en-US Thu, 03 Jul 2025 07:24:42 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 145624511 In this hilariously savage, poignant novel by acclaimed author Katherine Min, a grieving daughter’s revenge on the man who caused her mother’s death sets off a series of unexpected reckonings.

On a cold, gloomy night, twenty-three-year-old Kyoko stands in the rain with a knife in her hoodie’s pocket. Her target is Daniel, who seduced Kyoko’s mother then callously dropped her, leading to her death. But tonight, there will be repercussions. Following the unsuspecting Daniel home, Kyoko manages to get a rash kidnapping plot off the ground . . . and then nothing goes as planned.

The Fetishist is the story of three people—Kyoko, a Japanese American punk-rock singer full of rage and grief; Daniel, a philandering violinist forced to confront the wreckage of his past; and Alma, the love of Daniel’s life, a Korean American cello prodigy long adored for her beauty, passion, and talent, but who spends her final days examining if she was ever, truly, loved.

An exuberant, provocative story that confronts race, complicity, visibility, and ideals of femininity, The Fetishist was written before the celebrated author’s untimely death in 2019. Startlingly prescient, as wise and powerful as it is utterly delightful, this novel cements Katherine Min’s legacy as a writer with a singular voice for our times.]]> 304 Katherine Min 0593713656 Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 3.65 2024
author: Katherine Min
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 222175440 A whipsmart, blazingly funny novel about heartbreak, unconventional love, and the way society could be, from National Book Award finalist Alejandro Varela

The narrator of Middle Spoon appears to be living the He has a doting husband, two precocious children, all the comforts of a quiet bourgeois life—and a sexy younger boyfriend to accompany him to farmers markets and cocktail parties. But when his boyfriend abruptly dumps him, he spirals into heartbreak for the first time and must confront a world still struggling to understand polyamorous relationships. Faced with the judgment of friends and the sting of rejection, he’s left to wonder if sharing a life with both his family and his lover could ever truly be possible.

With a big heart and just the right dose of the anxieties that define the modern era, Middle Spoon reveals the rawness of infatuation while reimagining what relationships, marriage, and family life can look like. Alejandro Varela boldly probes the corners of society in desperate need of change—from taboos around intimacy to the shortcomings of Oscar season, pop culture, and gluten-free food—offering a surprising perspective on the tangled dynamics that shape our lives. Equal parts heart-wrenching and uproariously funny, Middle Spoon is for anyone who has longed, nursed a broken heart, or grappled with love at its messiest.]]> 336 Alejandro Varela 0593835174 Thomas 0 to-read 4.00
author: Alejandro Varela
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222818695 At least she can tackle the tuition money with the seasonal gig she landed at her local donut shop. But when she finds out that her genderqueer nemesis, Mateo della Penna-Dominguez, will also be working behind the counter, Penny’s summer of mindless labor instantly vanishes before her eyes. Mateo is ridiculous and artsy, and their favorite kind of donut is Boston Crème (gross!). But the duo’s two-and-a-half-year feud will have to take a backseat when Delicious Donuts is threatened by a corporate takeover. 
 
As their small town faces big pressure, and anxiety threatens everything Penny’s worked for, there’s still one person who remains by her side. And though their taste in donuts is questionable, Mateo’s presence manages to keep Penny calm and focused. Could it be that Penny’s found the perfect, most infuriating person to change the world with? ]]> 368 Anita Kelly 1335012893 Thomas 0 to-read 4.50
author: Anita Kelly
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 224198827 A whipsmart, blazingly funny novel about heartbreak, unconventional love, and the way society could be, from National Book Award finalist Alejandro Varela

The narrator of Middle Spoon appears to be living the He has a doting husband, two precocious children, all the comforts of a quiet bourgeois life—and a sexy younger boyfriend to accompany him to farmers markets and cocktail parties. But when his boyfriend abruptly dumps him, he spirals into heartbreak for the first time and must confront a world still struggling to understand polyamorous relationships. Faced with the judgment of friends and the sting of rejection, he’s left to wonder if sharing a life with both his family and his lover could ever truly be possible.

With a big heart and just the right dose of the anxieties that define the modern era, Middle Spoon reveals the rawness of infatuation while reimagining what relationships, marriage, and family life can look like. Alejandro Varela boldly probes the corners of society in desperate need of change—from taboos around intimacy to the shortcomings of Oscar season, pop culture, and gluten-free food—offering a surprising perspective on the tangled dynamics that shape our lives. Equal parts heart-wrenching and uproariously funny, Middle Spoon is for anyone who has longed, nursed a broken heart, or grappled with love at its messiest.]]> 336 Alejandro Varela Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 4.00
author: Alejandro Varela
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/30
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 201200717
But as they enter their teens, Selasi begins to change, construction a wall around herself designed to keep everyone away. Soon, Akorfa no longer recognises her sullen, withdrawn cousin.

It will take many years for their paths to cross again. Their lives may have drifted in different directions, but Selasi and Akorfa haven’t forgotten the closeness they once shared. Akorfa now works in international development as she navigates the challenges of life as a Black woman and mother in the US; Selasi is a successful restaurateur running the hottest spot in Accra. And when an incident at her restaurant puts Selasi in danger, the women must overcome their differences and face the truth of what happened all those years ago, even if others would prefer them to remain silent.

Nightbloom is an irresistible story about female friendship, about the relationships that shape us and the people we never quite leave behind.]]> 368 Peace Adzo Medie 1643756303 Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 3.93 2023
author: Peace Adzo Medie
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/30
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 222725518 An Instant New York Times Bestseller

“Excellent and deeply reported.” —Tim Wu, The New York Times

“Startling and intensely researched . . . an essential account of how OpenAI and ChatGPT came to be and the catastrophic places they will likely take us.” —Vulture

“Hao’s reporting inside OpenAI is exceptional, and she’s persuasive in her argument that the public should focus less on A.I.’s putative ‘sentience’ and more on its implications for labor and the environment.” —Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New Yorker

From a brilliant longtime AI insider with intimate access to the world of Sam Altman's OpenAI from the beginning, an eye-opening account of arguably the most fateful tech arms race in history, reshaping the planet in real time, from the cockpit of the company that is driving the frenzy

When AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, the organization was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely mercantile, and potentially dangerous, forces. What could go wrong?

Over time, Hao began to wrestle ever more deeply with that question. Increasingly, she realized that the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that its vision of success requires an almost unprecedented amount of the “compute” power of high-end chips and the processing capacity to create massive large language models, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans “cleaning up” that data for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the usage of energy and water underlying it all. The truth is that we have entered a new and ominous age of only a small handful of globally scaled companies can even enter the field of play. At the head of the pack with its ChatGPT breakthrough, how would OpenAI resist such temptations?

Spoiler it didn’t. Armed with Microsoft’s billions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace, chased by a small group of the most valuable companies in human history—toward what end, not even they can define. All this time, Hao has maintained her deep sourcing within the company and the industry, and so she was in intimate contact with the story that shocked the entire tech industry—Altman’s sudden firing and triumphant return. The behind-the-scenes story of what happened, told here in full for the first time, is revelatory of who the people controlling this technology really are. But this isn’t just the story of a single company, however fascinating it is. The g forces pressing down on the people of OpenAI are deforming the judgment of everyone else too—as such forces do. Naked power finds the ideology to cloak itself; no one thinks they’re the bad guy. But in the meantime, as Hao shows through intrepid reporting on the ground around the world, the enormous wheels of extraction grind on. By drawing on the viewpoints of Silicon Valley engineers, Kenyan data laborers, and Chilean water activists, Hao presents the fullest picture of AI and its impact we’ve seen to date, alongside a trenchant analysis of where things are headed. An astonishing eyewitness view from both up in the command capsule of the new economy and down where the real suffering happens, Empire of AI pierces the veil of the industry defining our era.]]> 496 Karen Hao 0593657519 Thomas 0 nonfiction, currently-reading 4.15 2025
author: Karen Hao
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/30
shelves: nonfiction, currently-reading
review:

]]> 219520677 From the author of Oprah's Book Club pick and New York Times best seller Nightcrawling, here is an astonishing new novel about the joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers in a small town on the Florida panhandle.

Adela Woods is sixteen years old and pregnant. Her parents banish her from her comfortable upbringing in Indiana to her grandmother’s home in the small town of Padua Beach, Florida. When she arrives, Adela meets Emory, who brings her newborn to high school, determined to graduate despite the odds; Simone, mother of four-year-old twins, weighs her options when she finds herself pregnant again; and the rest of the Girls, a group of outcast young moms who raise their growing brood in the back of Simone’s red truck.

The town thinks the Girls have lost their way, but really they are finding it: looking for love, making and breaking friendships, and navigating the miracle of motherhood and the paradox of girlhood.

Full of heart and life and hope, set against the shifting sands of these friends’ secrets and betrayals, The Girls Who Grew Big confirms Leila Mottley’s promise and offers an explosive new perspective on what it means to be a young woman.]]> 352 Leila Mottley 0593801121 Thomas 4
I loved the theme of female friendship and empowerment in The Girls Who Grew Big. Mottley does an excellent job of portraying the complexity of friendship; you don’t just spend time with these people, you actually have to treat them well, and even then there are relational complexities to unpack. It was heartwarming to read how the girls supported one another when so many people, ranging from their parents to male partners, let them down.

I also appreciated how each of the characters developed throughout the course of the novel. For example, Mottley did a great job of making Adela so annoying, though also tenderly highlighting her honest and messy path in growing as a person. Adela, Simone, and Emory all had distinct voices and by the end of the book I felt attached to all three of them and was wishing them the best. Overall, a character-driven novel that subtly tackles the stereotypes and prejudices thrown at teen mothers. I think Mottley is still honing her craft as a writer though in the last 150 pages or so there were some passages that blew me away.]]> 4.21 2025
author: Leila Mottley
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/29
date added: 2025/06/29
shelves: adult-fiction, feminism, realistic-fiction, lgbtq
review:
Moving novel about a group of young, predominantly Black teenager mothers living in the small town of Padua Beach, Florida. I will say that for the 250 pages or so of this book I felt a bit bored by Mottley’s prose. I knew from the start the story was important but the pieces didn’t all come together for me until the last 150 pages or so, which really blew me away.

I loved the theme of female friendship and empowerment in The Girls Who Grew Big. Mottley does an excellent job of portraying the complexity of friendship; you don’t just spend time with these people, you actually have to treat them well, and even then there are relational complexities to unpack. It was heartwarming to read how the girls supported one another when so many people, ranging from their parents to male partners, let them down.

I also appreciated how each of the characters developed throughout the course of the novel. For example, Mottley did a great job of making Adela so annoying, though also tenderly highlighting her honest and messy path in growing as a person. Adela, Simone, and Emory all had distinct voices and by the end of the book I felt attached to all three of them and was wishing them the best. Overall, a character-driven novel that subtly tackles the stereotypes and prejudices thrown at teen mothers. I think Mottley is still honing her craft as a writer though in the last 150 pages or so there were some passages that blew me away.
]]> 221754305 From the critically-acclaimed author of Disorientation, a multi-genre story collection that explores the limits and possibilities of storytelling

A mail order bride from Taiwan is packed up in a cardboard box and sent via express shipping to California, where her much older husband awaits her. Two teenage girls meticulously plan how to kill and cook their downstairs neighbor. An American au pair moves to Paris to find herself, only to find her actual French doppelgänger. A father reunites with his estranged daughter in unusual circumstances: as a background actor on the set of her film. And in “Casualties of Art,” a writer’s affair with a married artist tests the line between fact and fiction, self-victimization and the victimization of others.

In these six singular stories and a novella that pivot from the terrible to the beautiful to the surreal, Elaine Hsieh Chou confronts the slipperiness of truth in storytelling. With razor-sharp precision and psychological acuity, she peels back the tales we tell ourselves to peer beneath them: at our treacherous desires, our self-deceptions and our capacity for cruelty, both to ourselves and each other. Expansive and provocative, Where Are You Really From is a visionary achievement.]]> 352 Elaine Hsieh Chou 0593298381 Thomas 0 to-read 4.50 2025
author: Elaine Hsieh Chou
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 209594872 The Last of Us meets The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in this standalone dystopian romance about survival, sacrifice, and love that risks everything.

By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society.

Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town where they scrape by running a taxidermy shop. Unbeknownst to Inesa, their cruel and indolent mother has accrued an enormous debt—enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus’s livestreamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb’s Gauntlet.

Melinoë is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. The product of neural reconditioning and physiological alteration, she is a living weapon, known for her cold brutality and deadly beauty. She has never failed to assassinate one of her marks.

When Inesa learns that her mother has offered her as a sacrifice, at first she despairs—the Gauntlet is always a bloodbath for the impoverished debtors. But she’s had years of practice surviving in the apocalyptic wastes, and with the help of her hunter brother, she might stand a chance of staying alive.

For Melinoë, this is a game she can’t afford to lose. Despite her reputation for mercilessness, she is haunted by painful flashbacks. After her last Gauntlet, where she broke down on livestream, she desperately needs redemption.

As Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything: Inesa wonders if there’s more to life than survival, while Mel wonders if she’s capable of more than killing.

And both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love.]]> 384 Ava Reid 0063211556 Thomas 3 fantasy, lgbtq, young-adult 3.74 2025
author: Ava Reid
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/27
date added: 2025/06/27
shelves: fantasy, lgbtq, young-adult
review:
Appreciated the sapphic representation in this novel! There’s a lot of well-worn fantasy grooves here, including enemies to lovers, commentaries on systems of power (e.g., capitalism, sexism), and even the good old “it’s cold here so let’s find warmth from each other’s bodies” schtick. While I can see the appeal of this book unfortunately the quality of the writing didn’t come through for me – the prose made the book feel rather flat and the emotional components a bit cheesy. Still, yay for lgbtq+ books during Pride Month.
]]> 215813968 In this dazzling debut, Stegner Fellow Jemimah Wei explores the formation and dissolution of family bonds in a story of ambition and sisterhood in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

Before Arin, Genevieve Yang was an only child. Living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat in working-class Bedok, Genevieve is saddled with an unexpected sibling when Arin appears, the shameful legacy of a grandfather long believed to be dead. As the two girls grow closer, they must navigate the intensity of life in a place where the urgent insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice. Knowing that failure is not an option, the sisters learn to depend entirely on one another as they spurn outside friendships, leisure, and any semblance of a social life in pursuit of academic perfection and passage to a better future.

When a stinging betrayal violently estranges Genevieve and Arin, Genevieve must weigh the value of ambition versus familial love, home versus the outside world, and allegiance to herself versus allegiance to the people who made her who she is.

In the story of a family and its contention with the roiling changes of our rapidly modernizing, winner-take-all world, The Original Daughter is a major literary debut, rife with emotional clarity and searing social insight.]]> 354 Jemimah Wei 1399625608 Thomas 3 The Original Daughter contains interesting themes about ambition and how we can push people away who love us. I wish I had liked it more, but unfortunately the writing and the repetitiveness of the plot dampened my enthusiasm about the novel. First, Jemimah Wei’s prose was alright, but I felt like it almost wasn’t strong or tight enough to achieve its intended effect – for example there were many passages where I thought, yes, Wei probably wants us to feel shock or sadness in this moment, though the writing was stilted enough that it took me out of the story.

I also found the plot repetitive, in the sense that it felt like each sister took turns hurting one another through a miscommunication, which then escalated to the point where they did not want to interact with one another anymore. This happened over and over so the impact of each conflict was lessened.

Overall, an okay novel but unfortunately not one I’d necessarily recommend.]]> 4.21 2025
author: Jemimah Wei
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/24
date added: 2025/06/24
shelves: adult-fiction, realistic-fiction
review:
The Original Daughter contains interesting themes about ambition and how we can push people away who love us. I wish I had liked it more, but unfortunately the writing and the repetitiveness of the plot dampened my enthusiasm about the novel. First, Jemimah Wei’s prose was alright, but I felt like it almost wasn’t strong or tight enough to achieve its intended effect – for example there were many passages where I thought, yes, Wei probably wants us to feel shock or sadness in this moment, though the writing was stilted enough that it took me out of the story.

I also found the plot repetitive, in the sense that it felt like each sister took turns hurting one another through a miscommunication, which then escalated to the point where they did not want to interact with one another anymore. This happened over and over so the impact of each conflict was lessened.

Overall, an okay novel but unfortunately not one I’d necessarily recommend.
]]> 216470372 Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can’t get rid of him.

When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.

However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school’s resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He’s determined to find out what happened and tie up some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave.]]> 368 Aiden Thomas 125079207X Thomas 0 to-read 4.80 2020
author: Aiden Thomas
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.80
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220435895 A special hardcover collector's edition of one of Ray Bradbury's most beloved collections—featuring printed endpapers and stained edges. The Martian Chronicles is a work of extraordinary imagination that evokes the wonder and folly of Earth's colonization of the fourth planet from the sun.

Mars was a distant shore, and the men spread upon it in waves... Each wave different, and each wave stronger.

In a much-celebrated literary career that spanned seven decades, Ray Bradbury produced an astonishing body of work: unforgettable novels, including Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes; essays, theatrical works, screenplays and teleplays; The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, The October Country, and numerous other superb short story collections. But of all the dazzling stars in the vast Bradbury universe, none shines more luminous than these masterful chronicles of Earth's settlement of the fourth world from the sun.

Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor—of crystal pillars and fossil seas—where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn—first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars ... and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

The Martian Chronicles is a classic work of twentieth-century literature whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time's passage. In connected, chronological stories, a true grandmaster once again enthralls, delights, and challenges us with his vision and his heart—starkly and stunningly exposing in brilliant spacelight our strength, our weakness, our folly, and our poignant humanity on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.]]> 288 Ray Bradbury 0063445328 Thomas 0 to-read 4.00 1950
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1950
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 15793737 Getting Past Your Past offers practical techniques that demystify the human condition and empower readers looking to take charge of their lives. Shapiro, the creator of EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), explains the brain science in layman’s terms and provides simple exercises that readers can do at home to understand their automatic responses and achieve real change.]]> 352 Francine Shapiro 1609619951 Thomas 0 to-read 4.25 2012
author: Francine Shapiro
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1389218 228 G.A. Kulkarni 8171850324 Thomas 0 to-read 4.00 1960
author: G.A. Kulkarni
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217247967 Nine masterful stories that explore class, desire, identity, and the specter of violence in America–and in American families–against women and the LGBTQ+ community.

A collection filled with surprise, dark humor, and deep compassion, from the author of The Bigness of the World, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction.

In Lori Ostlund’s exquisite collection, Are You Happy?, she examines the lives of people who have left their place and culture of origin behind. Set in Minnesota, New Mexico, and California, we watch Ostlund’s characters as they try–and often fail–to make peace with their pasts while navigating their present relationships and responsibilities.

In deceptively straightforward prose Ostlund delves deep into the interpersonal and grapples with the compulsion to make others happy–and the elusiveness of being happy oneself. As a woman mourns the premature loss of her best friend’s youth, two parents the life of their son, a queer couple their feeling of safety, and a daughter her family’s political integrity, Ostlund paints a distinctly American portrait of violence manifest at its most intimate scale.

Richly layered and structurally complex, these stories have a novelistic feel. Lori Ostlund is a master of the form and Are You Happy? showcases her best work to date.]]> 272 Lori Ostlund 1662603029 Thomas 4 3.5 stars

One of the first short story collections that’s made me feel something in a while. At their strongest, the stories in this collection address meaningful themes pertaining to class, gender, and sexual orientation while centering characters you come to care for. I found myself actually invested in the emotional lives of the characters in several of these stories, which is a great feat with the more page-limited frame of short stories. The characters experience regret, loss, love, nostalgia, and hope, all in different measure, which was a nice reminder of how complex every human life can be. My favorites in this collection were “The Bus Driver,” “The Gap Year,” and “A Little Customer Service.”

In terms of parts that didn’t work for me so much, I do think Lori Ostlund has a quiet and plain away of writing, which can work really well sometimes – sometimes the sparsity of her prose can accentuate certain emotions within her work. That said, sometimes the sparsity also left me wanting a bit more. She also tends to focus on queer people who are in more conventional monogamous romantic relationships (albeit generally without kids, and I appreciated the childfree rep.) It was rare for there to be a story about a romantically single queer person. Still, her talent as a writer is clear in this collection and I’ll likely check out her first published short story collection too.]]> 3.88
author: Lori Ostlund
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.88
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/22
date added: 2025/06/22
shelves: lgbtq, adult-fiction, realistic-fiction, short-stories-for-fun
review:
3.5 stars

One of the first short story collections that’s made me feel something in a while. At their strongest, the stories in this collection address meaningful themes pertaining to class, gender, and sexual orientation while centering characters you come to care for. I found myself actually invested in the emotional lives of the characters in several of these stories, which is a great feat with the more page-limited frame of short stories. The characters experience regret, loss, love, nostalgia, and hope, all in different measure, which was a nice reminder of how complex every human life can be. My favorites in this collection were “The Bus Driver,” “The Gap Year,” and “A Little Customer Service.”

In terms of parts that didn’t work for me so much, I do think Lori Ostlund has a quiet and plain away of writing, which can work really well sometimes – sometimes the sparsity of her prose can accentuate certain emotions within her work. That said, sometimes the sparsity also left me wanting a bit more. She also tends to focus on queer people who are in more conventional monogamous romantic relationships (albeit generally without kids, and I appreciated the childfree rep.) It was rare for there to be a story about a romantically single queer person. Still, her talent as a writer is clear in this collection and I’ll likely check out her first published short story collection too.
]]> 220161242 A hair-raising, poetic novel about a woman and the people who depend on her as the world around them edges toward apocalypse.

In a city ravaged by a mysterious plague, a woman tries to understand why her world is falling apart. An algae bloom has poisoned the previously pristine air that blows in from the sea. Inland, a secretive corporation churns out the only food anyone can afford—a revolting pink paste, made of an unknown substance. In the short, desperate breaks between deadly windstorms, our narrator stubbornly tends to her few remaining relationships: with her difficult but vulnerable mother; with the ex-husband for whom she still harbors feelings; with the boy she nannies, whose parents sent him away even as terrible threats loomed. Yet as conditions outside deteriorate further, her commitment to remaining in place only grows—even if staying means being left behind.

An evocative elegy for a safe, clean world, Pink Slime is buoyed by humor and its narrator’s resiliency. This vivid and unforgettable novel explores the place where love, responsibility, and self-preservation converge.]]> 240 Fernanda Trías 1668049783 Thomas 0 to-read 0.0 2020
author: Fernanda Trías
name: Thomas
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6519571
In the eleven stories in The Bigness of the World we see that wherever you are in the world, where you came from is never far away.]]> 232 Lori Ostlund 082033409X Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 3.85 2009
author: Lori Ostlund
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/19
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 29388829


While struggling with fear, danger, and displacement, the characters of The Jungle around Us form strange and powerful bonds in distant and unlikely places. A family that has escaped Vienna ends up on the edge of the Amazon, where the parents fight yellow fever and the daughter falls in love with a village boy. Two sisters learn lessons about race and war during the Columbia University riots of1968. A young girl confronts death when her former babysitter is mysteriously murdered. In Paraguay, two adult sisters confront their loneliness while their precocious young charge faces off with a monkey. Raeff 's stories are about embracing the world though the world contains everything we fear.]]> 160 Anne Raeff 0820349895 Thomas 0 to-read 3.64
author: Anne Raeff
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.64
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220160205 A gripping, elegant debut novel about a young Black man caught between worlds of race and class, glamour and tragedy, a friend’s mysterious death and his own arrest, from an electrifying new voice.

An arrest for cocaine possession in the Hamptons on the last day of a sweltering New York summer leaves Smith, a young queer Black Stanford graduate, in a state of turmoil. Pulled into the court system and mandated treatment, he finds himself in an absurd but dangerous situation: his class protects him, but his race does not.

It’s just weeks after the death of his beloved roommate Elle, a glamorous member of the Black elite, and he’s still reeling from the tabloid spectacle—as well as the lingering questions of how well he really knew his closest friend and what exactly happened to her that night. He flees to his hometown of Atlanta, but the weight of expectations from his family of doctors, lawyers, and college presidents only pushes him further into his downward spiral. When his close friend Carolyn goes off the rails, Smith decides to return to New York to find out what happened to her and Elle. But it’s not long before he begins to lose himself to his old life, drawn back into the city’s underworld where his search for answers may end up costing him his freedom and his future.

Smith goes on a dizzying journey through the New York City nightlife circuit, anonymous recovery rooms, Atlanta’s Black society set, police investigations and courtroom dramas, and a circle of friends coming of age in a new era. Great Black Hope is a propulsive, glittering story about what it means to exist between worlds, to be upwardly mobile yet spiraling downward, and how to find a way back to hope.]]> 320 Rob Franklin 1668077434 Thomas 3
Despite this novel’s intriguing themes, I found the execution lacking. Smith’s point of view felt highly intellectualized and distant. The prose was at times aimless. And I was a bit fatigued reading yet another book in which a queer man of color engages in self-destructive sexual and romantic relationships with white men at the exclusion of fellow men of color – I feel that that trope/pattern is already well or even over-represented in queer lit (even if maybe at the end of this book Smith exhibited some small growth with the character O).]]> 3.69 2025
author: Rob Franklin
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/18
date added: 2025/06/18
shelves: adult-fiction, lgbtq, realistic-fiction
review:
This book contained some interesting themes and musings related to how class and race intersect. Our protagonist Smith, a young queer Black man living in New York City, often feels trapped or restless amidst the forward movement of the elite class. He often copes with substances, which lands him in the predicament that opens the novel.

Despite this novel’s intriguing themes, I found the execution lacking. Smith’s point of view felt highly intellectualized and distant. The prose was at times aimless. And I was a bit fatigued reading yet another book in which a queer man of color engages in self-destructive sexual and romantic relationships with white men at the exclusion of fellow men of color – I feel that that trope/pattern is already well or even over-represented in queer lit (even if maybe at the end of this book Smith exhibited some small growth with the character O).
]]> 215749072 The Marriage Plot meets The Idiot in this brilliant debut, which tells the story of a young Muslim scholar stuck in the mire of adjunct professorship in Los Angeles who decides to give up her career in academia and marry rich, committing herself to 100 dates in the course of a single summer. By midsummer reality hits, taking her—and her project—to Tehran.

The unnamed Iranian-Indian American narrator of Liquid, A Love Story has always believed herself to be the smartest person in the room. And from an early age, she and her best friend—a poet-turned-marketer named Adam—have turned their noses up at other peoples’ riches. But two years after earning a PhD from UCLA, the narrator is no closer to the middle-class comfort promised to her by the prestige of her fancy, scholarship-funded education and the successes of her immigrant parents. Jokingly, Adam suggests she just marry rich.

But our protagonist, whose PhD thesis compared Eastern and Western views of marriage in film and literature, takes the idea seriously. She makes a spreadsheet and outlines a 100 dates with people of all genders and a marriage proposal in hand by the official start of the fall semester. What follows is a whirlwind summer packed with martinis sans vermouth with the lazy scion of an Eastside construction empire; board games with a butch producer who owns a house in the hills and a newly dented Porsche; a Venmo request from a “socialist” trust fund babe; and an evening spent dodging the halitosis of a maxillofacial surgeon from Orange County.

Only a tragedy in Tehran and an overdue familial reckoning can alter the narrator’s increasingly manic trajectory and force her to confront the contradictions of her life in Los Angeles. And as doubts begin to creep in about her marriage project, it suddenly seems possible that the eligible prospect she’s been looking for has been beneath her nose the entire time.

For fans of Kaveh Akbar and Elif Batuman, Liquid, A Love Story delivers a modern tale of romance, loss, and belonging like no other. Mariam Rahmani’s gorgeous high-wire satire explodes off the page with verve and originality in this riveting spin on the classic romantic comedy.]]> 306 Mariam Rahmani 1643756508 Thomas 0 to-read 2.92 2025
author: Mariam Rahmani
name: Thomas
average rating: 2.92
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 63024280
Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter--she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

But Molly's orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black--but will they be able to find the real killer before it's too late?

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different--and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.]]> 336 Nita Prose 0593356179 Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 3.75 2022
author: Nita Prose
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/17
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 198678736 **A New York Times Bestseller**

'Co-Intelligence is the very best book I know about the ins, outs, and ethics of generative AI. Drop everything and read it cover to cover NOW' Angela Duckworth

Consumer AI has arrived. And with it, inescapable upheaval as we grapple with what it means for our jobs, lives and the future of humanity.

Cutting through the noise of AI evangelists and AI doom-mongers, Wharton professor Ethan Mollick has become one of the most prominent and provocative explainers of AI, focusing on the practical aspects of how these new tools for thought can transform our world. In Co-Intelligence, he urges us to engage with AI as co-worker, co-teacher and coach. Wide ranging, hugely thought-provoking and optimistic, Co-Intelligence reveals the promise and power of this new era.]]> 243 Ethan Mollick 075356078X Thomas 0 to-read 3.93 2024
author: Ethan Mollick
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 227818236
Smut Psalm’s poems reckon with self-discovery and sexual curiosity–interspersed with “Church Board Interrogation” interludes, which act as a dialogue between a homophobic church voice and a witty, increasingly defiant poetic speaker. Altogether, Tvrdy crafts an intimate, surreal spectacle. Smut Psalm shapes the raw messiness of queer adolescence into its own kind of holiness. Charming and intoxicating, Tvrdy’s Smut Psalm is a strange, sinewy experience that can’t be missed.]]> 54 Josh Tvrdy 163834115X Thomas 0 to-read 3.91
author: Josh Tvrdy
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.91
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 406174 From a Native Daughter, a provocative, well-reasoned attack against the rampant abuse of Native Hawaiian rights, institutional racism, and gender discrimination, has generated heated debates in Hawai'i and throughout the world. This 1999 revised work includes material that builds on issues and concerns raised in the first edition: Native Hawaiian student organizing at the University of Hawai'i; the master plan of the Native Hawaiian self-governing organization Ka Lahui Hawai'i and its platform on the four political arenas of sovereignty; the 1989 Hawai'i declaration of the Hawai'i ecumenical coalition on tourism; and a typology on racism and imperialism. Brief introductions to each of the previously published essays brings them up to date and situates them in the current Native Hawaiian rights discussion.]]> 272 Haunani-Kay Trask 0824820592 Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 4.48 1999
author: Haunani-Kay Trask
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.48
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/16
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 216971968 With the lucidity of a poet and the precision of a journalist, Sarah Aziza embarks on a quest to understand her family legacy, tracing three generations of diasporic Palestinians—from Gaza to the Midwest to New York City, and beyond

In October 2019, Sarah Aziza, daughter and granddaughter of Gazan refugees, is hospitalized for an eating disorder. This brush with death becomes a rupture which brings both her personal and ancestral past into vivid presence. The hauntings begin in the hospital cafeteria, when a cup of apricot yogurt stirs the taste of Sarah's childhood, summoning the familiar voice of her deceased Palestinian grandmother. In the months following, as she responds to a series of ghostly dreams, Sarah unearths family secrets that force her to confront the ways her own trauma and anorexia echo generations of Palestinian displacement and erasure—and how her fight to recover builds on a century of defiant survival, and love.

As silences break, heartbreak opens onto possibility. Sarah begins to grasp the ways her legacies echo and inform one another—through tragedy, and through love. She begins to resist the forces of assimilation, denial, and patriarchy, learning to assert herself in new ways that honor both her ancestors and herself.

Weaving timelines, languages, and genres, The Hollow Half probes the contradictions and contingencies that create “history.” This stunning debut memoir ends in a cri de coeur for a world in which every body has a right to contain multitudes.]]> 400 Sarah Aziza 1646222431 Thomas 4
Mainly giving four stars because the importance of the topic. I will say I found the sections about her romantic partner C very mawkish/overly sentimental – he seemed like a super idealized person and there were a lot of cliches in her writing about him. She also mentions her queerness toward the end of the book though it’s not really explored with much depth. So, four stars for the meaning even if there were elements of this memoir that didn’t work for me.]]> 4.45 2025
author: Sarah Aziza
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/16
date added: 2025/06/16
shelves: nonfiction, biography-or-memoir
review:
What I appreciated most about this memoir was how Sarah Aziza connected her individual experience of anorexia to her identity as a half-Palestinian woman. Her descriptions of her eating disorder are vivid and highlight the gravity of the disease. She also weaves in history and some analysis of the genocide of Palestinians throughout the decades and the difficult journey of understanding her own history.

Mainly giving four stars because the importance of the topic. I will say I found the sections about her romantic partner C very mawkish/overly sentimental – he seemed like a super idealized person and there were a lot of cliches in her writing about him. She also mentions her queerness toward the end of the book though it’s not really explored with much depth. So, four stars for the meaning even if there were elements of this memoir that didn’t work for me.
]]> 220159280 Chris van Tulleken, author of Ultra-Processed People


'In a world rapidly taking leave of its senses, Devi Sridhar is a crucial voice of reason, mustering empirical evidence and powerful argument to make an essential case. Drop everything and read this book' George Monbiot, author of Regenesis


How Not To Die (Too Soon) is a fascinating, challenging and thought provoking read. It completely changes the perspective on human health and who bears responsibility for protecting it. In an age when talk of the next pandemic seems ever-present, it also couldn’t be more timely' Nicola Sturgeon

Have you ever questioned why, despite the avalanche of self-help books and optimization hacks, we remain embroiled in multiple global health crises? Populations worldwide are gaining life-shortening excess weight (even in poorer countries), and water contamination is rampant (even in richer countries). In such dire circumstances, a gratitude journal won’t help.

The stark reality is that we’ve been sold a monumental lie. The obsession with individual health optimization has distracted us from the real holding governments accountable for policies that can significantly extend our lifespans. How Not to Die (Too Soon) is a vital, transformative guide that shifts the focus from individual responsibility to societal accountability. It’s time to demand the changes that will save lives.]]> 314 Devi Sridhar 140597544X Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 4.44 2025
author: Devi Sridhar
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/15
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 18997909 Together Tea, Marjan Kamali’s delightful and heartwarming debut novel, Darya has discovered the perfect gift for her daughter’s twenty-fifth birthday: an ideal husband. Mina, however, is fed up with her mother’s years of endless matchmaking and the spreadsheets grading available Iranian-American bachelors. Having spent her childhood in Tehran and the rest of her life in New York City, Mina has experienced cultural clashes firsthand, but she’s learning that the greatest clashes sometimes happen at home.

After a last ill-fated attempt at matchmaking, mother and daughter embark on a return journey to Iran. Immersed once again in Persian culture, the two women gradually begin to understand each other. But when Mina falls for a young man who never appeared on her mother’s matchmaking radar, will Mina and Darya’s new-found appreciation for each other survive?

Together Tea is a moving and joyous debut novel about family, love, and finding the place you truly belong.]]> 338 Marjan Kamali Thomas 0 to-read 4.32 2013
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223001257
Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has. A mother, grandmother, wife, divorcée, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.]]> 304 Virginia Evans 0593798430 Thomas 3 3.5 stars

I liked reading about the life and perspective of a 78-year-old woman, as older people’s voices are often underrepresented in literature. The Correspondent contained moving themes related to grief, physical illness and decline, and how relationships stay or fray over time. I appreciated that Sybil was an imperfect protagonist; she felt real, which made many of the subplots even more poignant (e.g., vision loss, her layers of loss, the pleasure she finds in reading and writing her friends and family).

Unfortunately the epistolary format was a little dull for me. Especially the first half I found the writing monotonous and one-note. Still giving the book 3.5 stars because of how it captures aging and what love and loss can look like as one gets older.]]> 4.62 2025
author: Virginia Evans
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/13
date added: 2025/06/13
shelves: adult-fiction, realistic-fiction
review:
3.5 stars

I liked reading about the life and perspective of a 78-year-old woman, as older people’s voices are often underrepresented in literature. The Correspondent contained moving themes related to grief, physical illness and decline, and how relationships stay or fray over time. I appreciated that Sybil was an imperfect protagonist; she felt real, which made many of the subplots even more poignant (e.g., vision loss, her layers of loss, the pleasure she finds in reading and writing her friends and family).

Unfortunately the epistolary format was a little dull for me. Especially the first half I found the writing monotonous and one-note. Still giving the book 3.5 stars because of how it captures aging and what love and loss can look like as one gets older.
]]> 59603040 A deliciously sly, compulsively readable tale about greed, power and the world’s most devious family.

When Alana Shropshire’s seventy-six-year-old father, Ed, starts dating Kelly, his twenty-eight-year-old nurse, a flurry of messages arrive from Alana’s brothers, urging her to help “protect Dad” from the young interloper. Alana knows that what Teddy and Martin really want to protect is their father’s fortune, and she tells them she couldn’t care less about the May–December romance. Long estranged from her privileged family, Alana, a hardworking single mom, has more important things to worry about.

But when Ed and Kelly’s wedding is announced, Teddy and Martin kick into hyperdrive and persuade Alana to fly to their father’s West Coast island retreat to perform one simple task in their plan to make the gold digger go away. Kelly, however, proves a lot more wily than expected, and Alana becomes entangled in an increasingly dangerous scheme full of secrets and surprises. Just how far will her siblings go to retain control?

Smart, entertaining and brimming with shocking twists and turns, The Opportunist is both a thrill ride of a story and a razor-sharp view of who wields power in the world.]]> 336 Elyse Friedman Thomas 4 3.68 2022
author: Elyse Friedman
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/12
date added: 2025/06/12
shelves: adult-fiction, realistic-fiction, thriller, feminism
review:
I found the first half of this book a bit slow, though I’m rounding up to four stars because the second half had me speedily flipping the pages. For some reason I expected this to be more of a literary fiction read about class, however, it was more of a feminist thriller. I liked how Elyse Friedman subverted the sexist trope of the “gold-digger” and highlighted how men with money get away with a lot of wrongdoing. Even though I don’t think this novel was the most complex or nuanced, I’m also giving it four stars because I genuinely did not see the major plot twist coming – props to Friedman for surprising me and I’m sure many others. If you’re into thrillers, twisted family dynamics, and smart commentaries on gender, you may want to give this one a try.
]]> 126262032 Librarian's Note: This is the entry for the short story collection. Please don't combine it with the short story of the same name.


A triptych of stories about love, lust, betrayal, misogyny, and the ever-intriguing interchanges between women and men. Celebrated for her powerful short fiction, Claire Keegan now gifts us three exquisite stories, newly revised and expanded, together forming a brilliant examination of gender dynamics and an arc from Keegan’s earliest to her most recent work.

In “So Late in the Day,” Cathal faces a long weekend as his mind agitates over a woman with whom he could have spent his life, had he behaved differently.

In “The Long and Painful Death,” a writer’s arrival at the seaside home of Heinrich Böll for a residency is disrupted by an academic who imposes his presence and opinions.

And in “Antarctica,” a married woman travels out of town to see what it’s like to sleep with another man and ends up in the grip of a possessive stranger. 

Each story probes the dynamics that corrupt what could be between women and a lack of generosity, the weight of expectation, the looming threat of violence. Potent, charged, and breathtakingly insightful, these three essential tales will linger with readers long after the book is closed.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802160859 Thomas 0 to-read 3.98 2022
author: Claire Keegan
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 229004508 A saucy, searingly original debut about two sisters raised in the shadow of El Salvador’s brutal dictator, El Gran Pendejo, and their flight from genocide, which takes them from Hollywood to Paris to cannery row, each followed by a chorus of furies, the ghosts of their murdered friends, who aren’t yet done telling their stories.

El Salvador, 1923. Graciela grows up on a volcano in a community of indigenous women indentured to coffee plantations owned by the country’s wealthiest, until a messenger from the Capital comes to claim at nine years old she’s been chosen to be an oracle for a rising dictator—a sinister, violent man wedded to the occult. She’ll help foresee the future of the country.     

In the Capital she meets Consuelo, the sister she’s never known, stolen away from their home before Graciela was born. The two are a small fortress within the dictator’s regime, but they’re no match for El Gran Pendejo’s cruelty. Years pass and terror rises as the economy flatlines, and Graciela comes to understand the horrific vision that she’s unwittingly helped shape just as genocide strikes the community that raised her. She and Consuelo barely escape, each believing the other to be dead. They run, crossing the globe, reinventing their lives, and ultimately reconnecting at the least likely moment.     

Endlessly surprising, vividly imaginative, bursting with lush life, The Volcano Daughters charts, through the stories of these sisters and the ghosts they carry with them, a new history and mythology of El Salvador, fiercely bringing forth voices that have been calling out for generations.]]> 368 Gina María Balibrera 0593469135 Thomas 0 to-read 4.00 2024
author: Gina María Balibrera
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 227441035
It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie's starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardised by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks and illicit intrigue.

A fresh and intimate portrait of desire, consumption and reckless abandon, Come and Get It is a tension-filled story about money, indiscretion, and bad behavior.]]> 416 Kiley Reid 0593328221 Thomas 0 to-read 3.38 2024
author: Kiley Reid
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216970872 The frank and revealing memoir of a writer who draws from her own creativity to heal.

"I believe our bodies are carriers of experience," Lidia Yuknavitch writes in her provocative memoir Reading the Waves. "I mean to ask if there is a way to read my own past differently, using what I have learned from how stories repeat and reverberate and release us from the tyranny of our mistakes, our traumas, and our confusions."

Drawing on her background -- her father's abuse, her complicated dynamic with her disabled mother, the death of her child, her sexual relationships with men and women -- and her creative life as an author and teacher, Yuknavitch has come to understand that by using the power of literature and storytelling to reframe her memories, she can loosen the bonds that have enslaved her emotional growth. Armed with this insight, she allows herself to look with the eye of an artist at the wounds she suffered and come to understand the transformational power this has to restore her soul. 

By turns candid and lyrical, stoic and forgiving, blunt and evocative, Reading the Waves reframes memory to show how crucial this process  can be to gaining a deeper understanding of ourselves.]]> 224 Lidia Yuknavitch 0593713052 Thomas 0 to-read 4.17 2025
author: Lidia Yuknavitch
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59788339
In None of the Above, Travis Alabanza examines seven phrases people have directed at them about their gender identity. These phrases have stayed with them over the years. Some are deceptively innocuous, some deliberately loaded or offensive, some celebratory; sentences that have impacted them for better and for worse; sentences that speak to the broader issues raised by a world that insists that gender must be a binary.

Through these seven phrases, which include some of their most transformative experiences as a Black, mixed race, non binary person, Travis Alabanza turns a mirror back on society, giving us reason to question the very framework in which we live and the ways we treat each other.]]> Travis Alabanza Thomas 4 3.5 stars

I appreciated Travis Alabanza’s honesty about their experience as a Black nonbinary person. Ranging from instances of overt transphobia to questioning the prevalence of whiteness in trans spaces, I liked how unapologetic they were about their identities and their social justice values. It was great that they acknowledged history, like how colonialism/imperialism helped assert the gender binary, as well as the complexities of gender and transness (e.g., questioning what it means to be a “real” trans person and how rigid adherence to gender norms can hurt trans people).

I do think this memoir is written in a very stream-of-consciousness style, which to me made it seem a bit rant-y. Though, Alabanza definitely has a lot of valid things to rant about; structurally it just not my favorite memoir. Still, important information and perspective is conveyed in this book even if the writing style didn’t always wow me.]]> 4.37 2022
author: Travis Alabanza
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/09
date added: 2025/06/09
shelves: nonfiction, lgbtq, biography-or-memoir
review:
3.5 stars

I appreciated Travis Alabanza’s honesty about their experience as a Black nonbinary person. Ranging from instances of overt transphobia to questioning the prevalence of whiteness in trans spaces, I liked how unapologetic they were about their identities and their social justice values. It was great that they acknowledged history, like how colonialism/imperialism helped assert the gender binary, as well as the complexities of gender and transness (e.g., questioning what it means to be a “real” trans person and how rigid adherence to gender norms can hurt trans people).

I do think this memoir is written in a very stream-of-consciousness style, which to me made it seem a bit rant-y. Though, Alabanza definitely has a lot of valid things to rant about; structurally it just not my favorite memoir. Still, important information and perspective is conveyed in this book even if the writing style didn’t always wow me.
]]> 60651296
'Extraordinary' - Ilan Pappe

‘Formidable and timely' - Mohammed El-Kurd

Under Narendra Modi, India has changed dramatically. As the world attempts to grapple with its trajectory towards authoritarianism and 'Hindutva' (Hindu Nationalism), little attention has been paid to the linkages between Modi's India and the governments from which it has drawn inspiration, as well as military and technical support.

India once called Zionism racism, but, as Azad Essa argues, the state of Israel has increasingly become a cornerstone of India’s foreign policy. Looking to replicate the 'ethnic state' in the image of Israel in policy and practice, the annexation of Kashmir increasingly resembles Israel's settler-colonial project of the occupied West Bank. The ideological and political linkages between the two states are alarming; their brands of ethnonationalism are deeply intertwined.

Hostile Homelands puts India's relationship with Israel in its historical context, looking at the origins of Zionism and Hindutva; India’s changing position on Palestine; and the countries' growing military-industrial relationship from the 1990s. Lucid and persuasive, Essa demonstrates that the India-Israel alliance spells significant consequences for democracy, the rule of law, and justice worldwide.]]> 240 Azad Essa 0745345018 Thomas 0 to-read 4.54
author: Azad Essa
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.54
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 33128290 112 Anuradha Ghandy 1539419975 Thomas 0 to-read 4.40 2016
author: Anuradha Ghandy
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214151202 A love triangle unearths dangerous, deadly secrets from the past in this thrilling tale perfect for fans of The Paper Palace and Where the Crawdads Sing.

“The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.”

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.]]> 320 Clare Leslie Hall 166807818X Thomas 0 to-read 4.35 2025
author: Clare Leslie Hall
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 210246742 A clear and concise guide to the politics of post-Roe America, for readers eager to understand the attacks on our bodies and freedom—and to do something about it

In this, her most urgent book yet, New York Times–bestselling author Jessica Valenti dispels misinformation and cuts through the headline overwhelm to illuminate the full-scale assault conservative lawmakers have launched on women’s freedom—and fundamental human rights. Valenti provides the language to talk about abortion with confidence and the facts to convince.

American voters overwhelmingly support abortion rights and have for decades. In the years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, that support has been growing, as nearly seventy-percent of Americans want abortion to be legal in the first three months of pregnancy, and sixty-three percent want abortion medication to be legal. Abortion is among the key tools conservatives use to roll back decades of advances for women, but here Valenti arms readers with the truth needed to fight back and win, not only at the dinner table but at the polling station and all the way to the Supreme Court.]]> 256 Jessica Valenti 0593800230 Thomas 4 nonfiction, feminism
I don’t think this book will contain too much new information for those who already educate themselves on abortion issues. However, it’s a nice refresher and communicates the urgency of fighting for abortion well.]]> 4.69 2024
author: Jessica Valenti
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.69
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/07
date added: 2025/06/07
shelves: nonfiction, feminism
review:
Solid to-the-point overview of abortion two years since the fall of Roe V. Wade. As she’s done in her previous books, Jessica Valenti does a great job of dispelling common conservative, anti-choice talking points about abortion. She highlights how abortion bans harm and exert control over women and all people who give birth, as well as how conservative media/lawmakers/etc. have been trying to change up their language to get around how abortion restrictions really are. She acknowledges intersectionality and references real women’s stories to back up her points.

I don’t think this book will contain too much new information for those who already educate themselves on abortion issues. However, it’s a nice refresher and communicates the urgency of fighting for abortion well.
]]> 220175433 From the acclaimed author of the YA graphic novel Flamer , comes a gorgeous, heart-warming adult debut following four gay Asians as they navigate love, identity, and friendship in Seattle during the early aughts.

When AJ arrives in Seattle, naïve and eager for a new, gay, life, he has no friends, no job, no money. His first apartment sits so far north of the gayborhood that "not even lesbians live there." Leaning into his identity for the first time in his life, AJ he walks past the velvet rope into his first gay bar and discovers what he moved across the country to gay men who are out, proud, and unashamed.

That first night, a chance spilled drink unites him with new group of friends, also of Asian  K, ethereal drag queen, activist, matriarch; John, introverted gaymer who doesn't feel seen in real life; reckless Steven, who wields his good looks to secure validation via sex (whites only, please); and Tai and Eddie, the "perfect" Chinese-American couple. Together, this “Boy Luck Club” helps AJ navigate his new semi-fabulous life, with its equal trials and unbridled joys. But just as AJ begins to find his way, a devastating attack splinters the group, and tests everything each one of them knows about love, friendship, and family.

A meticulously observed, gorgeously-crafted snapshot of gay culture in the pulsing early years of the tech boom, Gaysians renders its hilarious, flamboyant, human protagonists with love and individuality, showing tenderly the particular joy of queer friendship and yearning.]]> 384 Mike Curato 1643755129 Thomas 0 to-read 4.37 2025
author: Mike Curato
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220161203 An exquisite and revelatory debut novel about the devastating consequences of one woman’s affair.

1982. Dawn is a young mother, still adjusting to life with her husband, when Hazel lights up her world like a torch in the dark. Theirs is the kind of connection that’s impossible to resist, and suddenly life is more complicated, and more joyful, than Dawn ever expected. But she has responsibilities and commitments. She has a daughter.

2022. Heron has just received news from his doctor that turns everything upside down. He’s an older man, stuck in the habits of a quiet existence. Telling Maggie, his only child—the person around whom his life has revolved—seems impossible. Heron can’t tell her about his diagnosis, just as he can’t reveal all the other secrets he’s been keeping from her for so many years.

A Family Matter is a heartbreaking and hopeful exploration of love and loss, intimacy and injustice, custody and care, and whether it is possible to heal from the wounds of the past in the changed world of today.]]> 240 Claire Lynch 1668078899 Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 3.78 2025
author: Claire Lynch
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/07
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 217593457 From the acclaimed author of Yes, Daddy; It's Not the End of the World is a terrifying climate thriller, a vicious takedown of the uber-wealthy, and a queer family saga that isn't afraid to punch back.

It's 2044 and life is bleak for many Americans, but not for Mason Daunt. Safe in his Los Angeles mansion, Mason can remain blissfully unaware of the relentless wildfires engulfing California, the proliferation of violent right-wing militias, and the rampant authoritarianism destroying American society. He's so rich, in fact, that he and his partner Yunho Kim are throwing a 100-person, $100,000 baby shower to celebrate their newborn-on-the-way. When a potentially apocalyptic event hits Los Angeles on the day of their celebration, though, the wealthy gay couple refuses to cancel their party. Surely it's not the end of the world? But as Mason runs a few last-minute errands, a staggering twist thrusts him into the mounting chaos, and threatens the lives of everyone he holds dear.

Shot through with biting wit, brutal gore, primal sex, and unexpected catharsis, It's Not the End of the World is a nerve-shredding roller coaster of a novel that will leave readers shocked, heartbroken, and inspired to question their most firmly held convictions. What happens when our current battles with climate change, capitalism, and white supremacy are pushed to their breaking points? And how can we find hope?]]> 384 Jonathan Parks-Ramage 163973614X Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 3.48 2025
author: Jonathan Parks-Ramage
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/07
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 59575964 A luminous and haunting memoir from the prize-winning poet - a story of love, heartbreak and coming of age, and a fearless exploration of queer identity and trauma.

When Seán meets Elias, the two fall headlong into a love story. But as Elias struggles with severe depression, the couple comes face-to-face with crisis. Wrestling with this, Seán Hewitt delves deep into his own history, enlisting the ghosts of queer figures and poets before him. From a nineteenth-century cemetery in Liverpool to the pine forests of Gothenburg, Hewitt plumbs the darkness in search of solace and hope.

All Down Darkness Wide is an unflinching meditation on the burden of living in a world that too often sets happiness and queer life at odds, and a tender portrayal of what it's like to be caught in the undertow of a loved one's suffering. By turns devastating and soaring, it is a mesmerising story of heartache and renewal, and a work of rare and transcendent beauty.]]> 240 Seán Hewitt 0593300084 Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 4.16 2022
author: Seán Hewitt
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/06
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 36461785
Pival Sengupta has done something she never expected: She has booked a trip with the First Class India USA Destination Vacation Tour Company. But unlike other upper-class Indians on a foreign holiday, the recently widowed Pival is not interested in sightseeing. She is traveling thousands of miles from Kolkota to New York on a cross-country journey to California, where she hopes to uncover the truth about her beloved son, Rahi. A year ago Rahi devastated his very traditional parents when he told them he was gay. Then Pival's husband, Ram, told her that their son had died suddenly - heartbreaking news she still refuses to accept. Now, with Ram gone, she is going to America to find Rahi, alive and whole or dead and gone, and come to terms with her own life.

Arriving in New York, the tour proves to be more complicated than anticipated. Planned by the company's indefatigable owner, Ronnie Munshi - a hardworking immigrant and entrepreneur hungry for his own taste of the American dream - it is a work of haphazard improvisation. Pavil's guide is the company's new hire, the guileless and wonderfully resourceful Satya, who has been in America for one year - and has never actually left the five boroughs. For modesty's sake, Pival and Satya will be accompanied by Rebecca Elliot, an aspiring young actress. Eager for a paying gig she's along for the ride, because how hard can a two-week "working" vacation traveling across America be?

Slowly making her way from coast to coast with her unlikely companions, Pival finds that her understanding of her son - and her hopes of a reunion with him - are challenged by her growing knowledge of his adoptive country. As the bonds between this odd trio deepens, Pival, Satya, and Rebecca learn to see America - and themselves - in different and profound new ways.

A bittersweet and bighearted tale of forgiveness, hope, and acceptance, 'AMERICA FOR BEGINNERS' illuminates the unexpected enchantments life can hold and reminds us that our most precious connections aren't always the ones we seek.

RUNNING TIME ➼ 10hrs. and 49mins.

©2018 Leah Franqui (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers]]> 320 Leah Franqui 0062668757 Thomas 3 3.82 2018
author: Leah Franqui
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/15
date added: 2025/06/06
shelves: adult-fiction, lgbtq, realistic-fiction
review:
I wanted to like this book but the execution fell flat for me. There were some interesting themes about cross cultural dynamics and I liked the ending message of hope and moving forward even when life is painful. That said, a lot of the novel revolved around a dead gay son, from the perspectives of his mother and his lover. I didn’t find the points-of-view of the mother or lover well-written or compelling enough to engage me in the story. Homophobia in families is definitely a thing so I don’t want to minimize the importance of that representation, but with this book specifically, I felt that there were too many characters and not enough depth in any one of the characters to create an emotional connection. All in all it was alright and I could see where the author was headed even if I don’t think she fully executed on the premise.
]]> 57145833
Emily Ratajkowski is an acclaimed model and actress, an engaged political progressive, a formidable entrepreneur, a global social media phenomenon, and now, a writer. Rocketing to world fame at age twenty-one, Ratajkowski sparked both praise and furor with the provocative display of her body as an unapologetic statement of feminist empowerment. The subsequent evolution in her thinking about our culture’s commodification of women is the subject of this book.

My Body is a profoundly personal exploration of feminism, sexuality, and power, of men's treatment of women and women's rationalizations for accepting that treatment. These essays chronicle moments from Ratajkowski’s life while investigating the culture’s fetishization of girls and female beauty, its obsession with and contempt for women’s sexuality, the perverse dynamics of the fashion and film industries, and the gray area between consent and abuse. Nuanced, fierce, and incisive, My Body marks the debut of a writer brimming with courage and intelligence.]]> 239 Emily Ratajkowski 1250817862 Thomas 3 3.5 stars

This book had been on my radar, though I finally picked it up because I saw Emily Ratajkowski (rightfully) criticize the all-women SpaceX space flight, lol. Anyway, I found this memoir readable and interesting. Lots of writing about Ratajkowski’s attempts to use her body to make a living and name for herself in a capitalist system; I appreciated her vulnerability about the sexual assaults and harassment she’s faced. It was intriguing to read about body image from the perspective of a model. I liked that Ratajkowski was honest about how her mindset has changed with distance, reflection, and growth, such as how she has shifted from describing her involvement in the Robin Thicke “Blurred Lines” video from empowering to more nuanced and oppressive.

I do wish Ratajkowski had been a bit more reflective or had gone deeper on some of her points. She’s self-aware about how thinness is glamorized for women in a patriarchal society and she very slightly touches on whiteness, but it’s odd because she doesn’t really interrogate thinness or whiteness in a more pronounced way. Some may say that it’s not her responsibility to do so, though I’d argue that given that she is a wealthy, famous thin white woman, she could have done more to actively call for dismantling fatphobic and racist systems (the ones that helped her get to where she’s at, even if at a cost).]]> 3.99 2021
author: Emily Ratajkowski
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/20
date added: 2025/06/06
shelves: nonfiction, biography-or-memoir, feminism
review:
3.5 stars

This book had been on my radar, though I finally picked it up because I saw Emily Ratajkowski (rightfully) criticize the all-women SpaceX space flight, lol. Anyway, I found this memoir readable and interesting. Lots of writing about Ratajkowski’s attempts to use her body to make a living and name for herself in a capitalist system; I appreciated her vulnerability about the sexual assaults and harassment she’s faced. It was intriguing to read about body image from the perspective of a model. I liked that Ratajkowski was honest about how her mindset has changed with distance, reflection, and growth, such as how she has shifted from describing her involvement in the Robin Thicke “Blurred Lines” video from empowering to more nuanced and oppressive.

I do wish Ratajkowski had been a bit more reflective or had gone deeper on some of her points. She’s self-aware about how thinness is glamorized for women in a patriarchal society and she very slightly touches on whiteness, but it’s odd because she doesn’t really interrogate thinness or whiteness in a more pronounced way. Some may say that it’s not her responsibility to do so, though I’d argue that given that she is a wealthy, famous thin white woman, she could have done more to actively call for dismantling fatphobic and racist systems (the ones that helped her get to where she’s at, even if at a cost).
]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

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

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

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 387 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Thomas 4
I suspect Collins purposefully evoked nostalgia from those of us who read the original trilogy, and I’m not too mad about it! It makes me feel so nostalgic that I read the first book of the trilogy 17 years ago (I was 13 and now I’m 30, omfg.) I think this nostalgia worked both on the plot level – the buildup and execution is very similar if not exactly the same as the first book in the Hunger Games trilogy – and on the level of bringing back characters who we were fond of like Mags, Wiress and Beetee. I actually got a little choked up when a certain character died and when reading the epilogue!

Overall, while not like, an absolutely mind-blowing work of literature, I’d recommend this to those who want an entertaining escape with interesting themes and characters, as well as of course to those who are fans of the original Hunger Games triology.]]> 4.55 2025
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/06
date added: 2025/06/06
shelves: dystopia, young-adult, fantasy
review:
Super entertaining and dare I say, moving? I feel like it’s a sign of a strong novel when you know how it’ll end and you still find yourself caring. I got invested in Haymitch and his journey through the Hunger Games (and Maysilee too, an icon tbh). Suzanne Collins’ writing is efficient, as I remember it from all those years ago, and keeps the plot moving along. I liked the themes of defiance and rebellion against greater forces of injustices.

I suspect Collins purposefully evoked nostalgia from those of us who read the original trilogy, and I’m not too mad about it! It makes me feel so nostalgic that I read the first book of the trilogy 17 years ago (I was 13 and now I’m 30, omfg.) I think this nostalgia worked both on the plot level – the buildup and execution is very similar if not exactly the same as the first book in the Hunger Games trilogy – and on the level of bringing back characters who we were fond of like Mags, Wiress and Beetee. I actually got a little choked up when a certain character died and when reading the epilogue!

Overall, while not like, an absolutely mind-blowing work of literature, I’d recommend this to those who want an entertaining escape with interesting themes and characters, as well as of course to those who are fans of the original Hunger Games triology.
]]> 220160476 Spanning twenty years and one life-altering summer in Croatia, Slanting Towards the Sea is at once an unforgettable love story and a powerful exploration of what it means to come of age in a country younger than oneself.

Ivona divorced the love of her life, Vlaho, a decade ago. They met as students at the turn of the new millennium, when democratic Croatia was alive with hope and promise. But the challenges of living in a burgeoning country extinguished Ivona’s dreams one after another—and a devastating secret forced her to set him free.

Now Vlaho is remarried and a proud father of two, while Ivona’s life has taken a downward turn. In her thirties, she has returned to her childhood home to care for her ailing father. Bewildered by life’s disappointments, she finds solace in reconnecting with Vlaho and is welcomed into his family by his spirited new wife, Marina. But when a new man enters Ivona’s life, the carefully cultivated dynamic between the three is disrupted, forcing a reckoning for all involved.

Set against the mesmerizing Croatian coastline, Slanting Towards the Sea is a cinematic, emotionally searing debut about the fragile nature of potential and the transcendence of love.]]> 336 Lidija Hilje 1668078678 Thomas 0 to-read 4.41 2025
author: Lidija Hilje
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218460348 A wondrously unusual memoir about a woman who, in the midst of mourning her divorce, retreats into her shell and renegotiates her relationship to solitude, shame, and connection—from an acclaimed 5 Under 35 National Book Foundation honoree.

“We've all heard the one about waking up as a cockroach—but what if a crisis turned you into a clam?”

After the dissolution of her marriage, a writer is transformed into a "clam" via typo after her mother keeps texting her to "clam down." The funny if unhelpful command forces her to ask what it means to "clam down" during crises—to retreat, hide, close up, and stay silent. Idiomatically, we are said to "clam up" when we can't speak, and to "come out of our shell" when we reemerge, transformed.

In order to understand her path, the clam digs into examples of others who have also "succumbed to shellfish" to embrace lives of reclusiveness and extremity. But this is a story that radiates outward from the kernel of selfhood to family, society, and ecosystem. Finally, the writer must confront her own "clam genealogy" to interview her dad who disappeared for a decade to write a mysterious accounting software called Shell Computing. In learning about his past to better understand his decisions, she learns not only how to forgive him, but also how to move on from her own wounds of abandonment and insecurity.

Using a genre-defying structure and written in novelistic prose that draws from art, literature, and natural history, she unfolds a complex story of interspecies connectedness, in which humans learn lessons of adaptation and survival from their mollusk kin. While it makes sense in certain situations to retreat behind fortified walls, the choice to do so also exacts a price. What is the price of building up walls? How can one take them back down when they are no longer necessary?]]> 368 Anelise Chen 1984801848 Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 4.18
author: Anelise Chen
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/04
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 217311813 An unforgettable and heartwarming debut following a trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other trans woman she knows: one of her students.

Erica Skyberg is thirty-five years old, recently divorced—and trans. Not that she's told anyone yet. Mitchell, South Dakota, isn't exactly bursting with other trans women. Instead, she keeps to herself, teaching by day and directing community theater by night. That is, until Abigail Hawkes enters her orbit.

Abigail is seventeen, Mitchell High’s resident political dissident and Only Trans Girl. It’s a role she plays faultlessly, albeit a little reluctantly. She's also annoyed by the idea of spending her senior year secretly guiding her English teacher through her transition. But Abigail remembers the uncertainty—and loneliness—that comes with it. Besides, Erica isn’t the only one struggling to shed the weight of others’ expectations.

As their unlikely friendship evolves under the increasing scrutiny of their community, both women—and those closest to them—will come to realize that sometimes there is nothing more radical than letting the world see who you really are.

Detransition Baby meets Fleishman is in Trouble in this remarkable debut novel from an incisive contemporary voice. A story about the awkwardness of growing up and the greatest love story of all, that between us and our friends, Woodworking is a tonic for the moment and a celebration of womanhood in all its multifaceted joy.]]> 351 Emily St. James 163893147X Thomas 0 to-read 4.35 2025
author: Emily St. James
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217312874 In the late 1980s, a coven of queer witches on New York's Fire Island strives to protect a young man facing a devastating tragedy.

A gripping novel of magic, romance, and hope—perfect for fans of The House in the Cerulean Sea, the Tales of the City series, and Red, White, and Royal Blue.

It’s 1989, and Joe Agabian and his best friend Ronnie set out to spend their first summer working in the hedonistic gay paradise of Fire Island Pines. Joe is desperate to let loose and finally move beyond the heartbreak of having lost his boyfriend to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The two friends are quickly taken in by a pair of quirky, older house cleaners. But something seems off, and Joe starts to suspect the two older men of being up to something otherworldly. In truth, Howie and Lenny are members of a secret disco witch coven tasked with protecting the island—and young men like Joe—from the relentless tragedies ravaging their community. The only problem is, having lost too many of their fellow witches to the epidemic, the coven’s protective powers have been seriously damaged.

Unaware of all the mystical shenanigans going on, Joe starts to fall for the super-cute bisexual ferryman who just happens to have webbed feet and an unusual ability to hold his breath underwater. But Joe’s longing to find love is tripped up by his own troublesome past as well as the lure of a mysterious hunk he keeps seeing around the island—a man Howie and Lenny warn may be a harbinger of impending doom.

The Disco Witches need to find help—fast—if they’re to save Joe and the island from the Great Darkness. But how? Fans of queer romances with a dash of fantasy will fall in love with this stunning novel of community, love, sex, magic, and hope in desperate times.]]> 348 Blair Fell Thomas 0 to-read 3.76 2025
author: Blair Fell
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 213243970
In Florida, one of the first things you’re taught as a child is that if you’re ever chased by a wild alligator, the only way to save yourself is to run away in zigzags. It’s a lesson on survival that has guided much of Edgar Gomez’s life.

Like the night his mother had a stroke while he and his brother stood frozen at the foot of her bed, afraid she’d be angry if they called for an ambulance they couldn’t afford. Gomez escaped into his mind, where he could tell himself nothing was wrong with his family. Zig. Or years later, as a broke college student, he got on his knees to put sandals on tourists’ smelly, swollen feet for minimum wage at the Flip Flop Shop. After clocking out, his crew of working-class, queer, Latinx friends changed out of their uniforms in the passenger seats of each other’s cars, speeding toward the relief they found at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Zag. From committing a little bankruptcy fraud for the money for veneers to those days he paid his phone bill by giving massages to closeted men on vacation, back when he and his friends would Venmo each other the same emergency twenty dollars over and over. Zig. Zag. Gomez survived this way as long as his legs would carry him.

Alligator Tears is a fiercely defiant memoir-in-essays charting Gomez’s quest to claw his family out of poverty by any means necessary and exposing the archetype of the humble poor person for what it is: a scam that insists we remain quiet and servile while we wait for a prize that will always be out of reach. For those chasing the American Dream and those jaded by it, Gomez’s unforgettable story is a testament to finding love, purpose, and community on your own terms, smiling with all your fake teeth.]]> 256 Edgar Gomez 0593728548 Thomas 4 High-Risk Homosexual. In Alligator Tears, he does a great job of centering the theme of class and how growing up without much money affected him, without it coming across as too didactic. His tone is relatable and down-to-earth. He’s also unabashedly queer, which is great, and it was fun and familiar to read about some of his youthful gay adventures (e.g., dating a fellow closeted teen online, a painful breakup in his 20’s in NYC, etc.) I most appreciated his centering of the queer Latine working class experience, as well as how he didn’t center whiteness at all in this collection.

Though I found some of the later essays even more readable, for some reason Gomez’s prose didn’t exactly click with me throughout this collection. It was readable and coherent, but it didn’t elicit excitement. Still, the content is quality so I still give this book four stars.]]> 4.16 2025
author: Edgar Gomez
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/03
date added: 2025/06/03
shelves: biography-or-memoir, lgbtq, nonfiction
review:
I thought this was a step up from Edgar Gomez’s debut nonfiction book, High-Risk Homosexual. In Alligator Tears, he does a great job of centering the theme of class and how growing up without much money affected him, without it coming across as too didactic. His tone is relatable and down-to-earth. He’s also unabashedly queer, which is great, and it was fun and familiar to read about some of his youthful gay adventures (e.g., dating a fellow closeted teen online, a painful breakup in his 20’s in NYC, etc.) I most appreciated his centering of the queer Latine working class experience, as well as how he didn’t center whiteness at all in this collection.

Though I found some of the later essays even more readable, for some reason Gomez’s prose didn’t exactly click with me throughout this collection. It was readable and coherent, but it didn’t elicit excitement. Still, the content is quality so I still give this book four stars.
]]> 216522629 A stunning debut novel from the acclaimed young Irish poet Seán Hewitt, reminiscent of Garth Greenwell and Douglas Stuart in the intensity of its evocation of sexual awakening.

Set in a remote village in the North of England, Open, Heaven unfolds over the course of one year in which two sixteen year old boys meet and transform each other’s lives.

James—a sheltered, shy sixteen-year-old—is alone in his newly discovered sexuality, full of an unruly desire but entirely inexperienced. As he is beginning to understand himself and his longings, he also realizes how his feelings threaten to separate him from his family and the rural community he has grown up in. He dreams of another life, fantasizing about what lies beyond the village’s leaf-ribboned boundaries, beyond his autonomy, tenderness, sex. Then, in the autumn of 2002, he meets Luke, a slightly older boy, handsome, unkempt, who comes with a reputation for danger. Abandoned by his parents—his father imprisoned, and his mother having moved to France for another man—Luke has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle at their farm just outside the village. James is immediately drawn to him, like the pull a fire makes on the air, dragging things into it and blazing them into its hot, white centre, drawn to this boy who is beautiful and impulsive, charismatic, troubled. But underneath Luke’s bravado is a deep wound—a longing for the love of his father and for the stability of family life.

Open, Heaven is a novel about desire, yearning, and the terror of first love. With the striking economy and lyricism that animate his work as a poet, Hewitt has written a mesmerizing hymn to boyhood, sensuality, and love in all its forms. A truly exceptional debut.]]> 224 Seán Hewitt 0593802845 Thomas 4 3.5 stars

What I will give this book props for is that it captures gay male yearning very well. Our protagonist, James, crushes hard on the “dangerous” handsome older bad boy Luke, and Sean Hewitt milks his tortured longing for every pining-filled phrase possible. James’s desire for Luke is palpable and if you’re a queer man who’s ever had an unrequited longing for another guy… I’d be surprised if this novel doesn’t bring back memories in some shape or form.

In terms of constructive critiques, I do agree with other reviewers who say that Hewitt’s writing is on the flowery side, though after awhile I didn’t mind it and actually found it quite digestible, even if at times a little much. The book as a whole just felt a little incomplete to me – Hewitt captures gay male yearning nicely, though other elements of James’s life (aside from his relationship with his younger brother, which was interesting) didn’t seem well-developed. For example, in the prologue we learn that James’s marriage many years after Luke didn’t work out, in part because of James’s unresolved feelings for Luke. Reading this made me go like… omg wait say more, what didn’t work about it let’s get into the mess?? But we didn’t get into that mess unfortunately. I can see why some reviewers felt that this book more or less rehashed common tropes/themes already prominent in gay lit.

In sum, rounding up to four stars because it’s Pride Month and I for better or worse (likely worse) have been as down bad for another man as James was for Luke. And I will say, at least the gay longing in this book felt relatively earned – like at least Luke does treat James decently – whereas in a lot of other gay fiction I feel like abuse and unhealthy power dynamics are more normalized.]]> 3.98 2025
author: Seán Hewitt
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/01
date added: 2025/06/01
shelves: lgbtq, romance, realistic-fiction, adult-fiction
review:
3.5 stars

What I will give this book props for is that it captures gay male yearning very well. Our protagonist, James, crushes hard on the “dangerous” handsome older bad boy Luke, and Sean Hewitt milks his tortured longing for every pining-filled phrase possible. James’s desire for Luke is palpable and if you’re a queer man who’s ever had an unrequited longing for another guy… I’d be surprised if this novel doesn’t bring back memories in some shape or form.

In terms of constructive critiques, I do agree with other reviewers who say that Hewitt’s writing is on the flowery side, though after awhile I didn’t mind it and actually found it quite digestible, even if at times a little much. The book as a whole just felt a little incomplete to me – Hewitt captures gay male yearning nicely, though other elements of James’s life (aside from his relationship with his younger brother, which was interesting) didn’t seem well-developed. For example, in the prologue we learn that James’s marriage many years after Luke didn’t work out, in part because of James’s unresolved feelings for Luke. Reading this made me go like… omg wait say more, what didn’t work about it let’s get into the mess?? But we didn’t get into that mess unfortunately. I can see why some reviewers felt that this book more or less rehashed common tropes/themes already prominent in gay lit.

In sum, rounding up to four stars because it’s Pride Month and I for better or worse (likely worse) have been as down bad for another man as James was for Luke. And I will say, at least the gay longing in this book felt relatively earned – like at least Luke does treat James decently – whereas in a lot of other gay fiction I feel like abuse and unhealthy power dynamics are more normalized.
]]> 213341733 Winner of the Prix Femina and the Goncourt des Lycéens in 2023 and the Strega Prize in 2024, the book that shook France to its core.

“Sad Tiger forces you to see, to really see, what it means to be a child abused by an adult.” (Annie Ernaux)

Like Annie Ernaux or Sheila Heti, Neige Sinno has created a powerful new literary autobiographical form.

Through its radical honesty, and also through its thoughtful interrogations into the nature of life and literature, Neige Sinno shares with her readers her journey from someone who considered her life to have been stolen from her to someone who over the twenty years that elapsed from her reporting the rape to writing this book, somehow got her life back, all without ever being able to erase or even change what had happened to her as a child.

“Reading Sad Tyger is like descending into an abyss with your eyes open. It forces you to see, to really see, what it means to be a child abused by an adult, for years. Everyone should read it. Especially teenagers.” —Annie Ernaux

This international literary phenomenon—the title inspired by William Blake’s poem The Tyger—is a forensic exploration into how to speak about the unspeakable. Repeatedly exposed to sexual violence as a child, Neige Sinno tells of a family life built around lies and deception. She was seven or eight years old when her stepfather started abusing her. At fourteen or fifteen the abuse stopped. At nineteen, she decides to break her silence which leads to a public trial and prison for her stepfather, and Sinno starts a new life in Mexico, far away from France.

It is through the craft of her narrative and her powerful direct analysis of the deep-seated taboo that Sinno explores the different facets of memory, her own, her mother’s, as well as her abusive stepfather’s; and of abuse itself in all its monstrosity and banality. How do we become who we are? What remains unsaid in families? How is society implicated? This harrowing auto-fictional account of the author's sexual abuse as a child is mediated through analysis of various literary texts, including works by Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Christine Angot, and Virginie Despentes.

In this unparalleled work that contains a thousand questions, a thousand jewel-like insights, there is an abiding how to protect others from the rape, the incest that she herself endured? In the midst of so much darkness, an answer reads crystal by speaking up and asking questions. A striking, shocking, and necessary masterpiece.

Winner of the US and UK Goncourt Prizes, 2024
Winner of the Goncourt Prizes in Belgium, Slovakia, India, Turkey, Tunisia, and South Korea, 2023
Winner of the European Strega Prize, 2024
Winner of the Goncourt des Lyceens, 2023
Winner of the Femina Prize, 2023
Winner of the Le Monde Literary Prize, 2023
Winner of the Inrockuptibles Prize, 2023
Shortlisted for the Medicis Prize, 2023
Shortlisted for the Decembre Prize, 2023]]> 198 Neige Sinno 1644214687 Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 4.38 2023
author: Neige Sinno
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/01
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 6411014 Hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking, Colm Tóibín's sixth novel, Brooklyn, is set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, when one young woman crosses the ocean to make a new life for herself.

Eilis Lacey has come of age in small-town Ireland in the years following World War Two. Though skilled at bookkeeping, she cannot find a job in the miserable Irish economy. When an Irish priest from Brooklyn offers to sponsor Eilis in America--to live and work in a Brooklyn neighborhood "just like Ireland"--she decides she must go, leaving her fragile mother and her charismatic sister behind.

Eilis finds work in a department store on Fulton Street, and when she least expects it, finds love. Tony, a blond Italian from a big family, slowly wins her over with patient charm. He takes Eilis to Coney Island and Ebbets Field, and home to dinner in the two-room apartment he shares with his brothers and parents. He talks of having children who are Dodgers fans. But just as Eilis begins to fall in love with Tony, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her future.]]> 272 Colm Tóibín Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 3.94 2009
author: Colm Tóibín
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/01
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 56449476 An emotional, rousing novel inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America.

“Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes…”

Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave.

It’s 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Behind the wheel is the young Dust Bowl rowdy Woodrow. Inspired by true events, the tale weaves real-life figures with fictional ones, including the world’s first female zoo director, a crusty old man with a past, a young female photographer with a secret, and assorted reprobates as spotty as the giraffes.

Part adventure, part historical saga, and part coming-of-age love story, West with Giraffes explores what it means to be changed by the grace of animals, the kindness of strangers, the passing of time, and a story told before it’s too late.]]> 346 Lynda Rutledge 1542023351 Thomas 0 to-read 4.34 2021
author: Lynda Rutledge
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 64995552 A moving story told in visual art and fiction about gentrification, aging in place, grief, and vulnerable Chinese Canadian elders

Bringing together ink artwork and fiction, Denison Avenue by Daniel Innes (illustrations) and Christina Wong (text) follows the elderly Wong Cho Sum, who, living in Toronto’s gentrifying Chinatown–Kensington Market, begins to collect bottles and cans after the sudden loss of her husband as a way to fill her days and keep grief and loneliness at bay. In her long walks around the city, Cho Sum meets new friends, confronts classism and racism, and learns how to build a life as a widow in a neighborhood that is being destroyed and rebuilt, leaving elders like her behind.

A poignant meditation on loss, aging, gentrification, and the barriers that Chinese Canadian seniors experience in big cities, Denison Avenue beautifully combines visual art, fiction, and the endangered Toisan dialect to create a book that is truly unforgettable.]]> 328 Christina Wong 177041715X Thomas 5 Denison Avenue follows Cho Sum, an elderly Chinese woman living in Toronto’s rapidly gentrifying Chinatown, Kensington Market. At the beginning of the novel her husband tragically passes away. We see Cho Sum do her best to live in the aftermath of this loss, like making new friends and new routines and facing racism, ageism, and classism, all while grieving her husband. The destruction of her neighborhood and displacement of people like her is a constant backdrop in her day-to-day life.

Wow, what a novel. It’s so rare to read from the perspective of elderly Asian immigrants who aren’t fluent English-speakers and Christina Wong nailed the voice. Even though I’m not Canadian and I’m also not Chinese, Cho Sum’s narrative reminded me so much of my late grandmother, who was my primary caregiver, who was a first-generation Vietnamese American refugee to the US. It was thus beautifully devastating to read her point of view and I suspect that others who have or have had Asian elders in their lives may feel similarly.

What I loved most about Denison Avenue was Wong’s portrayal of grief. Reading the first 60 pages when Cho Sum’s husband dies, I was heartbroken. Then, reading the remaining 180 pages where Cho Sum has to somehow keep going, I was also heartbroken. I was so moved by how Wong captures the quiet, subtle moments of grief and loss that color your whole existence in the aftermath. I was simultaneously wrecked and touched by her rendering of Cho Sum’s memories of See Hei, as well as of her sometimes simple yet sometimes harrowing day-to-day activities. The second to last page of prose made me cry at my desk. Sometimes with grief just surviving every day is a heroic feat, truly, and this novel helped remind me of that.

Wong also incorporates important themes related to gentrification in Dension Avenue. I felt like these themes didn’t overpower Cho Sum’s narrative, and you really get to see gentrification’s impact on a human level. Really nicely, though sadly, complemented Cho Sum’s grief process in relation to her husband dying.

In sum, five stars to this powerful book. It really resonates with me because I just turned 30 last weekend and it was bittersweet as I’m grieving a lot in my life now. And as I already wrote this book reminded me of my grandparents, especially my grandmother, so the story was well-suited for me. However, even if you may not personally relate as much, I think Dension Avenue will still be an enjoyable read for those interested in books about grief and loss, gentrification, and underrepresented voices within the Asian community.]]> 4.16
author: Christina Wong
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.16
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/31
date added: 2025/05/31
shelves: adult-fiction, graphic-novel, historical-fiction, realistic-fiction, favorites
review:
Okay so, I cried a ton reading this book. Denison Avenue follows Cho Sum, an elderly Chinese woman living in Toronto’s rapidly gentrifying Chinatown, Kensington Market. At the beginning of the novel her husband tragically passes away. We see Cho Sum do her best to live in the aftermath of this loss, like making new friends and new routines and facing racism, ageism, and classism, all while grieving her husband. The destruction of her neighborhood and displacement of people like her is a constant backdrop in her day-to-day life.

Wow, what a novel. It’s so rare to read from the perspective of elderly Asian immigrants who aren’t fluent English-speakers and Christina Wong nailed the voice. Even though I’m not Canadian and I’m also not Chinese, Cho Sum’s narrative reminded me so much of my late grandmother, who was my primary caregiver, who was a first-generation Vietnamese American refugee to the US. It was thus beautifully devastating to read her point of view and I suspect that others who have or have had Asian elders in their lives may feel similarly.

What I loved most about Denison Avenue was Wong’s portrayal of grief. Reading the first 60 pages when Cho Sum’s husband dies, I was heartbroken. Then, reading the remaining 180 pages where Cho Sum has to somehow keep going, I was also heartbroken. I was so moved by how Wong captures the quiet, subtle moments of grief and loss that color your whole existence in the aftermath. I was simultaneously wrecked and touched by her rendering of Cho Sum’s memories of See Hei, as well as of her sometimes simple yet sometimes harrowing day-to-day activities. The second to last page of prose made me cry at my desk. Sometimes with grief just surviving every day is a heroic feat, truly, and this novel helped remind me of that.

Wong also incorporates important themes related to gentrification in Dension Avenue. I felt like these themes didn’t overpower Cho Sum’s narrative, and you really get to see gentrification’s impact on a human level. Really nicely, though sadly, complemented Cho Sum’s grief process in relation to her husband dying.

In sum, five stars to this powerful book. It really resonates with me because I just turned 30 last weekend and it was bittersweet as I’m grieving a lot in my life now. And as I already wrote this book reminded me of my grandparents, especially my grandmother, so the story was well-suited for me. However, even if you may not personally relate as much, I think Dension Avenue will still be an enjoyable read for those interested in books about grief and loss, gentrification, and underrepresented voices within the Asian community.
]]> 221739723 From the critically-acclaimed author of Disorientation, a multi-genre story collection that explores the limits and possibilities of storytelling

A mail order bride from Taiwan is packed up in a cardboard box and sent via express shipping to California, where her much older husband awaits her. Two teenage girls meticulously plan how to kill and cook their downstairs neighbor. An American au pair moves to Paris to find herself, only to find her actual French doppelgänger. A father reunites with his estranged daughter in unusual circumstances: as a background actor on the set of her film. And in “Casualties of Art,” a writer’s affair with a married artist tests the line between fact and fiction, self-victimization and the victimization of others.

In these six singular stories and a novella that pivot from the terrible to the beautiful to the surreal, Elaine Hsieh Chou confronts the slipperiness of truth in storytelling. With razor-sharp precision and psychological acuity, she peels back the tales we tell ourselves to peer beneath them: at our treacherous desires, our self-deceptions and our capacity for cruelty, both to ourselves and each other. Expansive and provocative, Where Are You Really From is a visionary achievement.]]> 350 Elaine Hsieh Chou 059329839X Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 4.32 2025
author: Elaine Hsieh Chou
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/30
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 216247489 Subversive and unexpectedly heartwarming, Sky Daddy hijacks the classic love story, exploring desire, fate, and the longing to be accepted for who we truly are.

Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer. Weekdays, she earns $20 an hour moderating comments for a video-sharing platform, then rides the bus home to the windowless garage she rents on the outskirts of San Francisco. But on the last Friday of each month, she indulges in her true passion: taking BART to SFO for a round-trip flight to a regional hub. The destination is irrelevant because each trip means a new date with a handsome stranger—a stranger whose intelligent windscreens, sleek fuselages, and powerful engines make Linda feel a way that no human ever could.

Linda knows that she can’t tell anyone she’s sexually obsessed with planes—nor can she reveal her belief her destiny is to “marry” one of her suitors by dying in a plane crash, thereby uniting her with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she’s always dreamed of.]]> 368 Kate Folk 059323149X Thomas 2 adult-fiction, romance
Appreciated the theme of friendship though even my overall take on the novel was more negative. For a more immersive exploration of grief and loss I'd recommend Sea Change by Gina Chung!]]> 3.83 2025
author: Kate Folk
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/05/30
date added: 2025/05/30
shelves: adult-fiction, romance
review:
I wanted to enjoy this book more than I did, but I felt its airplane theme bogged it down. I love an in-depth exploration of grief, loss, and trauma, though so much of the writing was focused on the main character’s flying obsession that there wasn’t enough exploration of deeper themes. One could say that the airplane obsession represents avoidance or is a coping mechanism, which I would concur with, though that still didn’t salvage the narrative for me. The protagonist’s voice also felt too deliberately quirky for me to get invested; I felt disconnected instead.

Appreciated the theme of friendship though even my overall take on the novel was more negative. For a more immersive exploration of grief and loss I'd recommend Sea Change by Gina Chung!
]]> 214537784 From the author of Gold Diggers, a biting examination of millennial adulthood, the often fraught conversations around fertility and reproduction, and the painful quest to forge an identity

Sanjana Satyananda is trying to recover her life. It’s been a year since she walked out on her husband, a struggling actor named Killian, at a commune in India, after a disagreement about whether to have children. Now, Sanjana is struggling to resurrect her busted anthropology dissertation and crashing at her annoyingly perfect sister’s while her similarly well-adjusted peers obsess over marriages, mortgages, and motherhood. Sanjana needs to move forward—and finalize her divorce, ASAP.

There’s just one problem: Killian is missing. As Sanjana tries to track him down, she’s bombarded with unnerving calls from women seeking her advice on pregnancy and fertility. Soon, Sanjana comes face to face—literally—with what her life might have been if she’d chosen parenthood. And the road not taken turns out to be wilder, stranger, and more tempting than she imagined.

A darkly funny, vertiginous novel about the dilemmas of procreation, pregnancy, and parenting, Goddess Complex is both a twist-filled psychological thriller and a feminist satire of our age of GirlBosses turned self-care influencers, optimization cults, internet mommy gurus, egg freezing, and so much more.]]> 304 Sanjena Sathian 0593489772 Thomas 0 to-read 3.44 2025
author: Sanjena Sathian
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222420151 In a land of lost wonders, the past is stirring once more . . .

Gene's life resembles a debutante's dream. Yet she hides a secret that would see her shunned by the nobility. Gene is both male and female. Then she displays unwanted magical abilities - last seen in mysterious beings from an almost-forgotten age. Matters escalate further when her parents plan a devastating betrayal, so she flees home, dressed as a boy.

The city beyond contains glowing glass relics from a lost civilization. They call to her, but she wants freedom not mysteries. So, reinvented as 'Micah Grey', Gene joins the circus. As an aerialist, she discovers the joy of flight - but the circus has a dark side. She's also plagued by visions foretelling danger. A storm is howling in from the past, but will she heed its roar?]]> 336 L.R. Lam 075642027X Thomas 0 to-read 4.20 2013
author: L.R. Lam
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 41940388 Idir is sitting the British Citizenship Test.
He wants his family to belong.

Twenty-five questions to determine their fate. Twenty-five chances to impress.

When the test takes an unexpected and tragic turn, Idir is handed the power of life and death.
How do you value a life when all you have is multiple choice?]]> 108 Sylvain Neuvel 1250312833 Thomas 3 3.5 stars

An effective novella that conveyed important messages about immigration and refugee-related trauma within just 100 pages. The Black Mirror/dystopian setup felt believable. While I was only able to get so invested with the limited page length, I also don’t think the book would have been better if it were longer. Makes you think about the ways we dehumanize asylum seekers and those who we view as different than ourselves.]]> 3.82 2019
author: Sylvain Neuvel
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/28
date added: 2025/05/28
shelves: adult-fiction, dystopia, science-fiction
review:
3.5 stars

An effective novella that conveyed important messages about immigration and refugee-related trauma within just 100 pages. The Black Mirror/dystopian setup felt believable. While I was only able to get so invested with the limited page length, I also don’t think the book would have been better if it were longer. Makes you think about the ways we dehumanize asylum seekers and those who we view as different than ourselves.
]]> 199928287
Its teachers and students all know how bits work—in theory, at least. They know that there's a line between sharp and cruel, that sad becomes funny at the right angle, that the worst is the best, the truth is the worst, and any moment of your life that isn’t a punchline will either get you to a punchline or force you to be one.

They’re all afraid to be one.

Artie may be too handsome for standup, Olivia too reluctant to examine her own life, and Phil too afraid to cause harm. Kruger may be too vanilla to command his students’ respect, Ashbee too detached. And then we have Dorothy—the only woman on the program’s faculty—who though preparing to launch a comeback tour can’t tell if she’s too abiding, too ambitious, or too ambivalent.

Whether a visiting professor—the high-profile, controversy-steeped comedian, Manny Reinhardt—will do more to help or harm their cause remains to be seen. But he’s on his way. He’ll be arriving sooner than anyone thinks.

Riffing keenly across a diverse array of precision-cut perspectives, The Material examines life through the eyes of a reluctantly assembled ensemble, a band of outsiders bound together by the need to laugh, and the longing to make others laugh even harder.]]> 288 Camille Bordas 0593729846 Thomas 0 to-read 3.31 2024
author: Camille Bordas
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217453218 “A superb work of fiction.”—New York Times Book Review

What if you could enter the mind of the person you love the most?

Enka meets Mathilde in art school and is instantly drawn to her. Mathilde makes art that feels truly original, and Enka—trying hard to prove herself in this fiercely competitive world—pours everything into their friendship. But when Mathilde’s fame and success cause her to begin drifting away, Enka becomes desperate to keep her close.

Enter SCAFFOLD. Purported to enhance empathy, this cutting-edge technology could allow Enka to inhabit Mathilde’s mind and access her memories, artistic inspirations, and deep-seated trauma. Undergoing this procedure would link Enka and Mathilde forever. But at what cost?

Blisteringly smart, thought-provoking, and shocking, Immaculate Conception offers us a portrait of close friendship—achingly tender and twisted—that captures the tenuous line between love and possession that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.]]> 299 Ling Ling Huang 0593850440 Thomas 0 to-read 4.10 2025
author: Ling Ling Huang
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214151927 From Lambda Literary Award–winning author Alejandro Heredia comes a spellbinding debut about intersectionality, enduring friendship, and found family set at the turn of the millennium in 1999, following two Afro-Caribbean friends as they journey beyond the confined expectations of their home country in the Dominican Republic and begin new lives in New York City.

Sal and Charo, two best friends from Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic, arrive in New York City and dream of making the United States their new home—but for very different reasons. Charo left Santa Domingo to escape the life of domesticity that was all but guaranteed for women like her, but soon finds herself in the exact situation she tried to escape, partnered to a controlling man, mother of a young child, and working long hours as a cashier. Sal on the other hand, fled Santa Domingo after an unspeakable tragedy, hoping that the distance would allow him a fresh start. But trauma keeps him in its grips, and he’s unable to move on.

With both friends feeling the same pressures in New York that forced them from their homes, a chance outing at a gay bar introduces Sal to Vance, an African American gay man whose romantic relationship with Sal challenges him to confront the trauma of his past. Through Vance, Charo befriends Ella, an African American trans woman, and Ella’s refusal to be who or what society dictates she should be inspires Charo to reckon with the role she’s grown comfortable in. Sal and Charo soon find themselves part of a queer intersectional community who disrupt the status quo of gender politics and conformity, allowing both to create the family and identities they’ve always longed for.]]> 352 Alejandro Heredia 1668050463 Thomas 4 3.5 stars

A thoughtful and unapologetic novel centering the Latine diaspora. I appreciated how this novel was real and vivid in its depictions of queerness as well as women making difficult yet self-empowering choices. I found the novel at its strongest when it centered on our main characters Sal and Charo; their bond and the theme of chosen family was moving and well-integrated throughout the novel. Loca would sometimes travel back into the past or splinter into the perspectives of other characters which was more distracting and detracted from the flow and power of the narrative, in my opinion. An interesting debut novel and one that’s definitely different than a lot of what’s getting published nowadays.]]> 3.85 2025
author: Alejandro Heredia
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/27
date added: 2025/05/27
shelves: adult-fiction, lgbtq, realistic-fiction
review:
3.5 stars

A thoughtful and unapologetic novel centering the Latine diaspora. I appreciated how this novel was real and vivid in its depictions of queerness as well as women making difficult yet self-empowering choices. I found the novel at its strongest when it centered on our main characters Sal and Charo; their bond and the theme of chosen family was moving and well-integrated throughout the novel. Loca would sometimes travel back into the past or splinter into the perspectives of other characters which was more distracting and detracted from the flow and power of the narrative, in my opinion. An interesting debut novel and one that’s definitely different than a lot of what’s getting published nowadays.
]]> 220998994 A deadpan, wildly imaginative collection of stories that slices clean through the mundanity and absurdity of modern life, from the author of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize–winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Same Bed Different Dreams

In “Machine City,” a college student’s role in a friend’s movie causes lines to blur between his character and his true self. In “Slide to Unlock,” a man comes to terms with his life, via the passwords he struggles to remember in a moment of extremis. And in “Weird Menace,” a director and faded movie star discuss science fiction, memory, and lost loves on a commentary track for a film from the ’80s that neither seems to remember all that well. 

In Ed Park’s utterly original collection, An Oral History of Atlantis, characters question the fleetingness of youth and art, reckon with the consequences of the everyday, and find solace in the absurd, the beautiful, and the sublime. Throughout, Park deploys his trademark wit to create a world both strikingly recognizable and delightfully other. All together, these sixteen stories have much to say about the meaning—and transitory nature—of our lives. And they are proof positive that Ed Park is one of the most insightful and imaginative writers working today.]]> 224 Ed Park 0812998995 Thomas 0 to-read 4.08 2025
author: Ed Park
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218075335 Accidentally on Purpose dives into Kristen Kish’s childhood as a Korean adoptee in the Midwest, finding purpose in kitchens, and becoming the season 10 winner of—and now host—of Top Chef all the while navigating life in the spotlight, coming out in her adult years, and all the life lessons in between.

Kristen Kish never set out to live a public life—not when she was a carefree softball-tossing kid, not in high school working at a pretzel stand, not even, briefly, as a working model. And definitely not when she finally landed her true calling as a chef. But in those early days, becoming a chef meant tethering oneself to a restaurant, not a television set. But it happened naturally (or as naturally as possible, given all the technology and TV magic involved), even if it was totally unanticipated.
 
Of course, like most things in life, the road to this full circle moment—from Top Chef season 10 winner to now hosting—was so much more winding and complicated than it may have appeared from the outside. From growing up as an adoptee in the Midwest, to trying to fit in with all the other girls who were busy dating boys, to coming out and finding love when she least expected it, Kristen learned that, unlike a map, no set of plans or definitions can dictate or explain a life. In fact, accidents happen. That curveballs will come. And they will often be consequential to one’s path.
 
In Accidentally on Purpose, what defines Kristen’s story aren’t the missteps or even the pleasant surprises that crop up. It’s how to respond when they do, and the decisions made at those intersections. Because while accidents may be unexpected, they don’t have to be at odds with purpose. And as Kristen approaches life’s milestones, big and small, with intention—the ones she expected, and those she didn’t—she realizes she can write her own definitions and chart her own course.]]> 352 Kristen Kish 0316580910 Thomas 0 to-read 4.04 2025
author: Kristen Kish
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 203893148
For example, what would the Buddha say about abortion, gun, and LGBTQIA+ rights? Or about prejudice, discrimination, and gender equality? How can practitioners more skillfully navigate romance in the sangha community? Whether you are a longtime Buddhist practitioner or just beginning to explore the religion, Budding Lotus in the West offers wisdom, inspiration, and a path toward an evolving, authentic, and inclusive spirituality in the modern world.

Watch the official book trailer on the author's 카지노싸이트 profile: /NhiYenDoTran]]> 266 Nhi Yến Đỗ Trần 1506495141 Thomas 0 to-read 4.52
author: Nhi Yến Đỗ Trần
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.52
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 210244524 Reveals the alt-right’s project to claim science fiction and—by extension—the future

Fascists such as Richard Spencer interpret science fiction films and literature as saying only white men have the imagination required to invent a high-tech future. Other white nationalists envision racist utopias filled with Aryan supermen and all-white space colonies. Speculative Whiteness traces these ideas through the entangled histories of science fiction culture and white supremacist politics, showing that debates about representation in science fiction films and literature are struggles over who has the right to imagine and inhabit the future. Although fascists insist that tomorrow belongs to them, they have always been and will continue to be contested by antifascist fans willing to fight for the future.]]> 120 Jordan S. Carroll 1452970882 Thomas 0 to-read 4.32 2024
author: Jordan S. Carroll
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 205478800 Raised with hoarding and compulsive shopping, Emily Mester is caught in between. What happens when consumption begins to consume you back?

In a series of deeply personal essays, Mester explores how the things we buy, eat, amass, and discard become an intimate part of our lives. We guiltily watch Amazon boxes pile up on the porch, wade through endless reviews to find the perfect product, and crave the comforting indulgence of a chain restaurant. With humor and sharp intellect, Mester reflects on the joys and anxieties of Costco trips, how a seasonal stint at Ulta Beauty taught her the insidious art of the sale, and what it means to get “mall sad.” In a nuanced examination of diet culture and fatness, Mester recounts her teenage summer at fat camp and the unexpected liberation she finds there. Finally, she ventures to Storm Lake, Iowa, to reckon with her grandmother’s abandoned hoard, excavating the dysfunction that lies at the heart of her family’s obsession with stuff. American Bulk introduces readers to a striking new literary talent from the American heartland, one who dares to ask us to regard consumption not with guilt but with grace and empathy.]]> 240 Emily Mester 1324035234 Thomas 0 3.84 2024
author: Emily Mester
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/26
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon, nonfiction
review:

]]> 200721640 A powerful history of the impact of land theft and violent displacement on Black communities in the U.S., arguing that justice and reparations will stem from the literal roots—by an acclaimed writer, political strategist, and national organizer

It is impossible to understand the twenty-first-century racial wealth gap without first unpacking the historic attacks on Indigenous and Black land ownership. From the moment that colonizers set foot on Virginian soil, a centuries-long war was waged, and long after those initial colonial pursuits, an existential dilemma remained: Who owns what on stolen land? Who owns what with stolen labor? To answer these questions, we must be willing to face one of this nation’s first sins: stealing and hoarding the land.

Recent research suggests that between 1910 and 1997, Black Americans lost about 90% of their farmland. Now, less than 1% of rural land in the U.S. is owned by Black people despite the centuries of labor, enslaved or free, that cultivated those very same lands. Land theft has widened the racial wealth gap, privatized natural resources, and created a permanent barrier to land that should be a birthright for Black and Indigenous communities. Rooted traces the experiences of Brea's own family's history of having land violently taken from them, in Kentucky and North Carolina, to explore historic attacks on Black land ownership and understand the persistent racial wealth gap. Ultimately, her grandfather's decades spent purchasing small parcels of land back resulted in the "Baker Acres"—a haven for the family, and a place where they are surrounded by love, sustained by the land, and wholly free.

Beyond examining the effects of the violence of centuries past, Rooted is a testament to the deep resilience of Black farmers who envisioned an America with them at the center: able to feed, house, and tend to their communities. By bearing witness to their commitment to freedom and reciprocal care for the land—even as it came at great personal cost—we can chart a path forward.]]> 320 Brea Baker 0593447379 Thomas 0 to-read 4.49 2024
author: Brea Baker
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 177148776 128 Anne de Marcken 0811237850 Thomas 0 to-read 3.68 2024
author: Anne de Marcken
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 126918628 A powerful decade-long study of adoption in the age of Roe, revealing the grief of the American mothers for whom the choice to parent was never real

Adoption has always been viewed as a beloved institution for building families, as well as a mutually agreeable common ground in the abortion debate, but little attention has been paid to the lives of mothers who relinquish infants for private adoption. Relinquished reveals adoption to be a path of constrained choice for those for whom abortion is inaccessible, or for whom parenthood is untenable. The stories of relinquishing mothers are stories about our country's refusal to care for families at the most basic level, and to instead embrace an individual, private solution to a large-scale, social problem.

With the recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization revoking abortion protections and the upcoming decision in Brackeen v. Haaland likely to revoke the Indian Child Welfare Act, we are in a political moment in which adoption is, increasingly, being revealed as an institution devoted to separating families and policing parenthood under the guise of feel-good family-building. Rooted in a long-term study, Relinquished is an analysis of hundreds of in-depth interviews with American mothers who placed their children for domestic adoption. The voices of these women are powerful and heartrending; they deserve to be heard as a response to this moment.]]> 311 Gretchen Sisson 1250286786 Thomas 4 feminism, nonfiction 4.5 stars

Deeply appreciated this book about adoption and how it often disenfranchises birth mothers. Gretchen Sisson does an excellent job of highlighting birth mothers’ painful, negative emotions about relinquishing their children, and she writes clearly and intelligently about the sociopolitical factors that contribute to adoption (e.g., financial disparities between birth mothers and adoptive parents, the conservative and religious forces promoting a private solution to a public problem, etc.) What I loved most about this book was the in-depth stories directly told by birth mothers themselves. So often these people’s perspectives are silenced or erased and it was powerful to read about their traumas, resilience, and insights related to relinquishing their children.

As Sisson names toward the end of this book, reading this may stir up negative feelings (e.g., defensiveness) from people who have positive feelings about adoption. I hope that readers who feel this way can honor both their potentially positive experiences with the lived realities and difficulties of the birth mothers who courageously shared their stories in Relinquished.]]> 4.36 2024
author: Gretchen Sisson
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/25
date added: 2025/05/25
shelves: feminism, nonfiction
review:
4.5 stars

Deeply appreciated this book about adoption and how it often disenfranchises birth mothers. Gretchen Sisson does an excellent job of highlighting birth mothers’ painful, negative emotions about relinquishing their children, and she writes clearly and intelligently about the sociopolitical factors that contribute to adoption (e.g., financial disparities between birth mothers and adoptive parents, the conservative and religious forces promoting a private solution to a public problem, etc.) What I loved most about this book was the in-depth stories directly told by birth mothers themselves. So often these people’s perspectives are silenced or erased and it was powerful to read about their traumas, resilience, and insights related to relinquishing their children.

As Sisson names toward the end of this book, reading this may stir up negative feelings (e.g., defensiveness) from people who have positive feelings about adoption. I hope that readers who feel this way can honor both their potentially positive experiences with the lived realities and difficulties of the birth mothers who courageously shared their stories in Relinquished.
]]> 58724745
Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories.

But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.]]> 298 Sunyi Dean 1250810183 Thomas 0 to-read 3.59 2022
author: Sunyi Dean
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 16241465 Paying for the Party is an indispensable contribution to the dialogue assessing the state of American higher education. A powerful expose of unmet obligations and misplaced priorities, it explains in vivid detail why so many leave college with so little to show for it.

Drawing on findings from a five-year interview study, Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton bring us to the campus of "MU," a flagship Midwestern public university, where we follow a group of women drawn into a culture of status seeking and sororities. Mapping different pathways available to MU students, the authors demonstrate that the most well-resourced and seductive route is a "party pathway" anchored in the Greek system and facilitated by the administration. This pathway exerts influence over the academic and social experiences of all students, and while it benefits the affluent and well-connected, Armstrong and Hamilton make clear how it seriously disadvantages the majority. Eye-opening and provocative, Paying for the Party reveals how outcomes can differ so dramatically for those whom universities enroll.]]> 344 Elizabeth A. Armstrong 0674049578 Thomas 0 3.99 2013
author: Elizabeth A. Armstrong
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon, nonfiction
review:

]]> 217245597 A groundbreaking work of history and reportage that unveils the stranger-than-fiction world of multilevel marketing, from the shadowy cabals at the top to the strivers at the bottom, whose deferred dreams churn a massive money-making scam that has remade American society.

Multilevel marketing companies like Amway, Mary Kay, and Herbalife advertise the ultimate business opportunity: the chance to be your own boss. In exchange for peddling their wares, they offer a world of pink Cadillacs, white-columned mansions, tropical vacations, and—most precious of all—financial freedom. If, that is, you’re willing to shell out for expensive products, recruit everyone you know to buy them, and make them recruit everyone they know to do the same—thus creating the “multiple levels” of multilevel marketing, or MLM.

Despite overwhelming evidence that multilevel marketing causes most of its participants to lose their money, and that many MLM companies are pyramid schemes, the industry’s dubious origins, inextricably tied to well-known ideological figures like Ronald Reagan, have escaped public scrutiny. Behind the scenes of American life, MLM has slithered in the wake of every economic crisis of the last century, from the Depression to the pandemic, ensnaring laid-off workers, stay-at-home moms, teachers, nurses—anyone who has been left behind by inequality.

In Little Bosses Everywhere, journalist Bridget Read tells the gripping story of multilevel marketing in full for the first time, winding from sunny post-war California, where a failed salesman started a vitamin business, through the suburbs of Michigan and North Carolina, where MLM bought its political protection, to the stadium-sized conventions where top sellers today preach to die-hard recruits. MLM has been endorsed by multiple American presidents, has its own Congressional caucus, and enriched powerful people, like the DeVos and Van Andel families, Warren Buffet, and Donald Trump. Along the way, Read delves into the heartbreaking stories of those enmeshed in the majority-female industry: a veteran in Florida searching for healing; a young mom in Texas struggling to feed her children; a waitress scraping by in Brooklyn.

A wild trip down an endless rabbit hole of greed and exploitation, Little Bosses Everywhere exposes multilevel marketing as American capitalism’s stealthiest PR campaign: a cunning right-wing political project that has shaped nearly everything about how we live.]]> 368 Bridget Read 0593443926 Thomas 0 to-read 4.14 2025
author: Bridget Read
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 144421737 What if we act as if we love the future?

Sometimes the bravest thing we can do while facing an existential crisis is imagine life on the other side. This provocative and joyous book maps an inspiring landscape of possible climate futures.

Through clear-eyed essays and vibrant conversations, infused with data, poetry, and art, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson guides us through solutions and possibilities at the nexus of science, policy, culture, and justice. Visionary farmers and financers, architects and advocates help us conjure a flourishing future, one worth the effort it will take—from all of us, with whatever we have to offer—to create.

If you haven’t yet been able to picture a transformed and replenished world—or see yourself, your loved ones, and your community in it— this book is for you. If you haven’t yet found your role in shaping this new world, or you’re not sure how we can actually get there, this book is for you.

With grace, humor, and humanity, Ayana invites readers to ask and answer this ultimate question, What if we get it right?

On imagination, possibility, and transformation with

Paola Antonelli
Xiye Bastida & Ayisha Siddiqa
Jade Begay
Régine Clément
Abigail Dillen
Brian Donahue
Kelly Sims Gallagher
Rhiana Gunn-Wright
Corley Kenna
Bryan C. Lee Jr. & Kate Orff
Franklin Leonard & Adam McKay
Bill McKibben
Kate Marvel
Samantha Montano
Leah Penniman
Colette Pichon Battle
Kendra Pierre-Louis
Judith D. Schwartz
Jigar Shah
Bren Smith
Oana Stanescu
Mustafa Suleyman]]> 496 Ayana Elizabeth Johnson Thomas 4 nonfiction 3.5 stars

I appreciated how this book integrated a hopeful perspective with concrete action. The perils of climate change were acknowledged as well as things we can each do to try and make a difference. There was an overall solid diversity in the voices included in this collection. I will say I didn’t love how the format was essentially interview after interview; the format itself was thus a bit monotonous to me, though the insights from the interviews are important.]]> 4.46 2024
author: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/22
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: nonfiction
review:
3.5 stars

I appreciated how this book integrated a hopeful perspective with concrete action. The perils of climate change were acknowledged as well as things we can each do to try and make a difference. There was an overall solid diversity in the voices included in this collection. I will say I didn’t love how the format was essentially interview after interview; the format itself was thus a bit monotonous to me, though the insights from the interviews are important.
]]> 171793386
From the #1 internationally bestselling author of The Murder Rule comes an emotional novel of suspense about two families at war.

Nina and Simon are the perfect couple. Young, fun and deeply in love. Until they leave for a weekend at his family’s cabin in Vermont, and only Simon comes home.

WHAT HAPPENED TO NINA?

Nobody knows. Simon’s explanation about what happened in their last hours together doesn’t add up. Nina’s parents push the police for answers, and Simon’s parents rush to protect him. They hire expensive lawyers and a PR firm that quickly ramps up a vicious, nothing-is-off-limits media campaign.

HOW FAR WILL HIS FAMILY GO TO KEEP HIM SAFE?

Soon, facts are lost in a swirl of accusation and counter-accusation. Everyone chooses a side, and the story goes viral, fueled by armchair investigators and wild conspiracy theories and illustrated with pretty pictures taken from Nina’s social media accounts. Journalists descend on their small Vermont town, followed by a few obsessive "fans."

HOW FAR WILL HER FAMILY GO TO GET TO THE TRUTH?

Nina’s family is under siege, but they never lose sight of the only thing that really matters—finding their daughter. Out-gunned by Simon’s wealthy, powerful family, Nina’s parents recognize that if playing by the rules won’t get them anywhere, it’s time to break them.]]> 328 Dervla McTiernan Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 4.04 2024
author: Dervla McTiernan
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/22
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 220161576 In this razor-sharp, diabolical debut thriller, a young woman steps into her deceased twin’s influencer life, only to discover dark secrets hidden behind her social media façade.

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

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

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

Haunted by Chloe’s untimely death and struggling to fit into the privileged influencer circle, Julie faces mounting challenges during a weeklong island retreat with Chloe’s exclusive group of influencer friends. As events spiral out of control, Julie uncovers the sinister forces that may have led to her sister’s demise and realizes she might be the next target.]]> 311 Liann Zhang 1668067897 Thomas 0 to-read 3.51 2025
author: Liann Zhang
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220195725 In this razor-sharp, diabolical debut thriller, a young woman steps into her deceased twin’s influencer life, only to discover dark secrets hidden behind her social media façade.

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

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

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

Haunted by Chloe’s untimely death and struggling to fit into the privileged influencer circle, Julie faces mounting challenges during a weeklong island retreat with Chloe’s exclusive group of influencer friends. As events spiral out of control, Julie uncovers the sinister forces that may have led to her sister’s demise and realizes she might be the next target.]]> 320 Liann Zhang 1668067919 Thomas 0 to-read 3.47 2025
author: Liann Zhang
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211934957 A young woman’s madcap search for her missing ex-boyfriend takes her into the sexual underground in Brittany Newell’s savage, tender Soft Core.

Ruth is lost. She’s living in a drafty Victorian with her ex-boyfriend Dino, a ketamine dealer with a lingerie habit, overdosing on television and regretting her master’s degree. When she starts dancing at a strip club, she becomes Baby Blue, seductress of crypto bros, outcasts, and old lovers alike. Plunged into this swirling underworld of beautiful women, fast cash, ungodly hours, and strangers’ secrets, Baby’s grip on reality begins to loosen. She is sure she can handle it—until one autumn morning when Dino disappears without a trace.

Thus begins a nocturnal quest for the one she still loves—through the misty hills of San Francisco; in dive bars and bus depots; at the BDSM dungeon where she takes a part-time gig. Along the way, she meets Simon, a recluse who pays her for increasingly bizarre favors; a philosophizing suicide fetishist named Nobody; and Emeline, the beautiful and balletic new hire who reminds Baby of someone . . .

A brutally funny, propulsive story of power, fantasy, love, and loss, Brittany Newell’s Soft Core is an ode to the heartbroken and unhinged, to those whose appetites lead them astray. It is a hallucinogenic romp about a girl coming undone, whose longing for friendship, romance, and revenge will take her over the edge and back again.]]> 352 Brittany Newell 0374613893 Thomas 0 to-read 3.59 2025
author: Brittany Newell
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199798478
At first, Wren internally resists her husband’s fate. Is there a way for them to be together after Lewis changes? Then, a glimpse of Lewis’s developing carnivorous nature activates long-repressed memories for Wren, whose story vacillates between her childhood living on a houseboat in Oklahoma, her time with her college ex-girlfriend, and her unusual friendship with a woman pregnant with twin birds.]]> 432 Emily Habeck 1668006502 Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 3.99 2023
author: Emily Habeck
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/20
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 193781998 An exuberant debut, The Husbands delights in how do we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of never-ending options?

When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem—she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years.

As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you’ve taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living?]]> 352 Holly Gramazio 0385550618 Thomas 0 to-read 3.50 2024
author: Holly Gramazio
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18465930 Last Words from Montmartre. Unfolding through a series of letters written by an unnamed narrator, Last Words tells the story of a passionate relationship between two young women—their sexual awakening, their gradual breakup, and the devastating aftermath of their broken love. In a style that veers between extremes, from self-deprecation to pathos, compulsive repetition to rhapsodic musings, reticence to vulnerability, Qiu’s genre-bending novel is at once a psychological thriller, a sublime romance, and the author’s own suicide note.

The letters (which, Qiu tells us, can be read in any order) leap between Paris, Taipei, and Tokyo. They display wrenching insights into what it means to live between cultures, languages, and genders—until the genderless character Zoë appears, and the narrator’s spiritual and physical identity is transformed. As powerfully raw and transcendent as Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask, Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Theresa Cha’s Dictée, to name but a few, Last Words from Montmartre proves Qiu Miaojin to be one of the finest experimentalists and modernist Chinese-language writers of our generation.]]> 176 Qiu Miaojin 1590177258 Thomas 0 to-read 3.89 1996
author: Qiu Miaojin
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214269374 Remember—words are your weapons, they’re your tools, your currency: a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of power.

Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar.

An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers. Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, Universality focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean.

The thrilling novel from one of the most acclaimed young writers working today, Universality is a compelling, unsettling celebration of the spectacular, appalling force of language. It dares you to look away.]]> 152 Natasha Brown 0593977300 Thomas 3 Universality, about a man who’s assaulted by someone wielding a gold bar, tightly written and experimental in a positive way. That said, the rest of the novel felt a bit too intellectual for the sake of it for my taste. It was interesting to read though lacked deeper characterization or a central narrative for me to get emotionally invested in. An okay read but not one I’d necessarily recommend unless you’re okay with a book built on ideas as opposed to a linear, character-driven narrative.]]> 3.38 2025
author: Natasha Brown
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/19
date added: 2025/05/19
shelves: adult-fiction, realistic-fiction, thriller
review:
I think this book had some smart, intriguing ideas about class and race and people who weaponize language about social justice culture. I found the first section of Universality, about a man who’s assaulted by someone wielding a gold bar, tightly written and experimental in a positive way. That said, the rest of the novel felt a bit too intellectual for the sake of it for my taste. It was interesting to read though lacked deeper characterization or a central narrative for me to get emotionally invested in. An okay read but not one I’d necessarily recommend unless you’re okay with a book built on ideas as opposed to a linear, character-driven narrative.
]]> 56646330 Go Home vans. Go to Oxbridge, get an education, start a career. Do all the right things. Buy a flat. Buy art. Buy a sort of happiness. But above all, keep your head down. Keep quiet. And keep going.

The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend's family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can't escape the question: is it time to take it all apart?]]> 112 Natasha Brown 0316268267 Thomas 0 to-read 3.84 2021
author: Natasha Brown
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220271739 A dazzling and ambitious debut novel that follows a cosmopolitan Shanghai household backward in time—beginning in 2040 and moving through our present and the recent past—exploring their secrets, their losses, and the ways a family makes and remakes itself across the years.

2040: Wealthy real estate investor Leo Yang—handsome, distinguished, a real Shanghai man—is on the train back to the city after seeing his family off at the airport. His sophisticated Japanese-French wife, Eko, and their two eldest children, Yumi and Yoko, are headed for Boston, though one daughter’s revelation will soon reroute them to Paris. 2039: Kiko, their youngest daughter and an aspiring actress, decides to pursue fame at any cost, like her icon Marilyn Monroe. 2038: Yumi comes to Yoko in need, after a college-dorm situation at Harvard goes disastrously wrong.

As the years rewind to 2014, Shanghailanders brings readers into the shared and separate lives of the Yang family parent by parent, daughter by daughter, and through the eyes of the people in their orbit—a nanny from the provinces, a private driver with a penchant for danger, and a grandmother whose memories of the past echo the present. We glimpse a future where the city’s waters rise and the specter of apocalypse is never far off. But in Juli Min’s hands, we also see that whatever may change, universal constants remain: love is complex, life is not fair, and family will always be stubbornly connected by blood, secrets, and longing.

Brilliantly constructed and achingly resonant, Shanghailanders is an unforgettable exploration of marriage, relationships, and the layered experience of time.]]> 288 Juli Min 1954118767 Thomas 0 to-read 4.00 2024
author: Juli Min
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217045791 For readers of All the Light We Cannot See and In Memoriam, a moving and deeply humane story about a trans man who must relinquish the freedoms of prewar Berlin to survive first the Nazis then the Allies while protecting the ones he loves.

In 1932 Berlin, Bertie, a trans man, and his friends spend carefree nights at the Eldorado Club, the epicenter of Berlin's thriving queer community. An employee of the renowned Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institute of Sexual 카지노싸이트, Bertie works to improve queer rights in Germany and beyond, but everything changes when Hitler rises to power. The institute is raided, the Eldorado is shuttered, and queer people are rounded up. Bertie barely escapes with his girlfriend, Sofie, to a nearby farm. There they take on the identities of an elderly couple and live for more than a decade in isolation.

In the final days of the war, with their freedom in sight, Bertie and Sofie find a young trans man collapsed on their property, still dressed in Holocaust prison clothes. They vow to protect him—not from the Nazis, but from the Allied forces who are arresting queer prisoners while liberating the rest of the country. Ironically, as the Allies' vise grip closes on Bertie and his family, their only salvation becomes fleeing to the United States.

Brimming with hope, resilience, and the enduring power of community, The Lilac People tells an extraordinary story inspired by real events and recovers an occluded moment of trans history.]]> 320 Milo Todd 1640097031 Thomas 3 4.34
author: Milo Todd
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.34
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/16
date added: 2025/05/16
shelves: adult-fiction, historical-fiction, lgbtq
review:
A novel that covers such an important topic, the transgender community in pre-Nazi and Nazi Germany. Appreciate Milo Todd for writing about the atrocities of this time period as well as how LGBTQ+ folks came together to support one another even amidst grave injustice. Unfortunately I found the writing itself rather dry and one-note, though of course the subject matter of the novel stands out and is worth paying attention to.
]]> 216751361 An intense and thoughtful time-hopping dystopian fantasy where three individuals, psychically linked through time, fight enslavement, exploitation, and environmental collapse. A great read for fans of Emily St. John Mandel.

In 2106, Maida Sun possesses the ability to see the entire history of any object she touches. When she starts a job with a cultural recovery project in San Francisco with other psions like her, she discovers a teacup that connects her with Li Nuan, a sex-traffificked girl in a 1906 Chinatown brothel, and with Nathan, a tech-designer and hedonist of 2006.

A chance encounter with a prominent political leader reveals to Maida his plan to contain everyone with psionic abilities, eliminate their personal autonomy, and use their skills for his own gain. Maida is left with no choice but to join a fight she doesn’t feel prepared for, with flashes of the past, glimpses of the future and a band of fellow psions as her only tools. She must find a way to stop this agenda before it takes hold and destroys life as she knows it. Can the past give Maida the key to saving her future?]]> 366 Khan Wong 1915998379 Thomas 0 to-read 3.84 2025
author: Khan Wong
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223787135
Tracing these men's journeys and arrivals to South London through the seventies, eighties and nineties from the present day, Okundaye relays their stories with rare compassion, listening as they share intimate memories and reflect upon their lives. They endured and fought against the peak of the AIDS epidemic, built social groups and threw underground parties; they went to war with institutions (and with each other) and created meaning within a society which was often indifferent to their existence.

Revolutionary Acts renders a singular portrait of Britain from the perspective of those buffeted by the winds of marginalisation and discrimination. It is a portrait marked by resilience and self-determination, inspired by the love and beauty Black men have found in each other.]]> 304 Jason Okundaye 0571372228 Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 4.27
author: Jason Okundaye
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/16
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 220195767 Spanning twenty years and one life-altering summer in Croatia, Slanting Towards the Sea is at once an unforgettable love story and a powerful exploration of what it means to come of age in a country younger than oneself.

Ivona divorced the love of her life, Vlaho, a decade ago. They met as students at the turn of the millennium, when newly democratic Croatia was alive with hope and promise. But the challenges of living in a burgeoning country extinguished Ivona’s dreams one after another—and a devastating secret forced her to set him free.

Now Vlaho is remarried and a proud father of two, while Ivona’s life has taken a downward turn. In her thirties, she has returned to her childhood home to care for her ailing father. Bewildered by life’s disappointments, she finds solace in reconnecting with Vlaho and is welcomed into his family by his spirited wife, Marina. But when a new man enters Ivona’s life, the carefully cultivated dynamic between the three is disrupted, forcing a reckoning for all involved.

Set against the mesmerizing Croatian coastline, Slanting Towards the Sea is a cinematic, emotionally searing debut about the fragile nature of potential and the transcendence of love.]]> 336 Lidija Hilje 1668078694 Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 4.63 2025
author: Lidija Hilje
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/15
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 202468422 From the Booker Prize finalist author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two rivers, all under the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time.

In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.

In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his interest: Nineveh and Its Remains.

In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.

In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.

A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend fate: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.”]]> 464 Elif Shafak 0593801717 Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 4.37 2024
author: Elif Shafak
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/15
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 198385726
In a series of intimate and humorous dispatches, McOuat examines her identity as a queer woman, and as a mother, through the lens of the pop culture moments in the ’80s and ’90s that molded her identity. McOuat stirs the ingredients required to conjure an unsettled the horrors of pregnancy and motherhood, love and loss, the supernatural, kaleidoscopic sexuality, near-miss experiences, and the unexplained moments in life that leave you haunted.

Through her own life experiences, various tall tales, urban legends, analysis of horror and thriller films, and spine-chilling true crime incidents, McOuat uncovers how cultural gatekeeping has forced her, as a mother and queer femme woman, to persistently question her own reality. Through this charming and humorous exploration of what moments have made her who she is, McOuat demonstrates for readers a way through by forgiving herself and exorcising her stubborn attachment to a phantom, heteronormative, nuclear family structure.

6 hrs. 49 min.]]> 224 Allyson McOuat 1770417559 Thomas 0 to-read 4.05 2024
author: Allyson McOuat
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218460337
All of you are young, all beautiful, all keen to escape the grinding poverty, political unrest and environmental catastrophe of the outside world.

You realise that cameras are tracking your every move, broadcasting to millions of reality TV fans.

Soon, ten men will arrive on foot – if they all survive the journey.

What will you have to do to win?

And what happens to the losers?

LORD OF THE FLIES meets LOVE ISLAND in this explosive, addictive debut novel, as bingeable as the best reality TV, with dark undercurrents of literary dystopia and consumerist satire. ]]> 304 Aisling Rawle 0593977270 Thomas 0 to-read 3.85 2025
author: Aisling Rawle
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217522337 Lower your gaze. The light is not for you 🌟

Final Fantasy meets Shadow and Bone in this unputdownable romantic fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea .

'EXQUISITE' SUE LYNN TAN
'ENTHRALLING' JUDY I. LIN

An amnesiac sword-for-hire and a theatre troupe performer with mysterious powers discover that their destinies will change the fate of multiple worlds.

Ex-soldier Sunho lives in the Under World, a land of perpetual darkness. Possessing just his name and sword, he comes across the score of a lifetime - a chest of coins for hunting down the girl who wields silver light.

Ren is a spirited acrobat travelling with her family. But everything changes when they are attacked by a demon. Desperate, Ren releases a blast of silver light and kills the monster - but cannot save her beloved uncle from grievous injury.

Determined to save him from succumbing to the poisoned wound, Ren sets off for the mountains, where the creature came from - where Ren herself fled from ten years ago. Her path collides with Sunho's, but he doesn't realize who she is. As the two grow closer, it becomes clear their pasts - and destinies - are more entwined than they could possibly have imagined . . .

TROPES
Amnesia 🧠
Hidden identity 🥸
Grumpy x sunshine 💢 x 🌞
Strangers-to-allies-to-lovers 🧍🪢💓
Found family 🔍🫂

READERS LOVE THE FLOATING WORLD
'I really couldn't put this book down if my life depended on it' ⭐��⭐��⭐
'Romance, Fantasy, Action, Adventure! This book has it ALL!' ⭐��⭐��⭐
Deeply developed and truly compelling characters' ⭐��⭐��⭐
'The Floating World is a beautiful work of fantasy' ⭐��⭐��⭐
'She is truly the Miyazaki of books' ⭐��⭐��⭐]]> 368 Axie Oh 1399718754 Thomas 0 to-read 3.86 2025
author: Axie Oh
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 45894170
A uniquely American story told in powerful, evocative prose, The Beauty of Your Face navigates a country growing ever more divided. Afaf Rahman, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, is the principal of Nurrideen School for Girls, a Muslim school in the Chicago suburbs. One morning, a shooter—radicalized by the online alt-right—attacks the school.

As Afaf listens to his terrifying progress, we are swept back through her memories: the bigotry she faced as a child, her mother’s dreams of returning to Palestine, and the devastating disappearance of her older sister that tore her family apart. Still, there is the sweetness of the music from her father’s oud, and the hope and community Afaf finally finds in Islam.

The Beauty of Your Face is a profound and poignant exploration of one woman’s life in a nation at odds with its ideals.]]> 312 Sahar Mustafah 1324003383 Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 4.17 2020
author: Sahar Mustafah
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/11
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 211399784
Until a shocking incident at the Olympic Games brings their partnership to a sudden end.

As the ten-year anniversary of their final skate approaches, an unauthorized documentary reignites the public fascination with Shaw and Rocha, claiming to uncover the “real story” through interviews with their closest friends and fiercest rivals. Kat wants nothing to do with the documentary, but she can’t stand the thought of someone else defining her legacy. So, after a decade of silence, she’s telling her story: from the childhood tragedies that created her all-consuming bond with Heath to the clash of desires that tore them apart. Sensational rumors have haunted their every step for years, but the truth may be even more shocking than the headlines.]]> 437 Layne Fargo 0593732049 Thomas 2 2.5 stars

Unfortunately I thought this book was a mess and I’ll dive right into telling you why. First, I found the characters both unlikable *and* also underdeveloped. Unlikable characters can be fine and riveting though I was frustrated by how a lot of these characters could be defined by one or two traits and a social identity or two (e.g., Kat is ambitious and white and from a low socioeconomic class background, Heath loves Kat and is ethnically ambiguous, Garrett is kind and Asian, etc.) It was hard for me to care deeply about the characters because they seemed a bit basic (though I will admit I related to Bella Lin, especially with how she develops at the end.)

I also found Kat to be a super toxic white woman?? Like I get that she comes from a poor family though she’s also still white and treats everyone horribly? It’s wild because Layne Fargo chooses to make almost all her other characters people of color, then subjects us to reading about Kat’s self-centeredness and hurtful behaviors for over 200 pages? On one hand, sure, Fargo is making a commentary about women being driven in their careers, and at the same time I don’t think authors should get “diversity points” for representation of characters of color if the characters of color aren’t that well-developed and/or are still surrounded by and somehow obsessed with white characters. Like, I really did not understand why Heath was so into Kat. I know they went through childhood trauma together and perhaps that’s enough, though the relational toxicity felt too surface-level for me to care.

Finally, I found the drama and the plot points repetitive. I felt that the drama mostly consisted of someone getting injured near or on competition day and/or a miscommunication or misunderstanding that gets blown up. I was like… okay, anyway. Next.

I intentionally give this book 2.5 stars instead of 2 because the characters did grow by the end, including Kat. It was nice to see their development especially because I read over 400 pages about them. Again, Bella Lin is kind of #goals for me (minus the child – love children though I also love my childfree existence lol). And the writing, while not remarkable to me, was readable and made the pages go by relatively quickly. I wouldn’t really recommend this book though it’s not like it was the worst book I’ve ever read.]]> 4.12 2025
author: Layne Fargo
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/05/11
date added: 2025/05/11
shelves: adult-fiction, romance, realistic-fiction
review:
2.5 stars

Unfortunately I thought this book was a mess and I’ll dive right into telling you why. First, I found the characters both unlikable *and* also underdeveloped. Unlikable characters can be fine and riveting though I was frustrated by how a lot of these characters could be defined by one or two traits and a social identity or two (e.g., Kat is ambitious and white and from a low socioeconomic class background, Heath loves Kat and is ethnically ambiguous, Garrett is kind and Asian, etc.) It was hard for me to care deeply about the characters because they seemed a bit basic (though I will admit I related to Bella Lin, especially with how she develops at the end.)

I also found Kat to be a super toxic white woman?? Like I get that she comes from a poor family though she’s also still white and treats everyone horribly? It’s wild because Layne Fargo chooses to make almost all her other characters people of color, then subjects us to reading about Kat’s self-centeredness and hurtful behaviors for over 200 pages? On one hand, sure, Fargo is making a commentary about women being driven in their careers, and at the same time I don’t think authors should get “diversity points” for representation of characters of color if the characters of color aren’t that well-developed and/or are still surrounded by and somehow obsessed with white characters. Like, I really did not understand why Heath was so into Kat. I know they went through childhood trauma together and perhaps that’s enough, though the relational toxicity felt too surface-level for me to care.

Finally, I found the drama and the plot points repetitive. I felt that the drama mostly consisted of someone getting injured near or on competition day and/or a miscommunication or misunderstanding that gets blown up. I was like… okay, anyway. Next.

I intentionally give this book 2.5 stars instead of 2 because the characters did grow by the end, including Kat. It was nice to see their development especially because I read over 400 pages about them. Again, Bella Lin is kind of #goals for me (minus the child – love children though I also love my childfree existence lol). And the writing, while not remarkable to me, was readable and made the pages go by relatively quickly. I wouldn’t really recommend this book though it’s not like it was the worst book I’ve ever read.
]]> 60476414
As a Gitxsan teenager navigating life on the streets, Angela Sterritt wrote in her journal to help her survive and find her place in the world. Now an acclaimed journalist, she writes for major news outlets to push for justice and to light a path for Indigenous women, girls, and survivors. In her brilliant debut, Sterritt shares her memoir alongside investigative reporting into cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada, showing how colonialism and racism led to a society where Sterritt struggled to survive as a young person, and where the lives of Indigenous women and girls are ignored and devalued.

Growing up, Sterritt was steeped in the stories of her ancestors: grandparents who carried bentwood boxes of berries, hunted and trapped, and later fought for rights and title to that land. But as a vulnerable young woman, kicked out of the family home and living on the street, Sterritt inhabited places that, today, are infamous for being communities where women have gone missing or been murdered: Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and, later on, Northern BC’s Highway of Tears. Sterritt faced darkness: she experienced violence from partners and strangers and saw friends and community members die or go missing. But she navigated the street, group homes, and SROs to finally find her place in journalism and academic excellence at university, relying entirely on her own strength, resilience, and creativity along with the support of her ancestors and community to find her way.

“She could have been me,” Sterritt acknowledges today, and her empathy for victims, survivors, and families drives her present-day investigations into the lives of missing and murdered Indigenous women. In the end, Sterritt steps into a place of power, demanding accountability from the media and the public, exposing racism, and showing that there is much work to do on the path towards understanding the truth. But most importantly, she proves that the strength and brilliance of Indigenous women is unbroken, and that together, they can build lives of joy and abundance.]]> 295 Angela Sterritt 1771648163 Thomas 0 to-read 4.45 2022
author: Angela Sterritt
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220595427 Far Away from Here  is a novel about three young Black American Muslims on the cusp of adulthood confronting faith, tradition, and the impact of their personal decisions in five years post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.

Far Away from Here is a novel set in five years post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans that focuses on the reunion of three young African American Muslims—Fatima, Tahani, and Saif—who grew up together and drifted apart in their teenage years.

The novel follows these three characters as they confront the traumas and choices of their early lives and the impact they’ve had on their paths to adulthood.

Through their interactions with each other, their family members, and their faith community, they are transformed by the understanding that they have everything they need to face their futures with confidence.]]> 328 Ambata Kazi 1684633281 Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 4.00
author: Ambata Kazi
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/10
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]> 214466938
In “Saint Dismas,” four orphaned brothers pose as part of a construction crew, stopping cars along the highway and robbing anyone foolish enough to hit the brakes. In “Heart Sleeves,” two wannabe tattoo artists take part in a contest, where one of them hopes to win not only first place but also the heart of his best friend’s girlfriend. And, in “Fight Sounds,” a character who fancies himself a Don Juan is swept up in the commotion of an American film crew shooting a movie in his tiny town, until the economic and sexual politics of the place are turned on their head.

Across this collection, Lemus’s characters test their loyalty to family, community, and country, illuminating the ties that both connect us and constrain us. Guatemalan Rhapsody explores how we journey from the circumstances that we are forged by, and whether the ability to change our fortunes lies in our own hands or in those of another. Revealing the places where beauty, desperation, love, violence, and hope exist simultaneously, Jared Lemus’s debut establishes him as a major new voice in the form.]]> 240 Jared Lemus 0063381648 Thomas 3 4.06 2025
author: Jared Lemus
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/09
date added: 2025/05/09
shelves: adult-fiction, realistic-fiction, short-stories-for-fun
review:
Interesting short story collection about a set of characters’ day to day lives and extraordinary circumstances in Guatemala. I liked how this short story collection addressed how class and people’s material realities affect how they interact with those around them. My favorite story in the collection was “Whistle While You Work,” a great piece about workers’ solidarity and not succumbing to what your bosses want. That said, unfortunately many of the other stories didn’t stick with me; they were either too experimental for my liking or too short, or too focused on one specific scenario, for me to develop a connection to the characters. Still, if this book’s synopsis interests you you may consider still checking it out.
]]> 223296091 From Giller Prize and O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa comes a revelatory novel about loneliness, love, labour, and class. An intimate and sharply written book following a nail salon owner as she toils away for the privileged clients who don't even know her true name.

Ning is a retired boxer, but to the customers who visit her nail salon, she is just another worker named Susan. On this summer's day, much like any other, the Susans buff and clip and polish and tweeze. They listen and smile and nod. But beneath this superficial veneer, Ning is a woman of rigorous intellect and profound complexity. A woman enthralled by the intricacy and rhythms of her work, but also haunted by memories of paths not taken and opportunities lost. A woman navigating the complex power dynamics among her fellow Susans, whose greatest fears and desires lie just behind the gossip they exchange.
     As the day's work grinds on, the friction between Ning's two identities—as anonymous manicurist and brilliant observer of her own circumstances—will gather electric and crackling force, and at last demand a reckoning with the way the world of privilege looks at a woman like Ning.
     Told over a single day, with razor-sharp precision and wit, Pick a Colour confirms Souvankham Thammavongsa's place as literature's premier chronicler of the immigrant experience, in its myriad, complex, and slyly subversive forms.]]> 192 Souvankham Thammavongsa 0316422142 Thomas 0 to-read 3.82
author: Souvankham Thammavongsa
name: Thomas
average rating: 3.82
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 213618152 From a rising literary star and the author of How to Be a Good Girl comes a brilliant, biting, and beautifully wrought memoir of trauma and the cost of survival

In the thick of lockdown, 2020, poet, critic, and memoirist Jamie Hood published her debut, How to Be a Good Girl, an interrogation of modern femininity and the narratives of love, desire, and violence yoked to it. The Rumpus praised Hood's “bold vulnerability,” and Vogue named it a Best Book of 2020. 

In Trauma Plot, her long-awaited follow-up, Hood turns her eye to the archetype of the rape survivor, who must perform penitence long after living through the unthinkable. In her trademark blend of memoir and criticism, Hood investigates the lives of art's most infamous women, from Ovid's Philomela and David Lynch’s Laura Palmer to Artemisia Gentileschi, the painter who captured Judith’s wrath—as well as Hood herself, reckoning with three decades of sexual violence and the wreckage left behind. In so doing, she What do we as a culture demand of survivors? And what do survivors, in turn, owe a world that has abandoned them? 

Trauma Plot is a scalding work of personal and literary criticism. It is a send-up of our culture's pious disdain for “trauma porn,” a dirge for the broken promises of #MeToo, and a paean to life after death.]]> 336 Jamie Hood 059370097X Thomas 0 to-read, must-find-copy-soon 4.38 2025
author: Jamie Hood
name: Thomas
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/08
shelves: to-read, must-find-copy-soon
review:

]]>