.41 2020
author: Tiffany McDaniel
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 61273863
Alex has all but given up on her dreams of becoming a published author when she receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: attend an exclusive, month-long writing retreat at the estate of feminist horror writer Roza Vallo. Even the knowledge that Wren, her former best friend and current rival, is attending doesn’t dampen her excitement.

But when the attendees arrive, Roza drops a bombshell—they must all complete an entire novel from scratch during the next month, and the author of the best one will receive a life-changing seven-figure publishing deal. Determined to win this seemingly impossible contest, Alex buckles down and tries to ignore the strange happenings at the estate, including Roza’s erratic behavior, Wren’s cruel mind games, and the alleged haunting of the mansion itself. But when one of the writers vanishes during a snowstorm, Alex realizes that something very sinister is afoot. With the clock running out, she must discover the truth—or suffer the same fate.]]> 313 Julia Bartz 1982199458 Iskra 2 3.41 2023
author: Julia Bartz
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
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]]> 50202953
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.]]> 272 Susanna Clarke 163557563X Iskra 4
This must be one of the most unique and unusual books I've ever read. It is really well written and beautifully atmospheric. It heavily relays on descriptions in the beginning and I had to push through that part a bit. But once the story starts unravelling, it was hard to put it down. It's structure is layered and so are the topics it discusses.

I don't want to go into too much detail, because I really don't want to spoil anything - it's best to go into this one with as little knowledge as possible.

●genre: fantasy, magical realism, mystery]]> 4.22 2020
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves:
review:
4.5⭐️

This must be one of the most unique and unusual books I've ever read. It is really well written and beautifully atmospheric. It heavily relays on descriptions in the beginning and I had to push through that part a bit. But once the story starts unravelling, it was hard to put it down. It's structure is layered and so are the topics it discusses.

I don't want to go into too much detail, because I really don't want to spoil anything - it's best to go into this one with as little knowledge as possible.

●genre: fantasy, magical realism, mystery
]]> 55251789
Women and Women: The fissures in a queer matriarchal utopia are exposed when a boy, a creature usually contained in ghettoised isolation - appears beneath young Yūko's window
You May Dream: An extreme government initiative curbing overpopulation prompts a woman to re-evaluate her friendships
Night Picnic: The last family in a desolate city learns to be human through the awkward appropriation of popular culture
That Old Seaside Club: Passive-aggressive furniture provides unwelcome romantic advice
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Tense interplanetary politics distort Emma's love life
Forgotten: Jane's ex-girlfriend reppears, radically altered and insistent on a catch-up
Terminal Boredom: Tokyo's teenagers, disaffected and numb from excessive screentime, find distraction in violence.

Suzuki's singular slant on science fiction remains fresh and essential. Concerns about society, gender and imperialism dovetail irresistibly with flights of speculative wonder. And with a kitchen sink in the corner of even her wildest stories, Suzuki reminds us that while society may be limitless, relationships remain impossible]]> 218 Izumi Suzuki 1788739884 Iskra 0 to-read 3.58 2021
author: Izumi Suzuki
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> 200475237 ‘I did an evil thing to be put in here, and I’m going to have to do an evil thing to get out.��

They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.

Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. There, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to keep her baby and escape to a commune. Zinnia, a budding musician who plans to marry her baby’s father. And Holly, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.

Every moment of their waking day is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid . . . and it’s usually paid in blood.]]> 496 Grady Hendrix 103503087X Iskra 0 to-read 4.10 2025
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 220695406 Na domaćem tržištu nekretnina, koliko vrijedi jedna ukleta kuća?

Posljednja kuća u Šenoinoj ulici čeka na nove stanare i vi, dragi čitatelji, odlični ste kandidati!
Možete odabrati između:

dvije obiteljske kuće u Zagorju koje se samo malo raspadaju (ali čujemo da jedna ima odličan izbor knjiga)
sumnjivo jeftinog stana u Zagrebu, u koji možete useliti sami, ili drugog zagrebačkog stana, koji ćete dijeliti s prijateljicom (što bi moglo poći po krivu?)
otmjene kuće iz 19. stoljeća na Sušaku (kojoj treba samo malo ljubavi)
obiteljske kuće s mračnom povijesti (i još mračnijim tapetama)
raskošnog dvorca s odličnom akustikom (spremno za koncert!)
gospodske kuće u alternativnoj Rijeci (bunar bez dodatne naplate)!

Ovih osam kratkih horor priča o ukletim stambenim jedinicama domaćih autorica i autora pokazat će vam, dragi čitatelji, različite intimne životne trenutke i pobrinuti se da se zabavite, ali i užasnete. Od gotičke atmosfere, preko crnog humora, do istinski zastrašujućih obiteljskih tajni �� sve se to skriva u Šenoinoj ulici.

Jedno je sigurno: ako možete proći jeftinije, možda ćete morati prihvatiti i kosti u ormaru.

Za vas krvlju žbukaju Jelena Dunato, Ivana Geček, Petra Pine, Luna Tatjana Val, Vesna Kurilić, Igor Rendić, Lea Katarina Gobec i Antonija Mežnarić.]]> 210 Antonija Mežnarić 9538360346 Iskra 0 to-read 4.17
author: Antonija Mežnarić
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.17
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 668282 Alternative cover edition of ISBN 0141188340

Lise is thin, neither good-looking nor bad-looking. One day she walks out of her office, acquires a gaudy new outfit, adopts a girlier tone of voice, and heads to the airport to fly south. On the plane she takes a seat between two men. One is delighted with her company, the other is deeply perturbed. So begins an unnerving journey into the darker recesses of human nature.]]> 103 Muriel Spark Iskra 0 to-read 3.62 1970
author: Muriel Spark
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> 58536108
A Penguin Vitae Edition

Although only six years old, Antonio Marez is perceptive beyond his years. He was brought into the world with the help of Ultima, a curandera , or folk healer, in touch with nature and the spirit world. Revered by some as a wisewoman but rebuked by others as a witch, Ultima has now come back to stay with Tony’s family in New Mexico. As Tony seeks out his destiny—torn between his mother’s farming forebears and his father’s wandering vaquero roots, between Spanish Catholicism and the gods of his indigenous ancestors—Ultima’s loving tutelage will help him navigate questions of life and death, good and evil, and reveal to him the vastness of the heritage that shapes him, in this pioneering work of literature.

Penguin Vitae—loosely translated as “Penguin of one’s life”—is a deluxe hardcover series from Penguin Classics celebrating a dynamic and diverse landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction from seventy-five years of classics publishing. Penguin Vitae provides readers with beautifully designed classics that have shaped the course of their lives, and welcomes new readers to discover these literary gifts of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality.]]> 288 Rudolfo Anaya 0143137220 Iskra 0 to-read 4.16 1972
author: Rudolfo Anaya
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 205064706 A mother must fight for her daughter’s life in this fierce and haunting tale of witchcraft and revenge from the author of A Haunting in the Arctic.

Clem gets a call that is every mother’s worst nightmare. Her nineteen-year-old daughter Erin is unconscious in the hospital after a hiking trip with her friends on the remote Orkney Islands that met a horrifying end, leaving her boyfriend dead and her best friend missing. When Erin wakes, she doesn’t recognize her mother. And she doesn’t answer to her name, but insists she is someone named Nyx.

Clem travels the site of her daughter’s accident, determined to find out what happened to her. The answer may lie in a dark secret in the history of the Orkneys: a woman wrongly accused of witchcraft and murder four centuries ago. Clem begins to wonder if Erin’s strange behavior is a symptom of a broken mind, or the effects of an ancient curse?]]> 365 C.J. Cooke 059381696X Iskra 4 3.74 2024
author: C.J. Cooke
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
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]]> 220160814 Three women are connected by one man in this kaleidoscopic thriller.

Restauranteur Paddy Swann was the life of the party until the day a man pushed him in the path of an oncoming train, leaving his twenty-something daughter Ash and wife Nina devastated. Shortly after Paddy’s funeral, the two women receive a surprise in the mail: a note and package from Nick Ratcliffe, an old friend of Paddy’s, and a nondescript lighter that once belonged to him decades ago. This unexpected gift draws Nick and Nina closer together—much to Ash’s dismay.

Martha is a small-town florist with dreams of expansion. She lives with her second husband Al, her baby, and two sons from her prior marriage. But they never seem to have any money, and with his constant traveling for work, she feels like a single parent—especially when an emergency makes her realize something needs to change.

But Nick and Al may not be who they say they are, leading these three women on a shocking collision course, wishing they had heeded a warning: Don’t let him in.]]> 368 Lisa Jewell 1668033879 Iskra 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 166177788
“These poems were written in an attempt to excise the illness that had taken root in me because of my silence. I’ve spent my entire life keeping the secrets of men, my body aches from carrying the weight of their sins. My freedom lives in these pages, and I hope that my words can inspire others to take back their happiness and their identity by using their voice to illuminate what’s been buried, but not forgotten, in the darkness,�� says Fox.

Pretty Boys Are Poisonous marks the powerful debut from one of the most well-known women of our time. Turn the page, bite the apple, and sink your teeth into the most deliciously compelling and addictive books you’ll read all year.]]> 176 Megan Fox 1668050412 Iskra 0 3.71 2023
author: Megan Fox
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
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]]> 122494784 Instead of presents this Christmas, one true crime podcaster is opening up a cold case��

When true crime podcaster Harley Granger drifts into Madeline Martin's bookshop days before Christmas, he seems intent on digging up a past that Madeline would much rather forget.

Granger's work has earned him fame and wealth - and some serious criticism for his various unethical practices. Granger also has a lot of questions about the night Madeline was left for dead, the only surviving victim of killer Evan Handy.

Handy, who also murdered Madeline's best friend and is suspected in the disappearance of two local sisters, has been in jail for a decade. Since then, though, three other young women have gone missing in similar circumstances. Is the true predator still out there somewhere?

As Christmas approaches and a blizzard bears down, Madeline must confront the past to answer questions that have haunted her since that day. Is the truth more terrible than she ever imagined?

Coupling a picturesque, cosy setting with a deeply unsettling and suspenseful plot, Christmas Presents is a chilling seasonal tale that can be enjoyed all year long.]]> 260 Lisa Unger 1613164513 Iskra 2 2.5⭐️ 3.56 2023
author: Lisa Unger
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves:
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2.5⭐️
]]> 204260268 128 Nat Cassidy Iskra 0 3.80 2024
author: Nat Cassidy
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/22
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]]> 210678433
Life’s a bitch. That’s why you gotta rattle her cage, even if she’s foaming at the mouth.

In the linked stories of Reservoir Bitches, thirteen Mexican women prod the bitch that is Life as they fight, sew, skirt, cheat, cry, and lie their way through their tangled circumstances. From the all-powerful daughter of a cartel boss to the victim of transfemicide, from a houseful of spinster seamstresses to a socialite who supports her politician husband by faking Indigenous roots, these women spit on their own reduction and invent new ways to survive, telling their stories in bold, unapologetic voices. At once social critique and black comedy, Reservoir Bitches is a raucous debut from one of Mexico’s most thrilling new writers.]]> 160 Dahlia de la Cerda 1761385992 Iskra 4 4.12 2019
author: Dahlia de la Cerda
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/14
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves:
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]]> 69704909
Nobody has a “normal�� family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly...something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep.

Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.

When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.]]> 289 Rachel Harrison 0593545850 Iskra 3 3.57 2023
author: Rachel Harrison
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/18
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves:
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]]> 61401417 She’s meant to be catching flights, not catching feelings��

Molly and Andrew are just trying to get home to Ireland for the holidays, when a freak snowstorm grounds their flight.

Nothing romantic has ever happened between them: they’re friends and that’s all. But once a year, for the last ten years, Molly has spent seven hours and fifteen minutes sitting next to Andrew on the last flight before Christmas from Chicago to Dublin, drinking terrible airplane wine and catching up on each other’s lives. In spite of all the ways the two friends are different, it’s the holiday tradition neither of them has ever wanted to give up.

Molly isn’t that bothered by Christmas, but—in yet another way they’re total opposites—Andrew is a full-on fanatic for the festive season and she knows how much getting back to Ireland means to him. So, instead of doing the sane thing and just celebrating the holidays together in America, she does the stupid thing. The irrational thing. She vows to get him home. And in time for his mam’s famous Christmas dinner.

The clock is ticking. But Molly always has a plan. And—as long as the highly-specific combination of taxis, planes, boats, and trains all run on time—it can’t possibly go wrong.

What she doesn’t know is that, as the snow falls over the city and over the heads of two friends who are sure they’re not meant to be together, the universe might just have a plan of its own��

A totally gorgeous and escapist friends-to-lovers festive romance with a swoon-worthy hero. Perfect for fans of Sophie Kinsella, Mhairi Macfarlane, and Christina Lauren.]]> 354 Catherine Walsh 1803145455 Iskra 0 to-read 4.01 2022
author: Catherine Walsh
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> 55782299 A bestselling, prizewinning novel of obsession and psychological intrigue about two enigmatic unmarried women, one of whom manipulates the other from afar, by one of Japan's most acclaimed young writers

Almost every day, the Woman in the Purple Skirt buys a single cream bun and goes to the park, where she sits on a bench to eat it as the local children taunt her. She is observed at all times by the undetected narrator, the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan. From a distance the Woman in the Purple Skirt looks like a schoolgirl, but there are age spots on her face, and her hair is dry and stiff. Like the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan, she is single, she lives in a small, run-down apartment, and she is short on money. The Woman in the Yellow Cardigan lures her to a job where she herself works, as a hotel housekeeper; soon the Woman in the Purple Skirt is having an affair with the boss. Unfortunately, no one knows or cares about the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan. That's the difference between her and the Woman in the Purple Skirt.

Studiously deadpan, highly original, and unsettling, The Woman in the Purple Skirt explores the dynamics of envy, the mechanisms of power in the workplace, and the vulnerability of unmarried women in a taut, voyeuristic narrative about the sometimes desperate desire to be seen.]]> 224 Natsuko Imamura 014313602X Iskra 0 3.28 2019
author: Natsuko Imamura
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves:
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]]> 57414066
Meet Olly’s nana, Ivy. It takes more than clean dentures, brandy, and bingo night to keep this one happy! Nana Ivy lives in Newhaven Crescent, where most of the other residents are past their expiry date and all kinds of batshit crazy, the kind of place where you hang your sanity up at the door.

Being the matriarchal type, Ivy cares for the other residents as though they were kin, so of course, it’s of enormous concern when their veins begin to blacken and they start shedding skin, not to mention the glistening things crawling out of their hair.

They’re pushing their luck, and Nana Ivy knows it.

Did I mention she has a dark secret?

Young Olly doesn’t know what to make of it when he comes to visit, but he’s about to find out there’s more to his nana than cough drops and slippers. Oh yes, he’s in for a long night.]]> 120 Mark Towse Iskra 0 to-read 3.76 2021
author: Mark Towse
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 78627220 A sweet sapphic romance takes a deadly dark turn in this sharp-as-a-knife novella from the New York Times bestselling author.

Rosemary meets Ash at the farmers�� market. Ash—precise, pretty, and practically perfect—sells bars of soap in delicate pastel colors, sprinkle-spackled cupcakes stacked on scalloped stands, beeswax candles, jelly jars of honey, and glossy green plants. Ro has never felt this way about another woman; with Ash, she wants to be her and have her in equal measure. But as her obsession with Ash consumes her, she may find she’s not the one doing the devouring…]]> 203 Delilah S. Dawson Iskra 2 2.5⭐️ 3.82 2023
author: Delilah S. Dawson
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves:
review:
2.5⭐️
]]> 33806294 198 María Luisa Bombal Iskra 0 to-read 3.93 1938
author: María Luisa Bombal
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1938
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 38787
As one enters Juan Rulfo's legendary novel, one follows a dusty road to a town of death. Time shifts from one consciousness to another in a hypnotic flow of dreams, desires, and memories, a world of ghosts dominated by the figure of Pedro Páramo - lover, overlord, murderer.

Rulfo's extraordinary mix of sensory images, violent passions, and unfathomable mysteries has been a profound influence on a whole generation of Latin American writers, including Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Gabriel García Márquez. To read Pedro Páramo today is as overwhelming an experience as when it was first published in Mexico back in 1955.]]> 124 Juan Rulfo 0802133908 Iskra 0 4.06 1955
author: Juan Rulfo
name: Iskra
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1955
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/27
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves:
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]]> 203164421 Psychological horror meets cyber noir in this delicious one-sitting read �� a haunted house story in which the haunting is by AI.

Henry is a brilliant engineer who, after untold hours spent in his home lab, has achieved the breakthrough of his career �� he’s created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He calls the half-formed robot William.

No one knows about William. Henry’s agoraphobia keeps him inside the house, and his fixation on his project keeps him up in the attic, away from everyone, including his pregnant wife, Lily.

When Lily’s coworkers show up, wanting to finally meet Henry and see the new house �� the smartest of smart homes �� Henry decides to introduce them to William, and things go from strange to much worse. Soon Henry and Lily discover the security upgrades intended to keep danger out of the house are even better at locking it in.]]> 224 Mason Coile 0593719603 Iskra 0 to-read 3.52 2024
author: Mason Coile
name: Iskra
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: to-read
review:

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