en-US Sun, 23 Mar 2025 20:46:39 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 43263520
In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive.

Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life—a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear. It’s not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.

With sharp prose and gritty realism, The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between.]]> 416 Kim Liggett 1250145449 K Reads 0 to-read 4.11 2019
author: Kim Liggett
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60811826 Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.


As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.


Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.]]> 184 Jacqueline Harpman 1945492600 K Reads 0 to-read 4.12 1995
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59361829
When a man is murdered and his daughter disappears, forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven must decide if Maya Kirk is running, hiding, or a hostage. Cyrus understands how killers think better than anyone; after all, he's a survivor.

Evie is a troubled teenager with an incredible gift: she knows when someone is lying. She is working at a Nottingham bar when a second woman goes missing, a nurse with links to Maya Kirk. Both women have a secret they have tried to hide, but the past is never history.

Evie witnesses the second abduction, glimpsing the driver, but only two people believe her.

One is Cyrus.

The other is the killer.]]> 410 Michael Robotham K Reads 4
File Under: Safe as Milk]]> 4.28 2022
author: Michael Robotham
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: audiobook, british, mental-health, murdery-murderers, mystery-suspense, series, trauma-violence
review:
This short novel checks all the boxes for a compelling mystery /police procedural. I like this author’s works a lot; his main characters are hardly one-dimensional, and I appreciate the particularly difficult characters. This story is told from the perspective of a forensic behavioral psychologist, so its Sherlock-y insights will satisfy those of us who may run to novels like these when we want to escape into British-style murders (lots of knives—no guns). Reliably twisty and overly complex for reasons only fans of this genre will appreciate (and never tire of).

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

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

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

Unfolding with the propulsive logic and intensity of youth, Either/Or is a landmark novel by one of our most brilliant writers. Hilarious, revelatory, and unforgettable, its gripping narrative will confront you with searching questions that persist long after the last page.]]> 368 Elif Batuman 0525557598 K Reads 5
I found the final *season* to be harrowing. I’m not sure if that was intended. The romantic in me had other ideas. The story ends like good short stories end: open. I’m not sure if she will write more about Selin, but I feel patient about it. I just don’t feel like the story ends there.

File Under: Winner of the Most English Major Book of the Year]]> 4.00 2022
author: Elif Batuman
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/08
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: 2022, audiobook, english-majors, literary-fiction, beware-of-philosophy, american-identity-stories, memoir, faves
review:
I can’t decide why I like Batuman’s books so much. The voice of the protagonist (in this and the previous book) is so bright and authentic; I feel like she is one of my own. One of my own what? Friends? Colleagues? Sisters? Writers? Grad students? Professors? Voices in my head? I think yes to all of those. I felt both smart and stupid as I blazed through Selin’s adventures. I laughed a lot, but my god this is no comedy. There is much pain and desire (both unresolved). I kept writing down titles of works I need to read (or reread—or reconsider). I think, even though she feels both American and not American, this is a familiar feeling for writers. The characters (or people) she references throughout the story all share that inside/outside ethnographic POV (Proust, Henry James� Portrait of a Lady, Rumi, Kierkegaard’s Seducer’s Diary??.. .). Batuman makes two allusions in the first few chapters about the role of art being a kind of (pleasurable?) manipulation into discovering darker truth. I think I quoted Dorothy Allison in my own MA thesis about this very phenomenon—and I do think Batuman is a fantastic seductress; I’m still processing the truth(s).

I found the final *season* to be harrowing. I’m not sure if that was intended. The romantic in me had other ideas. The story ends like good short stories end: open. I’m not sure if she will write more about Selin, but I feel patient about it. I just don’t feel like the story ends there.

File Under: Winner of the Most English Major Book of the Year
]]> 7331435
We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist’s couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then as a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We plunge into the hidden yearnings and disappointments of her uncle, an art historian stuck in a dead marriage, who travels to Naples to extract Sasha from the city’s demimonde and experiences an epiphany of his own while staring at a sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Museo Nazionale. We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life—divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house—and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco’s punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang—who thrived and who faltered—and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie’s catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou’s far-flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both—and escape the merciless progress of time—in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.]]> 274 Jennifer Egan 0307592839 K Reads 5
I wonder if this started as a collection of short stories that became a novel (?). The episodic structure didn’t always work for me—in fact, I got rather frustrated about leaving the characters I had been so invested in after a few chapters—but maybe that is part of its magical alchemy. Who am I to claim displeasure in the face of the Pulitzer??

Several people recommended this book to me—thank you, dears—it was delightful.

File Under: I Always Wanted to Live in NYC]]> 3.70 2010
author: Jennifer Egan
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2022/08/06
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: 2022, american-identity-stories, audiobook, english-majors, literary-fiction, faves
review:
Wow. This is one of those books I think all writers secretly wish they had written because it has all of the things that makes literary fiction so rich: vivid prose, emotional authenticity, momentum with no plot, and an ending that makes you want to start over again.

I wonder if this started as a collection of short stories that became a novel (?). The episodic structure didn’t always work for me—in fact, I got rather frustrated about leaving the characters I had been so invested in after a few chapters—but maybe that is part of its magical alchemy. Who am I to claim displeasure in the face of the Pulitzer??

Several people recommended this book to me—thank you, dears—it was delightful.

File Under: I Always Wanted to Live in NYC
]]> 18386
How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?

This short novel was an artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction.
A thoroughly absorbing, and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.]]> 86 Leo Tolstoy K Reads 5 ”It is finished!� said someone near him.
He heard these words and repeated them in his soul.
“Death is finished,� he said to himself. “It is no more!�
He drew in a breath, stopped in the midst of a sigh, stretched out, and died.

I’m sure I cannot add anything profound to say about Tolstoy’s mastery, but I was struck by the last line of this story. Of course the last line only made its impact because of the arrangement of all the lines that came before it. Like a life. Maybe Tolstoy has given us all the final last line, and the text is asking us to reconsider what lines can be written before we get to the inevitable, same last one?

I grew up in a house with a mom dying of cancer for several years, and I recognized Ivan’s anger and hope—his sense of entitlement and lack of reflection—but from my child’s mind’s eye. I recognized the transformation from immaturity to maturity in Ivan Ilych as well.

The omniscient narrator helped create a portrait that creates a kind of depth that requires patience to see. It includes the ruffling of his wife’s skirts, pettiness, envy, and raw vulnerability. The rich flash of reflection afforded to a man who was incapable of reflection for most of his life. Maybe he is luckier than the ones who never quite get there.

File Under: Life, Death, & Other Light Topics]]> 4.12 1886
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1886
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/31
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: 2023, english-majors, international-writers, literary-fiction, short-er-stories, teacher-books, faves
review:
”It is finished!� said someone near him.
He heard these words and repeated them in his soul.
“Death is finished,� he said to himself. “It is no more!�
He drew in a breath, stopped in the midst of a sigh, stretched out, and died.

I’m sure I cannot add anything profound to say about Tolstoy’s mastery, but I was struck by the last line of this story. Of course the last line only made its impact because of the arrangement of all the lines that came before it. Like a life. Maybe Tolstoy has given us all the final last line, and the text is asking us to reconsider what lines can be written before we get to the inevitable, same last one?

I grew up in a house with a mom dying of cancer for several years, and I recognized Ivan’s anger and hope—his sense of entitlement and lack of reflection—but from my child’s mind’s eye. I recognized the transformation from immaturity to maturity in Ivan Ilych as well.

The omniscient narrator helped create a portrait that creates a kind of depth that requires patience to see. It includes the ruffling of his wife’s skirts, pettiness, envy, and raw vulnerability. The rich flash of reflection afforded to a man who was incapable of reflection for most of his life. Maybe he is luckier than the ones who never quite get there.

File Under: Life, Death, & Other Light Topics
]]> 211025439
“In the fall of 1980, when I was fourteen, a friend of my parents named Naomi Shah fell in love with me. She was thirty-six, a mother of two, and married to a wealthy man. Like so many things that happened to me that year, it didn’t seem strange at the time.�

Griffin Hurt is in over his head. Between his role as Peter Proton on the hit TV show The Nuclear Family and the pressure of high school at New York's elite Boyd Prep—along with the increasingly compromising demands of his wrestling coach—he's teetering on the edge of collapse.

Then comes Naomi Shah, twenty-two years Griffin’s senior. Unwilling to lay his burdens on his shrink—whom he shares with his father, mother, and younger brother, Oren—Griffin soon finds himself in the back of Naomi’s Mercedes sedan, again and again, confessing all to the one person who might do him the most harm.

Less a bildungsroman than a story of miseducation, Playworld is a novel of epic proportions, bursting with laughter and heartache. Adam Ross immerses us in the life of Griffin and his loving (yet disintegrating) family while seeming to evoke the entirety of Manhattan and the ethos of an era—with Jimmy Carter on his way out and a B-list celebrity named Ronald Reagan on his way in. Surrounded by adults who embody the age’s excesses—and who seem to care little about what their children are up to—Griffin is left to himself to find the line between youth and maturity, dependence and love, acting and truly grappling with life.]]> 528 Adam Ross 0385351291 K Reads 5
There are all kinds of memes out there that try to make light of what it was like to grow up in a generation whose parents famously left us to parent ourselves and get home “before the street lights came on� without bothering them too much in-between. At times, while reading, I found myself feeling nostalgic for the freedom and independence that kind of parenting style afforded us (or, as a parent myself (now), how freeing it might have been to be less entrenched in the claustrophobic parenting style we adopted when raising our own). I liked the story’s resistance of nostalgia, even though its set-design is littered with surprisingly wonderful ephemera (Charlie perfume, Members Only Jackets,—InTelevision!). But nostalgia is just memory without the pain, right? Playworld obliterates any “good old days� tropes (thank God). It seduces us into taking a peek backstage and punctuates scenes with the unfettered pain that often accompany actions in verboten spaces. I, for one, felt validated by the discomfort that never gets airtime—especially in the coming-of-age genre epic.

Ross� book is populated with characters who emulate the complications that arise when the power dynamics of order are less defined by expectations by positions of authority (parent/child; teacher/student, coach/player; older/younger sibling; doctor/patient; president/constituent) while raising uncomfortable questions about power itself through the experiences of people who endured the fallout from switching positions. I was particularly moved by his portrayals of vulnerability; his characters regularly defied tired gender tropes of strength and weakness. Are you strong because you endure pain without bothering your parents? What does it mean for a father to rely on his children to pay his family’s rent? Doesn’t every young man secretly lust over a teacher, a friend’s mom, a mother’s friend? A disciplined athlete follows directions from his coach, but what if that coach manipulates his position for his own weaknesses? Shouldn’t a young man’s masculinity be elevated to hero level if he achieves these fantasy positions so early in his life? I loved the story’s resistance to easy answers to all of these questions. And though it took a long time to write, somehow the timing of its publication seems perfect. The prose is downright gorgeous, and the imagery hits all of the senses: music (operatic to jingles), scent (the inside of a rubber suit to L’air du Temps), sight (his description of sailors� eel-ing vomit will stay with me), touch (too many to list—the scary & the sensual), and taste—really—hunger. The denial and gorging of food left me breathless (and hungry).

This is such a big book. I’m still trying to process it. I started reading the hard copy, but after hearing the author read, I bought the audiobook and listened. I loved the way Ross read it and marveled at his capacity to capture the intense and quiet moments with perfect tension/tenor. I know it is semi-autobiographical and often wondered what parts were difficult to read out loud; which parts may have felt righteous. I was genuinely sad when it ended, and I hope he writes a sequel—with a request that it comes out a bit sooner than Playworld did!]]> 3.80 2025
author: Adam Ross
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/21
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: american-identity-stories, audiobook, dark-academia, english-majors, family-drama, faves, historical-fiction, literary-fiction, memoir, mental-health, non-fiction
review:
Wow. A Gen X Must-Read!!

There are all kinds of memes out there that try to make light of what it was like to grow up in a generation whose parents famously left us to parent ourselves and get home “before the street lights came on� without bothering them too much in-between. At times, while reading, I found myself feeling nostalgic for the freedom and independence that kind of parenting style afforded us (or, as a parent myself (now), how freeing it might have been to be less entrenched in the claustrophobic parenting style we adopted when raising our own). I liked the story’s resistance of nostalgia, even though its set-design is littered with surprisingly wonderful ephemera (Charlie perfume, Members Only Jackets,—InTelevision!). But nostalgia is just memory without the pain, right? Playworld obliterates any “good old days� tropes (thank God). It seduces us into taking a peek backstage and punctuates scenes with the unfettered pain that often accompany actions in verboten spaces. I, for one, felt validated by the discomfort that never gets airtime—especially in the coming-of-age genre epic.

Ross� book is populated with characters who emulate the complications that arise when the power dynamics of order are less defined by expectations by positions of authority (parent/child; teacher/student, coach/player; older/younger sibling; doctor/patient; president/constituent) while raising uncomfortable questions about power itself through the experiences of people who endured the fallout from switching positions. I was particularly moved by his portrayals of vulnerability; his characters regularly defied tired gender tropes of strength and weakness. Are you strong because you endure pain without bothering your parents? What does it mean for a father to rely on his children to pay his family’s rent? Doesn’t every young man secretly lust over a teacher, a friend’s mom, a mother’s friend? A disciplined athlete follows directions from his coach, but what if that coach manipulates his position for his own weaknesses? Shouldn’t a young man’s masculinity be elevated to hero level if he achieves these fantasy positions so early in his life? I loved the story’s resistance to easy answers to all of these questions. And though it took a long time to write, somehow the timing of its publication seems perfect. The prose is downright gorgeous, and the imagery hits all of the senses: music (operatic to jingles), scent (the inside of a rubber suit to L’air du Temps), sight (his description of sailors� eel-ing vomit will stay with me), touch (too many to list—the scary & the sensual), and taste—really—hunger. The denial and gorging of food left me breathless (and hungry).

This is such a big book. I’m still trying to process it. I started reading the hard copy, but after hearing the author read, I bought the audiobook and listened. I loved the way Ross read it and marveled at his capacity to capture the intense and quiet moments with perfect tension/tenor. I know it is semi-autobiographical and often wondered what parts were difficult to read out loud; which parts may have felt righteous. I was genuinely sad when it ended, and I hope he writes a sequel—with a request that it comes out a bit sooner than Playworld did!
]]> 201750794
They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Tables, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.

But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords are laying siege to Camelot, and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.]]> 673 Lev Grossman 0735224048 K Reads 0 3.94 2024
author: Lev Grossman
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: currently-reading, a-bit-o-magic, audiobook, british, fantasy, mythology, shameless-escape
review:

]]> 61392876
Three years ago, the original Mrs. Westmore suffered an unfortunate accident—and hasn’t uttered a sound since. Not a physician, psychologist, or world-renown specialist has been able to elicit so much as a word from the silent woman � until now.

On an ordinary Tuesday while Wells was away—despite instructions to never disturb the fragile woman—Jade visited her isolated predecessor bearing a peace offering: a bouquet of white lilies. Only she wasn’t expecting Sylvie to have something for her as well: a slip of torn notebook paper with a single word scrawled in shaky black ink.

That word? Run.]]> 285 Minka Kent K Reads 0 currently-reading 3.67 2022
author: Minka Kent
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 50176250 What would you do to remember? What would you give to forget?

When Tess Porter agrees to pick up her boyfriend’s college pal at the airport on a snowy December night, she has no idea she’s about to embark on the most dangerous ride of her life.

Two days later, the 17-year-old wakes up in a hospital with broken bones, unable to remember how she got there. Her parents are acting strange, and neither James, her boyfriend, nor her best friend, Izzy, has visited.

As she struggles to physically recover, Tess wrestles with haunting questions: What happened? Will her memory ever return? And what if she’s better off not recalling any of it?]]> 366 Liz Alterman 1950502384 K Reads 2
File Under: “Virgin Good Girl� Should be Banned � (even from supposed mysteries). ]]> 3.80 2021
author: Liz Alterman
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves:
review:
Oof. I think I’m too old for this book’s POV. This one’s “mystery� was just too easy to guess. I found the romance cloying, too-perfect, and sickly sweet. The protagonist’s perspective was supposed to be “quirky� (I think), but she was empty; nothing at stake. The bias against the mother character is hilariously teen-girl POV. Skipped most of end. No surprises. DNR

File Under: “Virgin Good Girl� Should be Banned � (even from supposed mysteries).
]]> 197379323
Noah is no stranger to loss or to violence, but these days, he’s more interested in helping people develop the skills to defend themselves than seeking out fights of his own. When Flynn enters his life, desperate to find out what really happened to her sister, a friendship sparks, and Noah finds himself agreeing to help her. To do so, he’ll need to infiltrate Willa’s cultish collective at the fireground.

In this new Original from the number one internationally best-selling author of The Ruin and The Murder Rule, Dervla McTiernan, Flynn and Noah must reckon with their pasts and fight to find the answers they seek before Kaiya’s trail burns out.

Please note: this audio contains strong language, distressing situations and descriptions of violence that some listeners may find upsetting. Discretion is advised.]]> Dervla McTiernan K Reads 4
File Under: I, too, am leery of law enforcement officers]]> 3.64
author: Dervla McTiernan
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.64
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves:
review:
I love this author. 4 stars because I wanted it to be longer (lol), and the “savior of the abused woman� thing is one of my least favorite tropes. BUT—if DM is writing it, I will read it. I liked the intersecting storylines.

File Under: I, too, am leery of law enforcement officers
]]> 221118391 Every grave has a story ... The much-anticipated new novel in the Cormac Reilly series, from the no.1 bestselling author of The Ruin and What Happened to Nina.

For years the boglands of Northern Europe have given up bodies of the long-deceased. Bodies that are thousands of years old, uncannily preserved. Bodies with strange injuries that suggest ritual torture and human sacrifice.

When a corpse is found in a bog in Galway, Cormac Reilly assumes the find is historical. But closer examination reveals a more recent story. The dead man is Thaddeus Grey, a local secondary school principal who disappeared two years prior.

There's nothing in Grey's past that would explain why he was murdered, or why his body was mutilated in a ritual manner. At first, progress on the case is frustratingly slow and Cormac struggles to keep his mind on the job. His ex-girlfriend, Emma Sweeney, is in trouble, and she's reached out to him for help - Emma's new husband has gone missing in Paris, and the French police are refusing to open an investigation into his disappearance.

Cormac is sure that he has found Grey's killer, and is within hours of an arrest, when another mutilated body is discovered on the other side of the country. Two days later, a third body is found. Press attention is intense. Is there a serial killer at work in Ireland? Has Cormac been on the wrong trail? And if so, can he find the murderer before they strike again?]]> 336 Dervla McTiernan 1460718070 K Reads 0 to-read 4.38
author: Dervla McTiernan
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60726718
In this new novella from the number one internationally best-selling author of The Sisters and The Murder Rule, Dervla McTiernan, a mother and son fighting to prove her innocence are reunited with an estranged friend—a detective who may hold the key to her freedom—as they’re forced to put their differences aside to uncover the shocking truth behind the crime.

When Clara Coleman is taken into custody, her teenage son, Sebastien, wastes no time before calling Simon Miller: an estranged family friend and detective in their old hometown of Hartford, Connecticut. Clara’s been arrested for the murder of Rachel Stapleton, a wealthy housewife and prominent figure in Lavender Valley, their well-to-do New Jersey suburb. But she swears she did not commit the crime.

Simon knows that Clara is not capable of murder and will do anything he can to prove her innocence—he’s felt indebted to the Coleman family since her husband, Will, Simon’s best friend, passed away years before. He arrives in Lavender Valley and hits the ground running on the case. With time, details surrounding the crime as well as the Colemans� family history are revealed, unravelling the complex web of cause and effect that will finally bring the truth to light.

Please note: this audio contains strong language, distressing situations and descriptions of violence that some listeners may find upsetting. Discretion is advised. ]]> 4 Dervla McTiernan K Reads 0 to-read 3.25 2022
author: Dervla McTiernan
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: to-read
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 K Reads 0 to-read 3.89 2024
author: Tony Tulathimutte
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett K Reads 0 to-read 4.47 2024
author: Percival Everett
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 139400713 Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others—in which a newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum.

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

Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.]]> 331 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 K Reads 0 to-read 4.22 2024
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: to-read
review:

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

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

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

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

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 454 Sally Rooney 0374602638 K Reads 0 to-read 3.88 2024
author: Sally Rooney
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199795387 Award-winning writer Kevin Barry’s first novel set in America, a savagely funny and achingly romantic tale of young lovers on the lam in 1890s Montana.

October 1891. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city of Butte, Montana is rich on copper mines and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers. Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and ballad-maker of the town, but also a doper, a drinker, and a fearsome degenerate. Just as he feels his life is heading nowhere fast, Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the extremely devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington. A thunderbolt love affair takes spark between Tom and Polly and they strike out west on a stolen horse, moving through the badlands of Montana and Idaho, and briefly an idyll of wild romance perfects itself. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunmen are soon in hot pursuit and closing in fast. With everything to lose and the safety and anonymity of San Francisco still a distant speck on their horizon, the choices they make will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

In this love story for the ages—lyrical, profane and propulsive—Kevin Barry has once again demonstrated himself to be a master stylist, an unrivalled humourist, and a true poet of the human heart.]]> 256 Kevin Barry 0385550596 K Reads 0 to-read 3.80 2024
author: Kevin Barry
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 16481836 160 Roberto Bolaño K Reads 3 4.19
author: Roberto Bolaño
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.19
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/23
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: 2022, audiobook, dark-academia, international-writers, literary-fiction, series
review:

]]> 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X K Reads 0 to-read 3.92 2023
author: Ann Patchett
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43888
Book 1: Wizard's First Rule

In the aftermath of the brutal murder of his father, a mysterious woman, Kahlan Amnell, appears in Richard Cypher's forest sanctuary seeking help. Richard’s world, his very beliefs, are shattered when ancient debts come due with thundering violence.

This is the beginning. One book. One Rule. Witness the birth of a legend.

Book 2: Stone of Tears

Kahlan has at last gained the one goal she had always thought was beyond her grasp ... love. Against all odds, the ancient bonds of secret oaths, and the dark talents of men long dead, Richard has won her heart.

Amid sudden and disastrous events, Richard's life is called due to satisfy those treacherous oaths. To save his life, Kahlan must forsake Richard's love and cast him into the chains of slavery, knowing there could be no sin worse than such a betrayal.

Book 3: Blood of the Fold

In a world as rich and real as our own, Richard Rahl and Kahlan Amnell stand against the ancient forces which besiege the New World--forces so terrible that when last they threatened, they could only be withstood by sealing off the Old World from whence they came. Now the barrier has been breached, and the New World is again beset by their evil power.]]> 2480 Terry Goodkind 0812575601 K Reads 0 to-read 4.29 1998
author: Terry Goodkind
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53513101
Adam Hartzler has always been an honorable immortal, but the fine line between right and wrong blurs when he is called to his fated mate. If he does not find and claim her soon, he will lose his soul and humanity, transforming into a vile predator controlled by insatiable bloodlust.

Adam’s salvation relies on one mortal’s surrender. Will he find her in time or get sentenced to a tortured eternity as a vampire? Time’s slipping away, and so is Adam’s control.

Passion and emotion collide in an explosive meeting of destined souls that begins with a ruthless betrayal when Adam unapologetically takes what is his.]]> 678 Lydia Michaels 0999523643 K Reads 1
File Under: Let the Sunlight Burn This One to Ash Instead

Merged review:

Yuck. DNF. I had no expectations (I like vampire lit—but I’m picky), but this narrative *seemed* like it had potential. First: bloodsucking butterflies (!) & an Amish farm used as a cover! But instead of humor or erotic tension it was just—well—unintentionally creepy? Alien? The framing, the timing, the ethnographic outsider thing just didn’t work with Amish Dracula. Anyway, I thought I’d put a note here in case you were curious.

File Under: Let the Sunlight Burn This One to Ash Instead]]> 3.85 2011
author: Lydia Michaels
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2011
rating: 1
read at: 2021/10/25
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves: vampires-and-other-biters, dnf, half-baked
review:
Yuck. DNF. I had no expectations (I like vampire lit—but I’m picky), but this narrative *seemed* like it had potential. First: bloodsucking butterflies (!) & an Amish farm used as a cover! But instead of humor or erotic tension it was just—well—unintentionally creepy? Alien? The framing, the timing, the ethnographic outsider thing just didn’t work with Amish Dracula. Anyway, I thought I’d put a note here in case you were curious.

File Under: Let the Sunlight Burn This One to Ash Instead

Merged review:

Yuck. DNF. I had no expectations (I like vampire lit—but I’m picky), but this narrative *seemed* like it had potential. First: bloodsucking butterflies (!) & an Amish farm used as a cover! But instead of humor or erotic tension it was just—well—unintentionally creepy? Alien? The framing, the timing, the ethnographic outsider thing just didn’t work with Amish Dracula. Anyway, I thought I’d put a note here in case you were curious.

File Under: Let the Sunlight Burn This One to Ash Instead
]]> 99300
Written from a feminist perspective, often focusing on the inferior status accorded to women by society, the tales include "turned," an ironic story with a startling twist, in which a husband seduces and impregnates a naĂŻve servant; "Cottagette," concerning the romance of a young artist and a man who's apparently too good to be true; "Mr. Peebles' Heart," a liberating tale of a fiftyish shopkeeper whose sister-in-law, a doctor, persuades him to take a solo trip to Europe, with revivifying results; "The Yellow Wallpaper"; and three other outstanding stories.

These charming tales are not only highly readable and full of humor and invention, but also offer ample food for thought about the social, economic, and personal relationship of men and women � and how they might be improved.

Collects:
—The Yellow Wallpaper
—Three Thanksgivings
—The Cottagette
—TłÜ°ů˛Ô±đ»ĺ
—Making a Change
—If I Were a Man
—Mr. Peebles' Heart]]> 129 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 0486298574 K Reads 0 4.05 1892
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1892
rating: 0
read at: 2010/12/11
date added: 2024/09/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 52266607 26 J.D. Salinger K Reads 0 to-read 4.13 1953
author: J.D. Salinger
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1953
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 204949489 Perfect for fans of Kiersten Modglin’s The Arrangement, The Widow on Dwyer Court is a sexy psychological thriller that will leave you breathless.

Thirty-six-year-old stay-at-home soccer mom Kate Burke is happily married to Matt Parsons, although their marriage looks very different behind closed doors. Kate is no longer interested in having sex with her husband. So, while they still love each other madly, they make an arrangement: Matt can have one-night stands with other women on work trips, but when he returns home, he has to tell Kate about them—every juicy detail.

Because Kate has a secret life writing erotic romance novels, and Matt’s adulterous affairs are her bread and butter.

The family equilibrium is upset, however, when Annie Meyers, an eccentric young widow, moves to town with her daughter. At first Kate is smitten with this wild, witty woman, who gives her a much-needed break from the other picture-perfect suburban moms, although she’s not sure how much of her secret life she’s willing to share with her new friend. But it turns out Annie has secrets too—big ones that could destroy all their lives.]]> Lisa Kusel K Reads 5
*More thoughtful review forthcoming, but today is official release and this message needs to be said ASAP]]> 3.71 2024
author: Lisa Kusel
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/16
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves:
review:
Fun, thrilling, funny, and entertaining as hell. Highly recommend.

*More thoughtful review forthcoming, but today is official release and this message needs to be said ASAP
]]> 29641 "A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses a moment of experience from which to look ahead..."

"This is a record of hate far more than of love," writes Maurice Bendrix in the opening passages of The End of the Affair, and it is a strange hate indeed that compels him to set down the retrospective account of his adulterous affair with Sarah Miles.

Now, a year after Sarah's death, Bendrix seeks to exorcise the persistence of his passion by retracing its course from obsessive love to love-hate. At first, he believes he hates Sarah and her husband, Henry. Yet as he delves deeper into his emotional outlook, Bendrix's hatred shifts to the God he feels has broken his life, but whose existence at last comes to recognize.]]> 160 Graham Greene K Reads 4
File Under: Love, Hate, & the Blurred Face of a Lost Object]]> 3.91 1951
author: Graham Greene
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1951
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/27
date added: 2024/06/27
shelves: british, english-majors, literary-fiction
review:
Was in the mood for a book with a cantankerous protagonist, and Greene’s aptly titled novel was perfect for my discontented heart. There was a bit more grappling with faith than I anticipated, but I sort of loved where the end ended. If you’re in the market for tortured characters who don’t get what they want, put this book on your list.

File Under: Love, Hate, & the Blurred Face of a Lost Object
]]> 58214328 A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life.

"Every cell in my body is filled with the code of generations of trauma, of death, of birth, of migration, of history that I cannot understand. . . . I want to have words for what my bones know."

By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD—a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years.

Both of Foo's parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she'd moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD.

In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don't move on from trauma—but you can learn to move with it.

Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body—and examines one woman's ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.]]> 352 Stephanie Foo 0593238109 K Reads 5 4.50 2022
author: Stephanie Foo
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/22
date added: 2024/06/22
shelves: american-identity-stories, audiobook, memoir, mental-health, non-fiction, trauma-violence
review:
I found this book a bit triggering, so it took me awhile to get through her harrowing accounts of child abuse and neglect, but the fourth part of the book was a great balm. I knew next to nothing about C-PTSD, and Foo’s account was edifying. Her vulnerability and unswerving honesty kept me engaged. A powerful piece of work.
]]> 55423086 A string of suicides. A community in terror. And a chilling conspiracy only DI Amy Winter can crack.

A wave of apparent suicides hits a string of seaside resorts, but when a police officer is named as the latest to die, DI Amy Winter suspects there may be more than mere coincidence to these tragic deaths. But what dark motive could cause someone to throw themselves into the cold depths of the North Sea?

Someone in the community knows more than they are letting on, but Amy’s questions are met with resistance. A group of mysterious teenagers might hold the key, but why are they so afraid to talk? Meanwhile, after the release from prison of her serial killer mother, Amy is fighting her own demons.

In her toughest investigation yet, Amy must confront her dark past if she is to put an end to the carnage. What secret is so terrible that it’s worth killing a police officer for? Amy needs to find the answer, before the sea washes up any more bodies.]]> 329 Caroline Mitchell 1542023408 K Reads 4
File Under: A Good Police Procedural ]]> 4.45 2021
author: Caroline Mitchell
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/22
date added: 2024/06/22
shelves: audiobook, british, murdery-murderers, mystery-suspense, series, shameless-escape, trauma-violence
review:
I’ve had a hard time finishing books lately, but this one was perfectly paced. Nothing too gruesome or gory. I enjoyed the chapters between “Mo� and her psychologist (the most chilling part of the book, really). And because it is British, guns are not part of the plot, which feels like a vacation all by itself.

File Under: A Good Police Procedural
]]> 55333962 From the celebrated poet, speaker, and educator comes a powerful blueprint for healing by building a home within yourself.

In her debut book of inspiration, poet Najwa Zebian shares her revolutionary concept of home--the place of safety where you can embrace your vulnerability and discover your self-worth. It's the place where your soul feels like it belongs, where you are loved for who you are. Too many of us build our homes in other people in the hope that they will deem us worthy of being welcomed inside, and then we feel abandoned and empty when those people leave. Building your home inside yourself--and never experiencing inner homelessness again--begins here.

In Welcome Home, Zebian shares her personal story for the first time, powerfully weaving memoir, poetry, and deeply resonant teachings into her storytelling, from leaving Lebanon at sixteen, to coming of age as a young Muslim woman in Canada, to building a new identity for herself as she learned to speak her truth. After the profound alienations she experienced, she learned to build a stable foundation inside herself, an identity independent of cultural expectations and the influence of others. The powerful metaphor of home provides a structure for personal transformation as she shows you how to construct the following rooms: Self-Love, Forgiveness, Compassion, Clarity, Surrender, and The Dream Garden. With practical tools and prompts for self-understanding, she shows you how to build each room in your house, which form a firm basis for your self-worth, sense of belonging, and happiness.]]> 336 Najwa Zebian 0593231759 K Reads 0 to-read 4.15 2021
author: Najwa Zebian
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60298773
My first evening in London feels like kismet when I bump into a charming, book-loving Englishman, and by the end of the night, he’s making me see stars. I’m floating when we make plans to meet again.

Then fate decides to pull a fast one on me.

Turns out, my smoldering new lover is my red-hot competition, and we’re vying for the same promotion at the elite auction house I crossed an ocean for.

If that’s not enough, the hottie and I are forced to work together on a brand new collection.

Every. Single. Tempting. Day.

What's an American woman in London to do?

Staying far, far away would be the safe choice, especially when I learn about his past and how it mirrors mine.

But I don’t always play it safe with my heart�

©2022 Lauren Blakely (P)2022 Audible Originals]]> 7 Lauren Blakely K Reads 4
I love the trend this book includes: the romantic interest gives the protagonist room to make choices that are important to her career without his manipulations (or “well-meaning� peer pressure). What?! Mature adults showing restraint and patience and good will? This might be the most sane pair of love birds I’ve encountered in decades. ]]> 3.43 2022
author: Lauren Blakely
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/03/15
date added: 2024/06/11
shelves: audiobook, british, modern-romance, shameless-escape, short-er-stories, throbbing-love-hammers, english-majors
review:
This is a sweetheart sweet-treat. It was a freebie on Audible, so I gave it a go. You must be in the mood to be charmed; if not, you’ll probably want to slap their kind faces alongside their polite and considerate interactions. I was in the mood for it, so I sighed with as much sap as a Maine Maple tree in spring. Sticky taps all around.

I love the trend this book includes: the romantic interest gives the protagonist room to make choices that are important to her career without his manipulations (or “well-meaning� peer pressure). What?! Mature adults showing restraint and patience and good will? This might be the most sane pair of love birds I’ve encountered in decades.
]]> 32871720 Swallow, Daughter, pull them in, those words that sit upon your lips. Lock them deep inside your soul, hide them �til they’ve time to grow. Close your mouth upon the power, curse not, cure not, �til the hour. You won’t speak and you won’t tell, you won’t call on heav’n or hell. You will learn and you will thrive. Silence, Daughter. Stay alive.

The day my mother was killed, she told my father I wouldn’t speak again, and she told him if I died, he would die too. Then she predicted the king would trade his soul and lose his son to the sky.

My father has a claim to the throne, and he is waiting in the shadows for all of my mother’s words to come to pass. He wants desperately to be king, and I just want to be free.

But freedom will require escape, and I’m a prisoner of my mother’s curse and my father’s greed. I can’t speak or make a sound, and I can’t wield a sword or beguile a king. In a land purged of enchantment, love might be the only magic left, and who could ever love . . . a bird?]]> 12 Amy Harmon K Reads 0 to-read 3.90 2016
author: Amy Harmon
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 197798168
A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.]]> 336 Miranda July 0593190262 K Reads 0 3.54 2024
author: Miranda July
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/08
shelves: currently-reading, american-identity-stories, audiobook, english-majors
review:

]]> 46890 Fanny Hill, whose husband buys her 19 pounds of dusty books for her birthday, and who once found herself poring over her roommate's 1974 Toyota Corolla manual because it was the only written material in the apartment that she had not read at least twice.

This witty collection of essays recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story. Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. As someone who played at blocks with her father's 22-volume set of Trollope ("My Ancestral Castles") and who only really considered herself married when she and her husband had merged collections ("Marrying Libraries"), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of inscriptions, the perverse pleasures of compulsive proof-reading, the allure of long words, and the satisfactions of reading out loud. There is even a foray into pure literary gluttony: Charles Lamb liked buttered muffin crumbs between the leaves, and Fadiman knows of more than one reader who literally consumes page corners. Perfectly balanced between humor and erudition, Ex Libris establishes Fadiman as one of our finest contemporary essayists.]]> 162 Anne Fadiman 0374527229 K Reads 0 4.11 1998
author: Anne Fadiman
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/07
shelves: currently-reading, american-identity-stories, audiobook, english-majors, memoir, non-fiction, short-er-stories
review:

]]> 198192670
A young couple find themselves haunted by a string of gruesome murders committed along an old deserted road in this terrifying new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Cold Cases.

July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them.

When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart, but take April and Eddie down with it all.]]> Simone St. James K Reads 0 to-read 3.57 2024
author: Simone St. James
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61102615 A fresh take on the story of Medusa, the original monstered woman.

They will fear you and flee you and call you a monster.

The only mortal in a family of gods, Medusa is the youngest of the Gorgon sisters. Unlike her siblings, Medusa grows older, experiences change, feels weakness. Her mortal lifespan gives her an urgency that her family will never know.

When the sea god Poseidon assaults Medusa in Athene's temple, the goddess is enraged. Furious by the violation of her sacred space, Athene takes revenge--on the young woman. Punished for Poseidon's actions, Medusa is forever transformed. Writhing snakes replace her hair and her gaze will turn any living creature to stone. Cursed with the power to destroy all she loves with one look, Medusa condemns herself to a life of solitude.

Until Perseus embarks upon a fateful quest to fetch the head of a Gorgon...

In Stone Blind, classicist and comedian Natalie Haynes turns our understanding of this legendary myth on its head, bringing empathy and nuance to one of the earliest stories in which a woman--injured by a powerful man--is blamed, punished, and monstered for the assault. Delving into the origins of this mythic tale, Haynes revitalizes and reconstructs Medusa's story with her passion and fierce wit, offering a timely retelling of this classic myth that speaks to us today.]]> 373 Natalie Haynes 0063258390 K Reads 4
I found myself reflecting about power dynamics among immortals, and what *rules* structured this universe that were accepted without question. The patriarchal view of sexual conquest is unquestioned—male sexual desire, no matter how deviant—rape, pursuit, assault, and general acceptance of women-as-prey (no matter if she was a goddess, nymph, queen, or mere mortal) is tolerated without any moral constraint. It’s chilling, really—the detached acceptance all around. And that wives sought to punish those women—the victims of supernatural predation—still feeds the man-centered ego that indicates *he* is loved or jealously guarded. Yes, “The Blacksmith� is the result of an affair of Hera’s, but there is so little evidence of love between any of them (and Aphrodite seems more of a symbol for lust/sex without attachment as well). It’s hard to see what is divine about that much power among supposed equals. Medusa’s tale is vicious and painful and brutally feminine, when it aligns with the values presented, I guess. It reminded me that cockroaches can still give birth after their heads have been severed. A woman’s power to create and destroy through her body (for better, for worse) is a powerful trope this author uses when she tales this tale from Medusa’s final perspective.

I wish she had gone into how Athena took her back from Perseus. What else did she see? ]]> 3.79 2022
author: Natalie Haynes
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/14
date added: 2024/05/14
shelves: audiobook, british, demons-and-gods, mythology
review:
I loved Madeline Miller’s Circe, and Hayne’s Medusa hits some of the same notes I loved in that feminist retelling (of course, Medusa’s tale is a bit more tragic). Somewhere in my memory of Medusa’s many retellings lives the creature-feature that was shown on Saturdays in the 80s (with Harry Hamlin lolz) and Burgess Meredith gasping “by the Gods!� —I don’t know if the author is even old enough to remember “Clash of the Titans,� but somehow the setting and various characters still worked with this story (which delighted me).

I found myself reflecting about power dynamics among immortals, and what *rules* structured this universe that were accepted without question. The patriarchal view of sexual conquest is unquestioned—male sexual desire, no matter how deviant—rape, pursuit, assault, and general acceptance of women-as-prey (no matter if she was a goddess, nymph, queen, or mere mortal) is tolerated without any moral constraint. It’s chilling, really—the detached acceptance all around. And that wives sought to punish those women—the victims of supernatural predation—still feeds the man-centered ego that indicates *he* is loved or jealously guarded. Yes, “The Blacksmith� is the result of an affair of Hera’s, but there is so little evidence of love between any of them (and Aphrodite seems more of a symbol for lust/sex without attachment as well). It’s hard to see what is divine about that much power among supposed equals. Medusa’s tale is vicious and painful and brutally feminine, when it aligns with the values presented, I guess. It reminded me that cockroaches can still give birth after their heads have been severed. A woman’s power to create and destroy through her body (for better, for worse) is a powerful trope this author uses when she tales this tale from Medusa’s final perspective.

I wish she had gone into how Athena took her back from Perseus. What else did she see?
]]> 13796970
Written with an unusual blend of rigor and clarity, The Singularity of Being combines incisive readings of Lacan with the best insights of recent Lacanian theory to reach beyond the dogmas of the field. Moving from what, thanks in part to Slavoj Žižek, has come to be known as the “ethics of the act� to a nuanced interpretation of Lacan’s “ethics of sublimation,� the book offers a sweeping overview of Lacan’s thought while making an original contribution to contemporary theory and ethics. Aimed at specialists and nonspecialists alike, the book manages to educate at the same time as it intervenes in current debates about subjectivity, agency, resistance, creativity, the self–other relationship, and effective political and ethical action. By focusing on the Lacanian real, Ruti honors the uniqueness of subjective experience without losing sight of the social and intersubjective components of human life.]]> 272 Mari Ruti 082324315X K Reads 0 4.29 2012
author: Mari Ruti
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/02
shelves: currently-reading, beware-of-philosophy, english-majors, non-fiction, teacher-books
review:

]]> 109961 Damage is the gripping story of a man’s desperate obsession and scandalous love affair. He is a man who appears to have everything: wealth, a beautiful wife and children, and a prestigious political career in Parliament. But his life lacks passion, and his aching emptiness drives him to an all-consuming, and ultimately catastrophic, relationship with his son’s fiancée.

Chilling and brilliant, Damage is a masterpiece—a daring look at the dangers of obsession and the depth of its shattering consequences.]]> 180 Josephine Hart K Reads 4
The longer review: I saw the movie with Jeremy Irons & Juliet Binoche when I was 18 or 19 and didn’t really understand the passion of it at all. Truly, it is a story meant for adults. At 50, on the cusp of my own disintegrating marriage, this looks a lot different.

The recent remake of this story on Netflix also misses the exquisite tension Hart builds with her writing; of course the Big Bad is going to be there, but Hart has several chapters that drag the readers through grief after it happens, and that is the part that made me really introspective. It’s extraordinary, actually. Cathartic. Makes me wish I were British, even. To navigate such a soul-destroying loss and its aftermath within the container of this story felt safe.

Everyone has a Big Bad in their past, right? Something that marks you for life with its damage? I know I do. I related to both Anna Barton and Will (aptly named) for different reasons, unrelated to their genders—but by their repression and expression of their needs. The way the author brings a kind of Jungian reading in at the end through Peter also gobsmacked me. The fruition, destruction, and healing that comes through grief—through tragedy—I haven’t read many stories like it.

I listened to the story, but I want to get my hands on a copy so I can quote it properly. Again—the writing is well-done, regardless of the macabre content. The erotic parts were bare; they were not meant to titillate. Almost factual. Most of the lusty scenes happened “off camera.� I think that’s why the adaptations felt almost alien to me (then and now)—it was a psychologically fulfilling experience that only made sense to their grief. Tailor made for two broken people. The taboo stuff didn’t bother me, though I can see how it might be very disturbing to many. Trigger warnings, y’all.

File Under: Damaged People Are Dangerous Because They Know They Can Survive]]> 3.60 1991
author: Josephine Hart
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1991
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/03
date added: 2024/02/03
shelves: audiobook, british, dark, family-drama, trauma-violence
review:
The short review: A very well-written Tragedy (with a Capital T!). And, yes, disturbing.

The longer review: I saw the movie with Jeremy Irons & Juliet Binoche when I was 18 or 19 and didn’t really understand the passion of it at all. Truly, it is a story meant for adults. At 50, on the cusp of my own disintegrating marriage, this looks a lot different.

The recent remake of this story on Netflix also misses the exquisite tension Hart builds with her writing; of course the Big Bad is going to be there, but Hart has several chapters that drag the readers through grief after it happens, and that is the part that made me really introspective. It’s extraordinary, actually. Cathartic. Makes me wish I were British, even. To navigate such a soul-destroying loss and its aftermath within the container of this story felt safe.

Everyone has a Big Bad in their past, right? Something that marks you for life with its damage? I know I do. I related to both Anna Barton and Will (aptly named) for different reasons, unrelated to their genders—but by their repression and expression of their needs. The way the author brings a kind of Jungian reading in at the end through Peter also gobsmacked me. The fruition, destruction, and healing that comes through grief—through tragedy—I haven’t read many stories like it.

I listened to the story, but I want to get my hands on a copy so I can quote it properly. Again—the writing is well-done, regardless of the macabre content. The erotic parts were bare; they were not meant to titillate. Almost factual. Most of the lusty scenes happened “off camera.� I think that’s why the adaptations felt almost alien to me (then and now)—it was a psychologically fulfilling experience that only made sense to their grief. Tailor made for two broken people. The taboo stuff didn’t bother me, though I can see how it might be very disturbing to many. Trigger warnings, y’all.

File Under: Damaged People Are Dangerous Because They Know They Can Survive
]]> 51204046
No one seems to take Naomi Pine's disappearance seriously, not even her father-with one exception. Hester Crimstein, a television criminal attorney, knows through her grandson that Naomi was relentlessly bullied at school. Hester asks Wilde-with whom she shares a tragic connection-to use his unique skills to help find Naomi.

Wilde can't ignore an outcast in trouble, but in order to find Naomi he must venture back into the community where he has never fit in, a place where the powerful are protected even when they harbor secrets that could destroy the lives of millions . . . secrets that Wilde must uncover before it's too late.]]> 371 Harlan Coben 1538748142 K Reads 2 half-baked, murdery-murderers
In fact, when I think about Wild, I can almost hear Pee-Wee Herman trying to explain why he’ll always be alone: “I’m a loner, Dotty, a rebel; you don’t want to get mixed up with a guy like me.� ]]> 3.84 2020
author: Harlan Coben
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2021/05/15
date added: 2023/12/13
shelves: half-baked, murdery-murderers
review:
Coben is a good writer who has a good ear for wit. Wild is an interesting character who makes some surprising choices, but the conventions of the genre were all upheld with a status quo predictability. The plot was ok. Too many cliches for me!

In fact, when I think about Wild, I can almost hear Pee-Wee Herman trying to explain why he’ll always be alone: “I’m a loner, Dotty, a rebel; you don’t want to get mixed up with a guy like me.�
]]> 25584923
Pure Act tells the story of poet Robert Lax, whose quest to live a true life as both an artist and a spiritual seeker inspired Thomas Merton, Jack Kerouac, William Maxwell and a host of other writers, artists and ordinary people. Known in the U.S. primarily as Merton's best friend and in Europe as a daringly original avant-garde poet, Lax left behind a promising New York writing career to travel with a circus, live among immigrants in post-war Marseilles and settle on a series of remote Greek islands where he learned and recorded the simple wisdom of the local people. Born a Jew, he became a Catholic and found the authentic community he sought in Greek Orthodox fishermen and sponge divers.

In his early life, as he alternated working at the New Yorker, writing screenplays in Hollywood and editing a Paris literary journal with studying philosophy, serving the poor in Harlem and living in a sanctuary high in the French Alps, Lax pursued an approach to life he called pure act--a way of living in the moment that was both spontaneous and practiced, God-inspired and self-chosen. By devoting himself to simplicity, poverty and prayer, he expanded his capacity for peace, joy and love while producing distinctive poetry of such stark beauty critics called him "one of America's greatest experimental poets" and "one of the new 'saints' of the avant-garde."

Written by a writer who met Lax in Greece when he was a young seeker himself and visited him regularly over fifteen years, Pure Act is an intimate look at an extraordinary but little-known life. Much more than just a biography, it's a tale of adventure, an exploration of friendship, an anthology of wisdom, and a testament to the liberating power of living an uncommon life.]]> 472 Michael N. McGregor 0823268012 K Reads 0 to-read 4.28 2015
author: Michael N. McGregor
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 63833664 After that night, nothing was ever the same again

Fifteen years ago, Sara Linton's life changed forever when a celebratory night out ended in a violent attack that tore her world apart. Since then, Sara has remade her life. A successful doctor, engaged to a man she loves, she has finally managed to leave the past behind her.

Until one evening, on call in the ER, everything changes. Sara battles to save a broken young woman who's been brutally attacked. But as the investigation progresses, led by GBI Special Agent Will Trent, it becomes clear that Dani Cooper's assault is uncannily linked to Sara's.

And it seems the past isn't going to stay buried forever.]]> 432 Karin Slaughter 0063157780 K Reads 0 4.15 2023
author: Karin Slaughter
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/21
shelves: currently-reading, 2023, audiobook, murdery-murderers, mystery-suspense, series, shameless-escape, trauma-violence
review:

]]> 65211810 For fans of Tana French, The Professor investigates the darkest corners of academic ambition, lies, and obsession.

On a spring afternoon in Athens, Georgia, Ethan Haddock is discovered in his apartment, dead, apparently by his own hand. His fatality immediately garners media not because his death reflects the troubling increase of depression and mental health issues among college students, but because the media has caught the whiff of a scandal. His professor, Dr. Verena Sobek, has been taken in for questioning, and there are rumors his death is the result of a bad romance. A Title IX investigation is opened, the professor is suspended, and social media crusaders and trolls alike are out for blood.

Marlitt Kaplan never investigated love affairs. A former detective turned research assistant, she misses the excitement of her old job, but most of all the friendship of her partner, Teddy. When her mother, a professor at the university and colleague of the accused professor, asks for her help, she finds herself in the impossible position of proving something didn't happen. Without the credentials to interview suspects or access phone records, she will have to get closer to a victim's life than ever before. And she quickly finds herself in his apartment, having dinner with his roommates, even sleeping in his bed. But is she too close to see the truth?

In her relentless pursuit to uncover the mystery behind Ethan’s death, Marlitt will be forced to confront the power structures ingrained in the classroom against the backdrop of a historic campus and an institution that sometimes fails its most vulnerable members.]]> 336 Lauren Nossett 1250845351 K Reads 0 to-read 3.42 2023
author: Lauren Nossett
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 101124639
The survivors, including key witness Pamela Schumacher, will be forever changed by this night. They have all become victims. But they tell their perspectives here, they remain masters of their stories. And they hunt the perpetrator on their own - against resistance from the justice system and the police; against public opinion, which idolizes the serial killer.]]> 384 Jessica Knoll 1501153226 K Reads 0 to-read 3.99 2023
author: Jessica Knoll
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43923951 Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.

Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.

But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.

With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone family, and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.]]> 310 Kiley Reid 052554190X K Reads 0 3.76 2019
author: Kiley Reid
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/21
shelves: currently-reading, 2023, american-identity-stories, audiobook, family-drama
review:

]]> 32489553
Detective Hannah Shor gets a case in the worst way possible � a friend calls her for help. Her twelve year old daughter has been kidnapped, and Hannah joins forces with the FBI to bring her home safely.

A ransom note gone viral

When the kidnappers post an image of their captive on Instagram, the situation spins out of control. Now, the whole world is watching. Rumors spread like wildfire, and online vigilantes add fuel to the raging flames.

As Hannah digs deeper, she unravels dark secrets from the family’s past. With the realization that the kidnapping is about more than just a ransom, Hannah needs to close in on the truth, before Abigail’s time runs out.]]> 312 Mike Omer K Reads 0 4.25 2016
author: Mike Omer
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/02
shelves: currently-reading, 2023, audiobook, kidnappers, murdery-murderers, mystery-suspense, series, shameless-escape, trauma-violence
review:

]]> 22362971 340 Jørn Lier Horst K Reads 0 4.27 2012
author: Jørn Lier Horst
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/02
shelves: currently-reading, 2023, international-writers, mystery-suspense
review:

]]> 56179372 Set in Colonial New England, Slewfoot is a tale of magic and mystery, of triumph and terror as only dark fantasist Brom can tell it.

A spirited young Englishwoman, Abitha, arrives at a Puritan colony betrothed to a stranger � only to become quickly widowed when her husband dies under mysterious circumstances. All alone in this pious and patriarchal society, Abitha fights for what little freedom she can grasp onto, while trying to stay true to herself and her past.

Enter Slewfoot, a powerful spirit of antiquity newly woken ... and trying to find his own role in the world. Healer or destroyer? Protector or predator? But as the shadows walk and villagers start dying, a new rumor is whispered: Witch.

Both Abitha and Slewfoot must swiftly decide who they are, and what they must do to survive in a world intent on hanging any who meddle in the dark arts.

Complete with 8 pages of Brom’s mesmerizing full-color artwork and chapter illustrations throughout, his latest book is sure to delight.]]> 305 Brom 125062200X K Reads 0 to-read 4.23 2021
author: Brom
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 28765598
It was no secret that journalist Jack Sparks had been researching the occult for his new book. No stranger to controversy, he'd already triggered a furious Twitter storm by mocking an exorcism he witnessed.

Then there was that video: forty seconds of chilling footage that Jack repeatedly claimed was not of his making, yet was posted from his own YouTube account.

Nobody knew what happened to Jack in the days that followed - until now.]]> 336 Jason Arnopp 0356507181 K Reads 0 to-read 3.83 2016
author: Jason Arnopp
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 117833 The first complete, annotated English Translation of Mikhail Bulgakov's comic masterpiece.

An audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate, The Master and Margarita is recognized as one of the essential classics of modern Russian literature. The novel's vision of Soviet life in the 1930s is so ferociously accurate that it could not be published during its author's lifetime and appeared only in a censored edition in the 1960s. Its truths are so enduring that its language has become part of the common Russian speech.

One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing literally to go to hell for him. What ensues is a novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth, a work whose nuances emerge for the first time in Diana Burgin's and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor's splendid English version.]]> 372 Mikhail Bulgakov 0679760806 K Reads 0 4.31 1967
author: Mikhail Bulgakov
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1967
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/25
shelves: currently-reading, 2023, beware-of-philosophy, dark-humor, english-majors, family-drama, international-writers, literary-fiction
review:

]]> 18373 Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the powerful, classic story about a man who receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.
Ěý
Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence � a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?]]> 311 Daniel Keyes 015603008X K Reads 0 4.19 1966
author: Daniel Keyes
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1966
rating: 0
read at: 1983/12/11
date added: 2023/09/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 28109997
Slow Days, Fast Company is a full-fledged and full-bodied evocation of a bygone Southern California that far exceeds its mash-note premise. In ten sun-baked, Santa Ana wind–swept sketches, Babitz re-creates a Los Angeles of movie stars distraught over their success, socialites on three-day drug binges holed up in the Chateau Marmont, soap-opera actors worried that tomorrow’s script will kill them off, Italian femmes fatales even more fatal than Babitz. And she even leaves LA now and then, spending an afternoon at the house of flawless Orange County suburbanites, a day among the grape pickers of the Central Valley, a weekend in Palm Springs where her dreams of romance fizzle and her only solace is Virginia Woolf. In the end it doesn’t matter if Babitz ever gets the guy—she seduces us.]]> 164 Eve Babitz 1681370085 K Reads 0 to-read 4.09 1977
author: Eve Babitz
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56074965 When you end up back home, there’s always baggage to unpack.

Rowan Darling, an adrift thirty-three-year-old, owns a record store on a run-down block in Philadelphia.Then news of his estranged brother’s death forces a return to Maybee, Illinois, the hometown Rowan left in the dust years ago. Rowan’s plan? Dart in for the funeral, support his mother, then disappear just as quickly. Things to avoid? Margot Beckett, his childhood sweetheart, and Skid Hall, his former best friend who stole Margot and married her. Together, they’ve become the town’s “it� couple.

Unfortunately, as Rowan’s flash visit spirals beyond his control, he must face everything he’s dodged for too long. The woman he can’t have. The memory of the brother he thought he knew. His own dwindling prospects back in Philadelphia.

But Rowan also starts to see things more clearly—what’s worth fighting for, what he can let go of, how long he can keep running, and if maybe Maybee can be home again.]]> 363 Andy Abramowitz 1542020158 K Reads 0 to-read 4.09 2021
author: Andy Abramowitz
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1372068 A gruesome abuse case has hit the newsstands, and one man has taken it upon himself to stand up for the children of Cape Town.

When the accused is found stabbed through the heart by spear, it's only the beginning of a string of bloody murders - and of a dangerous dilemma for detective Griessel. The detective is always just one step behind as someone slays the city's killers. But the paths of Griessel and the avenger collide when a young prostitute lures them both into a dangerous plan - and the two find themselves with a heart-stopping problem that no system of justice could ever make right.


Translated from the Afrikaans.]]> 409 Deon Meyer 0340822651 K Reads 0 to-read 3.98 2004
author: Deon Meyer
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 128893
A few weeks later, Sophia disappears and her body is found burned to ashes in a car. Who killed the opera singer? Her husband, her ex-lover, her best friend, her niece? They all seem to have a motive.

Vandoosler and the three evangelists set out to find the truth.]]> 292 Fred Vargas 0099469553 K Reads 0 to-read 4.00 1995
author: Fred Vargas
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58725025
What follows is a story of wonder and betrayal, from the gaslit streets of London, and the wooden theaters of Meiji-era Tokyo, to an eerie estate outside Edinburgh where other children with gifts--like Komako, a witch-child and twister of dust, and Ribs, a girl who cloaks herself in invisibility--are forced to combat the forces that threaten their safety. There, the world of the dead and the world of the living threaten to collide. With this new found family, Komako, Marlowe, Charlie, Ribs, and the rest of the Talents discover the truth about their abilities. And as secrets within the Institute unfurl, a new question arises: What truly defines a monster?

Riveting in its scope, exquisitely written, Ordinary Monsters presents a catastrophic vision of the Victorian world--and of the gifted, broken children who must save it.]]> 672 J.M. Miro 1250833663 K Reads 0 3.75 2022
author: J.M. Miro
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/02
shelves: currently-reading, 2023, audiobook, british, a-bit-o-magic, dark, historical-fiction, sci-fi, series
review:

]]> 2984286 36 William Faulkner 1563127881 K Reads 5
File Under: Norman Bates� Long Lost Auntie]]> 3.83 1930
author: William Faulkner
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1930
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/23
date added: 2023/08/23
shelves: 2023, dark, english-majors, literary-fiction, murdery-murderers, short-er-stories, teacher-books
review:
Y’all. I cannot rate all of Faulkner with five stars, but this dark little tale hits all the marks for me. Damn his ridiculously long sentences! Damn his first-person plural POV! Damn his town gossip! And damn damn damn the woman who liked a man who liked men. Faulkner, ya old coot! He got me. Or I got him (at last).

File Under: Norman Bates� Long Lost Auntie
]]> 54621096 447 Janice Hallett 1788165292 K Reads 4
The letter-form appeals to my researcher's heart, I guess. I think the writer was really skillful about how to uncover reliability through letters and actions (p.s. yeah, unreliable narrators abound!), and the plot was clever. Plus, I love the meta theatre aspect (drama...about drama?!). I think my nerds will also find this one delightful.

File Under: There's Always One Girl Who's DYING for a Part in the Play]]> 3.83 2021
author: Janice Hallett
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/09
date added: 2023/08/09
shelves: mystery-suspense, 2023, international-writers, mental-health
review:
Well, I meant to review this awhile ago. I don't have a category for the "epistolary" novel, but this one qualifies (though it is through e-mails, not letters). Btw: if you are an audible book listener, this is a terrible one to listen to because they read all of the repetitive details about senders/dates, etc. over and over. I finally finished this one via digital book because it drove me bananas. But I digress!

The letter-form appeals to my researcher's heart, I guess. I think the writer was really skillful about how to uncover reliability through letters and actions (p.s. yeah, unreliable narrators abound!), and the plot was clever. Plus, I love the meta theatre aspect (drama...about drama?!). I think my nerds will also find this one delightful.

File Under: There's Always One Girl Who's DYING for a Part in the Play
]]> 6220

From the Trade Paperback edition.]]> 305 Sigrid Undset 0141180412 K Reads 0 to-read 4.09 1920
author: Sigrid Undset
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1920
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54777446 Endlessly inventive, intimate, and provocative, this memoir-in-essays is a celebration of the strange and exquisite state of falling in love, whether with a painting or a person, that interweaves incisive commentary on modern life, feminism, art and sex with the author's own experiences of obsession, heartbreak, and past trauma.

Like a song that feels written just for you, Larissa Pham's debut work of nonfiction captures the imagination and refuses to let go.

Pop Song is a book about love and about falling in love—with a place, or a painting, or a person—and the joy and terror inherent in the experience of that love. Plumbing the well of culture for clues and patterns about love and loss—from Agnes Martin's abstract paintings to James Turrell's transcendent light works, and Anne Carson's Eros the Bittersweet to Frank Ocean's Blonde—Pham writes of her youthful attempts to find meaning in travel, sex, drugs, and art, before sensing that she might need to turn her gaze upon herself.

Pop Song is also a book about distances, near and far. As she travels from Taos, New Mexico, to Shanghai, China and beyond, Pham meditates on the miles we are willing to cover to get away from ourselves, or those who hurt us, and the impossible gaps that can exist between two people sharing a bed.

Pop Song is a book about all the routes by which we might escape our own needs before finally finding a way home. There is heartache in these pages, but Pham's electric ways of seeing create a perfectly fractured portrait of modern intimacy that is triumphant in both its vulnerability and restlessness.]]> 288 Larissa Pham 1646220269 K Reads 0 currently-reading 3.83 2021
author: Larissa Pham
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/31
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 8008928
When they refuse to back down, the cartel escalates its threat, kidnapping Ophelia, the boys' playmate and confidante. O's abduction sets off a dizzying array of ingenious negotiations and gripping plot twists that will captivate readers eager to learn the costs of freedom and the price of one amazing high.]]> 302 Don Winslow 1439183368 K Reads 0 to-read 3.84 2010
author: Don Winslow
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2432074
Black Flies is the story of paramedic Ollie Cross and his first year on the job in mid-�90s Harlem. It is a ground’s eye view of life on the the shootouts, the bad cops, the hopeless patients, the dark humor in bizarre circumstances, and one medic’s struggle to maintain his desire to help despite his growing callousness. It is the story of lives that hang in the balance, and of a single job with a misdiagnosed newborn that sends Cross and his partner into a life-changing struggle between good and evil.

“Although Black Flies is a novel, it contains more reflections of lived experience than some memoirs. . . . Reading this arresting, confrontational book is like reading Dispatches , Michael Herr’s indelible account of his years as a reporter in Vietnam.� � The New York Times Book Review]]> 184 Shannon Burke 1593761910 K Reads 5
It's a Heart of Darkness or Apocalypse Now journey without the jungles of foreign lands; instead, you are given a lens that explores a clash of American culture in its own NYC everyday war zone: social class, educational class, economic class, and the choices one makes about power. The driver is a medic with an ambulance crew in Harlem, and he has his own ambition and do-good intentions. The honest unraveling is harrowing, but the catharsis is the kind of gritty we all crave to experience when looking for the authentic "heroic" tale. I actually cried at the end (not a lot but--what?!).

File Under: Highly recommend to everyone. ]]> 3.82 2008
author: Shannon Burke
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/25
date added: 2023/07/25
shelves: 2023, english-majors, literary-fiction, short-er-stories, dark, faves
review:
Wow. This book is incredible. I don't even want to describe it in a practical way; it's just one of those books that grabs you on the first page and doesn't set you down until you hit the last page. I was rapt.

It's a Heart of Darkness or Apocalypse Now journey without the jungles of foreign lands; instead, you are given a lens that explores a clash of American culture in its own NYC everyday war zone: social class, educational class, economic class, and the choices one makes about power. The driver is a medic with an ambulance crew in Harlem, and he has his own ambition and do-good intentions. The honest unraveling is harrowing, but the catharsis is the kind of gritty we all crave to experience when looking for the authentic "heroic" tale. I actually cried at the end (not a lot but--what?!).

File Under: Highly recommend to everyone.
]]> 6006313 Security is Derek Taggart's game, and he plays it straight--no margin for error, no time to fool around. . .except with one hot little number who changes everything. He takes her home when she needs a ride--one she'll never forget. The problem is Derek can't forget her, a total about-face for a guy who keeps his enemies closer than his lovers. Then he finds out the sexy dynamo is Alyssa Miles, notorious party girl and darling of the gossip rags. It's time to walk away and never look back, which would be a hell of a lot easier if his agency didn't desperately need the high-profile gig her family's offering: a minor detail that consists mainly of Derek watching Alyssa 24/7. Keeping an eagle eye on every inch of Alyssa's nubile body isn't exactly a hardship--the problem is keeping his hands off and his brain on when things go dangerously wrong. . .]]> 360 Jami Alden 0758225474 K Reads 0 4.00 2009
author: Jami Alden
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/08
shelves: currently-reading, 2023, audiobook, modern-romance, shameless-escape, throbbing-love-hammers
review:

]]> 48464
"A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
"The River"
"The Life You Save May Be Your Own"
"A Stroke of Good Fortune"
"A Temple of the Holy Ghost"
"The Artificial Nigger"
"A Circle in the Fire"
"A Late Encounter with the Enemy"
"Good Country People"
"The Displaced Person"
©1955 Flannery O'Connor; 1954, 1953, 1948 by Flannery O'Connor; renewed 1983, 1981 by Regina O'Connor; renewed 1976 by Mrs. Edward F. O'Connor; (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.]]> 252 Flannery O'Connor 0151365040 K Reads 5 4.19 1955
author: Flannery O'Connor
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1955
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/01
date added: 2023/07/01
shelves: 2023, american-identity-stories, dark-humor, english-majors, family-drama, literary-fiction, short-er-stories, teacher-books
review:

]]> 529172 Chosen by John Updike as a Today Show Book Club Pick. Already an award-winning writer, ZZ Packer now shares with us her debut, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. Her impressive range and talent are abundantly evident: Packer dazzles with her command of language, surprising and delighting us with unexpected turns and indelible images, as she takes us into the lives of characters on the periphery, unsure of where they belong. We meet a Brownie troop of black girls who are confronted with a troop of white girls; a young man who goes with his father to the Million Man March and must decides where his allegiance lies; an international group of drifters in Japan, who are starving, unable to find work; a girl in a Baltimore ghetto who has dreams of the larger world she has seen only on the screens in the television store nearby, where the Lithuanian shopkeeper holds out hope for attaining his own American Dream.

With penetrating insight that belies her youth—she was only nineteen years old when Seventeen magazine printed her first published story—ZZ Packer helps us see the world with a clearer vision. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a striking performance—fresh, versatile, and captivating. It introduces us to an arresting and unforgettable new voice.

Brownies --
Every tongue shall confess --
Our Lady of Peace --
The ant of the self --
Drinking coffee elsewhere --
Speaking in tongues --
Geese --
Doris is coming]]> 265 ZZ Packer 1573223786 K Reads 5 3.88 2004
author: ZZ Packer
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/01
date added: 2023/07/01
shelves: literary-fiction, 2023, short-er-stories, teacher-books, english-majors
review:
Packer's characters are vibrant, sassy, likable, unlikable, and capable of learning through epiphany. Excellent writer.
]]> 6219656
“The Lottery� stands out as one of the most famous short stories in American literary history. Originally published in The New Yorker, the author immediately began receiving letters from readers who demanded an explanation of the story’s meaning. “The Lottery� has been adapted for stage, television, radio and film.
]]> 30 Shirley Jackson 1563127873 K Reads 5 4.08 1948
author: Shirley Jackson
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1948
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/01
date added: 2023/07/01
shelves: literary-fiction, mystery-suspense, 2023, english-majors, horror-thriller, short-er-stories, teacher-books
review:
This ain't about winning the powerball, y'all.
]]> 133518
The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.

Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing. The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.]]> 246 Tim O'Brien 0767902890 K Reads 5 4.14 1990
author: Tim O'Brien
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/01
date added: 2023/07/01
shelves: 2023, american-identity-stories, english-majors, faves, literary-fiction, non-fiction, short-er-stories, teacher-books, trauma-violence, war-stuff
review:
I love his writing. I love teaching it.
]]> 2267195 32 Kate Chopin 078915479X K Reads 5 4.08 1894
author: Kate Chopin
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1894
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/01
date added: 2023/07/01
shelves: english-majors, humor, literary-fiction, short-er-stories, teacher-books
review:
"Died from the joy that kills" seems like a good phrase for a gravestone, oui?
]]> 99306 348 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 0613501438 K Reads 5
File Under: Yellow Like Jaundice ]]> 3.92 2000
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/01
date added: 2023/07/01
shelves: literary-fiction, trauma-violence, american-identity-stories, 2023, english-majors, horror-thriller, mental-health, short-er-stories, teacher-books
review:
I'm pretty sure Netflix (or one of those streamers!) came out with a film of this short story within the last year or two, but (according to my students) it didn't quite capture the tension and horror as well as this classic tale does. Ok, "horror" might be a stretch by today's standards, but if you are sensitive to tales of captivity--this story needs to be on your list.

File Under: Yellow Like Jaundice
]]> 2260460
The story concerns a household in Allendale, California, in the aftermath of a nuclear war.]]> 30 Ray Bradbury 089598962X K Reads 5
File Under: Cold War Fears]]> 4.23 1950
author: Ray Bradbury
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1950
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/01
date added: 2023/07/01
shelves: 2023, apocalypse-ish, english-majors, sci-fi, short-er-stories, teacher-books, literary-fiction
review:
We are still a few years away from the setting Bradbury left us in this story (August of 2026!). I assigned it for the sci-fi genre unit in my fiction class this spring and was reminded about how very important setting can be in telling the entire story, and it was such a fun text to get students talking about modernity, domestic drudgery, and what makes an empty house so very very creepy.

File Under: Cold War Fears
]]> 18135913
Time.

That’s all I have now.

A small room, a photograph, and time.

They want me to trust them and confess my sins.

They told me they wouldn't judge me—they lied.

I thought we could convince the world that this wasn't a crime.

We were wrong.

Time doesn't stand still.

The clock keeps ticking, the world is unconvinced, and now�

Now he is gone.]]> 275 Ella Frank K Reads 5 Young teacher/the subject/of school girl fantasy�
�-“Don’t Stand So Close to Me,� by The Police (1980)

Oh, Sting! I loved that song long before I understood a word of it; I had a crush on Sting before I understood what a crush was, too. It is an apt metaphor to show what it feels like to be a pretty girl who has only the vaguest awareness of her perceived power before she is 18–and not just any power—maybe the peak of her sexual value in a patriarchal society that prizes young women’s bodies, innocence, inexperience, and virginity—all before she gets the chance to comprehend or experience what sex even is. It is an impossible, fleeting quality that disappears as quickly as a firework. Then what? She must face the rest of her life as a *less* valuable vessel that houses the prize, but her value goes down every year no matter what. As a former naive, smart, beautiful, and stupid girl, I can attest to living a lifetime of not quite understanding how the “powerful virgin� trope was supposed to play out in real life. How could I defend something I didn’t even know I possessed? Every time I hear about “dress codes� in public schools, I always pause to ask exactly who the codes are really for: other girls? Boys? School teachers & admin? The fathers in the pickup lines? The emergent answer is that girls learn from an early age that their bodies are distracting to others. They aren’t told why. They will get sent home for leggings or short shorts or spaghetti straps; boys don’t have such rules in place.

But I digress (per usual). This book depicts an entirely inappropriate relationship between a 17-year-old student and her 28-year-old high school teacher. It is suspenseful and cringey and made me think about social problems that go way beyond the pages of the book.

File Under: Sting Wrote the Song for the Demographic (or so he claims!) But he WAS a teacher, y'all....]]> 4.02 2014
author: Ella Frank
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/01
date added: 2023/07/01
shelves: 2023, audiobook, dark-academia, family-drama, mental-health, modern-romance, mystery-suspense, shameless-escape, throbbing-love-hammers
review:
Young teacher/the subject/of school girl fantasy�
�-“Don’t Stand So Close to Me,� by The Police (1980)

Oh, Sting! I loved that song long before I understood a word of it; I had a crush on Sting before I understood what a crush was, too. It is an apt metaphor to show what it feels like to be a pretty girl who has only the vaguest awareness of her perceived power before she is 18–and not just any power—maybe the peak of her sexual value in a patriarchal society that prizes young women’s bodies, innocence, inexperience, and virginity—all before she gets the chance to comprehend or experience what sex even is. It is an impossible, fleeting quality that disappears as quickly as a firework. Then what? She must face the rest of her life as a *less* valuable vessel that houses the prize, but her value goes down every year no matter what. As a former naive, smart, beautiful, and stupid girl, I can attest to living a lifetime of not quite understanding how the “powerful virgin� trope was supposed to play out in real life. How could I defend something I didn’t even know I possessed? Every time I hear about “dress codes� in public schools, I always pause to ask exactly who the codes are really for: other girls? Boys? School teachers & admin? The fathers in the pickup lines? The emergent answer is that girls learn from an early age that their bodies are distracting to others. They aren’t told why. They will get sent home for leggings or short shorts or spaghetti straps; boys don’t have such rules in place.

But I digress (per usual). This book depicts an entirely inappropriate relationship between a 17-year-old student and her 28-year-old high school teacher. It is suspenseful and cringey and made me think about social problems that go way beyond the pages of the book.

File Under: Sting Wrote the Song for the Demographic (or so he claims!) But he WAS a teacher, y'all....
]]> 16158558 342 Nora Roberts 0425259854 K Reads 2
I was into this story until. . .well, until the romance really started. And I actually like romance! But something about Boyle & the plucky American heroine—it just felt forced? Bland? Cliched and cringey? I don’t know. I would have preferred to have their sweaty groping happen off-screen, so to speak. Even their friends and family were like: “Jesus. Will ya just give us a break from it?�

Because I listened to this book, I don’t know if the author intended for the dialogue to be as dramatic as the actress interpreted it (and she was absolutely brilliant with accents!), but the drama felt so extra (as the kids say). She was too bright, too cheerful, too Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz—not vulnerable enough—and by the time she unleashes her ladybits, I found her downright cloying and inauthentic.

I’ve never read anything by Nora Roberts before; she had excellent reviews, so maybe I’ll revisit her earlier, celebrated works�(set somewhere without Celtic mysteries?). But this one, for me, just ended up slipping on a bar of Irish Spring and fell, face-first, into a bowl of Lucky Charms.

DNF at Chapter 13]]> 3.90 2013
author: Nora Roberts
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2023/06/08
date added: 2023/06/08
shelves: 2023, a-bit-o-magic, english-majors, fantasy, irish, mythology, vampires-and-other-biters, historical-romance, dnf, half-baked, shameless-escape, throbbing-love-hammers, yuck
review:
1.5 stars, DNF

I was into this story until. . .well, until the romance really started. And I actually like romance! But something about Boyle & the plucky American heroine—it just felt forced? Bland? Cliched and cringey? I don’t know. I would have preferred to have their sweaty groping happen off-screen, so to speak. Even their friends and family were like: “Jesus. Will ya just give us a break from it?�

Because I listened to this book, I don’t know if the author intended for the dialogue to be as dramatic as the actress interpreted it (and she was absolutely brilliant with accents!), but the drama felt so extra (as the kids say). She was too bright, too cheerful, too Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz—not vulnerable enough—and by the time she unleashes her ladybits, I found her downright cloying and inauthentic.

I’ve never read anything by Nora Roberts before; she had excellent reviews, so maybe I’ll revisit her earlier, celebrated works�(set somewhere without Celtic mysteries?). But this one, for me, just ended up slipping on a bar of Irish Spring and fell, face-first, into a bowl of Lucky Charms.

DNF at Chapter 13
]]> 58724626 From the award-winning author of The Twisted Ones comes a gripping and atmospheric retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Fall of the House of Usher."

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruravia.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.]]> 165 T. Kingfisher 1250830753 K Reads 0 3.86 2022
author: T. Kingfisher
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/05
shelves: 2022, audiobook, horror-thriller, literary-fiction, murdery-murderers, mystery-suspense, trauma-violence, short-er-stories, start-stop, to-read
review:

]]> 10917836
An uproarious, hard-boiled modern fable of corporate life, sex, and race in America, Helen DeWitt’s Lightning Rods brims with the satiric energy of Nathanael West and the philosophic import of an Aristophanic comedy of ideas. Her wild yarn is second cousin to the spirit of Mel Brooks and the hilarious reality-blurring of Being John Malkovich. Dewitt continues to take the novel into new realms of storytelling � as the timeliness of Lightning Rods crosses over into timelessness.]]> 273 Helen DeWitt 0811219437 K Reads 0 to-read 3.45 2011
author: Helen DeWitt
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60109530
Mia and Finn are busy turning a derelict house into their dream home when Mia unexpectedly falls pregnant. But just when they think the house is ready, Mia discovers a chilling message scored into a skirting board: I WILL SAVE THEM FROM THE ATTIC. Following the clue up into the eaves, the couple make a gruesome discovery: their dream home was once a house of horrors.

In the wake of their traumatic discovery, the baby arrives and Mia can’t shake her fixation with the monstrous crimes that happened right above them. Haunted by the terrible things she saw and desperate to find answers, her obsession pulls her ever further from her husband.

Secrecy shrouds the mystery of the attic, but when shards of a dark truth start to emerge, Mia realises the danger is terrifyingly present. She is prepared to do anything to protect her family—but is it already too late?]]> 380 John Marrs 1542017289 K Reads 0 to-read 4.08 2022
author: John Marrs
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61053829
But when the Granby School invites her back to teach a course, Bodie is inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent flaws. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? Is the real killer still out there? As she falls down the very rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid, Bodie begins to wonder if she wasn't as much of an outsider at Granby as she'd thought—if, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case.]]> 438 Rebecca Makkai 0593490142 K Reads 0 currently-reading 3.57 2023
author: Rebecca Makkai
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 34950852
The average song is three and a half minutes long; those three and a half minutes could lead to a slow blink, a glimpse of the past, or catapult the soul into heart-shattering nostalgia.

At the height of my career, I had the life I wanted, the life I’d always envisioned. I’d found my tempo, my rhythm. Then I received a phone call that left me off key.

You see, my favorite songs had a way of playing simultaneously. I was in love with one man’s beats and another’s lyrics. But when it came to the soundtrack of a life, how could anyone choose a favorite song? So, to erase any doubt, I ditched my first-class ticket and decided to take a drive, fixed on the rearview.

Two days.

One playlist.

And the long road home to the man who was waiting for me.]]> 412 Kate Stewart 1978098758 K Reads 5
This is a book full of passion. I didn’t resent the inevitable separations that happens between protagonists in their quest to get what they want—and I did not know how it was going to end. An entertaining escape.

File Under: Gen X Mixtape]]> 4.34 2017
author: Kate Stewart
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/22
date added: 2023/05/22
shelves: 2023, modern-romance, shameless-escape, throbbing-love-hammers
review:
This narrative is appealing for many reasons, not the least of which is that it scratches a universal itch about “the one who got away.� The frame of the story is set to music, as our nostalgic lives most certainly are, even if we aren’t musicians or music critics. There are certain songs that conjure time in ways other senses can’t. I think Stewart writes passionate characters who are motivated by desires that extend beyond just being in love.

This is a book full of passion. I didn’t resent the inevitable separations that happens between protagonists in their quest to get what they want—and I did not know how it was going to end. An entertaining escape.

File Under: Gen X Mixtape
]]> 61718053
They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.

Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends� hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week� in front of those who know you best?

A couple who broke up months ago make a pact to pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.]]> 400 Emily Henry 0593441273 K Reads 3
Ok: so, I genuinely loved Henry’s “Beach Read� (and I loved that the characters mentioned that book while visiting the bookstore in this book—META), and these two main characters had shades of those MCs, but lord I couldn’t stand the self-sacrificing competition between them by the end. ]]> 3.95 2023
author: Emily Henry
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/06
date added: 2023/05/06
shelves: 2023, modern-romance, shameless-escape
review:
2.5 stars. I know—ouch. But the emotional torture took its toll on my soul. Too much torture—not enough pleasure. And the maniacal drive of the friend group leader was just so � painful and dumb. The “air horn� app? Jfc. This kind of premise may work for friend groups in their early twenties—but ppl in their thirties? Just—no way.

Ok: so, I genuinely loved Henry’s “Beach Read� (and I loved that the characters mentioned that book while visiting the bookstore in this book—META), and these two main characters had shades of those MCs, but lord I couldn’t stand the self-sacrificing competition between them by the end.
]]> 62061356

When Ella hears of her father's death, the last thing she wants is to return to the childhood home where he subjected her to years of trauma. But motivated by revenge, she and partner Dan do just that.

At first, the memories of her past overwhelm her, but the move to Bittersweet Acres is more dangerous than Ella could ever have imagined.

Strange notes start to appear, Ella's behaviour becomes erratic, and she's sure that Dan is responsible for the bizarre events that threaten her mental and physical health.

He says he's trying to protect her, but nothing is as it seems.]]> 250 J.E. Rowney K Reads 0 to-read 3.03 2023
author: J.E. Rowney
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43615778
In the wake of the police shooting of a black teenager, Los Angeles is as tense as it’s been since the unrest of the early 1990s.ĚýProtests and vigils are being staged all over the city.ĚýIt’s in this dangerous tinderbox that two families must finally confront their pasts.

Grace Park lives a sheltered existence: living at home with her Korean-immigrant parents, working at the family pharmacy, and trying her best to understand why her sister Miriam hasn’t spoken to their mother in years.ĚýThe chasm in her family is growing wider by the day and Grace is desperate for reconciliation, and frustrated by the feeling that her sister and parents are shielding her from the true cause of the falling out.

Shawn Matthews is dealing with a fractured family of his own.ĚýHis sister, Ava, was murdered as a teenager back in 1991, and this new shooting is bringing up painful memories.ĚýPlus, his cousin Ray is just released from prison and needs to reconnect with their family after so many years away. While Shawn is trying his best to keep his demons at bay, he’s not sure Ray can do the same.

When another shocking crime hits LA, the Parks and the Matthewses collide in ways they never could have expected.ĚýAfter decades of loss, violence, and injustice, tensions come to a head and force a reckoning that could clear the air or lead to more violence.]]> 304 Steph Cha 0062868853 K Reads 0 to-read 4.08 2019
author: Steph Cha
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 38468956 From the New York Times–bestselling author of My Brilliant Friend, this novel of a deserted wife’s descent into despair—and rage—is “a masterpiece� (The Philadelphia Inquirer).The Days of Abandonment is the gripping story of an Italian woman’s experiences after being suddenly left by her husband after fifteen years of marriage. With two young children to care for, Olga finds it more and more difficult to do the things she used keep a spotless house, cook meals with creativity and passion, refrain from using obscenities. After running into her husband with his much-younger new lover in public, she cannot even refrain from assaulting him physically. In a “raging, torrential voice� (The New York Times), Olga conveys her journey from denial to devastating emptiness—and when she finds herself literally trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal. “Quick, furious, simultaneously steely and unhinged, and completely mesmerizing.� —The New York Times “Intelligent and darkly comic.� —Publishers Weekly “Remarkable, lucid, austerely honest.� —The New Yorker]]> 218 Elena Ferrante K Reads 0 to-read 3.84 2002
author: Elena Ferrante
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 33131867 Left too little.
I had nothing to lose...until him.

**

~Lana~

I didn't expect him.
I didn't want to fall in love.
But I can't let him go.

Logan Bennett makes the world a safer place.
He's brilliant.
He's a hero.
He locks away the sick and depraved.
But while he's saving lives, I'm taking them. Collecting the debts that are owed to me.

Ten years ago, they took from me. They left me for dead.
They should have made sure I stayed dead.

Now I'm taking from them.
One name at a time.

I've trained for too long.
I've been patient.
I can't stop now.

Revenge is best served cold...

They never see me coming, until I paint their walls red.

Logan doesn't know how they hurt me. He doesn't know about the screams they ignored. He doesn't know how twisted that town really is.

He just knows people are dying.
He doesn't know he's in love with their killer.

No one suspects a dead girl.
And Logan doesn't suspect the girl in his bed.

They're looking for a monster.
Not a girl who loves red.
Not a girl in love.

I'm a faceless nightmare.

At least until I tell them the story they've pretended never happened.

But in the end, will Logan choose them? Or will we watch them burn together?

**Graphic
**Adult language
**Some triggers could be too much for the easily disturbed reader
**Sexual content
**Fucked up moral compass; read at your own risk.]]> 132 S.T. Abby K Reads 5
This book was highly recommended by my psychological thrillers reading group, and it was as I suspected—told from the perspective of a horny, female serial killer. Besides Killing Eve, I haven’t read many thrillers from that particular POV. It’s refreshing (and disturbing). The chemistry between the killer and the FBI dude is great, and it reminds me of what my stepsister told me a long time ago (she is a detective sergeant on a police force at a big university): both ambitious (future) cops and criminals graduate with criminal justice degrees.

The book is paced well, and it is short (you’d never know it by my reading record here!), but it ends on a cliffhanger. I will definitely continue reading once finals are over.

File Under: Red Riding Hood Plays Wolf Instead]]> 4.21 2016
author: S.T. Abby
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/30
date added: 2023/04/30
shelves: 2022, dark-humor, horror-thriller, murdery-murderers, mystery-suspense, shameless-escape, trauma-violence, 2023, series, short-er-stories
review:
I didn’t realize I started this in November—well, it was just what I needed at 3 a.m. when I couldn’t sleep this week, and it was short, so it goes to show that it is *ok* to start a dozen books and keep them open for months; you will eventually finish them!

This book was highly recommended by my psychological thrillers reading group, and it was as I suspected—told from the perspective of a horny, female serial killer. Besides Killing Eve, I haven’t read many thrillers from that particular POV. It’s refreshing (and disturbing). The chemistry between the killer and the FBI dude is great, and it reminds me of what my stepsister told me a long time ago (she is a detective sergeant on a police force at a big university): both ambitious (future) cops and criminals graduate with criminal justice degrees.

The book is paced well, and it is short (you’d never know it by my reading record here!), but it ends on a cliffhanger. I will definitely continue reading once finals are over.

File Under: Red Riding Hood Plays Wolf Instead
]]> 75430911 The Rumpus, now revealed as Cheryl Strayed, author of the bestselling memoir Wild—is the person thousands turn to for advice.
Tiny Beautiful Things brings the best of Dear Sugar in one place and includes never-before-published columns and a new introduction by Steve Almond. ĚýRich with humor, insight, compassion—and absolute honesty—this book is a balm for everything life throws our way.]]> Cheryl Strayed 0449808270 K Reads 0 to-read 3.96 2012
author: Cheryl Strayed
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17225311 "Smart and biting" —New York Journal of Books

"Laced with dark, sometimes savage humor and juicy riffs on consumer culture and its twin obsessions, youth and beauty" �Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

Celeste Price is twenty-six years old, beautiful, smart, married to a handsome man with money, and starting a new job as a junior high school teacher in suburban Tampa. Yet she harbors a dark secret. She is driven by a singular sexual obsession—fourteen-year-old boys. As the school year begins, Celeste has chosen and seduced the naive Jack Patrick, a quiet, thoughtful boy in awe of his teacher. But when her lustful frenzy begins to spiral out of control, the insatiable Celeste bypasses each hurdle with swift thinking and shameless determination.

"Impeccably written, full of smart cultural observations, and no small amount of wit . . . A very bold book." —Daily Beast]]> 266 Alissa Nutting 0062280562 K Reads 0 to-read 3.36 2013
author: Alissa Nutting
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 102878 Bibliomancy, which won the World Fantasy Award in 2005) showcases a wildly inventive author at the height of her powers. Included in this collection are "The Least Trumps," in which a lonely women reaches out to the world through symbols, tattooing, and the Tarot, and "Pavane for a Prince of the Air," where neo-pagan rituals bring a recently departed soul to something very different than eternal rest. Written in the author's characteristic poetic prose and rich with the details of traumatic lives that are luminously transformed, Saffron and Brimstone is a worthy addition to an outstanding career.
* Elizabeth Hand's work has been selected as a Washington Post Notable Book and a New York Times Notable Book, and she has been awarded a Nebula Award and two World Fantasy Awards.]]> 240 Elizabeth Hand 1595820965 K Reads 0 to-read 3.89 2006
author: Elizabeth Hand
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 11438 Alternate-cover edition can be found here

In his second collection, Carver establishes his reputation as one of the most celebrated and beloved short-story writers in American literature—a haunting meditation on love, loss, and companionship, and finding one’s way through the dark.]]> 159 Raymond Carver 0679723056 K Reads 5 Birdman this semester, and it was incredibly fun to break them down and forage for ideology, values, misogyny, and discerning what is real from the not-real. Michael Keaton is so good in that film (inspired by Carter, playing his characters on stage). Highly recommend both.

File Under: You Officially Have Homework Now (you won’t be sorry!)]]> 4.11 1981
author: Raymond Carver
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1981
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/14
date added: 2023/04/14
shelves: 2023, american-identity-stories, beware-of-philosophy, beware-of-tears, english-majors, literary-fiction, short-er-stories, teacher-books
review:
Man, I love Carver. I love his poems too. I taught “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love� alongside Iñárritu’s Oscar-winning film Birdman this semester, and it was incredibly fun to break them down and forage for ideology, values, misogyny, and discerning what is real from the not-real. Michael Keaton is so good in that film (inspired by Carter, playing his characters on stage). Highly recommend both.

File Under: You Officially Have Homework Now (you won’t be sorry!)
]]> 485894 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 0553213695 / 9780553213690

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes."

With it's startling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny first opening, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who, transformed overnight into a giant beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. A harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and isolation, The Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most widely read and influential works of twentieth-century fiction. As W.H. Auden wrote, "Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man."]]> 201 Franz Kafka 0553213695 K Reads 5
This time, I was struck by the story’s central metaphor for illness, and the despair of knowing he was going to die without being loved. It crushed me. Death by apple. It is absurd and it is painfully real.

File Under: But He Loved Hanging From the Ceiling]]> 3.90 1915
author: Franz Kafka
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1915
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/14
date added: 2023/04/14
shelves: 2023, a-bit-o-magic, english-majors, family-drama, horror-thriller, literary-fiction, short-er-stories, teacher-books
review:
I’ve probably read this novella five or six times—not because I love it (I don’t), but because it is a rich text to study and discuss. It is a fascinating piece of literature, and I never fail to find new bits to ponder every time Gregor wakes up to find himself transformed.

This time, I was struck by the story’s central metaphor for illness, and the despair of knowing he was going to die without being loved. It crushed me. Death by apple. It is absurd and it is painfully real.

File Under: But He Loved Hanging From the Ceiling
]]> 26919 Continental Drift is a masterful novel of hope lost and gained, and a gripping, indelible story of fragile lives uprooted and transformed by injustice, disappointment, and the seductions and realities of the American dream.]]> 410 Russell Banks 0060854944 K Reads 0 to-read 3.88 1985
author: Russell Banks
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52656911
The bride � The plus one � The best man � The wedding planner � The bridesmaid � The body

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

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

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?]]> 319 Lucy Foley K Reads 4 3.82 2020
author: Lucy Foley
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 58151214 Blood Machines is the award-winning first novel in J.K. Gravier’s VBI trilogy. Writer’s Digest called Blood Machines “tight, tense and emotional,� “hard to put down,� and “the kind of read where you just need to strap yourself in and hold on for a tense, plot twisting story that has it all—horror, thriller, conspiracies and murder.�

Allison Drew is a smart and ambitious government agent whose career is stagnating. Then she is surprisingly assigned a high-profile case that could get her attention. But she isn’t prepared for the web of intrigue and corruption that confronts her when she tries to disentangle a wide-spread string of crimes involving too much murder and more than a little blood. As her investigation hits dead ends and questions proliferate, Allie is forced to face the possibility that the organization to which she has pledged herself may have a secret agenda. To survive, she needs to question everything she believes and revisit some demons of her own.

If you just want a good procedural, thriller or horror story, this novel is that. But if you're also dissatisfied with how bureaucracy works, feel undermined by increasingly illogical administration and are frustrated with your place in North America’s late-capitalist economy, you might identify with the challenges Allie faces as she tries to just do her job.]]> 266 J.K. Gravier 1775158926 K Reads 0 to-read 4.70
author: J.K. Gravier
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.70
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50001665 Everyone has secrets. They know yours...

In the 21st century information is king. But computers can be hacked, files can be broken into. So a unique government initiative has been borne. Five ordinary people have been selected to become the latest weapon in thwarting cyber terrorism. A revolutionary medical procedure has turned them into the ultimate secret keepers - the country's most secretive information has been taken offline and turned into genetic code implanted inside their heads.

Together, the five know every secret � the truth behind every Government lie, conspiracy theory and cover up. Only somebody has discovered who the secret keepers are. And one by one, they are being hunted down...

'One of the most exciting, original thriller writers out there. I never miss one of his book' � SIMON KERNICK]]> 433 John Marrs 1473572207 K Reads 0 3.69 2020
author: John Marrs
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/14
shelves: currently-reading, 2023, apocalypse-ish, audiobook, british, fantasy, mystery-suspense, sci-fi
review:

]]> 58784475 In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 K Reads 0 currently-reading 4.12 2022
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/03
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 59249735
What he discovers is an intimate connection to the natural world, a renewed impulse to understand his troubled family history, and a devotion to following the clues that point to the possibility of a whole life. Avoiding easy sentiment and cliché, White’s transformative language drives toward renewal.

A Year without Months introduces lively and memorable characters, as the author draws on a wide range of emotions to analyze everything, including himself.]]> 175 Charles Dodd White 1952271525 K Reads 0 4.58
author: Charles Dodd White
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.58
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/23
shelves: currently-reading, 2023, american-identity-stories, english-majors, memoir, non-fiction
review:

]]> 26196185
"Linguistically acrobatic [and] beautifully crafted. . . . [Jamaal May's] poems, exquisitely balanced by a sharp intelligence mixed with earnestness, makes his debut a marvel."�Publishers Weekly

Following Jamaal May's award-winning debut collection, Hum (2013), these new poems explore parallel landscapes of the poet's interior and an insidious American condition. Using dark humor that helps illuminate the pains of maturity and loss of imagination, May uncovers language like a skilled archaeologist—digging up bones of the past to expose what lies beneath the surface of the fragile human condition.

From: "Ask Where I've Been":

Ask about the tornado of fists.
The blows landed. If you can
watch it all—the spit and blood frozen
against snow, you can probably tell
I am the too-narrow road winding out
of a crooked city built of laughter,
abandon, feathers and drums.
Ask only if you can watch streetlights bow,
bridges arc, and power lines sag,
and still believe what matters most
is not where I bend
but where I am growing.

Jamaal May is a poet, editor, and filmmaker from Detroit, Michigan, where he taught poetry in public schools and worked as a freelance audio engineer and touring performer. His poetry won the 2013 Indiana Review Poetry Prize and appears in journals such as Poetry, Ploughshares, the Believer, NER, and the Kenyon Review. May has earned an MFA from Warren Wilson College as well as fellowships from Cave Canem and The Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University. He founded the Organic Weapon Arts Chapbook Press.
]]> 100 Jamaal May 1938584244 K Reads 5
So much gun violence.

I love teaching “The Gun Joke� because it is a great text to help students think through literary or rhetorical analysis—why do these words, in this order, evoke authenticity, truth, and emotion so well?

On February 13th, 2023, a gunman walked into Berkey Hall at Michigan State University and shot students. Then he walked over to the Student Union Building—the building I snuck into at two a.m. to email love-letters to my future husband in the mid-nineties—and shot more students. And then he fled. And then he shot himself on a road that runs behind my childhood home.

I read May’s poem to a group of people celebrating black and African American literature for Black History Month on my little campus this week. I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful to have a poem to speak for me—to illuminate what conversations, news reports, hearsay, weeping friends, and grieving communities cannot capture.

The Gun Joke
Jamaal May

It’s funny, she says, how many people are shocked
by this shooting and the next and next and the next.
She doesn’t mean funny as in funny, but funny
as in blood soup tastes funny when you stir in soil.
Stop me if you haven’t heard this one:
A young man/old man/teenage boy walks into
an office/theater/daycare/club and empties
a magazine into a crowd of strangers/family/students.
Ever hear the one about the shotgun? What do you call it
when a shotgun tests a liquor store’s bulletproof glass?
What’s the difference between a teenager
with hands in the air and a paper target charging at a cop?
What do you call it when a man sets his own house on fire,
takes up a sniper position, and waits for firefighters?
Stop me if you haven’t heard this one:
The first man to pull a gun on me said it was only a joke,
but never so much as smiled. The second said
this is definitely not a joke, and then his laughter crackled
through me like electrostatic—funny how that works.
When she says it’s funny she means funny
as in crazy and crazy as in this shouldn’t happen.
This shouldn’t happen as in something is off. Funny as in
off—as in, ever since a small caliber bullet chipped his spine,
your small friend walks kinda� funny and his smile is off.

File Under: Detroit Poets]]> 4.32 2016
author: Jamaal May
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/18
date added: 2023/02/18
shelves: american-identity-stories, english-majors, faves, poems
review:
I discovered May’s work when I was in grad school teaching my first poetry (literature) course. I selected his poem, “The Gun Joke� alongside Bob Hicok’s poem “Mirror� to try and get students to talk about art and politics and difficult conversations Americans struggle to have about gun violence.

So much gun violence.

I love teaching “The Gun Joke� because it is a great text to help students think through literary or rhetorical analysis—why do these words, in this order, evoke authenticity, truth, and emotion so well?

On February 13th, 2023, a gunman walked into Berkey Hall at Michigan State University and shot students. Then he walked over to the Student Union Building—the building I snuck into at two a.m. to email love-letters to my future husband in the mid-nineties—and shot more students. And then he fled. And then he shot himself on a road that runs behind my childhood home.

I read May’s poem to a group of people celebrating black and African American literature for Black History Month on my little campus this week. I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful to have a poem to speak for me—to illuminate what conversations, news reports, hearsay, weeping friends, and grieving communities cannot capture.

The Gun Joke
Jamaal May

It’s funny, she says, how many people are shocked
by this shooting and the next and next and the next.
She doesn’t mean funny as in funny, but funny
as in blood soup tastes funny when you stir in soil.
Stop me if you haven’t heard this one:
A young man/old man/teenage boy walks into
an office/theater/daycare/club and empties
a magazine into a crowd of strangers/family/students.
Ever hear the one about the shotgun? What do you call it
when a shotgun tests a liquor store’s bulletproof glass?
What’s the difference between a teenager
with hands in the air and a paper target charging at a cop?
What do you call it when a man sets his own house on fire,
takes up a sniper position, and waits for firefighters?
Stop me if you haven’t heard this one:
The first man to pull a gun on me said it was only a joke,
but never so much as smiled. The second said
this is definitely not a joke, and then his laughter crackled
through me like electrostatic—funny how that works.
When she says it’s funny she means funny
as in crazy and crazy as in this shouldn’t happen.
This shouldn’t happen as in something is off. Funny as in
off—as in, ever since a small caliber bullet chipped his spine,
your small friend walks kinda� funny and his smile is off.

File Under: Detroit Poets
]]> 89724 Shirley Jackson’s beloved gothic tale of a peculiar girl named Merricat and her family’s dark secret

Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate. This edition features a new introduction by Jonathan Lethem.]]> 152 Shirley Jackson 0143039970 K Reads 5
Edit: After reading another tale with a kind of gothic miasma fogging up the plot, I felt compelled to mention Jackson's first paragraph, which I think is a brilliant opener:

“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.�

I think I'm always hoping for some explanation to clear the doubts that nag my overly-active imagination when it comes to haunted houses and/or compelling forces that make people act in violent, terrifying ways, but familial relationships often undermine logic and rationality. It is certainly true for Mary Katherine and Constance. And lest I forget: fear is not rational either.

File Under: Houses Aren’t Haunted; People Are]]> 3.93 1962
author: Shirley Jackson
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1962
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/20
date added: 2023/02/18
shelves: 2022, family-drama, horror-thriller, literary-fiction, mystery-suspense, short-er-stories, trauma-violence, english-majors, mental-health, teacher-books
review:
Wow. This book is fascinating. Hard to label. I liked it much more than the Haunting of Hill House—possibly because I found this story aches with haunting. The plot does little to indicate the depth of its themes.

Edit: After reading another tale with a kind of gothic miasma fogging up the plot, I felt compelled to mention Jackson's first paragraph, which I think is a brilliant opener:

“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.�

I think I'm always hoping for some explanation to clear the doubts that nag my overly-active imagination when it comes to haunted houses and/or compelling forces that make people act in violent, terrifying ways, but familial relationships often undermine logic and rationality. It is certainly true for Mary Katherine and Constance. And lest I forget: fear is not rational either.

File Under: Houses Aren’t Haunted; People Are
]]> 5439 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations. In "A Temporary Matter," published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai and a nuanced depth that recalls Mavis Gallant.]]> 198 Jhumpa Lahiri 0618101365 K Reads 5 A Passage to India), and I can see why, though I think JL is doing much more than offering the ethnographic outsider’s perspective in two countries. I read that she loves Faulkner and all of his dark, Southern Gothic glory, which made me think about Flannery O’Connor—especially in “Interpreter of Maladies.� The hard-to-like family going on a journey to the heart of darkness? Yes! THERE ARE EVEN MONKEYS! Suffice to say, I will be teaching “A Good Man is Hard to Find� alongside this one next time.

File Under: Get Your Short Story Fix Here!]]> 4.18 1999
author: Jhumpa Lahiri
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1999
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/18
date added: 2023/02/18
shelves: 2023, english-majors, international-writers, literary-fiction, short-er-stories, teacher-books
review:
I’ve been meaning to read this collection for ages, and I taught the title story this semester for an Intro to Fiction class. She is an excellent storyteller. Darkly funny too. A number of critics liken her to Forster (A Passage to India), and I can see why, though I think JL is doing much more than offering the ethnographic outsider’s perspective in two countries. I read that she loves Faulkner and all of his dark, Southern Gothic glory, which made me think about Flannery O’Connor—especially in “Interpreter of Maladies.� The hard-to-like family going on a journey to the heart of darkness? Yes! THERE ARE EVEN MONKEYS! Suffice to say, I will be teaching “A Good Man is Hard to Find� alongside this one next time.

File Under: Get Your Short Story Fix Here!
]]> 40276534 The Thriller Award–winning series continues as Detective Jude Fontaine finds a decades-old connection to missing children that will freeze her blood.

A boy’s frozen body is found trapped in the ice of a Minneapolis lake. The horrifying discovery leads Detective Jude Fontaine and her partner, Uriah Ashby, to more bodies in the ice, all of twelve-year-old boys missing for twenty years.

Then, in one of the worst blizzards the city has ever seen, a four-year-old is abandoned on Jude’s doorstep. The child can’t tell them where he’s from, who his parents are, or how he got there. He doesn’t even know his name.

But in his unspoken language, Jude reads something horrifying—a connection to the dead boys. Now a four-year-old with no name may be the only key to a twenty-year-old, very cold case.]]> 300 Anne Frasier 1542090245 K Reads 5
They also feature a protagonist who is a trauma survivor, and I truly loved her voice and point of view. The crimes are horrific. The setting is its own kind of frozen hell (sorry, Minnesota, but I ain’t gonna live near you!), and the tension will wrap you tight as the temperatures drop and the blood drips and the big bad villain’s deeds continue to get cut from ice through each book.

Trigger warning for victims of child abuse (the whole list). I found it cathartic. Highly recommend.

File Under: Predators are Often People in Positions of Power (alliteration notwithstanding)]]> 4.51 2019
author: Anne Frasier
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/18
date added: 2023/02/18
shelves: 2023, mental-health, murdery-murderers, mystery-suspense, series, short-er-stories, trauma-violence, kidnappers
review:
Happy to discover Frasier’s trio of books through my “Psychological Thrillers� reading group recently. These books are excellent mysteries—great suspense—plenty of puzzles within puzzles.

They also feature a protagonist who is a trauma survivor, and I truly loved her voice and point of view. The crimes are horrific. The setting is its own kind of frozen hell (sorry, Minnesota, but I ain’t gonna live near you!), and the tension will wrap you tight as the temperatures drop and the blood drips and the big bad villain’s deeds continue to get cut from ice through each book.

Trigger warning for victims of child abuse (the whole list). I found it cathartic. Highly recommend.

File Under: Predators are Often People in Positions of Power (alliteration notwithstanding)
]]> 57827618
Since her brother took his life after WWI, Ruth Emeraldine has had one goal: to help those suffering from mental illness. Then she falls in love with charismatic Robert Apter—a brilliant doctor championing a radical new treatment, the lobotomy. Ruth believes in it as a miracle treatment and in Robert as its genius pioneer. But as her husband spirals into deluded megalomania, Ruth can’t ignore her growing suspicions. Robert is operating on patients recklessly, often with horrific results. And a vulnerable young mother, Margaret Baxter, is poised to be his next victim.

Margaret can barely get out of bed, let alone care for her infant. When Dr. Apter diagnoses her with the baby blues and proposes a lobotomy, she believes the procedure is her only hope. Only Ruth can save her—and scores of others—from the harrowing consequences of Robert’s ambitions.

Inspired by a shocking chapter in medical history, The Lobotomist’s Wife is a galvanizing novel of a woman fighting against the most grievous odds, of ego, and of the best intentions gone horribly awry.]]> 305 Samantha Greene Woodruff 1542036208 K Reads 2 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—if the last shot of Jack Nicholson’s character doesn’t haunt your impression of mental hospital “treatments,� you missed the point of the entire story. But I digress.

I knew I should have abandoned ship about halfway through, when it was apparent that “The Lobotomist’s Wife� (how telling that her name is withheld in the title!) is too good, especially as measured by 2022 standards. It’s a story about “the past� with cherry-picked feminist values plastered onto a perfectly charming, socially adept, unmarried, career-minded heiress who wants nothing else to do with the world but make it a better place! My daughter (in college) taught me about the current use of the slang term “Mary Sue� to define protagonists that annoy audiences *because* they are presented without flaws. It fits this protagonist so well. Like a poodle skirt paired with pearls.

So: the upside is that I am interested in reading about the history of lobotomies (and I wonder if the legend about them ultimately helped conservative Governors shut down state hospitals everywhere in the 1990s without providing other desperately needed social programs to help society cope with mental illnesses), and I wonder if the procedure evolved into something more useful/targeted, and if the scientist who came up with the procedure died in disgrace.

This book might be a satisfying read for people who love adverbs and predictable outcomes. They will silently, gratefully, willingly, lovingly, and adoringly embrace this “heroic� tale.

File Under: With God as Her Witness. . . .]]> 4.04 2022
author: Samantha Greene Woodruff
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2022/05/20
date added: 2023/02/10
shelves: 2022, historical-fiction, murdery-murderers, yuck, mental-health
review:
Well, this novel was built upon an excellent idea and an intriguing question: can mental illness be cut out of the brain? I grew up in a post-lobotomy era, where the procedure was often referred to as a punchline for a total loss of thinking. Like, Randall Patrick McMurphy’s ultimate end in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—if the last shot of Jack Nicholson’s character doesn’t haunt your impression of mental hospital “treatments,� you missed the point of the entire story. But I digress.

I knew I should have abandoned ship about halfway through, when it was apparent that “The Lobotomist’s Wife� (how telling that her name is withheld in the title!) is too good, especially as measured by 2022 standards. It’s a story about “the past� with cherry-picked feminist values plastered onto a perfectly charming, socially adept, unmarried, career-minded heiress who wants nothing else to do with the world but make it a better place! My daughter (in college) taught me about the current use of the slang term “Mary Sue� to define protagonists that annoy audiences *because* they are presented without flaws. It fits this protagonist so well. Like a poodle skirt paired with pearls.

So: the upside is that I am interested in reading about the history of lobotomies (and I wonder if the legend about them ultimately helped conservative Governors shut down state hospitals everywhere in the 1990s without providing other desperately needed social programs to help society cope with mental illnesses), and I wonder if the procedure evolved into something more useful/targeted, and if the scientist who came up with the procedure died in disgrace.

This book might be a satisfying read for people who love adverbs and predictable outcomes. They will silently, gratefully, willingly, lovingly, and adoringly embrace this “heroic� tale.

File Under: With God as Her Witness. . . .
]]> 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus K Reads 2
File Under: Unmarried Scientific Genius Gives Birth to Kid in 1960: A Fantasy]]> 4.23 2022
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2022/08/21
date added: 2023/02/06
shelves: 2022, american-identity-stories, audiobook, dark-academia, dnf, english-majors, humor, shameless-escape, yuck
review:
I really wanted to like this book, and it had some appealing components, but at 65% I couldn’t stand it anymore. I don’t know how to qualify the genre; it’s too anachronistic to be considered “historical,� and I was barely able to hold back my gag reflex from all of her self-sacrificing, “can-do� spirit in the science field as she was assaulted (physically and intellectually) but somehow detached from an emotional core. I don’t know. Maybe some people adore these kinds of fantasies, but I find them suffocating. A DNF for me, even though I did laugh a bit, and I appreciated the author’s idea for this story.

File Under: Unmarried Scientific Genius Gives Birth to Kid in 1960: A Fantasy
]]> 33590260
With Aelin captured, friends and allies are scattered to different fates. Some bonds will grow even deeper, while others will be severed forever. As destinies weave together at last, all must fight if Erilea is to have any hope of salvation.

Years in the making, Sarah J. Maas's New York Times bestselling Throne of Glass series draws to an explosive conclusion as Aelin fights to save herself―and the promise of a better world.]]> 980 Sarah J. Maas 1619636107 K Reads 0 to-read 4.63 2018
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 37662051 From a New York Times bestselling author comes the chilling follow-up to the Thriller Award winner The Body Reader.

Months after discovering the mastermind behind her own kidnapping, Detective Jude Fontaine is dealing with the past the only way she knows by returning to every dark corner of it. But it’s a new, escalating series of mass slayings that has become her latest obsession at Homicide.

At first, Jude and her partner, Detective Uriah Ashby, can see no pattern to the seemingly random methods, the crime scenes, or the victims—until they’re approached by a brilliantly compulsive math professor. He believes that the madman’s next move is not incalculable; in fact, it’s all part of a sequential and ingenious numerical riddle. His theory is adding up. The body count is rising.

But when the latest victim is found in Jude’s apartment, the puzzle comes with a personal twist that’s going to test the breaking point of her already-fragile state of mind. For all she knows, her number may be up.]]> 297 Anne Frasier 1503955990 K Reads 5 4.36 2018
author: Anne Frasier
name: K Reads
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/05
date added: 2023/02/05
shelves: 2023, murdery-murderers, mystery-suspense, shameless-escape, short-er-stories, trauma-violence
review:

]]> 58885776 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593336489.

Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead.

When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won’t give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.

For ten years, she’s run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it.

Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.

Romance is most certainly dead... but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.

A disillusioned millennial ghostwriter who, quite literally, has some ghosts of her own, has to find her way back home in this sparkling adult debut from national bestselling author Ashley Poston.]]> 368 Ashley Poston K Reads 1
File Under: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? ]]> 3.90 2022
author: Ashley Poston
name: K Reads
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2022
rating: 1
read at: 2023/02/04
date added: 2023/02/04
shelves: 2023, english-majors, humor, modern-romance, shameless-escape, young-adult-ish, dnf, family-drama, yuck
review:
DNF at 25%. While the author has a bright voice and I appreciate her cheeky sense of humor, I couldn’t stand the syrupy father/daughter stuff. Just, no thanks.

File Under: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
]]>