Hannah's bookshelf: read en-US Fri, 04 Jul 2025 13:07:22 -0700 60 Hannah's bookshelf: read 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Glowing Life of Leeann Wu 221473792 A seemingly inexplicable magic takes over the lives of three generations of women in this gripping and romantic novel sure to captivate readers of At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities and The Change.

Leeann Wu’s hands have started glowing at the most inconvenient times, and the single mother and midwife doesn’t know why. Could it be perimenopause? A hallucination brought on by a lack of sleep? On top of that concerning development, her daughter is off to university in a few months, her tenuous relationship with her ob-gyn mother is in peril of cracking, and she’s attracted the attention of a younger man who sees far more than she’s comfortable with. Her hands, glowing or not, are already full.

But as widespread insomnia plagues the town and life-threatening accidents begin to pile up, Leeann discovers the glow is not an anomaly at all—rather, she’s part of a long line of women who possess a power unlike anything Leeann’s ever known. Yet, even with the cryptic clues left by her great aunt before her untimely death, Leeann has no idea how to use her new skills.

With her town in imminent danger, Leeann doesn’t have time to waste. She’ll need to make peace with her magical heritage and do whatever it takes to find out if her glow means something more—before it’s too late.

Readers who loved Practical Magic will find lots to love in The Glowing Life of Leeann Wu.]]> 320 Mindy Hung Hannah 0 4.11 2025 The Glowing Life of Leeann Wu
author: Mindy Hung
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/04
shelves: currently-reading, adult, contemporary, fiction, fantasy, romance
review:

]]> Mad Sisters of Esi 221254185
When Myung flees the whale, she stumbles into a new universe where shapeshifting islands and ancient maps hold sway. There, she sets off on an adventure that is both tragic and transformative, for her and Laleh. For at the heart of her quest lies a mystery that has confounded scholars for the truth about the mad sisters of Esi.

Fables, dreams and myths come together in this masterful work of fantasy by acclaimed author Tashan Mehta, sweeping across three landscapes, and featuring a museum of collective memory and a festival of madness. At its core, it In the devastating chaos of this world, where all is in flux and the truth ever-changing, what will you choose to hold on to?]]> 432 Tashan Mehta 0756420067 Hannah 0 to-read 3.96 2023 Mad Sisters of Esi
author: Tashan Mehta
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Without Consent: A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle to Make Spousal Rape a Crime]]> 227884051 From Sarah Weinman, author of Scoundrel and The Real Lolita, comes an eye-opening story about the first major spousal rape trial in America and urgent questions about women’s rights that would reverberate for decades.

In 1978, Greta Rideout was the first woman in United States history to accuse her husband of rape, at a time when the idea of “marital rape” seemed ludicrous to many Americans and was a crime in only four states. After a quick and conservative trial acquitted John Rideout and a defense lawyer lambasted that “maybe rape is the risk of being married,” Greta was ridiculed and scorned from public life, while John went on to be a repeat offender. Thrust into the national spotlight, Greta and her story would become a national sensation, a symbol of a country’s unrelenting and targeted hate toward women and a court system designed to fail them at every turn.

A now little-remembered trial deserving of close, wide, and lasting attention, Sarah Weinman turns her signature intelligence and journalistic rigor to the enduring impact of this case. Oregon v. Rideout directly inspired feminist activists, who fought state by state for marital rape laws, a battle that was not won in all fifty until as recently as 1993. Mixing archival research and new reporting involving Greta, those who successfully pressed charges against John in later years, as well as the activists battling the courts in parallel, Without Consent embodies vociferous debates about gender, sexuality, and power, while highlighting the damaging and inherent misogyny of American culture then and still now.]]> 352 Sarah Weinman 0063279886 Hannah 0 to-read 5.00 Without Consent: A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle to Make Spousal Rape a Crime
author: Sarah Weinman
name: Hannah
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Gryphon King (The Chaos Constellation, #1)]]> 216461825 The first in a stunning Southwest Asian-inspired epic fantasy trilogy brimming with morally ambiguous characters, terrifying ghouls and deadly monsters.

Combining cut-throat dynastic politics with expansive worldbuilding and slow-burning romance, this book is perfect for fans of Godkiller and Samantha Shannon.

Bataar was only a child when he killed a gryphon, making him a legend across the Red Steppe. As an adult, he is the formidable Bataar Rhah, chosen by god to rule the continent that once scorned his people. After a string of improbable victories, he turns his sights on the wealthy, powerful kingdom of Dumakra, whose princesses rule the skies from the backs of pegasuses.

When rumours reach the capital that the infamous warlord is moving on Dumakra, Nohra Zultama prepares to face him. She and her sisters are feared warriors, goddess-blessed and mounted on winged, man-eating horses. But as deceit and betrayal swirl through her father's court, Nohra soon learns the price of complacency. With her city under Bataar’s rule, Nohra vows to take revenge. But her growing closeness to Bataar’s wife, Qaira, threatens to undo her resolve.

When rioting breaks out and mythic beasts incite panic, Nohra must fight alongside Bataar to keep order, her mixed feelings towards the man she’s sworn to kill becoming ever more complicated. Old evils are rising. Only together will Nohra and Bataar stand a chance against the djinn, ghouls, and monsters that threaten to overrun their world.

Inspired by the diverse Turkic cultures of Southwest Asia, this gorgeously written fantasy is sure to sweep readers off their feet.]]> 464 Sara Omer 1835412831 Hannah 0 to-read 4.40 2025 The Gryphon King (The Chaos Constellation, #1)
author: Sara Omer
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness]]> 217387823
As day turns to night, four hundred years’ worth of stories unspool, and the house reverberates with raucous laughter, pungent feasts, and piercing cries of pleasure and pain. It all begins with Joana, Mas Clavell’s matriarch, who once longed for a husband―“a full man,” perhaps even “an heir with a patch of land and a roof over his head.” She summoned the devil to fulfill her wish and struck a deal: a man in exchange for her soul. But when, on her wedding day, Joana discovered that her husband was missing a toe (eaten by wolves), she exploited a loophole in her agreement, heedless of what consequences might follow.]]> 176 Irene Solà 1644453436 Hannah 4 a heady, befuddling, gloriously symphonic confusion of ghosts, devils, and deaths. ]]> 3.62 2023 I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness
author: Irene Solà
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/30
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: adult, fiction, paranormal, literary-fiction, translated-literature, dark-delights
review:
I could reread this book with a notepad and a highlighter and a family tree and a timeline, and I think it would still be a heady, befuddling, gloriously symphonic confusion of ghosts, devils, and deaths.
]]> The sunshine man 222532828 ‘The week I shot a man clean through the head began like any other . . .’

From Emma Stonex, the bestselling author of The Lamplighters, comes The Sunshine Man, a tangled mystery about a terrible crime and a revenge plotted over decades.

'A deeply thrilling and emotionally rich page-turner. One of my books of the year' - Lucy Clarke
'Fiendishly gripping' - Rosie Walsh

In January 1989, Birdie wakes to the news she’s been waiting eighteen years to hear. Jimmy Maguire, the man who killed her sister, has been freed from jail. Birdie leaves for London with a gun and a to find him and make him pay. But there’s another side to the story, and she’s about to enter a world of family lies, worn-out loyalties and long-buried betrayals.

Did Jimmy kill Birdie’s sister, or is he the only one she can really trust? And when the truth is finally revealed, will she choose forgiveness – or retribution?

A heart-stopping new novel of murky shared pasts and a fury-fueled present, The Sunshine Man is a thrilling cat and mouse chase set against the salt-drenched backdrop of England’s south coast, from bestselling author Emma Stonex.]]> 368 Emma Stonex 1529047374 Hannah 3 adult, fiction, mystery Went into this expecting a thrilling revenge story. Walked out of it having witnessed a quiet story about overcoming inner demons. (Extended thoughts below) ]]> 3.73 2025 The sunshine man
author: Emma Stonex
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/23
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: adult, fiction, mystery
review:
Went into this expecting a thrilling revenge story. Walked out of it having witnessed a quiet story about overcoming inner demons. (Extended thoughts below)
]]> The Devils (The Devils, #1) 233800039
Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.

Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it's a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side.]]> 560 Joe Abercrombie 125088005X Hannah 0 The Devils is Pirates / Necromancers / Werewolves / Vampires / Elves / Knights / Princesses of the Caribbean 4 adapted to book.

Jokes about chafed balls & invisible cunnilingus. Zero stakes and characters who needn't fear death. Each character has their schtick and holds to it for 560 pages without growth or change. A good pick if you want to chill and enjoy a silly, adventurous read. (extended thoughts below) ]]> 4.27 2025 The Devils (The Devils, #1)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/06/12
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: adult, dark-fantasy, fantasy, fiction
review:
The Devils is Pirates / Necromancers / Werewolves / Vampires / Elves / Knights / Princesses of the Caribbean 4 adapted to book.

Jokes about chafed balls & invisible cunnilingus. Zero stakes and characters who needn't fear death. Each character has their schtick and holds to it for 560 pages without growth or change. A good pick if you want to chill and enjoy a silly, adventurous read. (extended thoughts below)
]]> <![CDATA[There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales]]> 6490566 The literary event of Halloween: a book of otherworldly power from Russia's preeminent contemporary fiction writer

Vanishings and apparitions, nightmares and twists of fate, mysterious ailments and supernatural interventions haunt these stories by the Russian master Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, heir to the spellbinding tradition of Gogol and Poe. Blending the miraculous with the macabre, and leavened by a mischievous gallows humor, these bewitching tales are like nothing being written in Russia-or anywhere else in the world-today.]]> 206 Ludmilla Petrushevskaya 0143114662 Hannah 0 THERE ONCE LIVED A WOMAN WHO TRIED TO KILL HER NEIGHBOR'S BABY on a book and expect me to ignore it. ]]> 3.64 2009 There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales
author: Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2025/06/05
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: adult, horror, fiction, fairy-tales, translated-literature, short-stories
review:
You can't put a title like THERE ONCE LIVED A WOMAN WHO TRIED TO KILL HER NEIGHBOR'S BABY on a book and expect me to ignore it.
]]> Strange Pictures 218587178
A pregnant woman’s sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning.

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

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

Structured around these nine childlike drawings, every one holding a disturbing clue, this novel invites readers to piece together the harrowing truth behind each and the overarching backstory that connects them all. Strange Pictures is the bestselling international debut from mystery-horror YouTube sensation Uketsu—an enigmatic masked figure who has become one of Japan's most talked about contemporary authors.]]> 236 Uketsu 0063433095 Hannah 3 Picked this up because I was craving a WEIRD READ. ]]> 3.77 2022 Strange Pictures
author: Uketsu
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/08
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: adult, horror, mystery, oddities, translated-literature
review:
Picked this up because I was craving a WEIRD READ.
]]> <![CDATA[If You're Seeing This, It's Meant for You]]> 223120442 Fates collide after a tarot influencer disappears from a decaying Hollywood mansion in this unnerving gothic mystery and audacious social comedy from the acclaimed author of Self Care.

After her boyfriend dumps her in a Reddit post, unemployed thirty-nine-year-old Dayna accepts an unusual opportunity from a man she stopped speaking to twenty years If Dayna can help Craig transform his crumbling mansion into a successful hype house of influencers, he can restore his birthright to its former glory, and she can bring her career back from the dead.

But missing from the mansion is Becca, an enigmatic tarot card reader who built a rabid fandom with her cryptic, soul-touching videos . . .  and then vanished. With nineteen-year-old Olivia, the newest member of the hype house (and one of Becca’s biggest fans), Dayna begins to build a social media campaign around Becca’s disappearance that will catapult the creators to new heights of success. Too bad Craig forbids Dayna from pursuing the mystery at its heart.

As Olivia searches for traces of Becca in a labyrinthine house that seems intent on hiding its secrets, and Dayna becomes entangled with both Craig and Jake, the resident heartthrob and the last person to see Becca, the two women make a shocking discovery that will upend everything.

The You may think you’re inhabiting it, but is it really inhabiting you? ]]> 320 Leigh Stein 0593983645 Hannah 0 to-read 3.92 2025 If You're Seeing This, It's Meant for You
author: Leigh Stein
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/07/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Honeyeater 222376616 A richly imagined dark fantasy that pulses with the beautiful destruction of a town reclaimed by the natural world.

Sub-tropical Bellworth is founded on floodplains and root-bound secrets. And Charlie, remarkable only for vanished friends and a successful sister, plans to leave for good, just as soon as he deals with his dead aunt’s house. Then Grace arrives, desperate, with roses pressing up through her skin, and drags Charlie into the ghost-choked mysteries of Bellworth, uncovering the impossible consequences of loss and desire — and a choice Charlie made when he was a boy. But peeling back the rumors and lies that cocoon the suburb disturbs more than complacent neighbors and lost souls. And Charlie and Grace are forced to a decision that threatens not only their lives, but all they believed those lives could be.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 272 Kathleen Jennings 1250845882 Hannah 0 to-read 3.50 Honeyeater
author: Kathleen Jennings
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Children of Jocasta 209166917
When you have grown up as I have, there is no security in not knowing things, in avoiding the ugliest truths because they can't be faced . . . Because that is what happened the last time, and that is why my siblings and I have grown up in a cursed house, children of cursed parents . . .

Jocasta is just fifteen when she is told that she must marry the King of Thebes, an old man she has never met. Her life has never been her own, and nor will it be, unless she outlives her strange, absent husband.

Ismene is the same age when she is attacked in the palace she calls home. Since the day of her parents' tragic deaths a decade earlier, she has always longed to feel safe with the family she still has. But with a single act of violence, all that is about to change.

With the turn of these two events, a tragedy is set in motion. But not as we’ve known it.]]> 289 Natalie Haynes 0063418304 Hannah 3 3.82 2017 The Children of Jocasta
author: Natalie Haynes
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/26
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: adult, fiction, mythology, retellings, audiobook
review:

]]> A House for Miss Pauline 221103553
'History's crimes unfurl in this magical story . . . McCaulay's immaculate, breathtaking writing carries it with poise and conviction. This novel is poetry' Lisa Allen-Agostini, author of THE BREAD THE DEVIL KNEAD

'Where has Diana McCaulay been all my reading life? . . . A profound and beautiful novel of encounters with the past and atonements in the present' Julia Alvarez, author of THE CEMETERY OF UNTOLD STORIES

When the stones of her home begin to rattle and call out to her in the quiet of the night, Pauline Sinclair knows she will not live to see her 100th birthday.

From educating herself through stolen books to becoming one of the most successful ganja farmers in the area and raising a family, Pauline has lived a life on her own terms in Mason Hall, a rural Jamaican village.

Yet these whispering walls promise to topple the foundations of her security and exhume Pauline's many buried secrets, including the mysterious disappearance of the man who came to claim the very land on which she built her home, stone by stone, from the ruins of a plantation.

Compelled to make peace before she dies, Pauline decides to leave the only home she has ever known on a final, desperate mission to uncover truths she could never have imagined . . .

Lyrical, funny, eerie and profound, A House for Miss Pauline tells a timely and nuanced tale, infused with the patois and natural beauty of Jamaica, which questions who owns the land on which our identities are forged. ]]> 320 Diana McCaulay 0349704279 Hannah 0 4.50 2025 A House for Miss Pauline
author: Diana McCaulay
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/06/26
date added: 2025/06/26
shelves: adult, fiction, literary-fiction
review:

]]> Hear Her Howl 228786620 As fiercely feminist as it is hopeful, this speculative, sapphic YA romance is simultaneously a modern-day war cry and a PSA that there is a wolf who slumbers us all—we only have to wake her.

Rue’s life is over. After she’s caught kissing a girl behind the Sunday School classrooms, she gets exiled to Sacred Heart so she can be transformed into her mother’s idea of a respectable lady. The irony of being sent to—of all places—an all-girls Catholic boarding school is not lost on Rue, especially when she falls immediately and irreversibly under the spell of its ethereal, ferocious outcast, Charlotte Savage. 

But there’s more to Charlotte than her sharp gaze and even sharper Charlotte Savage is, against all logic, a werewolf. And Rue can become one, too—any woman can, if she’s brave enough to heed the wild that howls inside of her.

She and Charlotte aren’t alone in answering the call, and upon forming a wolf pack of wild girls who refuse to remain docile, Rue realizes she couldn’t have been more wrong. Her life isn’t over. It’s just beginning.

This world is not kind to women, much less wild women…but God help the man who tries to cage the girls of Sacred Heart.]]> 352 Kim DeRose 1454960647 Hannah 0 0.0 Hear Her Howl
author: Kim DeRose
name: Hannah
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/22
shelves: to-read, young-adult, lgbtq, fiction, feminism
review:

]]> The Beautiful Maddening 220160377 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Shea Ernshaw comes a haunting romantic contemporary fantasy about a teen navigating her family’s love curse that blooms with their enchanted tulips every year.

Seventeen year-old Lark Goode wants only one to escape her small town of Cutwater and the history of her family name. It’s a history that began during the Dutch tulip mania of 1636, when Lark’s ancestor stole the last remaining tulip bulbs and fled to America. But when the tulips bloomed on American soil, madness sprouted from their snowy white petals.

The madness was love.

Now, generations later, the Goodes remain cursed—the unnatural flowers outside their home causing locals to fall helplessly in love with anyone carrying Goode blood in their veins. While her brother embraces the strange power, Lark wants nothing more than to be free from it.

But when she meets a boy who seems unaffected by the family curse, Lark finds herself falling headlong into a feeling she’s spent her whole life trying to avoid. Yet, all curses and magic come with a price, and the town of Cutwater soon sinks into a dangerous sickness tied to Lark and the ill-fated tulips.

To save the town, Lark will need to sacrifice everything—even true love—to break the spell. Because in the Goode family, love has a way of destroying everything.]]> 304 Shea Ernshaw 166590027X Hannah 3 3.63 2025 The Beautiful Maddening
author: Shea Ernshaw
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/14
date added: 2025/06/14
shelves: fiction, fantasy, young-adult, romance, contemporary
review:

]]> A Little Trickerie 200189179
Born a vagabond, Tibb Ingleby has never had a roof of her own. But her mother has taught her that if you're not too bound by the Big Man's rules, there are many ways a woman can find shelter in this world. Now her mother is dead in a trick gone wrong and young Tibb is orphaned and alone.

As she wends her way across England's fields and forests, Tibb will discover there are people who will care for her, as well as those who mean her harm. And there are a great many others who are prepared to believe just about anything.

And so, when the opportunity presents itself to escape the shackles society has placed on them, Tibb and her new friends conjure an audacious plan: her greatest trickerie yet. But before they know it, their hoax takes on a life of its own, drawing crowds - and vengeful enemies - to their door...

A Little Trickerie is blazingly original, disarmingly funny and deeply moving. Portraying a side of Tudor England rarely seen, it's a tale of belief and superstition, kinship and courage, with a ragtag cast of characters and an unforgettable and distinctly unangelic heroine.]]> 384 Rosanna Pike 0241646065 Hannah 4 4.15 2024 A Little Trickerie
author: Rosanna Pike
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/06/13
shelves: adult, fiction, lgbtq, historical-fiction, women-s-prize-nominee
review:
Tibb is an unforgettable protagonist.
]]> <![CDATA[The Story of a Heart: Two Families, One Heart, and the Medical Miracle That Saved a Child’s Life]]> 219511714 A riveting and inspiring true story of two families linked by one heart—written by a bestselling author and palliative care doctor. The first of our organs to form and the last to die, the heart is both a simple pump and the symbol of what makes us human; as long as it continues to beat, there is hope. In The Story of a Heart, Dr. Rachel Clarke interweaves the history of medical innovations behind transplant surgery with the story of two children—one of whom desperately needs a new heart. One summer day, nine-year-old Keira Ball was in a terrible car accident and suffered catastrophic brain injuries. As the rest of her body began to shut down, her heart continued to beat. In an act of extraordinary generosity, Keira’s parents and siblings immediately agreed that she would have wanted to be an organ donor. Meanwhile nine-year-old Max Johnson had been in a hospital for nearly a year, valiantly fighting the virus that was causing his young heart to fail. When Max’s parents received the call they had been hoping for, they knew it came at a terrible cost to another family—in what Clarke calls “the brutal arithmetic of transplant surgery.” The act of Keira’s heart resuming its rhythm inside Max’s body was a medical miracle. But this was only part of the story. While waiting on the transplant list, Max had become the hopeful face of a campaign to change the UK’s laws around organ donation. Following his successful surgery, Keira’s mother saw the little boy beaming on the front page of the newspaper and knew it was the same boy whose parents had recently sent her an anonymous letter overflowing with gratitude for her daughter’s heart. The two mothers began to exchange messages and eventually decided to meet. This is the unforgettable story of how one family’s grief transformed into a lifesaving gift. Clarke relates the urgent journey of Keira’s heart and explores the history of the remarkable surgery that made it possible, stretching back over a century and involving the knowledge and dedication not just of surgeons but of countless nurses and technicians, immunologists and paramedics. The Story of a Heart is a testament to compassion for the dying, the many ways we honor our loved ones, and the tenacity of love.]]> 288 Rachel Clarke 0349145598 Hannah 5 Winner of the 2025 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction! ]]> 4.76 2024 The Story of a Heart: Two Families, One Heart, and the Medical Miracle That Saved a Child’s Life
author: Rachel Clarke
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.76
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/06/12
shelves: adult, memoir, non-fiction, science, women-s-prize-nominee
review:
❤️ Winner of the 2025 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction!
]]> The Safekeep 199798201
A house is a precious thing...

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

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

Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, and infused with intrigue, atmosphere, and sex, The Safekeep is a brilliantly plotted and provocative debut novel you won’t soon forget.]]> 272 Yael van der Wouden 1668034344 Hannah 0 4.05 2024 The Safekeep
author: Yael van der Wouden
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/12
shelves: adult, booker-prize-nominee, fiction, historical-fiction, lgbtq, dnf, women-s-prize-nominee
review:

]]> Ootlin 63836682 'Beautiful, deep, dangerous, transfixing . . . it will burn a home in your heart, it has in mine. Read every word of every page. Turn them carefully. Jenni Fagan is made of fire and spirit. From start to finish I could not put it down. Close the door. Sit down now. Read Ootlin. Read' LEMN SISSAY

Dubbed the 'Patron Saint of Literary Street Urchins' by the New York Times, award winning novelist and poet Jenni Fagan is one of the most exciting literary voices in Britain today.

Her literary memoir, Ootlin, is about a life raised by the state. Fagan was born in an institution and spent her early life and years in care. Fostered, adopted and moved multiples times, she developed a childhood fascination with stories and why people tell them.

Ootlin is about dislocation, ceaselessly moving through all kinds of placements in a broken UK system. It's a story of what happens when the world makes you look at it from the outside in, how it is to be entirely rootless yet find the desire to transcend and create burns just as boldly as any tragedy.

Praise for LUCKENBOOTH:
'Fagan's prose is poetic, high-octane, built on punchy sentences' Sunday Times
'Dazzlingly ambitious' Douglas Stuart]]> Jenni Fagan 1529153085 Hannah 4
]]> 4.50 2023 Ootlin
author: Jenni Fagan
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/06/12
shelves: adult, non-fiction, memoir, women-s-prize-nominee
review:
This book is all sharp edges that lance and scar the skin, and a sliver of light that shines bright with hope.


]]> <![CDATA[Sister in Law: Fighting for Justice in a System Designed by Men]]> 212536858
In a remarkable legal career, Harriet has been at the forefront of some historic and ground-breaking legal victories. Frequently working with women who have survived male violence or abuse, sometimes with the bereaved families of those who did not survive, her work has led her to challenge the police, CPS, government departments and the prison and immigration detention system.

In Sister in Law, she tells the shocking stories of some of those who have come to her for assistance and shines a feminist light on the landscape of arcane laws and byzantine systems, skewed towards male behaviour and responses, through which she has steered them. Litigation can be a long and rocky path of pitfalls and dead ends and there are defeats as well as gains, hours of painstaking work as well as courtroom drama. It takes collaboration, extraordinary tenacity and huge compassion, but Harriet Wistrich is proof that it is possible to demand better justice and to bring about important change.]]> 344 Harriet Wistrich 1911709267 Hannah 4
]]> 4.36 2024 Sister in Law: Fighting for Justice in a System Designed by Men
author: Harriet Wistrich
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/06/12
shelves: adult, non-fiction, women-s-prize-nominee, history
review:
As expected, rage-inducing.


]]> <![CDATA[Embers of the Hands: An Intimate History of the Viking Age]]> 195855296
Yet while such characters define the Viking Age today, they were in the minority. This is the history of the other people who inhabited the medieval Nordic world-not only Norway, Denmark and Sweden, but also Iceland, Greenland, parts of the British Isles, Continental Europe and Russia- a history of a Viking Age filled with real people of different ages, genders and ethnicities, as told through the traces that they left behind, from hairstyles to place names, love-notes to gravestones.

It's also a history of humans on an extraordinarily global stage, spanning the centuries from the edge of the North American continent to the Russian steppes, from the Arctic wastelands to the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Caliphate.]]> 373 Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough 1788166744 Hannah 3 4.09 2024 Embers of the Hands: An Intimate History of the Viking Age
author: Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/06/11
shelves: adult, history, non-fiction, women-s-prize-nominee
review:

]]> Orbital 96177640
A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day.

Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction.

The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part - or protective - of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?]]> 144 Samantha Harvey Hannah 5 A starlit elegy to planet earth. ]]> 3.80 2023 Orbital
author: Samantha Harvey
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/13
date added: 2025/06/11
shelves: adult, fiction, novella, literary-fiction, best-of-the-year, science-fiction, contemporary, booker-prize-nominee
review:
A starlit elegy to planet earth.
]]> <![CDATA[The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place]]> 219814205
A nationwide manhunt is launched for the tenant of the ground-floor flat, a softly spoken former policeman named Reg Christie. Star reporter Harry Procter chases after the scoop. Celebrated crime writer Fryn Tennyson Jesse begs to be assigned to the case. The story becomes an instant sensation, and with the relentless rise of the tabloid press the public watches on like never before. Who is Christie? Why did he choose to kill women, and to keep their bodies near him? As Harry and Fryn start to learn the full horror of what went on at Rillington Place, they realise that Christie might also have engineered a terrible miscarriage of justice in plain sight.

In this riveting true story, Kate Summerscale mines the archives to uncover the lives of Christie's victims, the tabloid frenzy that their deaths inspired, and the truth about what happened inside the house.]]> 296 Kate Summerscale 1526660482 Hannah 3
]]> 3.80 2024 The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place
author: Kate Summerscale
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/06/11
shelves: adult, history, non-fiction, women-s-prize-nominee, true-crime
review:
Well researched and organized, but no definitive answers are given about what happened at 10 Rillington Place.


]]> Sour Cherry 213816143 A stunning reimagining of Bluebeard—one of the most mythologized serial killers—twisted into a modern tale of toxic masculinity, a feminist sermon, and a folktale for the twenty-first century.

The tale begins with Agnes. After losing her baby, Agnes is called to the great manor house to nurse the local lord’s baby boy. But something is wrong with the child: his nails grow too fast, his skin smells of soil, and his eyes remind her of the dark forest. As he grows into a boy, then into man, a plague seems to follow him everywhere. Trees wither at the roots, fruits rot on their branches, and the town turns against him. The man takes a wife, who bears him a son. But tragedy strikes in cycles and his family is forced to consider their own malignancy—until wife after wife, death after death, plague after plague, every woman he touches becomes a ghost. The ghosts become a chorus, and they call urgently to our narrator as she tries to explain, in our very real world, exactly what has happened to her. The ghosts can all agree on one thing, an inescapable truth about this man, this powerful lord who has loved them and led them each to ruin: If you leave, you die. But if you die, you stay.

Natalia Theodoridou’s haunting and unforgettable debut novel, Sour Cherry, confronts age-old systems of gender and power, long-held excuses made for bad men, and the complicated reasons we stay captive to the monsters we love.]]> 312 Natalia Theodoridou 1963108191 Hannah 3 3.66 2025 Sour Cherry
author: Natalia Theodoridou
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/10
date added: 2025/06/10
shelves: adult, fiction, retellings, fairy-tales, lgbtq, gothic
review:

]]> Raising Hare: A Memoir 214269337 A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman’s unlikely friendship with a wild hare.

Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.

In February 2021, Dalton stumbles upon a newborn hare—a leveret—that had been chased by a dog. Fearing for its life, she brings it home, only to discover how impossible it is to rear a wild hare, most of whom perish in captivity from either shock or starvation. Through trial and error, she learns to feed and care for the leveret with every intention of returning it to the wilderness. Instead, it becomes her constant companion, wandering the fields and woods at night and returning to Dalton’s house by day. Though Dalton feared that the hare would be preyed upon by foxes, stoats, feral cats, raptors, and even people, she never tried to restrict it to the house. Each time the hare leaves, Chloe knows she may never see it again. Yet she also understands that to confine it would be its own kind of death.

Raising Hare chronicles their journey together, while also taking a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore. We witness first-hand the joy at this extraordinary relationship between human and animal, which serves as a reminder that the best things, and most beautiful experiences, arise when we least expect them.]]> 285 Chloe Dalton 0593701844 Hannah 3 4.38 2025 Raising Hare: A Memoir
author: Chloe Dalton
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/26
date added: 2025/06/10
shelves: adult, animal-welfare, memoir, nature, women-s-prize-nominee, non-fiction
review:
A lovely little tribute to the world we share with animals (especially hares).
]]> The Hounding 217388147 The Crucible meets The Virgin Suicides in this haunting debut about five sisters in a small village in eighteenth century England whose neighbors are convinced they’re turning into dogs.

Even before the rumors about the Mansfield girls begin, Little Nettlebed is a village steeped in the uncanny, from strange creatures that wash up on the riverbed to portentous ravens gathering on the roofs of people about to die. But when the villagers start to hear barking, and one claims to see the Mansfield sisters transform before his very eyes, the allegations spark fascination and fear like nothing has before.

The truth is that though the inhabitants of Little Nettlebed have never much liked the Mansfield girls—a little odd, think some; a little high on themselves, perhaps—they’ve always had plenty to say about them. As the rotating perspectives of five villagers quickly make clear, now is no exception. Even if local belief in witchcraft is waning, an aversion to difference is as widespread as ever, and these conflicting narratives all point to the same ultimate conclusion: something isn’t right in Little Nettlebed, and the sisters will be the ones to pay for it.

As relevant today as any time before, The Hounding celebrates the wild breaks from convention we’re all sometimes pulled toward, and wonders if, in a world like this one, it isn’t safer to be a dog than an unusual young girl.]]> 240 Xenobe Purvis 1250366380 Hannah 0 Adding "convince the neighbors I'm turning into a dog" to my bucket list. ]]> 4.14 2025 The Hounding
author: Xenobe Purvis
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/09
shelves: to-read, adult, fiction, historical-fiction, horror, mystery
review:
Adding "convince the neighbors I'm turning into a dog" to my bucket list.
]]> Leaf Storm and Other Stories 31721 Leaf Storm: 'SUDDENLY, AS IF A WHIRLWIND HAD SET DOWN ROOTS IN THE CENTRE OF THE TOWN, THE BANANA COMPANY ARRIVED, PURSUED BY THE LEAF STORM'

As a blizzard of warehouses and amusement parlours and slums descends on the small town of Macondo, the inhabitants reel at the accompanying stench of rubbish that makes their home unrecognisable. When the banana company leaves town as fast as it arrived, all they are left with is a void of decay.

Living in this devastated and soulless wasteland is one last honourable man, the Colonel, who is determined to fulfil a long standing promise, no matter how unpalatable it may be. With the death of the detested Doctor, he must provide an honourable burial - and incur the wrath of the rest of Macondo, who would rather see the Doctor rot, forgotten and unattended.

Also contains the stories: The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World, A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, Blacaman the Good, Vendor of Miracles, The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship, Monologue of Isabel Watching It Rain in Macondo, Nabo]]> 146 Gabriel García Márquez 006075155X Hannah 3 3.81 1955 Leaf Storm and Other Stories
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1955
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/08
date added: 2025/06/08
shelves: adult, fiction, literary-fiction, magical-realism, short-stories
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What the Wild Sea Can Be: The Future of the World’s Ocean]]> 197525309 The acclaimed marine biologist and author of The Brilliant Abyss examines the existential threats the world’s ocean will face in the coming decades and offers cautious optimism for much of the abundant life within in

No matter where we live, “we are all ocean people,” Helen Scales emphatically observes in her bracing yet hopeful exploration of the future of the ocean. Beginning with its fascinating deep history, Scales links past to present to show how the prehistoric ocean ecology was already working in ways similar to the ocean of today. In elegant, evocative prose, she takes readers into the realms of animals that epitomize today’s increasingly challenging conditions. Ocean life everywhere is on the move as seas warm, and warm waters are an existential threat to emperor penguins, whose mating grounds in Antarctica are collapsing. Shark populations—critical to balanced ecosystems—have shrunk by 71 per cent since the 1970s, largely the result of massive and oft-unregulated industrial fishing. Orcas—the apex predators—have also drastically declined, victims of toxic chemicals and plastics with long half-lives that disrupt the immune system and the ability to breed.

Yet despite these threats, many hopeful signs remain. Increasing numbers of no-fish zones around the world are restoring once-diminishing populations. Amazing seagrass meadows and giant kelp forests rivaling those on land are being regenerated and expanded. They may be our best defense against the storm surges caused by global warming, while efforts to reengineer coral reefs for a warmer world are growing.

Offering innovative ideas for protecting coastlines and cleaning the toxic seas, Scales insists we need more ethical and sustainable fisheries and must prevent the other existential threat of deep-sea mining, which could significantly alter life on earth. Inspiring us all to maintain a sense of awe and wonder at the majesty beneath the waves, she urges us to fight for the better future that still exists for the Anthropocene ocean.]]> 320 Helen Scales 0802162991 Hannah 3 4.08 2024 What the Wild Sea Can Be: The Future of the World’s Ocean
author: Helen Scales
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/06/07
shelves: non-fiction, women-s-prize-nominee, science, nature, adult, animal-welfare
review:
Hopeful but not the urgent cry for action I expected.
]]> Babel 57945316 From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 544 R.F. Kuang 0063021420 Hannah 3 I'm initiating PROJECT TOME, which will see me aspiring to tackle the unread behemoths on my shelves.

Aptly subtitled "an Arcane History" because this reads like a history book (with hints of memoir & the occasional etymology lesson). Poignant observations made about colonialism, racism, & exploitation of foreign resources. An impressive book, at times repetitive and sluggish. Superb closing lines in Chp 33! (Extended thoughts below.)


CHP 01

When Professor Lovell carried the boy out of Canton's alleys, everyone else on his street was already dead.

^ I'm already hooked. I mean, I know this isn't a plague tale, but I'm a sucker for stories that hinge on or kick off with a plague. (You'd think having lived through a pandemic would eradicate this perverse fascination with plagues, and yet... ]]> 4.16 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/11
date added: 2025/06/03
shelves: adult, fantasy, fiction, historical-fiction, dark-academia, project-tome
review:
With this 544 page book, I'm initiating PROJECT TOME, which will see me aspiring to tackle the unread behemoths on my shelves.

Aptly subtitled "an Arcane History" because this reads like a history book (with hints of memoir & the occasional etymology lesson). Poignant observations made about colonialism, racism, & exploitation of foreign resources. An impressive book, at times repetitive and sluggish. Superb closing lines in Chp 33! (Extended thoughts below.)


CHP 01

When Professor Lovell carried the boy out of Canton's alleys, everyone else on his street was already dead.

^ I'm already hooked. I mean, I know this isn't a plague tale, but I'm a sucker for stories that hinge on or kick off with a plague. (You'd think having lived through a pandemic would eradicate this perverse fascination with plagues, and yet...
]]> <![CDATA[The Reappearance of Rachel Price]]> 182484360
Lights. Camera. Lies.

18-year-old Bel has lived her whole life in the shadow of her mom’s mysterious disappearance. Sixteen years ago, Rachel Price vanished and young Bel was the only witness, but she has no memory of it. Rachel is gone, long presumed dead, and Bel wishes everyone would just move on.

But the case is dragged up from the past when the Price family agree to a true crime documentary. Bel can’t wait for filming to end, for life to go back to normal. And then the impossible happens. Rachel Price reappears, and life will never be normal again.

Rachel has an unbelievable story about what happened to her. Unbelievable, because Bel isn’t sure it’s real. If Rachel is lying, then where has she been all this time? And – could she be dangerous? With the cameras still rolling, Bel must uncover the truth about her mother, and find out why Rachel Price really came back from the dead . . .

From world-renowned author Holly Jackson comes a mind-blowing masterpiece about one girl’s search for the truth, and the terror in finding out who your family really is.]]> 438 Holly Jackson 0593374207 Hannah 4 I got close to solving the case (see me follow the clues below ]]> 4.09 2024 The Reappearance of Rachel Price
author: Holly Jackson
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/09
date added: 2025/06/03
shelves: fiction, contemporary, mystery, young-adult, thriller
review:
Holly Jackson does it again! I got close to solving the case (see me follow the clues below
]]> Upon a Starlit Tide 211004131 A dark and enchanting fairy tale-inspired historical fantasy combining elements of "The Little Mermaid" and "Cinderella" into a wholly original tale of love, power, and betrayal.

Saint-Malo, Brittany, 1758.
For Lucinde Leon, the youngest daughter of one of Saint-Malo's wealthiest ship-owners, the high walls of the city are more hindrance than haven. While her sisters are interested in securing advantageous marriages, Luce dreams of escaping her elegant but stifling home and joining a ship's crew. Only Samuel—Luce's best friend and an English smuggler—understands her longing for the sea, secretly teaching her to sail whenever she can sneak away. For Luce, the stolen time on the water with Samuel is precious.

One stormy morning, Luce's plans are blown off course when she rescues Morgan de Chatelaine, the youngest son of the most powerful ship-owner in Saint-Malo, from the sea. Immediately drawn to his charm and sense of adventure, she longs to attend the glittering ball held in honor of his safe return and begins to contemplate a different kind of future for herself.

But it is not only Luce's hopes at stake—the local fae are leaving Brittany and taking their magic with them, while the long-standing war with the English means Saint-Malo is always at risk of attack. As Luce is plunged into a world of magic, brutality, and seduction, secrets that have long been lost in the shadowy depths of the ocean begin to rise to the surface. The truth of her own power is growing brighter and brighter, shining like a sea-glass slipper.

Or the scales of a sea-maid's tail.]]> 418 Kell Woods 125085251X Hannah 4 4.25 2025 Upon a Starlit Tide
author: Kell Woods
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/06/02
shelves: adult, dark-fantasy, fantasy, fairy-tales, fiction, retellings, historical-fiction, mermaids
review:
THE ENDING IS SO BEAUTIFUL IT BROKE ME!
]]> The River's Daughter 214389569 Recalling memoirs like Wild and Educated, an internationally renowned whitewater rafting guide offers a gripping and inspiring memoir about overcoming hardship and coming into her own through her relationship with the rivers she has known.

After Bridget Crocker’s parents split in a vicious divorce, she moved with her mother from California to Wyoming, to a trailer park on the banks of the Snake River. Her childhood was nearly idyllic, with a stepfather she loved and a new baby brother, and with the river as her companion. When her mother underwent a drastic personality change seemingly overnight and left her stepfather for an eco-warrior and radical new lifestyle, Bridget’s world upended. She returned to California to live with her explosive father—until his violence sent her back to Wyoming.

The river was the most constant and nurturing influence in Bridget’s life; it helped instill in her the resilience she needed to overcome sexual assault and betrayals by those close to her and taught her to trust her intuition and embrace her strength as a woman. She became a world-class whitewater rafting guide, leading expeditions on the Snake, the Kern, the Salmon, and Zambia’s Zambezi rivers. Ultimately, her relationship with the rivers she came to know led her to reunite with her family and work with them to transform multi-generational cycles of poverty, trauma, and abuse.

In this propulsive story of finding hope and belonging in a life outdoors, Bridget Crocker not only takes us on exhilarating, and at times terrifying, adventures on the water but opens up a new way of experiencing the world—through its rivers, which can guide us, just as we can navigate them—and introduces a bold and vibrant new voice in adventure writing.]]> 320 Bridget Crocker 1954118546 Hannah 3 The River's Daughter is a touching memoir about overcoming abuse and ending the cycle of generational trauma.

A considerable portion of the book is dedicated to Crocker's career guiding rivers, so if white water rafting interests you (and your heart can handle stories of childhood abuse and SA) then this is the book for you.]]> 4.18 2025 The River's Daughter
author: Bridget Crocker
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/22
date added: 2025/06/02
shelves: adult, memoir, non-fiction, nature, giveaways
review:
The River's Daughter is a touching memoir about overcoming abuse and ending the cycle of generational trauma.

A considerable portion of the book is dedicated to Crocker's career guiding rivers, so if white water rafting interests you (and your heart can handle stories of childhood abuse and SA) then this is the book for you.
]]> All Fours 197798168
A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.]]> 336 Miranda July 0593190262 Hannah 3 I'd love to see more books with middle-aged FMCs, preferably with relatable protagonists and without the desperate attempts to be edgy.

But for now, this is a bold start: an unlikeable (& unreliable) FMC pursing self-discovery at middle age via brazen sexual exploration with a few brief musings about marriage, motherhood, and menopause thrown in.

While not a me book, I can easily see why All Fours was nominated for the and . The writing is excellent, and the story reaches a beautiful, full-circle conclusion.

Extended thoughts ]]> 3.48 2024 All Fours
author: Miranda July
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/06/02
shelves: adult, fiction, carol-shields-prize-nominee, lgbtq, literary-fiction, contemporary, women-s-prize-nominee
review:
I'd love to see more books with middle-aged FMCs, preferably with relatable protagonists and without the desperate attempts to be edgy.

But for now, this is a bold start: an unlikeable (& unreliable) FMC pursing self-discovery at middle age via brazen sexual exploration with a few brief musings about marriage, motherhood, and menopause thrown in.

While not a me book, I can easily see why All Fours was nominated for the and . The writing is excellent, and the story reaches a beautiful, full-circle conclusion.

Extended thoughts
]]> Ponti 33000419
Seventeen years later, Circe is struggling through a divorce in fraught and ever-changing Singapore when a project comes up at work: a remake of the cult seventies horror film series 'Ponti', the very project that defined Amisa's short-lived film career. Suddenly Circe is knocked off balance: by memories of the two women she once knew, by guilt, and by a past that threatens her conscience.

Told from the perspectives of all three women, Ponti is about friendship and memory, about the things we do when we're on the cusp of adulthood that haunt us years later. Beautifully written by debut author Sharlene Teo, and enormously atmospheric, Ponti marks the launch of an exciting new literary voice in the vein of Zadie Smith.]]> 292 Sharlene Teo 1509855319 Hannah 3 3.37 2018 Ponti
author: Sharlene Teo
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/17
date added: 2025/05/17
shelves: adult, contemporary, literary-fiction
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love and the Hidden Order of Life]]> 220548876 The quirky and profound international bestseller – at once a life-affirming memoir on how to live well in a world governed by chaos, and a darkly astonishing scientific biography

IF FISH DON’T EXIST, WHAT ELSE DO WE HAVE WRONG?

As a child, Lulu Miller’s scientist father taught her that chaos will come for us all. There is no cosmic destiny, no plan. Enter David Starr Jordan, 19th-century taxonomist and believer in order. A fish specialist devoted to mapping out the great tree of life, who spent his days pinning down unruly fins, studying shimmering scales and sealing new discoveries into jars of ethanol.

At a time when Lulu’s life is unravelling, David Starr Jordan beckons. Reading about Jordan’s sheer perseverance after an earthquake shattered his collection, Lulu stumbles upon an unexpected antidote to life’s unpredictability. But lurking behind the lore of this mighty taxonomist lies a darker tale waiting to be told: one about the human cost of attempting to define the form of things unknown.

This is a story unlike any other you’ve read before. It’s about a very tall man with a walrus moustache, the injustices and unexpected deliverances of the universe, love that strikes like lightning and about why fish don’t exist after all.]]> 256 Lulu Miller 1805337599 Hannah 5 everything. Loved it! ]]> 4.11 2020 Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love and the Hidden Order of Life
author: Lulu Miller
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/05/16
shelves: adult, biography, history, nature, science, non-fiction, women-s-prize-nominee, best-of-the-year, memoir, lgbtq
review:
This book made me feel everything. Loved it!
]]> The Signature of All Things 17465453 A glorious, sweeping novel of desire, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, from the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed.

In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker—a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry's brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father's money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. As Alma's research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and who draws her in the exact opposite direction — into the realm of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose a utopian artist — but what unites this unlikely couple is a desperate need to understand the workings of this world and the mechanisms behind all life.

Exquisitely researched and told at a galloping pace, The Signature of All Things soars across the globe—from London to Peru to Philadelphia to Tahiti to Amsterdam, and beyond. Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters: missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses, and the quite mad. But most memorable of all, it is the story of Alma Whittaker, who — born in the Age of Enlightenment, but living well into the Industrial Revolution — bears witness to that extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce, and class were exploding into dangerous new ideas. Written in the bold, questing spirit of that singular time, Gilbert's wise, deep, and spellbinding tale is certain to capture the hearts and minds of readers.]]> 512 Elizabeth Gilbert 0670024856 Hannah 5 The kind of book that makes you slow down to appreciate nature's small wonders.]]> 3.84 2013 The Signature of All Things
author: Elizabeth Gilbert
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2015/09/13
date added: 2025/05/16
shelves: historical-fiction, women-s-prize-nominee, literary-fiction
review:
The kind of book that makes you slow down to appreciate nature's small wonders.
]]> The Glass Witch 59806091 Snicker of Magic meets Hocus Pocus with a touch of Dumplin' for middle-grade readers in this fast-paced, whimsical fantasy. Perfect for fans of Ghost Squad and Witch Boy.

12-year-old Adelaide Goode has never been good enough.

Ever the disappointment, she's the weakest witch born in three centuries and has absolutely zero chance-as the town's fat girl-of winning the Cranberry Hollow Halloween pageant. But winning brings glory, and glory means proving herself worthy of the Goode name, which is all Addie's ever wanted.

What she most certainly does not want, however, is to enact a curse, waking a 300-year-old witch hunter from the grave. Not to mention the curse has turned Addie's bones into glass, sprouting more and more cracks as midnight approaches-which makes it terribly hard to run in heels.

With the aid of an ancient spellbook, a monster-obsessed neighbor, and a twitchy-nosed, furry friend, Addie must hunt down three ingredients to break the curse before the hunter not only ruins the pageant, but erases magic-and her-from the town.]]> 224 Lindsay Puckett 1338803425 Hannah 3 4.03 2022 The Glass Witch
author: Lindsay Puckett
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/12
date added: 2025/05/12
shelves: fiction, fantasy, middle-grade
review:

]]> Funny Story 194803835 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé, Peter, told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it... right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned-up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry 0593441281 Hannah 3 Could it possibly be that good? Let's find out… ]]> 4.16 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/09
date added: 2025/05/09
shelves: adult, contemporary, fiction, humor, romance
review:
179,000+ GR users voted this the best romance of 2024. Could it possibly be that good? Let's find out…
]]> <![CDATA[Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats]]> 216971220 What could accidentally moving into a house with thirty feral cats teach you about going viral, surviving capitalism, and the importance of community? Kind of a lot, actually.

When Courtney Gustafson moved into a rental house in the Poets Square neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona, she didn’t know that the property came with thirty feral cats. Focused only on her own survival—in a new relationship, during a pandemic, with poor mental health and a job that didn’t pay enough—Courtney was reluctant to spend any of her own time or money caring for the wayward animals. 

But the cats—their pleading eyes, their ribs showing, the new kittens born in the driveway—didn’t give her a choice. 

She had no idea about the grief and hardship of animal rescue, the staggering size of the problem in neighborhoods across the country. And she couldn't have imagined how that struggle—towards an ethics of care, of individuals trying their best amidst spectacularly failing systems—would help pierce a personal darkness she'd wrestled for with much of her life. She also didn’t expect that the TikTok and Instagram accounts she created to share the quirky personalities of the wild, but lovable cats, like Mushroom Risotto, Bubbles, Goldie, and Sad Boy, would end up saving her home.

Courtney writes toward a vision of community—from the dark alleys where she feeds feral cats, from inside the tragically neglected homes where she climbs over piles of trash and occasionally animals, from her own driveway with the cats she loves and must sometimes let go. Compelling and tender, Poets Square is as much about cats as it is about the urgency of care, community, and a little bit of dumb hope, in a world that can feel insurmountably broken.]]> 256 Courtney Gustafson 0593727614 Hannah 3
“I loved cats but I had never loved cats like this: at their wildest, their most brutal, the way nature had overtaken them and left only suffering, only starvation and death.”*

Courtney Gustafson moved into a rental house in the Poets Square neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona, unaware that the house was the stomping grounds of 30 feral cats. While she at first kept her distance, hesitant to break the rules of her lease, she eventually succumbed to the pleading eyes of the starving, malnourished cats and opened her heart to them.

Gustafson soon found herself intrenched in animal rescue work that extended well beyond her home. With brutal honesty and insightful compassion, she shares how her work saving feral cats overlapped with her work at a food bank and within her local community, where she saw humans suffering in equal measure. She reflects briefly on humanity’s willingness to help animals in need and their staunch unwillingness to show that same compassion for other people.

Each chapter oscillates between Gustafson’s experience with a particular group of cats and how it relates to an experience in her past, this ranges from an abusive relationship and body-image struggles to her experience striving for her PhD and achieving financial security via sharing the cats on Instagram and TikTok.

I appreciate that Gustafson limited the saddest stories about the cats to one chapter and gives us a warning by titling it “In This One the Cats Don’t Survive.” My favorite aspect of the novel is the revelations Gustafson makes about her encounters with men while working in animal rescue and their absolutely appalling behavior.

Don’t pick this up if you only want to read about cats. Do pick this up if you enjoy heartfelt stories of overcoming hardship by connecting with animals and one’s community.

*Note: Quote taken from an advanced reading copy and is subject to change at publication.]]> 4.66 2025 Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats
author: Courtney Gustafson
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.66
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/08
date added: 2025/05/04
shelves: adult, giveaways, memoir, non-fiction, animal-welfare
review:
A sweet memoir that explores how one woman’s relationship with cats transformed her life.

“I loved cats but I had never loved cats like this: at their wildest, their most brutal, the way nature had overtaken them and left only suffering, only starvation and death.”*

Courtney Gustafson moved into a rental house in the Poets Square neighborhood of Tucson, Arizona, unaware that the house was the stomping grounds of 30 feral cats. While she at first kept her distance, hesitant to break the rules of her lease, she eventually succumbed to the pleading eyes of the starving, malnourished cats and opened her heart to them.

Gustafson soon found herself intrenched in animal rescue work that extended well beyond her home. With brutal honesty and insightful compassion, she shares how her work saving feral cats overlapped with her work at a food bank and within her local community, where she saw humans suffering in equal measure. She reflects briefly on humanity’s willingness to help animals in need and their staunch unwillingness to show that same compassion for other people.

Each chapter oscillates between Gustafson’s experience with a particular group of cats and how it relates to an experience in her past, this ranges from an abusive relationship and body-image struggles to her experience striving for her PhD and achieving financial security via sharing the cats on Instagram and TikTok.

I appreciate that Gustafson limited the saddest stories about the cats to one chapter and gives us a warning by titling it “In This One the Cats Don’t Survive.” My favorite aspect of the novel is the revelations Gustafson makes about her encounters with men while working in animal rescue and their absolutely appalling behavior.

Don’t pick this up if you only want to read about cats. Do pick this up if you enjoy heartfelt stories of overcoming hardship by connecting with animals and one’s community.

*Note: Quote taken from an advanced reading copy and is subject to change at publication.
]]> Not Quite Dead Yet 220223963 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder—now a hit Netflix series—returns with her first novel for adults: a twisty thriller about a young woman trying to solve her own murder.

In seven days Jet Mason will be dead.

Jet is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Woodstock, Vermont. Twenty-seven years old, she’s still waiting for her life to begin. I’ll do it later, she always says. She has time.

Until Halloween night, when Jet is violently attacked by an unseen intruder.

She suffers a catastrophic head injury. The doctor is certain that within a week, the injury will trigger a deadly aneurysm.

Jet has never thought of herself as having enemies. But now she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her former best friend turned sister-in-law, her ex-boyfriend.

She has at most seven days, and as her condition deteriorates she has only her childhood friend Billy for help. But nevertheless, she’s absolutely determined to finally finish something:

Jet is going to solve her own murder.]]> 400 Holly Jackson 059397705X Hannah 0 to-read 4.27 2025 Not Quite Dead Yet
author: Holly Jackson
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Bibliophobia 212806663 Books can seduce you. They can, Sarah Chihaya believes, annihilate, reveal, and provoke you. And anyone incurably obsessed with books understands this kind of unsettling literary encounter. Sarah calls books that have this effect “Life Ruiners”.

Her Life Ruiner, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, became a talisman for her in high school when its electrifying treatment of race exposed Sarah’s deepest feelings about being Japanese American in a predominantly white suburb of Cleveland. But Sarah had always lived through her books, seeking escape, self-definition, and rules for living. She built her life around reading, wrote criticism, and taught literature at an Ivy League University. Then she was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, and the world became an unreadable blank page. In the aftermath, she was faced with a question. Could we ever truly rewrite the stories that govern our lives?

Bibliophobia is an alternately searing and darkly humorous story of breakdown and survival told through books. Delving into texts such as Anne of Green Gables, Possession, A Tale for the Time Being, The Last Samurai, Chihaya interrogates her cultural identity, her relationship with depression, and the intoxicating, sometimes painful, ways books push back on those who love them.]]> 240 Sarah Chihaya 059359472X Hannah 3 the more time I spent with this book—exploring Chihaya's musings on books that wake you, challenge you, or devastate and shape you—the more I liked it.

Sadly, the final chapters failed to satiate a need for resolution, as Chihaya proves unfailingly pessimistic to the end. (Extended thoughts below) ]]> 3.65 2025 Bibliophobia
author: Sarah Chihaya
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/30
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: adult, books-about-books, memoir, non-fiction
review:
I nearly DNFd after the first chapter, but the more time I spent with this book—exploring Chihaya's musings on books that wake you, challenge you, or devastate and shape you—the more I liked it.

Sadly, the final chapters failed to satiate a need for resolution, as Chihaya proves unfailingly pessimistic to the end. (Extended thoughts below)
]]> Lola 205181182 A simmering tale of magic, adventure, and the extraordinary bond between a brother and sister who'd journey to the ends of the Earth to save each other. From the acclaimed author of Lotería comes a heartfelt story rooted in Mexican magical realism.

Ten-year-old Lola has always been touched by magic. In her Mexico City home, built around a towering tree, she is accustomed to enchanted blooms that change with the seasons, a sandbox that spits out mysterious treasures, and mischievous chaneques that scuttle about unseen by all but her. Magic has always been a part of her life, but now she must embrace the extraordinary as never before.

Ever since The Thing That Happened, Lola's brother Alex has been sick. As his condition worsens, something begins eating away at the tree, causing its leaves and blossoms to crumble like ash. The two are related, Lola is sure of it, but how? Seeking a cure, she visits a grocery store oracle who bids her to follow the chaneques down one of their secret passages... into a hidden world.

Here in Floresta, a land of myths and monsters and marvels untold, lies the key to healing her brother. But the kingdom's young queen stands in the way. Lola must use her wits and face her deepest fears if there's any hope of saving Alex in time.]]> 256 Karla Arenas Valenti 0593177002 Hannah 3 4.29 2024 Lola
author: Karla Arenas Valenti
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/30
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: fantasy, fiction, middle-grade, folklore
review:

]]> <![CDATA[River of Spirits (The Underwild #1)]]> 214152260
A stunning debut middle grade fantasy about a girl caught between the realms of the living and the dead who gets lost in the Underworld—perfect for fans of Greenwild and Rick Riordan.

Senka lives between the realm of the Living and the realm of the Dead. As ward to Charon, the Ferryer of the Underworld, Senka assists in ferrying recently departed souls across the river and into their afterlife. Although Charon has taught her many Rules about life in the Underworld, there is much he avoids telling her. Though she doesn’t understand why the Rules are so important, she listens—she must heed them in order to become an official Ferryer, just like Charon.

Then a Living girl, Poppy, enters the Underworld to plead for help in finding the ghost of her brother. Poppy’s grief tugs at Senka’s heart—but helping Poppy goes against the very Rules Senka is so desperate to follow. When Poppy is yanked away by the river’s current, Senka leaps to save her, and she and Poppy are swept downriver, far from everything Senka has ever known.

Lost in the Underwild, Senka and Poppy encounter malevolent spirits of lore and eccentric ghosts—and not all are willing to let souls slip through their grasp. Senka knows the Living can’t stay in the realm of the Dead for long, and if Poppy isn’t returned home soon, she will risk becoming lost to the Underworld forever. But as Senka travels deeper into the Underwild, she discovers there are secrets her guardian has kept from her, including the mystery surrounding her own existence. As Poppy and Senka dodge angry demigods, hungry wraiths, and terrifying dragon chimera, Senka gets closer to learning the truth of her own past. Soon, Senka won’t just need to save Poppy’s life—she’ll also need to save her own.]]> 432 Shana Targosz 1665957638 Hannah 4 This is the kind of adventurous intro to Greek myths I wish I'd had as a young reader.

]]> 4.12 2025 River of Spirits (The Underwild #1)
author: Shana Targosz
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: fantasy, mythology, middle-grade, fiction
review:
This is the kind of adventurous intro to Greek myths I wish I'd had as a young reader.


]]> Julia 86508927
But Julia becomes intrigued by a colleague from the Records Department—a mid-level worker of the Outer Party called Winston Smith—when she sees him locking eyes with a superior from the Inner Party at the Two Minutes Hate. And when one day, finding herself walking toward Winston, she impulsively hands him a note—a potentially suicidal gesture—she comes to realise that she's losing her grip and can no longer safely navigate her world.

Seventy-five years after Orwell finished writing his iconic novel, Sandra Newman has tackled the world of Big Brother in a truly convincing way, offering a dramatically different, feminist narrative that is true to and stands alongside the original. For the millions of readers who have been brought up with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, here, finally, is a provocative, vital and utterly satisfying companion novel.]]> 400 Sandra Newman 0063265338 Hannah 0 Orwell's 1984, I was eager to explore this feminist retelling from Julia's point of view but sadly chose to DNF it. ]]> 3.71 2023 Julia
author: Sandra Newman
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: adult, dystopian, fiction, retellings, literary-fiction, dnf
review:
After finishing Orwell's 1984, I was eager to explore this feminist retelling from Julia's point of view but sadly chose to DNF it.
]]> I Am You 230614734 In 1600s Amsterdam, two women—a painter and her assistant—defy the norms of their time as they take on the male-dominated art world and fall in love—from “fantastic prose writer” (Vulture) and “true master” (Guernica), Victoria Redel.

“I loved it in a way that is no doubt different than other books I have loved. The period and touches on time, sexual politics, art, history, class, women’s rights and the significance of Amsterdam and all the details the author shares of this particularly rich period kept me thoroughly engaged and is a brilliant backdrop to Gerta and Maria’s story.” —Sarah Jessica Parker, SJP Lit

At seven years old, Gerta’s hair is lopped off and she’s sent to work for the Oosterwijcks under the name Pieter because it’s a boy they need. As Pieter, she splits wood, minds the hens and rabbits, scrubs the wooden floors of the house, and tends the garden—all while the family’s teenage daughter, Maria, looks on, sketching Pieter’s every movement. A few years later at the dinner table Maria lays Gerta’s deception open alongside a demand that Gerta accompany her to Utrecht, where Maria will apprentice in the workshop of a famous painter. 
    In Utrecht, Maria learns to paint skilled still lives—though she is the only woman in her workshop and because of her gender will never be accepted into the painters’ guild. As Maria ascends to great heights of skill and fame, the relationship between maid and employer deepens and shifts, and it becomes clear that Gerta, too, possesses abilities far beyond what society expects.
    Inspired by the little that is known about Maria van Oosterwijck’s actual life, I Am You is a love story, a meditation on gender—the ways it binds and frees us—and an ode to artistic creation. As beautifully wrought as Oosterwijck’s paintings delicate, blazing in color, and at times enveloped in shadow, Victoria Redel’s new novel brings to life the copious spoils of Amsterdam’s Golden Age, and the perils that lay hidden within them for women like Maria and Gerta.]]> 304 Victoria Redel 1638932069 Hannah 0 4.50 I Am You
author: Victoria Redel
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read, adult, fiction, historical-fiction
review:

]]> 1984 34168383
With extraordinary relevance and renewed popularity, George Orwell’s 1984 takes on new life in this hardcover edition.

“Orwell saw, to his credit, that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power.”— The New Yorker
 
In 1984 , London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

Lionel Trilling said of Orwell’s masterpiece “ 1984 is a profound, terrifying, and wholly fascinating book. It is a fantasy of the political future, and like any such fantasy, serves its author as a magnifying device for an examination of the present.” Though the year 1984 now exists in the past, Orwell’s novel remains an urgent call for the individual willing to speak truth to power.]]> 304 George Orwell 1328869334 Hannah 3 All the stars for Part 1 and its prescient portrayal of a corrupt government. Part 2 kind of lost me (sex as rebellion ✅ insta love that comes out of nowhere ❌). Part 3 was more thrilling & reached a staggering conclusion. (Extended thoughts below.)

On this installment of PROJECT CLASSICS (in which I read the classics everyone and their mom has read but, strangely, I never have), I'm checking out Orwell's 2025 . Oops! Make that 1984.

Let's take surveillance of this book and see what we find... ]]> 4.19 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1949
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: adult, dystopian, classics, fiction, project-classics
review:
All the stars for Part 1 and its prescient portrayal of a corrupt government. Part 2 kind of lost me (sex as rebellion ✅ insta love that comes out of nowhere ❌). Part 3 was more thrilling & reached a staggering conclusion. (Extended thoughts below.)

On this installment of PROJECT CLASSICS (in which I read the classics everyone and their mom has read but, strangely, I never have), I'm checking out Orwell's 2025 . Oops! Make that 1984.

Let's take surveillance of this book and see what we find...
]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

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

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

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 387 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Hannah 0 4.55 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: dystopian, fiction, young-adult, science-fiction
review:
FIVE STARS FOR THAT MAYSILEE SLAP!
]]> The Book Censor's Library 175678711 A perilous and fantastical satire of banned books, secret libraries, and the looming eye of an all-powerful government.

The new book censor hasn’t slept soundly in weeks. By day he combs through manuscripts at a government office, looking for anything that would make a book unfit to publish―allusions to queerness, unapproved religions, any mention of life before the Revolution. By night the characters of literary classics crowd his dreams, and pilfered novels pile up in the house he shares with his wife and daughter. As the siren song of forbidden reading continues to beckon, he descends into a netherworld of resistance fighters, undercover booksellers, and outlaw librarians trying to save their history and culture.

Reckoning with the global threat to free speech and the bleak future it all but guarantees, Bothayna Al-Essa marries the steely dystopia of Orwell’s 1984 with the madcap absurdity of Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, resulting in a dreadful twist worthy of Kafka. The Book Censor’s Library is a warning call and a love letter to stories and the delicious act of losing oneself in them.]]> 263 Bothayna Al-Essa 1632063344 Hannah 0 "As the siren song of forbidden reading continues to beckon, he descends into a netherworld of resistance fighters, undercover booksellers, and outlaw librarians trying to save their history and culture." Sounds incredible.]]> 3.92 2019 The Book Censor's Library
author: Bothayna Al-Essa
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read, adult, fiction, translated-literature
review:
In which a book censor's dreams are crowded with literary characters and pilfered novels pile up in his house. "As the siren song of forbidden reading continues to beckon, he descends into a netherworld of resistance fighters, undercover booksellers, and outlaw librarians trying to save their history and culture." Sounds incredible.
]]> Forged: A Novel 220160385
In the Gilded Age, a time of abject poverty and obscene wealth, a desperate and ambitious young woman strikes out for a new life in the rising industrial cities of America. Naive Fanny is thrust into a Darwinian world where she is cast out and preyed upon, but she’s a survivor and quickly learns from her struggles. Thanks to her close observations of the mercenary actors around her, Fanny discovers the power of illusion and how it can overcome the immutability of social class and the ruthless rules of capitalism.

Shedding her past, Fanny embarks on a darkly thrilling transformation. She becomes Kitty Warren—a forger, con artist, and thief. Exploiting the greed and self-regard of the powerful, Kitty builds her own castle in the sky, yet she finds real pleasure and fulfillment elusive, and soon her foundations start to crumble.

With schemes more wicked than Jay Gatsby’s, yet with more humanity than Tom Ripley, Kitty Warren exposes the dark heart of the American dream, making Forged a gripping narrative and a parable for the ages.]]> 368 Danielle Teller 1639369430 Hannah 0 4.22 Forged: A Novel
author: Danielle Teller
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.22
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read, adult, fiction, historical-fiction
review:

]]> You Love Me (You, #3) 54847920
He gets a job at the local library—he does know a thing or two about books—and that’s where he meets her: Mary Kay DiMarco. Librarian. Joe won’t meddle; he will not obsess. He’ll win her the old-fashioned way: by providing a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand. Over time, they’ll both heal their wounds and begin their happily ever after in this sleepy town.

The trouble is, Mary Kay already has a life. She’s a mother. She’s a friend. She’s busy.

True love can only triumph if both people are willing to make room for the real thing. Joe cleared his decks. He’s ready. And hopefully, with his encouragement and undying support, Mary Kay will do the right thing and make room for him.]]> 385 Caroline Kepnes 0593133781 Hannah 0 adult, fiction, thriller 3.68 2021 You Love Me (You, #3)
author: Caroline Kepnes
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: adult, fiction, thriller
review:

]]> The Bell Jar 60178712 I felt very still and empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.

Sylvia Plath's groundbreaking semi-autobiographical novel offers an intimate, honest and often wrenching glimpse into mental illness. The Bell Jar broke the boundaries between fiction and reality and helped cement Sylvia Plath's place as an enduring feminist icon. Celebrated for its darkly humorous, razor sharp portrait of 1950s society, it continues to resonate with readers today as testament to the universal human struggle to claim one's rightful place in the world.

]]> 272 Sylvia Plath 0571373070 Hannah 4 Bleak, tragic, and beautifully written.
My interest waned somewhat after the midpoint, but Plath drew me in again by the final page. Love the ending! (extended thoughts below ]]> 4.08 1963 The Bell Jar
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: adult, classics, fiction, project-classics
review:
Bleak, tragic, and beautifully written.
My interest waned somewhat after the midpoint, but Plath drew me in again by the final page. Love the ending! (extended thoughts below
]]> Katabasis 210191773 Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own.

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

Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.]]> 560 R.F. Kuang 0063021471 Hannah 0 ✨PRE-ORDERED! 4.17 2025 Katabasis
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read, adult, fiction, dark-academia, historical-fiction, fantasy
review:
✨PRE-ORDERED!
]]> <![CDATA[Elphie: A Wicked Childhood (The Wicked Years, #0)]]> 199743711
Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, will grow to have a feisty and somewhat uncompromising character in adult life. But she is always a one-off, from her infancy; Elphie is the riveting coming-of-age story of a very peculiar and relatable young girl.

Young Elphie is shaped and molded by the behaviors of her promiscuous mother, Melena, and her pious father, Frex. She suffers ordinary childhood jealousies when her sister, saintly Nessarose, and brother, junior felon Shell, arrive. She first encounters the mistreatment of the Animal populations of Oz, which live adjacent to but not intertwined with human settlements, haunted by a Monkey and receiving aid from Dwarf Bears. She thrashes through her first bruising attempts at friendship, a possible lifeline from her tricky family life. And she gleans the benefits of an education, haphazard though it must be—until she arrives at the doors of Shiz University, about to meet the radiant creature that is Galinda.

Elphie is destined to be a witch; she bears the markings from childhood—most evidently in her green skin but more obscurely and profoundly in her cunning and perhaps amoral behaviors, as she seeks to make do, to slip by, to sneak out, to endure, and to aspire.]]> 288 Gregory Maguire 0063377012 Hannah 0 adult, fantasy, fiction 3.15 2025 Elphie: A Wicked Childhood (The Wicked Years, #0)
author: Gregory Maguire
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.15
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/07
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: adult, fantasy, fiction
review:

]]> The Austen Affair 222376792 Two feuding co-stars in a Jane Austen film adaptation accidentally travel back in time to the Regency Era in this delightfully clever and riotously funny debut

Tess Bright just scored her dream role starring in an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. It's not just the role of a lifetime, but it’s also her last chance to prove herself as a serious actress (no easy feat after being fired from her last TV gig) and more importantly, it’s her opportunity to honor her mom, who was the biggest fan of Jane Austen ever. But one thing is standing in Tess’s way—well, one very tall, annoyingly handsome person, actually: Hugh Balfour.

A serious British method actor, Hugh wants nothing to do with Tess (whose Teen Choice Awards somehow don’t quite compare to his BAFTA nominations). Hugh is a type-A, no-nonsense, Royal Academy prodigy, whereas Tess is big-hearted, a little reckless, and admittedly, kind of a mess. But the film needs chemistry—and Tess’s career depends on it.

Sparks fly, but not in the way Tess hoped, when an electrical accident sends the two feuding co-stars back in time to Jane Austen’s era. 200 years in the past with only each other to rely on, Tess and Hugh need to ad-lib their way through the Regency period in order to make it back home, and hopefully not screw up history along the way. But if a certain someone looks particularly dashing in those 19th century breeches…well, Tess won’t be complaining.

A wickedly funny, delightfully charming story, The Austen Affair is a tribute to Jane Austen, second chances, and love across the space-time continuum.]]> 336 Madeline Bell 1250373514 Hannah 3 Costars with clashing personalities time travel to the Jane Austen era for some enemies to lovers drama. Austen references abound!

You can visit the past too by perusing my thoughts while reading (see below). ]]> 3.90 The Austen Affair
author: Madeline Bell
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.90
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: adult, fiction, historical-fiction, romance, giveaways
review:
Costars with clashing personalities time travel to the Jane Austen era for some enemies to lovers drama. Austen references abound!

You can visit the past too by perusing my thoughts while reading (see below).
]]> <![CDATA[Wages for Housework: The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor]]> 215749296 The riveting story of a radical campaign to change the way we value work 

Women do more than three-quarters of all the world’s unpaid care work, contributing over $9 trillion to the global economy each year. Dishes don’t clean themselves; dinner is not magically made; children must be cared for. But why is this work not compensated? 

Wages for Housework is the fascinating international story of Selma James, Silvia Federici, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Wilmette Brown, and Margaret Prescod, whose movement demanded wages as a starting point for remaking the world as we know it. Drawing on their campaign’s roots in 1970s America, Italy, and the UK, with original archival research and interviews, historian Emily Callaci explores the revolutionary potential of paying women for their work in the home, and how Wages for Housework reimagined potential futures under capitalism—and beyond—in ways that continue to be relevant today. 

Wages for Housework is an essential feminist history of an overlooked movement for economic and social justice. ]]> 288 Emily Callaci 1541603516 Hannah 3 Academic yet informative. This book serves firstly as a biography of five women behind Wages for Housework (a radical campaign launched in the 1970's) and secondly as an introduction to the political goals of the movement.]]> 3.92 2025 Wages for Housework: The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor
author: Emily Callaci
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: adult, history, non-fiction, giveaways, biography, feminism
review:
Academic yet informative. This book serves firstly as a biography of five women behind Wages for Housework (a radical campaign launched in the 1970's) and secondly as an introduction to the political goals of the movement.
]]> Is a River Alive? 218569826 Underland delivers a revelatory book that transforms how we look at the natural world—and life itself.

Hailed as “a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler” (Holly Morris, New York Times), Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reporting, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyous exploration into an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law. Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada—imperiled by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, which flows through his own years and days. Powered by Macfarlane’s dazzling prose and lit throughout by other voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers—and always has.]]> 384 Robert Macfarlane 0393242137 Hannah 0 to-read 4.28 2025 Is a River Alive?
author: Robert Macfarlane
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Bookshop Below 214175164 In this extraordinary standalone from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The City of Stardust, a disgraced bookseller is offered the chance to restore a magical bookshop to its former glory, and enters a dark underworld of unscrupulous collectors, deadly ink magic and shady societies.

If you want a story that will change your life, Chiron's bookshop is where you go. For those lucky enough to grace its doors, it's a glimpse into a world of deadly bargains and powerful, magical books.

For Cassandra Fairfax, it's a reminder of everything she lost, when Chiron kicked her out and all but shuttered the shop. Since then, she's used her skills in less . . . ethical ways, trading stolen books and magical readings to wealthy playboys looking for power money can't buy.

Then Chiron dies. And if Cassandra knows anything, it's the bookshop must always have an owner.

To restore the shop, she'll need the help of Lowell Sharpe, a rival bookseller who is everything Cassandra is not – and knows it, too.

But as she is plunged into a world of unscrupulous collectors, deadly ink magic and shady societies, a dark force threatens to unravel the bookshops entirely . . .]]> 384 Georgia Summers 0316561835 Hannah 0 WE HAVE A COVER! 3.75 2025 The Bookshop Below
author: Georgia Summers
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read, adult, fantasy, fiction, books-about-books
review:
WE HAVE A COVER!
]]> O Caledonia 60321053 In the tradition of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a darkly humorous modern classic of Scottish literature about a doomed adolescent growing up in the mid-20th century—featuring a new introduction by Maggie O’Farrell, award-winning author of Hamnet.

Janet lies murdered beneath the castle stairs, attired in her mother’s black lace wedding dress, lamented only by her pet jackdaw…

​Author Elspeth Barker masterfully evokes the harsh climate of Scotland in this atmospheric gothic tale that has been compared to the works of the Brontës, Edgar Allan Poe, and Edward Gorey. Immersed in a world of isolation and loneliness, Barker’s ill-fated young heroine Janet turns to literature, nature, and her Aunt Lila, who offers brief flashes of respite in an otherwise foreboding life. People, birds, and beasts move through the background in a tale that is as rich and atmospheric as it is witty and mordant. The family’s motto—Moriens sed Invictus (Dying but Unconquered)—is a well-suited epitaph for wild and courageous Janet, whose fierce determination to remain steadfastly herself makes her one of the most unforgettable protagonists in contemporary literature.]]> 188 Elspeth Barker 1668004615 Hannah 5 3.91 1991 O Caledonia
author: Elspeth Barker
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1991
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: adult, fiction, gothic, literary-fiction, dark-delights
review:
Deliciously bleak and grim. Loved this!
]]> The Strange Case of Jane O. 213870076
In the first year after her child is born, Jane suffers a series of strange episodes: amnesia, premonitions, hallucinations, and an inexplicable sense of dread. As her psychiatrist struggles to solve the mystery of what is happening to Jane’s mind, she suddenly goes missing. A day later she is found unconscious in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, in the midst of what seems to be an episode of dissociative fugue; when she comes to, she has no memory of what has happened to her.

Are Jane’s strange experiences related to the overwhelm of single motherhood, or are they the manifestation of a long-buried trauma from her past? Why is she having visions of a young man who died twenty years ago, who warns her of a disaster ahead? Jane’s symptoms lead her psychiatrist ever-deeper into the furthest reaches of her mind, and cause him to question everything he thought he knew about so-called reality—including events in his own life.

Karen Thompson Walker’s profound and beautifully written novel is a speculative mystery about memory, identity, and fate, a mesmerizing story about the bonds of love between a mother and child, a man and a woman, and those who we’ve lost but may still be alive among us.]]> 278 Karen Thompson Walker 1984853945 Hannah 0 Diagnosis: An exceedingly quiet sci-fi mystery in which characters spend considerable time speculating or revisiting what's already been said.

I OPENED JANE O.'S FILES. ]]> 3.87 2025 The Strange Case of Jane O.
author: Karen Thompson Walker
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: adult, fiction, thriller, mystery
review:
Diagnosis: An exceedingly quiet sci-fi mystery in which characters spend considerable time speculating or revisiting what's already been said.

I OPENED JANE O.'S FILES.
]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Hannah 0 Alison Espach does a superb job of writing a depressing, hopeless protagonist in Phoebe, but I'm not finding her story (or the characters around her) compelling enough to hold my interest. I gave it eighty-five pages before accepting this isn't the book for me. Some extended thoughts below...]]> 4.09 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: adult, fiction, contemporary, dark-comedy, dnf
review:
I'm RSVPing "No" to this wedding invitation. Alison Espach does a superb job of writing a depressing, hopeless protagonist in Phoebe, but I'm not finding her story (or the characters around her) compelling enough to hold my interest. I gave it eighty-five pages before accepting this isn't the book for me. Some extended thoughts below...
]]> Hungerstone 212342605 Hungerstone is a thrillingly seductive sapphic romance for fans of S.T. Gibson’s A Dowry of Blood and Emilia Hart’s Weyward.

For what do you hunger, Lenore?

Lenore is the wife of steel magnate Henry, but ten years into their marriage, the relationship has soured and no child has arrived to fill the distance growing between them. Henry's ambitions take them out of London and to the imposing Nethershaw manor in the countryside, where Henry aims to host a hunt with society’s finest. Lenore keeps a terrible secret from the last time her husband hunted, and though they never speak of it, it haunts their marriage to this day.

The preparations for the event take a turn when a carriage accident near their remote home brings the mysterious Carmilla into Lenore's life. Carmilla who is weak and pale during the day but vibrant at night; Carmilla who stirs up a hunger deep within Lenore. Soon girls from local villages begin to fall sick before being consumed by a bloody hunger.

Torn between regaining her husband's affection and Carmilla's ever-growing presence, Lenore begins to unravel her past and in doing so, uncovers a darkness in her household that will place her at terrible risk . . .

Set against the violent wilderness of the moors and the uncontrolled appetite of the industrial revolution, Hungerstone is a compulsive feminist reworking of Carmilla, the book that inspired Dracula: a captivating story of appetite and desire.]]> 336 Kat Dunn 1638932166 Hannah 0 to-read 3.96 2025 Hungerstone
author: Kat Dunn
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Ballad of the Bone Road 221033673
Brix and Bellefeather are paranormal investigators, clearing out Port Astor's ghosts and devouring its demons. Both have their own Bellefeather shares her body with a demon, Belezial; Brix has trapped the ghost of his fiancée in the world of the living, unwilling to let her go.

When Brix is asked to investigate an apparent haunting at the prestigious Peony Hotel, he comes across a young couple tangled up in one of the city's most infamous stories. They have summoned the ghost of Jimmy Valentine, tragic movie star and supposed favorite of the Hollow Queen herself. Meanwhile, Bellefeather is called back to her childhood home by her estranged sister, whose preacher husband Clarence has gotten a young woman from his congregation pregnant. But when Bellefeather arrives, she realizes whatever has taken over Clarence and his 'flock' is more sinister than faith, and Ava's is no normal pregnancy.

The fae have not forgotten that Port Astor once belonged to them. And the Hollow Queen won't give up her kingdom so easily.]]> 416 A.C. Wise 183541379X Hannah 0 to-read, fantasy, fiction
THE COVER! ]]> 0.0 2026 Ballad of the Bone Road
author: A.C. Wise
name: Hannah
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: to-read, fantasy, fiction
review:
Two paranormal investigators. One shares her body with a demon. The other refuses to free the ghost of his fiancé. Together they investigate a haunted hotel in a city where the legacy of the fae remains hidden underground. This sounds bomb!

THE COVER!
]]> Hidden Bodies (You, #2) 23492629 YOU, NOW A NETFLIX SERIES

In the compulsively readable sequel to her widely acclaimed debut novel, You, Caroline Kepnes weaves a tale that Booklist calls “the love child of Holden Caulfield and Patrick Bateman.”

Joe Goldberg is no stranger to hiding bodies. In the past ten years, this thirty-something has buried four of them, collateral damage in his quest for love. Now he’s heading west to Los Angeles, the city of second chances, determined to put his past behind him.

In Hollywood, Joe blends in effortlessly with the other young upstarts. He eats guac, works in a bookstore, and flirts with a journalist neighbor. But while others seem fixated on their own reflections, Joe can’t stop looking over his shoulder. The problem with hidden bodies is that they don’t always stay that way. They re-emerge, like dark thoughts, multiplying and threatening to destroy what Joe wants most: true love. And when he finds it in a darkened room in Soho House, he’s more desperate than ever to keep his secrets buried. He doesn’t want to hurt his new girlfriend—he wants to be with her forever. But if she ever finds out what he’s done, he may not have a choice…]]> 439 Caroline Kepnes 1476785627 Hannah 3 3.73 2016 Hidden Bodies (You, #2)
author: Caroline Kepnes
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: adult, fiction, thriller, contemporary
review:
Enjoyed this but was sad to see Kepnes abandon the second-person "you" perspective that made the first book so damn good.
]]> <![CDATA[Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer’s World through the Women Written Out of It]]> 218663941 Did you love Madeline Miller’s Circe? Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls? Jennifer Saint's Elektra? Natalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships?

But did you ever wonder who the real women behind the myths of the Trojan War were?

Now award-winning classicist and historian Emily Hauser takes readers on an epic journey to uncover the astonishing true story of the real women behind ancient Greece’s greatest legends – and the real heroes of those ancient epics, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

Because, contrary to perceptions built up over three millennia, ancient history is not all about men – and it's not only men's stories that deserve to be told . . .

In Mythica Emily Hauser tells, for the first time, the extraordinary stories of the real women behind some of the western world’s greatest legends. Following in their footsteps, digging into the history behind Homer’s epic poems, piecing together evidence from the original texts, recent astonishing archaeological finds and the latest DNA studies, she reveals who these women – queens, mothers, warriors, slaves – were, how they lived, and how history has (or has not – until now) remembered them.

A riveting new history of the Bronze Age Aegean and a journey through Homer’s epics charted entirely by women – from Helen of Troy, Briseis, Cassandra and Aphrodite to Circe, Athena, Hera, Calypso and Penelope – Mythica is a ground-breaking reassessment of the reality behind the often-mythologized women of Greece’s greatest epics, and of the ancient world itself as we learn ever more about it.]]> 373 Emily Hauser 0226839680 Hannah 0 New book coming for fans of Natalie Haynes & Madeline Miller. ]]> 4.22 2025 Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer’s World through the Women Written Out of It
author: Emily Hauser
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: adult, history, non-fiction, to-read
review:
New book coming for fans of Natalie Haynes & Madeline Miller.
]]> Hex 60003006 On this, the last night of her life, in a prison cell several floors below Edinburgh's High Street, convicted witch Geillis Duncan receives a mysterious visitor - Iris, who says she comes from a future where women are still persecuted for who they are and what they believe.
As the hours pass and dawn approaches, Geillis recounts the circumstances of her arrest, brutal torture, confession and trial, while Iris offers support, solace - and the tantalising prospect of escape.

Hex is a visceral depiction of what happens when a society is consumed by fear and superstition, exploring how the terrible force of a king's violent crusade against ordinary women can still be felt, right up to the present day.]]> 104 Jenni Fagan 1846975689 Hannah 3 3.82 2022 Hex
author: Jenni Fagan
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: adult, fiction, historical-fiction, literary-fiction, novella
review:

]]> <![CDATA[We Love You, Bunny (Bunny, #2)]]> 220595449 Bunny, Samantha Heather Mackey, a lonely outsider student at a highly selective MFA program in New England, was first ostracized and then seduced by a clique of creepy-sweet rich girls who call themselves “Bunny.” An invitation to the Bunnies’ Smut Salon leads Samantha down a dark rabbit hole (pun intended) into the violently surreal world of their off-campus workshops where monstrous creations are conjured with deadly and wondrous consequences.

When We Love You, Bunny opens, Sam has just published her first novel to critical acclaim. But at a New England stop on her book tour, her one-time frenemies, furious at the way they’ve been portrayed, kidnap her. Now a captive audience, it’s her (and our) turn to hear the Bunnies’ side of the story. One by one, they take turns holding the axe, and recount the birth throes of their unholy alliance, their discovery of their unusual creative powers—and the phantasmagoric adventure of conjuring their first creation. With a bound and gagged Sam, we embark on a wickedly intoxicating journey into the heart of dark academia: a fairy tale slasher that explores the wonder and horror of creation itself. Not to mention the transformative powers of love and friendship, Bunny.

Frankenstein by way of Heathers, We Love You, Bunny is both a prequel and a sequel, and an unabashedly wild and totally complete stand-alone novel. Open your hearts, Bunny, to another dazzlingly original and darkly hilarious romp in the Bunny-verse from the queen of the fever-dream, Mona Awad.]]> 496 Mona Awad 166805986X Hannah 0 We'RE rETuRNinG to ThE bUNNY-vERSe?!? *grabs bunny ears & buckles in*]]> 4.14 2025 We Love You, Bunny (Bunny, #2)
author: Mona Awad
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: adult, fiction, humor, folklore, literary-fiction, to-read
review:
OH MY GOD OHMY GOD OHMYGOD!!! We'RE rETuRNinG to ThE bUNNY-vERSe?!? *grabs bunny ears & buckles in*
]]> The Artist 221897664 All Joseph wants is to be let into Tartuffe's world. All Ettie wants is to escape it.

The year is 1920. The place is a remote farmhouse in Provence, home to the reclusive painter Edouard Tartuffe and his niece, Ettie. Into this strange, silent house walks a young journalist hoping to write an article about Tartuffe. But the more he entangles himself in the peculiar household, the more Joseph's curiosity grows . . .

Ettie cooks and cleans for her uncle. She prepares his studio, scrubs his paintbrushes, and creates the perfect environment for him to work. She has never gone further than the local village. She is sharp-eyed and watchful. But beneath her cool exterior, Joseph senses something simmering. Ettie, Joseph and Tartuffe circle each other throughout the hot, crackling summer, until finally they collide.

The Artist is about two people grabbing the other by the hand and pulling each other into life.]]> 304 Lucy Steeds 1399819569 Hannah 3 If you enjoy quiet, slow-burn romances, this is the book for you. More thoughts soon...


ORIGINAL POST ]]> 4.21 2025 The Artist
author: Lucy Steeds
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: adult, fiction, art, historical-fiction, women-s-prize-nominee, romance
review:
If you enjoy quiet, slow-burn romances, this is the book for you. More thoughts soon...


ORIGINAL POST
]]> Missing White Woman 195820717 The truth is never skin deep.
 
It was supposed to be a romantic getaway weekend in New York City. Breanna’s new boyfriend, Ty, took care of everything—the train tickets, the dinner reservations, the rented four-story luxury rowhouse in Jersey City with a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline.
 
But when Bree comes downstairs their final morning, Ty is nowhere to be found and there’s a stranger dead in the foyer—the missing woman the entire Internet has become obsessed Janelle Beckett. Soon, both the police and an army of Internet sleuths are asking questions Bree doesn't know how to answer. Desperate to find Ty and to keep her own secrets buried, Bree realizes there’s only one person she can turn her ex-best friend, a lawyer with whom she shares a very complicated past. 

Fierce, smart, and thrilling to the end, Missing White Woman not only explores “Missing White Woman” syndrome and traveling while Black, but deftly inverts the hallmarks of the domestic suspense genre to How well can we truly know the people we love? And what happens to these stories when seen through the eyes of a Black woman?]]> 336 Kellye Garrett 0316256978 Hannah 0 3.48 2024 Missing White Woman
author: Kellye Garrett
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: dnf, adult, fiction, thriller, mystery
review:

]]> Zen in the Art of Writing 9629 176 Ray Bradbury 1877741094 Hannah 5 4.17 1973 Zen in the Art of Writing
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1973
rating: 5
read at: 2019/10/11
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: non-fiction, writing-guides, adult
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bless Your Heart (Bless Your Heart, #1)]]> 127280459
It’s 1999 in Southeast Texas and the Evans women, owners of the only funeral parlor in town, are keeping steady with…normal business. The dead die, you bury them. End of story. That’s how Ducey Evans has done it for the last eighty years, and her progeny―Lenore the experimenter and Grace, Lenore’s soft-hearted daughter, have run Evans Funeral Parlor for the last fifteen years without drama. Ever since That Godawful Mess that left two bodies in the ground and Grace raising her infant daughter Luna, alone.

But when town gossip Mina Jean Murphy’s body is brought in for a regular burial and she rises from the dead instead, it’s clear that the Strigoi―the original vampire―are back. And the Evans women are the ones who need to fight back to protect their town.

As more folks in town turn up dead and Deputy Roger Taylor begins asking way too many questions, Ducey, Lenore, Grace, and now Luna, must take up their blades and figure out who is behind the Strigoi’s return. As the saying goes, what rises up, must go back down. But as unspoken secrets and revelations spill from the past into the present, the Evans family must face that sometimes, the dead aren’t the only things you want to keep buried.

A crackling mystery-horror novel with big-hearted characters and Southern charm with a bite, Bless Your Heart is a gasp-worthy delight from start to finish.]]> 304 Lindy Ryan 1250888883 Hannah 3
"...every now and then a body would rise, unfinished and hungry for a second bite at the life it had left behind."

I learned the hard way that I shouldn't read this mystery-horror novel right before bed. When I say that's it's graphic, I mean Gory with a capital G (which I loved; chants: bring on the gore!). Think faces eaten off, brain matter splattered, and internal organs spilling out of razed corpses, etc. Lindy Ryan is so adept at crafting these scenes that I saw these bleeding bodies in my dreams nightmares. ]]> 3.57 2024 Bless Your Heart (Bless Your Heart, #1)
author: Lindy Ryan
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/08
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: adult, fiction, horror, mystery
review:
Small town murder mystery meets graphic horror in this story of the Evans women, who keep the undead in check.

"...every now and then a body would rise, unfinished and hungry for a second bite at the life it had left behind."

I learned the hard way that I shouldn't read this mystery-horror novel right before bed. When I say that's it's graphic, I mean Gory with a capital G (which I loved; chants: bring on the gore!). Think faces eaten off, brain matter splattered, and internal organs spilling out of razed corpses, etc. Lindy Ryan is so adept at crafting these scenes that I saw these bleeding bodies in my dreams nightmares.
]]> In Defence of the Act 156681860
Jessica Miller is fascinated by the somewhat perplexing tendency of humans to end their own lives, but she secretly believes such acts may not be that bad after all. Or at least, she did.

Jessica is coming to terms with her own relationships, and reflecting on what it means to be queer, when a single event throws everything she once believed into doubt. Can she still defend the act?]]> 182 Effie Black 1739188144 Hannah 5 This book left me speechless.

]]> 3.99 2023 In Defence of the Act
author: Effie Black
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/11
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: adult, contemporary, fiction, literary-fiction, humor, lgbtq, women-s-prize-nominee, best-of-the-year
review:
This book left me speechless.


]]> And Then She Fell 75500819 A mind-bending, razor-sharp look at motherhood and mental health that follows a young Indigenous woman who discovers the picture-perfect life she always hoped for may have horrifying consequences.

On the surface, Alice is exactly where she thinks she should be: She’s just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Dawn; her charming husband, Steve—a white academic whose area of study is conveniently her own Mohawk culture—is nothing but supportive; and they’ve moved into a new home in a posh Toronto neighborhood. But Alice could not feel like more of an impostor. She isn’t connecting with her daughter, a struggle made even more difficult by the recent loss of her own mother, and every waking moment is spent hiding her despair from Steve and their ever-watchful neighbors, among whom she’s the sole Indigenous resident. Even when she does have a minute to herself, her perpetual self-doubt hinders the one vestige of her old life she has left: her goal of writing a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story.

Then strange things start to happen. She finds herself losing bits of time and hearing voices she can’t explain, all while her neighbors’ passive-aggressive behavior begins to morph into something far more threatening. Though Steve assures her this is all in her head, Alice cannot fight the feeling that something is very, very wrong and that in her creation story lies the key to her and Dawn’s survival. She just has to finish it before it’s too late.]]> 368 Alicia Elliott 0593473086 Hannah 3 This book grew increasingly strange with each passing chapter (in a good way). Talking cockroaches for the win. ]]> 3.87 2023 And Then She Fell
author: Alicia Elliott
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/15
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: adult, fiction, women-s-prize-nominee
review:
This book grew increasingly strange with each passing chapter (in a good way). Talking cockroaches for the win.
]]> Pod 61272986 An astonishing and immersive new novel, Pod takes the reader into the depths of the ocean—and into the world of its fascinating inhabitants—through the eyes of the beautiful Ea, a spinner dolphin.

Laline Paull returns with an immersive and transformative new novel of an ocean world—its extraordinary creatures, mysteries, and mythologies—that is increasingly haunted by the cruelty and ignorance of the human race.

Ea has always felt like an outsider. As a spinner dolphin who has recently come of age, she's now expected to join in the elaborate rituals that unite her pod. But Ea suffers from a type of deafness that prevents her from mastering the art of spinning. When catastrophe befalls her family and Ea knows she is partly to blame, she decides to make the ultimate sacrifice and leave the pod.

As Ea ventures into the vast, she discovers dangers everywhere, from lurking predators to strange objects floating in the water. Not to mention the ocean itself seems to be changing; creatures are mutating, demonic noises pierce the depths, whole species of fish disappear into the sky above. Just as she is coming to terms with her solitude, a chance encounter with a group of arrogant bottlenoses will irrevocably alter the course of her life.

In her terrifying, propulsive novel, Laline Paull explores the true meaning of family, belonging, sacrifice—the harmony and tragedy of the pod—within an ocean that is no longer the sanctuary it once was, and which reflects a world all too recognizable to our own.]]> 272 Laline Paull 1639363718 Hannah 4 Arresting but oh-so-brutal. Reminiscent of Hollow Kingdom (but without the first-person narratives and abundant humor). Even so, once Pod hooked me, it didn't let me go.

Want to see my on BookTube? Come join me at .]]> 3.63 2022 Pod
author: Laline Paull
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/16
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: adult, fiction, women-s-prize-nominee, animal-welfare
review:
Arresting but oh-so-brutal. Reminiscent of Hollow Kingdom (but without the first-person narratives and abundant humor). Even so, once Pod hooked me, it didn't let me go.

Want to see my on BookTube? Come join me at .
]]> The Ministry of Time 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,” “Spotify,” and “the collapse of the British Empire.” But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley’s answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Hannah 0 3.54 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: dnf, adult, audiobook, science-fiction, historical-fiction, romance, women-s-prize-nominee
review:
Tried listening to the audiobook but struggled to feel invested, so it's a DNF for me. A very quiet book.
]]> Creatures of Passage 39314725 With echoes of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Yejidé’s novel explores a forgotten quadrant of Washington, DC, and the ghosts that haunt it.

Nephthys Kinwell is a taxi driver of sorts in Washington, DC, ferrying ill-fated passengers in a haunted car: a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere with a ghost in the trunk. Endless rides and alcohol help her manage her grief over the death of her twin brother, Osiris, who was murdered and dumped in the Anacostia River.

Unknown to Nephthys when the novel opens in 1977, her estranged great-nephew, ten-year-old Dash, is finding himself drawn to the banks of that very same river. It is there that Dash--reeling from having witnessed an act of molestation at his school, but still questioning what and who he saw--has charmed conversations with a mysterious figure he calls the "River Man," who somehow appears each time he goes there.

When Dash arrives unexpectedly at Nephthys's door one day bearing a cryptic note about his unusual conversations with the River Man, Nephthys must face both the family she abandoned and what frightens her most when she looks in the mirror.

Creatures of Passage beautifully threads together the stories of Nephthys, Dash, and others both living and dead. Morowa Yejidé's deeply captivating novel shows us an unseen Washington filled with otherworldly landscapes, flawed super-humans, and reluctant ghosts, and brings together a community intent on saving one young boy in order to reclaim themselves.]]> 304 Morowa Yejide 1617758760 Hannah 4


This book also features in my BookTube deep dive on . ]]> 3.93 2021 Creatures of Passage
author: Morowa Yejide
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/08
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: adult, fiction, literary-fiction, magical-realism, women-s-prize-nominee
review:
Check out the in 2024.



This book also features in my BookTube deep dive on .
]]> One Yellow Eye 220160134 In this heartrending spin on the zombie mythos, a brilliant scientist desperately searches for a cure after a devastating epidemic while also hiding a monumental secret—her undead husband.

Having always preferred the company of microbes, British scientist Kesta Shelley has spent her life peering through a microscope rather than cultivating personal relationships. That changed when Kesta met Tim—her cheerleader, her best friend, her absolute everything. So when he was one of the last people in London to be infected with a perplexing virus that left the city ravaged, Kesta went into triage mode.

Although the government rounded up and disposed of all the infected, Kesta is able to keep her husband (un)alive—and hidden—with resources from the hospital where she works. She spends her days reviewing biopsy slides and her evenings caring for him, but he’s clearly declining. The sedatives aren’t working like they used to, and his violent outbursts are becoming more frequent. As Kesta races against the clock, her colleagues start noticing changes in her behavior and appearance. Her care for Tim has spiraled into absolute obsession. Whispers circulate that a top-secret lab is working on a cure, and Kesta clings to the possibility of being recruited, but can she save her husband before he is discovered?]]> 352 Leigh Radford 1668081210 Hannah 0 to-read 3.98 2025 One Yellow Eye
author: Leigh Radford
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Lonely Hearts Hotel 30201327 The Night Circus, a spellbinding story about two gifted orphans in love with each other since they can remember whose childhood talents allow them to rewrite their future.

The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with the power of legend. An unparalleled tale of charismatic pianos, invisible dance partners, radicalized chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians, brooding clowns, and an underworld whose economy hinges on the price of a kiss. In a landscape like this, it takes great creative gifts to thwart one's origins. It might also take true love.

Two babies are abandoned in a Montreal orphanage in the winter of 1910. Before long, their talents emerge: Pierrot is a piano prodigy; Rose lights up even the dreariest room with her dancing and comedy. As they travel around the city performing clown routines, the children fall in love with each other and dream up a plan for the most extraordinary and seductive circus show the world has ever seen.

Separated as teenagers, sent off to work as servants during the Great Depression, both descend into the city's underworld, dabbling in sex, drugs and theft in order to survive. But when Rose and Pierrot finally reunite beneath the snowflakes after years of searching and desperate poverty the possibilities of their childhood dreams are renewed, and they'll go to extreme lengths to make them come true. Soon, Rose, Pierrot and their troupe of clowns and chorus girls have hit New York, commanding the stage as well as the alleys, and neither the theater nor the underworld will ever look the same.

With her musical language and extravagantly realized world, Heather O'Neill enchants us with a novel so magical there is no escaping its spell.]]> 391 Heather O'Neill 0735213739 Hannah 4 Come one, come all to this sensational story of dauntless performers!

Want to see my on BookTube? Come join me at .]]> 3.78 2017 The Lonely Hearts Hotel
author: Heather O'Neill
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2017/04/21
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: historical-fiction, women-s-prize-nominee, adult, fiction
review:
Come one, come all to this sensational story of dauntless performers!

Want to see my on BookTube? Come join me at .
]]> That's All I Know 217387993
When a stranger loses his dog on the first day after the end of the world, Little Lea warns him not to follow it into the forest, that people who enter never come out. Over a shared joint, she tells him about the burning in her gut, winding a tale of loss, desire, and conspiracies.

Little Lea sees the world through backcountry eyes that distrust the outsiders who come but who also get to leave. When she isn’t working at her mother’s grocery store, she cares for her empty-headed younger sister, Nora, who only cries when she’s in pain. Meanwhile, her friend Catalina does nothing but cry. Little Lea wants Javier to love her, and she doesn’t want Marco, who leaves weed and his best potatoes on her doorstep. As the town prepares for their end-of-the-world festival, she faces her intensifying desire to leave, that burning that unsettles her life—she wants to be useful somewhere else, even if it means being unloved, unwanted, unable to return. That’s all she knows.

In a formally ambitious sustained monologue meant to distract the man as the forest does its work, Elisa Levi’s That’s All I Know explores the toll of caring for those who cannot care for themselves, the fear of the unknown that anchors people to unfulfilling lives, and the bravery it takes to stop deceiving oneself, to give in to longing.]]> 192 Elisa Levi 1644453371 Hannah 0 to-read 3.83 2021 That's All I Know
author: Elisa Levi
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Pisces 43069291 LONG-LISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE

"Bold, virtuosic, addictive, erotic - there is nothing like The Pisces. I have no idea how Broder does it, but I loved every dark and sublime page of it." --Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter

Lucy has been writing her dissertation on Sappho for nine years when she and her boyfriend break up in a dramatic flameout. After she bottoms out in Phoenix, her sister in Los Angeles insists Lucy dog-sit for the summer. Annika's home is a gorgeous glass cube on Venice Beach, but Lucy can find little relief from her anxiety -- not in the Greek chorus of women in her love addiction therapy group, not in her frequent Tinder excursions, not even in Dominic the foxhound's easy affection.

Everything changes when Lucy becomes entranced by an eerily attractive swimmer while sitting alone on the beach rocks one night. But when Lucy learns the truth about his identity, their relationship, and Lucy's understanding of what love should look like, take a very unexpected turn. A masterful blend of vivid realism and giddy fantasy, pairing hilarious frankness with pulse-racing eroticism, THE PISCES is a story about falling in obsessive love with a merman: a figure of Sirenic fantasy whose very existence pushes Lucy to question everything she thought she knew about love, lust, and meaning in the one life we have.]]> 270 Melissa Broder 1524761567 Hannah 4 Horny merman for the win! ]]> 3.42 2018 The Pisces
author: Melissa Broder
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2021/01/11
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: adult, contemporary, erotica, fiction, humor, romance, women-s-prize-nominee, mermaids, literary-fiction, oddities, first-novel-prize-nominee
review:
Horny merman for the win!
]]> The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock 37678008
As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlours and brothels, everyone wants to see Mr Hancock’s marvel. Its arrival spins him out of his ordinary existence and through the doors of high society, where he meets Angelica Neal, the most desirable woman he has ever laid eyes on... and a courtesan of great accomplishment. This meeting will steer both their lives onto a dangerous new course.

What will be the cost of their ambitions? And will they be able to escape the legendary destructive power a mermaid is said to possess?]]> 487 Imogen Hermes Gowar Hannah 4 Not the kind of mermaids I was expecting, but I'm here for it!

Want to see my on BookTube? Come join me at .]]> 3.46 2018 The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock
author: Imogen Hermes Gowar
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2018/03/28
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: magical-realism, adult, fiction, historical-fiction
review:
Not the kind of mermaids I was expecting, but I'm here for it!

Want to see my on BookTube? Come join me at .
]]> The Power 33641244 'She throws her head back and pushes her chest forward and lets go a huge blast right into the centre of his body. The rivulets and streams of red scarring run across his chest and up around his throat. She'd put her hand on his heart and stopped him dead.'

Suddenly - tomorrow or the day after - girls find that with a flick of their fingers, they can inflict agonizing pain and even death. With this single twist, the four lives at the heart of Naomi Alderman's extraordinary, visceral novel are utterly transformed, and we look at the world in an entirely new light.

What if the power to hurt were in women's hands?]]> 387 Naomi Alderman 0316547611 Hannah 4 Electric! (Too easy? Maybe, but it's true.) ]]> 3.80 2016 The Power
author: Naomi Alderman
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2017/04/06
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: science-fiction, dystopian, women-s-prize-nominee, women-s-prize-winner, adult, fiction, literary-fiction, speculative-fiction
review:
Electric! (Too easy? Maybe, but it's true.)
]]> Let Us Descend 138564470
“‘Let us descend,’ the poet now began, ‘and enter this blind world.’” — Inferno , Dante Alighieri

Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.

Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader’s guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation.

From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this miracle of a novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the very land—the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward’s most magnificent novel yet, a masterwork for the ages.]]> 320 Jesmyn Ward Hannah 4 3.87 2023 Let Us Descend
author: Jesmyn Ward
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: adult, fiction, historical-fiction, literary-fiction, lgbtq
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge]]> 30753748 Never Caught is the powerful narrative of Ona Judge, George and Martha Washington’s runaway slave who risked it all to escape the nation’s capital and reach freedom.

When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left behind his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation’s capital, after a brief stay in New York. In setting up his household he took Tobias Lear, his celebrated secretary, and nine slaves, including Ona Judge, about which little has been written. As he grew accustomed to Northern ways, there was one change he couldn’t get his arms around: Pennsylvania law required enslaved people be set free after six months of residency in the state. Rather than comply, Washington decided to circumvent the law. Every six months he sent the slaves back down south just as the clock was about to expire.

Though Ona Judge lived a life of relative comfort, the few pleasantries she was afforded were nothing compared to freedom, a glimpse of which she encountered first-hand in Philadelphia. So, when the opportunity presented itself one clear and pleasant spring day in Philadelphia, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Yet freedom would not come without its costs.

At just twenty-two-years-old, Ona became the subject of an intense manhunt led by George Washington, who used his political and personal contacts to recapture his property.

Impeccably researched, historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar weaves a powerful tale and offers fascinating new scholarship on how one young woman risked it all to gain freedom from the famous founding father.]]> 253 Erica Armstrong Dunbar 1501126393 Hannah 3 3.80 2017 Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
author: Erica Armstrong Dunbar
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2018/02/07
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: non-fiction, national-book-award-nominee, biography, history, adult
review:

]]> The Bees 18652002 The Handmaid's Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut.

Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen. Yet Flora has talents that are not typical of her kin. And while mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is reassigned to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. Then she finds her way into the Queen's inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous. Enemies roam everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. But Flora cannot help but break the most sacred law of all, and her instinct to serve is overshadowed by a desire, as overwhelming as it is forbidden...

Laline Paull's chilling yet ultimately triumphant novel creates a luminous world both alien and uncannily familiar. Thrilling and imaginative, The Bees is the story of a heroine who changes her destiny and her world.]]> 340 Laline Paull 0062331159 Hannah 4 This book follows a honeybee named Flora 717, aka my favorite bee in literature. ]]> 3.69 2014 The Bees
author: Laline Paull
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2023/05/27
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: women-s-prize-nominee, literary-fiction, adult, fiction
review:
This book follows a honeybee named Flora 717, aka my favorite bee in literature.
]]> The Vixen Amber Halloway 199598435 208 Carol LaHines 164603466X Hannah 4
"The prison psychiatrist maintains that it is unhealthy to eavesdrop on one's ex following a breakup."

The Vixen Amber Halloway is a revenge thriller with an eloquent, unreliable narrator named Ophelia Fairweather. After she learns that her husband is cheating, Ophelia does something that results in her being incarcerated. The story of what happened is delivered as a prison confession.

The story is a combination of Ophelia's therapeutic sessions with a prison psychiatrist in preparation for her meeting with the parole board and a confession (directed to her husband) about everything that transpired to land her in prison.

Ophelia is a woman in her forties who finds love late in life, but once she does, she falls hard. She works as a college professor (a scholar of Dante), and her eloquent way of speaking exudes her intelligence.

At a young age, Ophelia's mother walked out the door and never looked back, leaving Ophelia with deep emotional wounds. Her husband's infidelity is exacerbated by the lingering pain of her mother's absence. Throughout the book, Ophelia attempts to work through her abandonment issues while recounting how Andy's sudden departure in pursuit of the young and attractive Amber propelled her toward a mental break.

While Ophelia's narrative voice is clearly defined throughout the book, her dialogue is less convincing. This is especially true during the book's climax; it's possible Ophelia's dialogue is too stilted and mechanical during this scene or it could be that our unreliable narrator is trying to shape our opinion of her (perhaps portraying herself as "cool" in the way that only an awkward person with a personality disorder would).

Overall, I found this to be a fascinating examination of society's proclivity to blame women for men's bad behavior. In a less patriarchal world, the book would have been titled The Cheater Andy Fairweather, but society would have us blame the woman, and Ophelia tragically succumbs to this way of thinking.

Let it be a lesson to all: If a woman takes a cheating man off your hands, send her flowers and a thank you card because she just saved you from wasting your time and energy on a man who doesn't deserve you.

Faintly reminiscent of Alias Grace, The Vixen Amber Halloway is a tense yet sorrowful story of mental illness, deep-seeded childhood pain, and a broken heart manifesting in terrifying ways.

My heartfelt thanks to the very generous people at Regal House Publishing for sending me a finished copy of this highly anticipated read.

--

ORIGINAL POST ]]> 3.72 2024 The Vixen Amber Halloway
author: Carol LaHines
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/19
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: adult, fiction, thriller, mystery
review:
Oooh this was good!

"The prison psychiatrist maintains that it is unhealthy to eavesdrop on one's ex following a breakup."

The Vixen Amber Halloway is a revenge thriller with an eloquent, unreliable narrator named Ophelia Fairweather. After she learns that her husband is cheating, Ophelia does something that results in her being incarcerated. The story of what happened is delivered as a prison confession.

The story is a combination of Ophelia's therapeutic sessions with a prison psychiatrist in preparation for her meeting with the parole board and a confession (directed to her husband) about everything that transpired to land her in prison.

Ophelia is a woman in her forties who finds love late in life, but once she does, she falls hard. She works as a college professor (a scholar of Dante), and her eloquent way of speaking exudes her intelligence.

At a young age, Ophelia's mother walked out the door and never looked back, leaving Ophelia with deep emotional wounds. Her husband's infidelity is exacerbated by the lingering pain of her mother's absence. Throughout the book, Ophelia attempts to work through her abandonment issues while recounting how Andy's sudden departure in pursuit of the young and attractive Amber propelled her toward a mental break.

While Ophelia's narrative voice is clearly defined throughout the book, her dialogue is less convincing. This is especially true during the book's climax; it's possible Ophelia's dialogue is too stilted and mechanical during this scene or it could be that our unreliable narrator is trying to shape our opinion of her (perhaps portraying herself as "cool" in the way that only an awkward person with a personality disorder would).

Overall, I found this to be a fascinating examination of society's proclivity to blame women for men's bad behavior. In a less patriarchal world, the book would have been titled The Cheater Andy Fairweather, but society would have us blame the woman, and Ophelia tragically succumbs to this way of thinking.

Let it be a lesson to all: If a woman takes a cheating man off your hands, send her flowers and a thank you card because she just saved you from wasting your time and energy on a man who doesn't deserve you.

Faintly reminiscent of Alias Grace, The Vixen Amber Halloway is a tense yet sorrowful story of mental illness, deep-seeded childhood pain, and a broken heart manifesting in terrifying ways.

My heartfelt thanks to the very generous people at Regal House Publishing for sending me a finished copy of this highly anticipated read.

--

ORIGINAL POST
]]> You (You, #1) 20821614
There is only one Guinevere Beck in New York City. She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight—the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.

As Joe invisibly and obsessively takes control of Beck’s life, he orchestrates a series of events to ensure Beck finds herself in his waiting arms. Moving from stalker to boyfriend, Joe transforms himself into Beck’s perfect man, all while quietly removing the obstacles that stand in their way—even if it means murder.

A terrifying exploration of how vulnerable we all are to stalking and manipulation.]]> 424 Caroline Kepnes 1476785597 Hannah 5 3.86 2014 You (You, #1)
author: Caroline Kepnes
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: adult, fiction, thriller, contemporary, unusual-narrator, best-of-the-year, dark-delights
review:
Deliciously twisted. Loved this!
]]> <![CDATA[The Table of Less Valued Knights]]> 21532109 'Know that there were three tables there. The first was the Round Table, with King Arthur as companion and lord. The second, the Table of Errant Companions, were those who went seeking adventure and waited to become companions of the Round Table. Those of the third table never left court and did not go on quests or in search of adventures, either because of illness or because they lacked courage. These knights were called the Less Valued Knights.'

Sir Humphrey du Val of the Table of Less Valued Knights - Camelot's least prestigious table, boringly rectangular in shape and with one leg shorter than the other so that it always has to be propped up with a folded napkin to stop it from rocking - has been banned by King Arthur from going on quests, and hasn't left the castle in fifteen years. He's tempted out of his imposed retirement by Elaine, who is looking for her kidnapped fiancé. She appears to be the classic damsel in distress, but turns out to have a big secret to hide.

Across the border in Puddock, the new young queen, Martha, is appalled to be married off against her will to the odious Prince Edwin of Tuft. She disguises herself as a boy and runs away, but doesn't get very far before the Locum of the Lake - standing in for the full-time Lady - intercepts her with some startling news: Martha's brother, the true heir to the throne of Puddock, is not dead as she has always thought, and Martha must go on her own quest to find him.

The two quests collide, entangling Humphrey, Elaine and Martha's lives, and introducing a host of Arthurian misfits, including a twelve-year-old crone, a magic sword with a mind of her own, a freakishly short giant, and not one but three men in iron masks.

With Gods Behaving Badly Marie Phillips showed that she has a rare gift for comedy, taking familiar characters from legend and giving them an ingenious contemporary twist. In The Table of Less Valued Knights it's Thomas Malory's turn, and I'm afraid you'll never read him in quite the same way again.]]> 320 Marie Phillips 0307359948 Hannah 4 Can't remember the last time I had this much fun with a book. ]]> 3.75 2014 The Table of Less Valued Knights
author: Marie Phillips
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: adult, fiction, women-s-prize-nominee, humor, lgbtq
review:
Can't remember the last time I had this much fun with a book.
]]> Tilda Is Visible 213870080 A woman starts to disappear—literally—in midlife, and only then begins to discover herself in this winning novel that will speak to anyone who has ever felt invisible.

When Tilda Finch is diagnosed with invisibility—a condition that strikes mostly women of a certain age wherein they simply start to disappear—she's not overly surprised. Tilda has felt invisible for years. She's fifty-two years old, her husband left her for a younger woman, and while she has two terrific adult daughters and a successful business, she often wishes she had pursued her true passion, photography. Instead, she puts inspirational messages on merchandise, and while she doesn't believe in most of the quotes, she's thankful her customers do.

Tilda has never really recovered from her divorce. Or, if she's honest, her childhood. Tilda's past has taken a toll and she's lost sight of the woman she had always wanted to be. And even though she's bumped into perhaps the most handsome man she's ever met, if he wasn't blind (yes, truly blind) he would see the truth, which is that she's a middle-aged woman, not in her prime, and that he's way out of her league.

Soon Tilda discovers there are support groups for women just like her. But after attending one and seeing how resigned the women are to simply fading away, she decides there must be a better way. She is introduced to a controversial therapist who is a leader in this burgeoning field and decides she has nothing to lose by trying her methods out.

The therapist makes Tilda realize that in order to reappear, she must face the trauma of her past and rewire her brain in the way she perceives the world—and herself.

In a world where women are conditioned to not like what they see in the mirror, where the voices in their heads endlessly critique their faults, Tilda Is Visible shows us that we can't expect the world to see us properly if we can't first see ourselves.]]> 336 Jane Tara 0593799445 Hannah 0 to-read 3.90 2025 Tilda Is Visible
author: Jane Tara
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Clam Down: A Metamorphosis 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 Hannah 0 to-read 4.18 Clam Down: A Metamorphosis
author: Anelise Chen
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Alif the Unseen 13239822
When Alif discovers The Thousand and One Days, the secret book of the jinn, which both he and the Hand suspect may unleash a new level of information technology, the stakes are raised and Alif must struggle for life or death, aided by forces seen and unseen.]]> 433 G. Willow Wilson 0802120202 Hannah 0 BookTube deep dive on . ]]> 3.83 2012 Alif the Unseen
author: G. Willow Wilson
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: adult, audiobook, fiction, fantasy, magical-realism, romance, women-s-prize-nominee
review:
Watch my BookTube deep dive on .
]]> Jamrach's Menagerie 9593705 A thrilling and powerful novel about a young boy lured to sea by the promise of adventure and reward, with echoes of Great Expectations, Moby-Dick, and The Voyage of the Narwhal.

Jamrach’s Menagerie tells the story of a nineteenth-century street urchin named Jaffy Brown. Following an incident with an escaped tiger, Jaffy goes to work for Mr. Charles Jamrach, the famed importer of exotic animals, alongside Tim, a good but sometimes spitefully competitive boy. Thus begins a long, close friendship fraught with ambiguity and rivalry.

Mr. Jamrach recruits the two boys to capture a fabled dragon during the course of a three-year whaling expedi­tion. Onboard, Jaffy and Tim enjoy the rough brotherhood of sailors and the brutal art of whale hunting. They even succeed in catching the reptilian beast.

But when the ship’s whaling venture falls short of expecta­tions, the crew begins to regard the dragon—seething with feral power in its cage—as bad luck, a feeling that is cruelly reinforced when a violent storm sinks the ship.

Drifting across an increasingly hallucinatory ocean, the sur­vivors, including Jaffy and Tim, are forced to confront their own place in the animal kingdom. Masterfully told, wildly atmospheric, and thundering with tension, Jamrach’s Mena­gerie is a truly haunting novel about friendship, sacrifice, and survival.]]> 295 Carol Birch 038553440X Hannah 5 Oh my word… that was amazing. ]]> 3.58 2011 Jamrach's Menagerie
author: Carol Birch
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: adult, fiction, historical-fiction, booker-prize-nominee, women-s-prize-nominee, audiobook, best-of-the-year
review:
Oh my word… that was amazing.
]]> <![CDATA[The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight]]> 6432150
Mircha fell from the roof and was never properly buried, so he sticks around to heckle the living: his wife, Azade; Olga, a disillusioned translator/censor for a military newspaper; Yuri, an army veteran who always wears an aviator’s helmet; and Tanya.

Tanya carries a notebook wherever she goes, recording her observations and her dreams of finding love and escaping her job at the All-Russia All-Cosmopolitan Museum, a place which holds a fantastic and terrible collection of art knockoffs created using the tools at hand, from foam to chewing gum, Popsicle sticks to tomato juice. When the museum’s director hears of a mysterious American group seeking to fund art in Russia, it looks like she might get her chance at a better life, if she can only convince them of the collection’s worth. Enlisting the help of Azade, Olga and even Mircha, Tanya scrambles to save her dreams and her neighbors, and along the way discovers that love may have been waiting in her own courtyard all along.

And so in Ochsner's fable-like, magical debut, we see the transcendence of imagination. As Colum McCann has said: "[Ochsner] manages . . . to capture our sundry human moments and make raw and unforgettable music of them."
]]> 370 Gina Ochsner 0618563733 Hannah 3 BookTube deep dive on . ]]> 3.38 2009 The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight
author: Gina Ochsner
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: adult, fiction, contemporary, magical-realism, literary-fiction
review:
Watch my BookTube deep dive on .
]]> The End of Mr. Y 93436 402 Scarlett Thomas 0156031612 Hannah 0 This might qualify as the most bizarre book I’ve ever read. ]]> 3.83 2006 The End of Mr. Y
author: Scarlett Thomas
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: adult, contemporary, fiction, literary-fiction, women-s-prize-nominee, books-about-books, mystery, science-fiction
review:
This might qualify as the most bizarre book I’ve ever read.
]]> Tartufo 212924015
After nearly losing the election to a geriatric but wildly popular donkey named Maurizio, newly installed Mayor Delizia Miccuci can’t help but feel like the sun has finally set on the rural Italian village of Lazzarini Boscarino. Tourists only stop by to ask for directions, Nonna Amara’s cherished ristorante is long shuttered, and the town hall is disgustingly overrun with glis glis poo—even Postman Duccio has been disgraced. All that’s left is Bar Celebrità, a rustic establishment where weary locals gather to quibble over decades-long disputes, submit their poor stomachs to bartender Giuseppina’s volcanic espresso, and wonder what will become of the place where together they’ve spent their entire lives.

Little do the villagers know that, mere miles away in the forest, local truffle hunter Giovanni Scarpazza has just happened upon something that could change everything. Swollen to massive proportions, soaking the atmosphere in its pungent fumes, potentially worth six figures in certain international circles, a truffle—un tartufo, that is—sits beneath the soil with the power to either be the greatest gift or the foulest curse the village has ever seen—they’re not completely sure which since Giuseppina’s psychic was a bit unclear on the matter.

Tartufo is much more than a charming romp through the foothills of Tuscany. Written in the same enchanting style and raucous humor that defines Hollow Kingdom and Feral Creatures, Buxton’s newest story is a reflection on the interconnectedness of life in all its manifestations—and how holding on to harmony in the face of hardship can grow something beautiful and rare beneath the surface.]]> 352 Kira Jane Buxton 1538770814 Hannah 3 3.73 2025 Tartufo
author: Kira Jane Buxton
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: adult, fiction, humor, contemporary, literary-fiction, lgbtq
review:
Charming and funny but not nearly as absurd as I'd hoped.
]]> The Book of Atrix Wolfe 126482277
When the White Wolf descends upon the battlefield, the results are disastrous. His fateful decision to end a war with powerful magic changes the destiny of four warlike Kardeth, resilient Pelucir, idyllic Chaumenard, and the mysterious Elven realm.

Twenty years later, Prince Talis, orphaned heir to Pelucir, is meant to be the savior of the realm. However, the prince is neither interested in ruling nor a particularly skilled mage. Further, he is obsessed with a corrupted spellbook, and he is haunted by visions from the woods.

The legendary mage Atrix Wolfe has forsaken magic and the world of men. But the Queen of the Wood, whose fae lands overlap Pelucir’s bloody battlefield, is calling Wolfe back. Her consort and her daughter have been missing since the siege, and if Wolfe cannot intervene, the Queen will keep a sacrifice for her own.

This edition includes an original introduction and cover art by World Fantasy, Ditmar, and BFA Award-winner Kathleen Jennings.]]> 288 Patricia A. McKillip 1616964006 Hannah 0 to-read 4.44 1995 The Book of Atrix Wolfe
author: Patricia A. McKillip
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Her Many Faces 220435891 For readers of Girl A and Notes on an Execution comes a whip-smart and suspenseful story of a woman on trial for murder, as told through the eyes of the most important men in her own life.

Daughter, client, lover. Monster. Victim. 

You were a sweet girl.

You were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.

You were a bomb going off in my life.

You were a challenge.

You were the story of a lifetime.

When four wealthy and influential members are poisoned at London’s most exclusive private club, a young waitress is arrested. As her personal life and upbringing are picked over, her obsession with online conspiracy theories is exposed.

After the murder accusation, five men begin to question how well they really knew her. To each of them—her father, a reporter, her former lover, her friend, and her lawyer—she is someone entirely different. But which is the true face of Katherine Cole? And is she a killer?

The truth about who Katherine is, and what exactly she has done, lies somewhere between these five male perspectives. The searing laser of the male gaze has never been more dangerous, as Katherine’s trial grips the nation and theories and perceptions about her spiral out of control.

What follows is a chilling kaleidoscope of a thriller, both a smart courtroom drama and a frightening examination of how one woman can be so ruthlessly deconstructed by the men who know her best—and just what happens when she decides to speak out at last.]]> 336 Nicci Cloke 0063395045 Hannah 0 to-read 4.20 2025 Her Many Faces
author: Nicci Cloke
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers]]> 34397673 A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers heralds the American debut of a remarkably gifted young writer.

Twenty-three-year-old Zhuang, the daughter of shoe factory owners in rural China, has come to London to study English. She calls herself Z because English people can’t pronounce her name, but she’s no better at their language. Set loose to find her way through a confusion of cultural gaffes and grammatical mishaps, she winds up lodging with a Chinese family and thinks she might as well not have left home. But then she meets an English man who changes everything. From the moment he smiles at her, she enters a new world of sex, freedom, and self-discovery. But she also realizes that, in the West, “love” does not always mean the same as in China, and that you can learn all the words in the English language and still not understand your lover.

Drawing on her diaries from when she first arrived in the UK, Xiaolu Guo winningly writes the story in steadily improving English grammar and vocabulary. Freshly humorous, sexy, and poignant, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is an utterly original novel about language, identity, and the cultural divide.]]> 354 Xiaolu Guo Hannah 4 BookTube deep dive on . ]]> 4.05 2007 A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
author: Xiaolu Guo
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: adult, contemporary, fiction, literary-fiction, women-s-prize-nominee
review:
Watch my BookTube deep dive on .
]]> A Different Kind of Power 222531211 From the former prime minister of New Zealand, then the world’s youngest female head of government and just the second to give birth in office, comes a deeply personal memoir chronicling her extraordinary rise and offering inspiration to a new generation of leaders.

What if we could redefine leadership? What if kindness came first? Jacinda Ardern grew up the daughter of a police officer in small-town New Zealand, but as the 40th Prime Minister of her country, she commanded global respect for her empathetic leadership that put people first. This is the remarkable story of how a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt made political history and changed our assumptions of what a global leader can be.

When Jacinda Ardern became Prime Minister at age thirty-seven, the world took notice. But it was her compassionate yet powerful response to the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks, resulting in swift and sweeping gun control laws, that demonstrated her remarkable leadership. She guided her country through unprecedented challenges—a volcanic eruption, a major biosecurity breach, and a global pandemic—while advancing visionary new policies to address climate change, reduce child poverty, and secure historic international trade deals. She did all this while juggling first-time motherhood in the public eye.

Ardern exemplifies a new kind of leadership—proving that leaders can be caring, empathetic, and effective. She has become a global icon, and now she is ready to share her story, from the struggles to the surprises, including for the first time the full details of her decision to step down during her sixth year as Prime Minister.

Through her personal experiences and reflections, Jacinda is a model for anyone who has ever doubted themselves, or has aspired to lead with compassion, conviction, and courage. A Different Kind of Power is more than a political memoir; it’s an insight into how it feels to lead, ultimately asking: What if you, too, are capable of more than you ever imagined?]]> 352 Jacinda Ardern 0593728696 Hannah 0 <b>Stoked to read this!</b> 4.45 2025 A Different Kind of Power
author: Jacinda Ardern
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: adult, memoir, non-fiction, to-read
review:
Stoked to read this!
]]> The Great Stink 2106983
With extraordinarily vivid characters and unflinching prose that recall Year of Wonders and The Dress Lodger, The Great Stink marks the debut of an outstandingly talented writer in the tradition of the best historical novelists.]]> 368 Clare Clark 0151011613 Hannah 4 Thought this would be a stinker, but I really enjoyed it. ]]> 3.23 2005 The Great Stink
author: Clare Clark
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: adult, fiction, historical-fiction, women-s-prize-nominee, mystery
review:
Thought this would be a stinker, but I really enjoyed it.
]]> Oryx and Crake 78435
Margaret Atwood’s new novel is so utterly compelling, so prescient, so relevant, so terrifyingly-all-too-likely-to-be-true, that readers may find their view of the world forever changed after reading it.

This is Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers. For readers of Oryx and Crake , nothing will ever look the same again.

The narrator of Atwood's riveting novel calls himself Snowman. When the story opens, he is sleeping in a tree, wearing an old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. He searches for supplies in a wasteland where insects proliferate and pigoons and wolvogs ravage the pleeblands, where ordinary people once lived, and the Compounds that sheltered the extraordinary. As he tries to piece together what has taken place, the narrative shifts to decades earlier. How did everything fall apart so quickly? Why is he left with nothing but his haunting memories? Alone except for the green-eyed Children of Crake, who think of him as a kind of monster, he explores the answers to these questions in the double journey he takes - into his own past, and back to Crake's high-tech bubble-dome, where the Paradice Project unfolded and the world came to grief.

With breathtaking command of her shocking material, and with her customary sharp wit and dark humour, Atwood projects us into an outlandish yet wholly believable realm populated by characters who will continue to inhabit our dreams long after the last chapter. This is Margaret Atwood at the absolute peak of her powers.]]> 376 Margaret Atwood 0385503857 Hannah 0 Leave it to Margaret Atwood to predict the future. ]]> 3.90 2003 Oryx and Crake
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/25
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: adult, audiobook, dystopian, fiction, women-s-prize-nominee
review:
Leave it to Margaret Atwood to predict the future.
]]>