Marissa's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 16 May 2025 13:00:30 -0700 60 Marissa's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg We Used to Live Here 199798006
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.

As soon as the strangers enter their home, inexplicable things start happening, including the family’s youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?

This unputdownable and spine-tingling novel “is like quicksand: the further you delve into its pages, the more immobilized you become by a spiral of terror. We Used to Live Here will haunt you even after you have finished it” (Agustina Bazterrica, author of Tender Is the Flesh).]]> 312 Marcus Kliewer 1982198788 Marissa 0 to-read 3.66 2024 We Used to Live Here
author: Marcus Kliewer
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/16
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]]> Ripe 62919394
Though isolated, Cassie is never alone. From her earliest memory, a miniature black hole has been her constant companion. It feeds on her depression and anxiety, its size changing in relation to her distress. The black hole watches, but it also waits. Its relentless pull draws Cassie ever-closer as the world around her unravels.

When her CEO’s demands cross an illegal threshold and she ends up unexpectedly pregnant, Cassie must decide whether the tempting fruits of Silicon Valley are really worth it. Sharp but vulnerable, funny yet unsettling, Ripe portrays one millennial woman’s journey through a late-capitalist hellscape and offers an incisive look at the absurdities of modern life.]]> 288 Sarah Rose Etter 1668011638 Marissa 0 currently-reading 3.60 2023 Ripe
author: Sarah Rose Etter
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/09
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]]> Rouge 157184735 From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lonely dress shop clerk whose mother’s unexpected death sends her down a treacherous path in pursuit of youth and beauty. Can she escape her mother’s fate—and find a connection that is more than skin deep?

For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience. With the help of a pair of red shoes, Belle is lured into the barbed embrace of La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror—and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass.

Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.]]> 383 Mona Awad Marissa 0 to-read 3.54 2023 Rouge
author: Mona Awad
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/06
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]]> I Who Have Never Known Men 60811826 Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.


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


Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.]]> 184 Jacqueline Harpman 1945492600 Marissa 0 to-read 4.11 1995 I Who Have Never Known Men
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Clown in a Cornfield (Clown in a Cornfield, #1)]]> 49046268
Quinn and her father moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs to find a fresh start. But ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half. On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can.

Kettle Springs is caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress. It’s a fight that looks like it will destroy the town. Until Frendo, the Baypen mascot, a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat, goes homicidal and decides that the only way for Kettle Springs to grow back is to cull the rotten crop of kids who live there now.]]> 346 Adam Cesare 0062854593 Marissa 0 to-read 3.73 2020 Clown in a Cornfield (Clown in a Cornfield, #1)
author: Adam Cesare
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Twentieth Anniversary Screening]]> 60548478
This mockumentary-style dark comedy recounts the grisly events surrounding the terrible slasher flick THE ROOFER, remembered only because an obsessed fan tried to reenact the murders as they played out on the screen. When the same theater shows the film twenty years later, will the warnings that this is a really, really bad idea be justified?]]> 67 Jeff Strand Marissa 5 3.84 2022 Twentieth Anniversary Screening
author: Jeff Strand
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/06
date added: 2025/05/06
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]]> Last Days 15793201 531 Adam L.G. Nevill 1250018188 Marissa 0 to-read 3.70 2012 Last Days
author: Adam L.G. Nevill
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/29
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]]> Saint Sadist 44163597 130 Lucas Mangum 194191845X Marissa 1 3.80 2019 Saint Sadist
author: Lucas Mangum
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2019
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/28
date added: 2025/04/28
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]]> Crazytimes 53128568 116 Scott Cole 1941918689 Marissa 3 3.64 Crazytimes
author: Scott Cole
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.64
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/28
date added: 2025/04/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Nothing That Is (Mr. Dinosaur #1)]]> 57455226 184 Kyle Winkler Marissa 4 3.91 2021 The Nothing That Is (Mr. Dinosaur #1)
author: Kyle Winkler
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/17
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]]> <![CDATA[Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory]]> 25189315
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Caitlin soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.

Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn’t know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?

Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Caitlin's engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Caitlin argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).]]> 254 Caitlin Doughty 0393351904 Marissa 5 4.24 2014 Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory
author: Caitlin Doughty
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
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]]> Next Door Lived A Girl 26268799 160 Stefan Kiesbye 0991395298 Marissa 2 3.27 2005 Next Door Lived A Girl
author: Stefan Kiesbye
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2005
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
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]]> youthjuice 198509203
A 29-year-old copywriter realizes that beauty is possible—at a terrible cost—in this surreal, satirical send-up of NYC It-girl culture.

From Sophia Bannion’s first day on the Storytelling team at HEBE (hee-bee), a luxury skincare/wellness company based in New York’s trendy SoHo neighborhood and named after the Greek goddess of youth, it’s clear something is deeply amiss. But Sophia, pushing thirty, has plenty of skeletons in her closet next to the designer knockoffs and doesn’t care. Though she leads an outwardly charmed life, she aches for a deeper meaning to her flat existence—and a cure for her brutal nail-biting habit. She finds it all and more at HEBE, and with Tree Whitestone, HEBE’s charismatic founder and CEO.

Soon, Sophia is addicted to her HEBE lifestyle—especially youthjuice, the fatty, soothing moisturizer Tree has asked Sophia to test. But when cracks in HEBE’s infrastructure start to worsen—and Sophia learns the gruesome secret ingredient at the heart of youthjuice—she has to decide how far she’s willing to go to stay beautiful forever.

Glittering with ominous flashes of Sophia’s coming-of-rage story, former beauty editor E.K. Sathue’s horror debut is as incisive as it is stomach-churning in its portrayal of all-consuming female friendship and the beauty industry’s short attention span. youthjuice does to skincare influencers what Bret Easton Ellis did to yuppies. You’ll never moisturize the same way again.]]> 288 E.K. Sathue 1641295929 Marissa 0 to-read 3.13 2024 youthjuice
author: E.K. Sathue
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.13
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/08
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]]> Tastes Like Candy 55751498
But someone else has another game planned. Minutes after the girls sneak into the carnival, a madman in a rubber mask begins slashing his way through the group and Violet quickly realizes his motives are personal. As she watches her friends die in a series of increasingly bizarre attacks, she must fight to survive while trying to answer the question: What could she have done to earn a fast-pass for a roller coaster ride straight to hell?]]> 242 Ivy Tholen Marissa 3 3.62 2020 Tastes Like Candy
author: Ivy Tholen
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/20
date added: 2024/09/20
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]]> The 48 Laws of Power 1303 Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this multi-million-copy New York Times bestseller is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control – from the author of The Laws of Human Nature.

In the book that People magazine proclaimed “beguiling” and “fascinating,” Robert Greene and Joost Elffers have distilled three thousand years of the history of power into 48 essential laws by drawing from the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Carl Von Clausewitz and also from the lives of figures ranging from Henry Kissinger to P.T. Barnum.

Some laws teach the need for prudence (“Law 1: Never Outshine the Master”), others teach the value of confidence (“Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness”), and many recommend absolute self-preservation (“Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally”). Every law, though, has one thing in common: an interest in total domination. In a bold and arresting two-color package, The 48 Laws of Power is ideal whether your aim is conquest, self-defense, or simply to understand the rules of the game.]]> 452 Robert Greene 0140280197 Marissa 0 currently-reading 4.11 1998 The 48 Laws of Power
author: Robert Greene
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/16
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]]> We Need to Do Something 53014484 An alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM IFC MIDNIGHT, STARRING SIERRA MCCORMICK, VINESSA SHAW, AND PAT HEALY.

A family on the verge of self-destruction finds themselves isolated in their bathroom during a tornado warning.

Includes an introduction from Sean King O'Grady (director of the film adaptation) and a brand-new afterword from Max Booth III.]]> 188 Max Booth III 1943720452 Marissa 3 3.38 2020 We Need to Do Something
author: Max Booth III
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/13
date added: 2024/08/13
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]]> Dead Inside 25760088
A young hospital security guard with a disturbingly unique taste in women. A maternity doctor with a horrifically unusual appetite. When the two of them meet, they embark on a journey of self-discovery as they shatter societal norms while engaging in destructive and abhorrent behavior. As they unwittingly help each other understand a world in which neither of them seems to belong, they begin to realize what it truly means to be alive...and that it might not always be a good thing.]]> 191 Chandler Morrison 1512036080 Marissa 4 3.19 2015 Dead Inside
author: Chandler Morrison
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.19
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/02
date added: 2024/08/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Along the River of Flesh (Gone to See the River Man, #2)]]> 193432869
What Edmund doesn’t realize is he’s not going alone.

Keith Drakeson is one of the police detectives who hunted Cox the first time around, and he considers the killer’s escape an insult to his legacy. Determined to capture the killer again, he follows a hunch that leads him to where Edmund grew up.

Gary Chatmon is a private investigator looking for a missing girl named Jessica Hong, who he believes was one of Edmund Cox’s victims. Jessica was writing a paper on the legend of The River Man before she disappeared.

Gary and Keith decide to team up, but they soon encounter a strange girl. June Audrey is a teenage runaway with a backpack full of articles on Edmund Cox. She too has come to these woods in search of the killer.

The three travelers head upriver, each carrying their own dark secrets as they pursue a man of pure evil, and the local legend some say is behind it all.

Along the River of Flesh is the sequel to the international horror sensation Gone to See the River Man . Picking up where the first book left off, Triana’s transgressive novel builds upon the terrifying world of The River Man, and the miserable souls who dare to find him.]]> 234 Kristopher Triana Marissa 0 to-read 3.90 2023 Along the River of Flesh (Gone to See the River Man, #2)
author: Kristopher Triana
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/25
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]]> Milk Fed 54304105 The Pisces and So Sad Today.

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

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

Pairing superlative emotional insight with unabashed vivid fantasy, Broder tells a tale of appetites: physical hunger, sexual desire, spiritual longing, and the ways that we as humans can compartmentalize these so often interdependent instincts. Milk Fed is a tender and riotously funny meditation on love, certitude, and the question of what we are all being fed, from one of our major writers on the psyche—both sacred and profane.]]> 304 Melissa Broder 1982142499 Marissa 0 to-read 3.56 2021 Milk Fed
author: Melissa Broder
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/25
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]]> Paradise Rot 39216527 A lyrical debut novel from a musician and artist renowned for her sharp sexual and political imagery

Jo is in a strange new country for university, and having a more peculiar time than most. A house with no walls, a roommate with no boundaries, and a home that seems ever more alive. Jo’s sensitivity, and all her senses, become increasingly heightened and fraught, as the lines between bodies and plants, and dreaming and wakefulness, blur and mesh.

This debut novel from critically acclaimed artist and musician Jenny Hval, presents a heady and hyper-sensual portrayal of sexual awakening and queer desire. A complex, poetic and strange novel about bodies, sexuality and the female gender.]]> 160 Jenny Hval Marissa 0 to-read 3.49 2009 Paradise Rot
author: Jenny Hval
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Anxiety Rx: A New Prescription for Anxiety Relief from the Doctor Who Created It]]> 55682556 ** Winner of the 2020 Nautilus Award in Psychology **Anxiety Is Suffering Is Optional “Anxiety Rx is unlike any book on anxiety and a must-read for anyone who suffers with chronic worry.” – Nicole LePera, PhD,The Holistic Psychologist On February 8, 2013, I was a highly anxious and burned-out fifty-two-year-old physician. That night, as I left my clinic in my usual chronic state of anxiety, I wondered if life was worth living. But I had to be onstage as a stand-up comedian an hour later, so killing myself would have to wait. However, I never got to the comedy club. I suffered an injury that night that would end my medical career.I’ve dealt with anxiety since I was a teenager. My father was schizophrenic and bipolar, and the chaos and pain of his illness created tremendous alarm in my system. My mother did her best to love and take care of my brother and me, but she had her own issue with chronic anxiety. I often say my mother was neurotic and my father was psychotic, so my psyche didn’t stand much of a chance!I wrote this book to make my father’s eventual suicide and the suffering of my family mean to help others like me who experienced chronic worry to understand and fix the pain that was sucking the life out of their lives. I have degrees and advanced training in medicine, neuroscience, and developmental psychology, but much of what I’ll share with you came out of my experiences in very unscientific places.This book is unique in its blend of hard neuroscience and soft spirit. For over thirty years, I searched for relief from anxiety and saw over fifty practitioners ranging from Indian shamanic energy healers to highly accomplished psychiatrists. (I was lucky I was a doctor so I could afford to be a patient.) Have you, too, gone to extraordinary lengths to resolve your chronic compulsion to worry and are still suffering? Read on. What makes this book different is its relentless focus on calming anxiety at its true source, which I will share with you in detail. That source is in a place most doctors and psychologists fail to explore, and that oversight is why the positive effects of most anxiety therapies tend to wear off over time.Although I’ll talk about my patient’s experiences with anxiety as well as my own, everything within these pages has been vetted, explored, and applied to my own life. The ideas and practices are unique, novel, and effective. This is my life’s work and the ultimate book of high-impact solutions for escaping the trap of chronic worry. I truly do not want you to suffer as I have!I’ve gone from being a hapless victim of my anxiety, never knowing when it would end, to having a path that helps me every single time anxiety comes up. People with anxiety are confused because they don't know what is happening to them. In this book, I'll show you exactly what is going on in your mind and your body and exactly what you can do about it. What is in this book has changed my life very much for the better, and I know it will do the same for you.]]> 366 Russell Kennedy Marissa 0 to-read 4.06 2020 Anxiety Rx: A New Prescription for Anxiety Relief from the Doctor Who Created It
author: Russell Kennedy
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/06/21
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]]> The Girl in the Video 50391580 This is Horror comes a new nightmare for the digital age.

After a teacher receives a weirdly arousing video, his life descends into paranoia and obsession. More videos follow - each containing information no stranger could possibly know. But who's sending them? And what do they want? The answers may destroy everything and everyone he loves.

The Girl in the Video is The Ring meets Fatal Attraction for the iPhone generation.]]> 108 Michael David Wilson 1943720436 Marissa 2 3.26 2020 The Girl in the Video
author: Michael David Wilson
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2024/06/20
date added: 2024/06/20
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]]> Gone to See the River Man 55250283
These people will give anything for the idols they worship, be they rock stars, actors or authors. Or even serial killers.

Lori's obsession is with Edmund Cox, who was convicted of butchering more than twenty women. She will do anything to get close to him, so when he gives her a task, she accepts. She has no idea of the horror that awaits her. Edmund says she must go to his cabin in the woods and retrieve a key to deliver to a mysterious figure known only as The River Man.

She brings along her sister, and the trip becomes a surreal nightmare, one that digs up Lori's personal demons, the ones she feels bonds her to Edmund. Soon she will learn The River Man is not quite fact or folklore, and definitely not human... at least not anymore.]]> 167 Kristopher Triana 1941918727 Marissa 4 3.71 2020 Gone to See the River Man
author: Kristopher Triana
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/13
date added: 2024/06/13
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]]> Big Swiss 60701439
One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss’s voice in town and they quickly become enmeshed. While Big Swiss is unaware Greta has eavesdropped on her most intimate exchanges, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she’ll do anything to sustain the relationship…]]> 336 Jen Beagin 1982153083 Marissa 4 3.69 2023 Big Swiss
author: Jen Beagin
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/01
date added: 2024/06/01
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]]> <![CDATA[A Slow Death: 83 Days of Radiation Sickness]]> 5496513
Hiroshi Ouchi, one of these workers, was transferred to the University of Tokyo Hospital Emergency Room, three days after the accident. Dr. Maekawa and his staff initially thought that Ouchi looked relatively well for a person exposed to such radiation levels. He could talk, and only his right hand was a little swollen with redness. However, his condition gradually weakened as the radioactivity broke down the chromosomes in his cells.

The doctors were at a loss as to what to do. There were very few precedents and proven medical treatments for the victims of radiation poisoning. Less than 20 nuclear accidents had occurred in the world to that point, and most of those happened 30 years ago. This book documents the following 83 days of treatment until his passing, with detailed descriptions and explanations of the radiation poisoning.]]> 160 NHK TV Crew 1934287407 Marissa 0 to-read 4.15 2008 A Slow Death: 83 Days of Radiation Sickness
author: NHK TV Crew
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> They All Died Screaming 53583998
When the phenomenon hits Chuck's city, the chronically unemployed pervert joins a band of misfits to make his final stand.

Can Chuck, a bitter bartender, a dockside prostitute, a conspiracy theorist, and a homeless man find a way out of the apocalypse…

Or will they all die screaming?

They All Died Screaming is a plague novel by Splatterpunk Award-winning author Kristopher Triana. It is a pitch black book about the lowly and downtrodden being the last people on earth.]]> 228 Kristopher Triana Marissa 5 3.61 2020 They All Died Screaming
author: Kristopher Triana
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/01
date added: 2024/05/01
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]]> Yellow 56498877
Oliver Fitch has a troubling issue; he lives in a state of constant terror. After purchasing a convenience store in a once civil society, the streets around him have rapidly devolved into utter lawlessness. They're now festering with sinister gutter scum that only live to harass and intimidate him. His pathetic profits are gouged under the threat of violence and there isn't a damn thing he can do about it. Because in a city with no rules, where the sun never shines, the authorities are no help. In fact, they're an equal part of the problem.

The relentless fear of confrontation is so obvious that even Oliver's wife Lydia has grown to resent his spineless existence. The absence of bravado opens the door to a horrific home invasion that leaves the miserable pair savagely maimed. From there, things only get worse until the criminal leeches have taken everything. Until there's nothing left inside but hate and the gnawing hunger for revenge. Until a switch finally flips and Oliver realizes that they all have to die.

WARNING: This book contains graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.]]> 136 Aron Beauregard Marissa 0 to-read 3.82 2021 Yellow
author: Aron Beauregard
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/11
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]]> Son of the Slob 58650545 Like father, like Son?

Vera Harlow is a survivor. After a chance encounter led to her being held captive in a disgusting house of horrors, she fought tooth and nail to escape the clutches of a man known only as The Slob. But while she may have fled the disastrous situation, the details of her struggle are now carved into her flesh and soul.

Vera’s son is the product of utter depravity. Harold, the sinister seed left by the man who took everything from her, continues to blossom in nauseating fashion. His features and habits are stomach-churning, vividly familiar, and becoming more disturbing by the day. Determined to coax out the bright side of her child that she sees an occasional glimpse of, Vera strives for normalcy. But will the faint light she’s chasing shine through the darkness or will she be left cleaning up another gruesome mess?]]> 220 Aron Beauregard Marissa 0 to-read 3.69 2021 Son of the Slob
author: Aron Beauregard
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/11
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]]> <![CDATA[My Year of Rest and Relaxation]]> 44279110
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.]]> 289 Ottessa Moshfegh 0525522131 Marissa 0 to-read 3.62 2018 My Year of Rest and Relaxation
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/11
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]]> The Slob 55989293
All is going well until she arrives at the steps of a house she wished she never had. The steps of an evil that brings back the ghastly memories she so desperately tried to wash away.

Nothing will prepare you for the nastiness, disorder and uncleansable horror brought forth by... The Slob.]]> 146 Aron Beauregard Marissa 4 3.30 2019 The Slob
author: Aron Beauregard
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/11
date added: 2024/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)]]> 970383 749 Dan Brown 037543318X Marissa 5 3.89 2000 Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)
author: Dan Brown
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/04/03
shelves:
review:

]]> Bunny (Bunny, #1) 42815544
But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.

The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.]]> 307 Mona Awad 0525559736 Marissa 3 3.53 2019 Bunny (Bunny, #1)
author: Mona Awad
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/18
date added: 2024/03/18
shelves:
review:

]]> Woom 36208170
"I believe pain lingers," Angel said. "Do I believe in spirits? In the supernatural? Probably not."

The Lonely Motel holds many dark secrets... and Room 6 just might possess the worst of them all.

Angel knows all about pain. His mother died in this room. He's researched its history. Today he's come back to end it, no matter the cost, once and for all.

Shyla, a plus-sized prostitute, thinks the stories Angel tells her can't be true. Secrets so vile, you won't want to let them inside you.

But the Lonely Motel doesn't forget. It doesn't forgive. And it always claims its victim.]]> 131 Duncan Ralston Marissa 4 3.22 2016 Woom
author: Duncan Ralston
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/26
date added: 2023/12/26
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]]> The Cuck 61198963 HE’S ALWAYS WATCHING…

Mickey and Ben were searching for the cure to boredom. After one too many drinks the obscure back-page sex ad somehow sounded appealing.

The old man seemed kind enough. His frail, weathered body was no longer able to please his wife, and selflessly, he hoped that the boys would. He just wanted his Bessie to feel pleasure. He wanted it so bad that he needed to see it with his own eyes.

When it was all over, the evening of debauchery felt like a distant nightmare. The only problem was, it was a nightmare that neither Mickey nor Ben could awaken from…

This volume contains 8 interior illustrations.

WARNING: This book contains graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.]]> 76 Aron Beauregard Marissa 4 3.43 2022 The Cuck
author: Aron Beauregard
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/25
date added: 2023/11/25
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich]]> 56118 142 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 0451527097 Marissa 3 3.88 1962 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
author: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1962
rating: 3
read at: 2008/11/16
date added: 2023/11/14
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]]> Brother 23492624 Brother follows a teenager determined to break from his family’s unconventional—and deeply disturbing—traditions.

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

But nineteen-year-old Michael Morrow isn’t like the rest of his family. He doesn’t take pleasure in the screams that echo through the trees. Michael pines for normalcy, and he’s sure that someday he’ll see the world beyond West Virginia. When he meets Alice, a pretty girl working at a record shop in the small nearby town of Dahlia, he’s immediately smitten. For a moment, he nearly forgets about the monster he’s become. But his brother, Rebel, is all too eager to remind Michael of his place…]]> 319 Ania Ahlborn 147678373X Marissa 3 3.89 2015 Brother
author: Ania Ahlborn
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/09
date added: 2023/11/09
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]]> Playground 63057148
Three low-income families have been given a handsome retainer to join Geraldine Borden for a day at her cliffside estate. All the parents must do to collect the rest of their money is allow their children to test out the revolutionary playground equipment Geraldine has been working on for decades. But there’s a reason the structures in the bowels of her gothic castle have taken so long to develop—they were never meant to see the light of day.

When a band of dysfunctional children is suddenly thrust into a diabolical realm of violence, they must grow up instantly to have a chance at survival. Will they find a way to put their differences aside, or be swallowed up by the insidious architecture all around them?

"With Playground, Aron Beauregard transcends himself, delivering a genuinely chilling, uncomfortable novel that will make even the most jaded horror fan squirm. A harrowing, relentless read that left me breathless."

- Brian Keene

This volume contains 15 interior illustrations.

WARNING: This book contains graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.]]> 290 Aron Beauregard Marissa 4 3.36 2022 Playground
author: Aron Beauregard
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/23
date added: 2023/09/23
shelves:
review:

]]> Lapvona 59693959 In a village in a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself the unlikely pivot of a power struggle that puts all manner of faith to a savage test, in a spellbinding novel that represents Ottessa Moshfegh’s most exciting leap yet

Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, never knew his mother; his father told him she died in childbirth. One of life’s few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him as a baby, as she did so many of the village’s children. Ina’s gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on levels far beyond those available to other villagers, however religious they might be. For some people, Ina’s home in the woods outside of the village is a place to fear and to avoid, a godless place.

Among their number is Father Barnabas, the town priest and lackey for the depraved lord and governor, Villiam, whose hilltop manor contains a secret embarrassment of riches. The people’s desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villiam and the priest, especially in this year of record drought and famine. But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the lord’s family, new and occult forces upset the old order. By year’s end, the veil between blindness and sight, life and death, the natural world and the spirit world, civility and savagery, will prove to be very thin indeed.]]> 313 Ottessa Moshfegh Marissa 5 3.53 2022 Lapvona
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/27
date added: 2023/08/27
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]]> Dracula [Adaptation] 682741
Can there be a more terrifying tale than this? The story of the notorious vampire Count Dracula, lord of the undead, who rises from his coffin at night to suck the blood of the living is, undoubtedly, the stuff of nightmares. A lunatic asylum, a bleak Transylvanian castle, an ancient cemetary . . . these are the dark backgrounds to the even darker deeds portrayed in this most bloodcurdling of tales.

Narrated from several viewpoints, DRACULA is a complex story that many know, but few have actually read. Jan Needle's newly edited version makes the gripping events accessible to the twenty-first reader without losing the incomparably chilling atmosphere of Bram Stoker's original novel.]]> 336 Jan Needle 0763625086 Marissa 5 3.89 Dracula [Adaptation]
author: Jan Needle
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.89
book published:
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/07/10
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]]> <![CDATA[The Perfect Marriage (Perfect, #1)]]> 53450790 Would you defend your husband if he was accused of killing his mistress?

Sarah Morgan is a successful and powerful defense attorney in Washington D.C. At 33 years old, she is a named partner at her firm and life is going exactly how she planned.

The same cannot be said for her husband, Adam. He is a struggling writer who has had little success in his career. He begins to tire of his and Sarah’s relationship as she is constantly working.

Out in the secluded woods, at Adam and Sarah’s second home, Adam engages in a passionate affair with Kelly Summers.

Then, one morning everything changes. Adam is arrested for Kelly’s murder. She had been found stabbed to death in Adam and Sarah’s second home.

Sarah soon finds herself playing the defender for her own husband, a man accused of murdering his mistress.

But is Adam guilty or is he innocent?]]> 337 Jeneva Rose 1913419657 Marissa 2 3.90 2020 The Perfect Marriage (Perfect, #1)
author: Jeneva Rose
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2023/01/27
date added: 2023/01/27
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]]> The Deep 21412284
A strange plague called the ’Gets is decimating humanity on a global scale. It causes people to forget—small things at first, like where they left their keys, then the not-so-small things, like how to drive or the letters of the alphabet. Their bodies forget how to function involuntarily. There is no cure.

But now, far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, deep in the Mariana Trench, a heretofore-unknown substance hailed as “ambrosia”—a universal healer, from initial reports—has been discovered. It may just be the key to eradicating the ’Gets.

In order to study this phenomenon, a special research lab, the Trieste, has been built eight miles under the sea’s surface. But when the station goes incommunicado, a brave few descend through the lightless fathoms in hopes of unraveling the mysteries lurking at those crushing depths . . . and perhaps to encounter an evil blacker than anything one could possibly imagine.]]> 394 Nick Cutter 1476717737 Marissa 2 3.41 2015 The Deep
author: Nick Cutter
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2023/01/16
date added: 2023/01/16
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]]> The Troop 17571466 358 Nick Cutter 1476717710 Marissa 5 3.83 2014 The Troop
author: Nick Cutter
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2022/09/15
date added: 2022/09/15
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]]> Eileen 23453099 So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me. I was twenty-four years old then, and had a job that paid fifty-seven dollars a week as a kind of secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys. I think of it now as what it really was for all intents and purposes—a prison for boys. I will call it Moorehead. Delvin Moorehead was a terrible landlord I had years later, and so to use his name for such a place feels appropriate. In a week, I would run away from home and never go back.

This is the story of how I disappeared.

The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father’s caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys’ prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father’s messes. When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at Moorehead, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. In a Hitchcockian twist, her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings.

Played out against the snowy landscape of coastal New England in the days leading up to Christmas, young Eileen’s story is told from the gimlet-eyed perspective of the now much older narrator. Creepy, mesmerizing, and sublimely funny, in the tradition of Shirley Jackson and early Vladimir Nabokov, this powerful debut novel enthralls and shocks, and introduces one of the most original new voices in contemporary literature. Ottessa Moshfegh is also the author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Homesick for Another World: Stories, and McGlue.]]> 260 Ottessa Moshfegh 1594206627 Marissa 5 3.57 2015 Eileen
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2022/08/23
date added: 2022/08/23
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]]> Tender Is the Flesh 49090884
His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.

Then one day he’s given a a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.]]> 209 Agustina Bazterrica 1982150920 Marissa 5 3.75 2017 Tender Is the Flesh
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2022/04/10
date added: 2022/04/10
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]]> Pretty Girls 25574782
Now another girl has disappeared, with chilling echoes of the past. And it seems that she might not be the only one.

Claire is convinced Julia's disappearance is linked.

But when she begins to learn the truth about her sister, she is confronted with a shocking discovery, and nothing will ever be the same...]]> 432 Karin Slaughter 0062430874 Marissa 5 3.99 2015 Pretty Girls
author: Karin Slaughter
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/30
date added: 2022/03/30
shelves:
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]]> I'm Thinking of Ending Things 40605223 Now a Netflix original movie, this deeply scary and intensely unnerving novel follows a couple in the midst of a twisted unraveling of the darkest unease. You will be scared. But you won’t know why…

I’m thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It’s always there. Always.

Jake once said, “Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.”

And here’s what I’m thinking: I don’t want to be here.

In this smart and intense literary suspense novel, Iain Reid explores the depths of the human psyche, questioning consciousness, free will, the value of relationships, fear, and the limitations of solitude. Tense, gripping, and atmospheric, I’m Thinking of Ending Things pulls you in from the very first page…and never lets you go.]]> 241 Iain Reid Marissa 4 3.53 2016 I'm Thinking of Ending Things
author: Iain Reid
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2022/03/07
date added: 2022/03/07
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]]> A Touch of Jen 55867897
Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons with her wealthy boyfriend and their group. Once there, Remy and Alicia try (a little too hard) to fit into Jen’s exalted social circle, but violent desire and class resentment bubble beneath the surface of this beach-side paradise, threatening to erupt. As small disturbances escalate into outright horror, Remy and Alicia tumble into an uncanny alternate reality, one shaped by their most unspeakable, deviant, and intoxicating fantasies. Is this what “self-actualization” looks like?

Part millennial social comedy, part psychedelic horror, and all wildly entertaining, A Touch of Jen is a sly, unflinching examination of the hidden drives that lurk just outside the frame of our carefully curated selves.]]> 320 Beth Morgan 0316704261 Marissa 5 3.26 2021 A Touch of Jen
author: Beth Morgan
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/03/02
date added: 2022/03/02
shelves:
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]]> Nod 16044493 206 Adrian Barnes 0956687687 Marissa 4 3.39 2012 Nod
author: Adrian Barnes
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2022/01/21
date added: 2022/01/21
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]]> The Hunting Party 37642030 Everyone's invited...everyone's a suspect...

For fans of Ruth Ware and Tana French, a shivery, atmospheric, page-turning novel of psychological suspense in the tradition of Agatha Christie, in which a group of old college friends are snowed in at a hunting lodge . . . and murder and mayhem ensue.

All of them are friends. One of them is a killer.

During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands—the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves.

They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world.

Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead.

The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps.

Now one of them is dead . . . and another of them did it.

Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?]]> 406 Lucy Foley 0008297126 Marissa 3 3.59 2018 The Hunting Party
author: Lucy Foley
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/14
date added: 2022/01/14
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]]> The Marriage Pact 40610803
The goal of The Pact seems simple: to keep marriages happy and intact, and most of its rules make sense: Always answer the phone when your spouse calls. Exchange thoughtful gifts monthly. Plan a trip together once per quarter. . . .

Never mention The Pact to anyone.

Alice and Jake are initially seduced by the glamorous parties, the sense of community, their widening social circle of like-minded couples--and then one of them breaks the rules. The young lovers are about to discover that for adherents to The Pact, membership, like marriage, is for life, and The Pact will go to any lengths to enforce that rule. For Jake and Alice, the marriage of their dreams is about to become their worst nightmare.]]> 423 Michelle Richmond 0804179867 Marissa 3
The characters were boring and transparent. Alice was a one dimensional, manic pixie dream girl who I found
To be annoying and boring. The narrator, Jake, was a long winded therapist, but slightly more tolerable than Alice. The villains of the story were horribly predictable.

The story was pretty intriguing, but the characters really seemed to make it unbelievable and kind of annoying.

I know I’m one of the minorities here, but I didn’t hate the book. I enjoyed the read, but it definitely wasn’t a perfect suspense novel. ]]> 3.57 2017 The Marriage Pact
author: Michelle Richmond
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2021/01/06
shelves:
review:
I feel that my review will be pretty polarized on this, more leaning towards disappointment. This was an easy, interesting read. I found myself wanting to keep reading and I found the story to be unique and surprising for its genre. HOWEVER, this book was incredibly slow. The suspense was the only thing keeping the reader hooked, however, I found myself giving up at every odd chapter where the narrator reminisces on something he read once.

The characters were boring and transparent. Alice was a one dimensional, manic pixie dream girl who I found
To be annoying and boring. The narrator, Jake, was a long winded therapist, but slightly more tolerable than Alice. The villains of the story were horribly predictable.

The story was pretty intriguing, but the characters really seemed to make it unbelievable and kind of annoying.

I know I’m one of the minorities here, but I didn’t hate the book. I enjoyed the read, but it definitely wasn’t a perfect suspense novel.
]]> My Story 17287028
On June 5, 2002, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart, the daughter of a close-knit Mormon family, was taken from her home in the middle of the night by religious fanatic, Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. She was kept chained, dressed in disguise, repeatedly raped, and told she and her family would be killed if she tried to escape. After her rescue on March 12, 2003, she rejoined her family and worked to pick up the pieces of her life.

Now for the first time, in her memoir, MY STORY, she tells of the constant fear she endured every hour, her courageous determination to maintain hope, and how she devised a plan to manipulate her captors and convinced them to return to Utah, where she was rescued minutes after arriving. Smart explains how her faith helped her stay sane in the midst of a nightmare and how she found the strength to confront her captors at their trial and see that justice was served.

In the nine years after her rescue, Smart transformed from victim to advocate, traveling the country and working to educate, inspire and foster change. She has created a foundation to help prevent crimes against children and is a frequent public speaker. In 2012, she married Matthew Gilmour, whom she met doing mission work in Paris for her church, in a fairy tale wedding that made the cover of People magazine.]]> 308 Elizabeth Smart 1250040159 Marissa 5 3.85 2013 My Story
author: Elizabeth Smart
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2021/01/06
date added: 2021/01/06
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]]> A Stolen Life 11330361
Dugard's memoir is written by the 30-year-old herself and covers the period from the time of her abduction in 1991 up until the present. In her stark, utterly honest and unflinching narrative, Jaycee opens up about what she experienced, including how she feels now, a year after being found. Garrido and his wife Nancy have since pleaded guilty to their crimes.]]> 273 Jaycee Dugard 1451629184 Marissa 5 3.95 2011 A Stolen Life
author: Jaycee Dugard
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2021/01/06
date added: 2021/01/06
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]]> Romeo and Juliet 883256
Completely re-edited, the New Folger Library edition of Shakespeare's plays puts readers in touch with current ways of thinking about Shakespeare. Each freshly edited text is based directly on what the editors consider the best early printed version of the play. Each volume contains full explanatory notes on pages facing the text of the play, as well as a helpful introduction to Shakespeare's language. The accounts of William Shakespeare's life, his theater, and the publication of his plays present the latest scholarship, and the annotated reading lists suggest sources of further information. the illustrations of objects, clothing, and mythological figures mentioned in the plays are drawn from the Library's vast holdings of rare books. At the conclusion of each play there is a full essay by an outstanding scholar who assesses the play in the light of today's interests and concerns.]]> 281 William Shakespeare Marissa 2 3.66 1597 Romeo and Juliet
author: William Shakespeare
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1597
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2014/09/04
shelves:
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]]> Sharp Objects 66559
Sent to investigate the disappearance of two little girls, Camille finds herself reluctantly installed in the family mansion, reacquainting herself with her distant mother and a precocious thirteen-year-old half-sister she barely knows. Haunted by a family tragedy, troubled by the disquieting grip her young sister has on the town, Camille struggles with a familiar need to be accepted.

But as clues turn into dead ends, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims and realises: she will have to unravel the puzzle of her own past if she's to survive this homecoming.]]> 254 Gillian Flynn 0307341542 Marissa 3 3.89 2006 Sharp Objects
author: Gillian Flynn
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2014/07/02
date added: 2014/07/02
shelves:
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]]> In Cold Blood 168642
As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.]]> 343 Truman Capote 0679745580 Marissa 5 4.08 1966 In Cold Blood
author: Truman Capote
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1966
rating: 5
read at: 2014/06/09
date added: 2014/06/09
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]]> The Serpent of Venice 18089900
Venice, a long time ago. Three prominent Venetians await their most loathsome and foul dinner guest, the erstwhile envoy of Britain and France, and widower of the murdered Queen Cordelia: the rascal-Fool Pocket.

This trio of cunning plotters-the merchant, Antonio; the senator, Montressor Brabantio; and the naval officer, Iago-have lured Pocket to a dark dungeon, promising an evening of sprits and debauchery with a rare Amontillado sherry and Brabantio's beautiful daughter, Portia.

But their invitation is, of course, bogus. The wine is drugged. The girl isn't even in the city limits. Desperate to rid themselves once and for all of the man who has consistently foiled their grand quest for power and wealth, they have lured him to his death. (How can such a small man, be such a huge obstacle?). But this Fool is no fool . . . and he's got more than a few tricks (and hand gestures) up his sleeve.]]> 326 Christopher Moore 0061779768 Marissa 5 3.85 2014 The Serpent of Venice
author: Christopher Moore
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2014/06/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)]]> 1138943 704 J.K. Rowling 0439791324 Marissa 5 4.59 2005 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)
author: J.K. Rowling
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2014/04/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Maybe He's Just an Asshole: Sharpen Your Bullshit Detector, Rock Your Expectations, and Become Your Strongest Self!]]> 16052400 87 Halle Kaye Marissa 4 3.78 2012 Maybe He's Just an Asshole: Sharpen Your Bullshit Detector, Rock Your Expectations, and Become Your Strongest Self!
author: Halle Kaye
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2014/01/15
date added: 2014/01/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Trash Day Torch Song (Hot Shorts)]]> 20392416 31 J. Ferron Hiatt Marissa 5 3.00 2013 Trash Day Torch Song (Hot Shorts)
author: J. Ferron Hiatt
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2013/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice]]> 17333444


The church, however, had a way of pulling her back in-and by 2007, Rebecca had no choice but to take the witness stand against the new prophet of the FLDS in order to protect her little sisters and other young girls from being forced to marry at shockingly young ages. The following year, Rebecca and the rest of the world watched as a team of Texas Rangers raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch, a stronghold of the FLDS. Rebecca's subsequent testimony would reveal the horrific secrets taking place behind closed doors of the temple, sending their leaders to prison for years, and Warren Jeffs for life.



THE WITNESS WORE RED is a gripping account of one woman's struggle to escape the perverse embrace of religious fanaticism and sexual slavery, and a courageous story of hope and transformation.]]> 332 Rebecca Musser 1455527858 Marissa 4 4.02 2013 The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice
author: Rebecca Musser
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2013/12/25
date added: 2013/12/25
shelves:
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]]> A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper, #1) 33456
It's a dirty job. But, hey! Somebody's got to do it.]]> 387 Christopher Moore 0060590270 Marissa 5 4.04 2006 A Dirty Job (Grim Reaper, #1)
author: Christopher Moore
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2013/08/15
date added: 2013/08/15
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]]> The Things They Carried 133518
The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.

Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing. The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.]]> 246 Tim O'Brien 0767902890 Marissa 5 4.14 1990 The Things They Carried
author: Tim O'Brien
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2012/12/03
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]]> <![CDATA[An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge]]> 920651
An almost cheerful young man is about to be hanged for his attempt to blow up the Owl Creek Bridge during the Civil War. On this, Bierce creates the most surprising story of his career. With dramatic force, the situation is established. The man's nature and mission are quickly revealed in a moving encounter with his wife and two daughters. Then in one of the most exciting short scenes in literature, the audience is taken into the mind of the man at the moment of his execution.]]> 16 Christopher Sergel 0871293439 Marissa 5 3.80 1967 An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
author: Christopher Sergel
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1967
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2012/11/30
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review:

]]> A Christmas Memory 9919 “The mill owner's wife persists: 'A dollar, my foot! Fifty cents. That's my last offer. Goodness, woman, you can get another one.' In answer, my friend gently reflects: 'I doubt it. There's never two of anything.”

'A Christmas Memory' is a short story written by Truman Capote, first published in 1956. This much sought-after autobiographical recollection of Capote's rural Alabama boyhood has become a modern-day classic.

Seven-year-old Buddy knows that the Christmas season has arrived when his cousin, Miss Sook Falk exclaims: "It's fruitcake weather!" Thus begins an unforgettable portrait of an odd, but enduring, friendship between two innocent souls—one young and one old—and the memories they share of beloved holiday rituals.

Truman Capote (1924–1984) was an American writer whose non-fiction, stories, novels and plays are recognized literary classics. His first novel, 'Other Voices, Other Rooms' (1948) stayed on the bestseller list for nine weeks. In the 1950s and 1960s, Capote remained prolific producing both fiction and non-fiction, such as the novella 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' (1958). His masterpiece, 'In Cold Blood' (1965), became a worldwide success, after which he published rarely and suffered from alcohol addiction. He died in 1984 at age 59. At least 20 films and TV dramas have been produced from Capote novels, stories and screenplays.]]> 48 Truman Capote 0375837892 Marissa 5 4.24 1956 A Christmas Memory
author: Truman Capote
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1956
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2012/11/29
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review:

]]> Hills Like White Elephants 13239950 A conversation in a Spanish cafe between a man and a woman that is not as simple as it seems.

Hills Like White Elephants is a short story by Ernest Hemingway, which was first published in the 1927 collection Men Without Women. Here, a man and his girlfriend wait for a train to Madrid at station in rural Spain, the almost casual nature of their conversation evading the true emotional depth of what’s happening between the two of them.

This story is considered to be among Ernest Hemingway’s best short fiction, showcasing the author’s powerful ability to strip writing down to its bare bones and allow the reader’s imagination to fill in the subtext.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works. Three novels, four collections of short stories and three non-fiction works were published posthumously. Many of these are considered classics of American literature.]]> 6 Ernest Hemingway Marissa 3 3.86 1927 Hills Like White Elephants
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1927
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2012/11/26
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review:

]]> The Lottery 6219656
“The Lottery” stands out as one of the most famous short stories in American literary history. Originally published in The New Yorker, the author immediately began receiving letters from readers who demanded an explanation of the story’s meaning. “The Lottery” has been adapted for stage, television, radio and film.
]]> 30 Shirley Jackson 1563127873 Marissa 4 4.08 1948 The Lottery
author: Shirley Jackson
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1948
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2012/11/16
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review:

]]> The Yellow Wall-Paper 286957
In a private journal, the woman records her growing obsession with the “horrid” wallpaper. Its strange pattern mutates in the moonlight, revealing what appears to be a human figure in the design. With nothing else to occupy her mind, the woman resolves to unlock the mystery of the wallpaper. Her quest, however, leads not to the truth, but into the darkest depths of madness.

A condemnation of the patriarchy, The Yellow Wallpaper explores with terrifying economy the oppression, grave misunderstanding, and willful dismissal of women in late nineteenth-century society.

First published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine.

Excerpt:
Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try.]]> 62 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1558611584 Marissa 4 4.11 1892 The Yellow Wall-Paper
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1892
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2012/11/16
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]]> The Cask of Amontillado 261240
It is set in a nameless Italian city in an unspecified year (possibly during the eighteenth century) and concerns the revenge taken by the narrator on a friend who he claims has insulted him. Like several of Poe's stories, and in keeping with the 19th-century fascination with the subject, the narrative revolves around the possibility of a person being buried alive or enclosed in a small space with not possibility of escape (aka immurement).

Librarian's note: this entry relates to the story "The Cask of Amontillado." Collections of short stories by the author can be found elsewhere on ŔĎť˘ťúÎČÓŽˇ˝ˇ¨.]]> 24 Edgar Allan Poe 1594561869 Marissa 4 4.09 1846 The Cask of Amontillado
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1846
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2012/11/14
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review:

]]> The Rocking-Horse Winner 591189 22 D.H. Lawrence 1860920071 Marissa 5 3.84 1926 The Rocking-Horse Winner
author: D.H. Lawrence
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1926
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2012/11/14
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review:

]]> RAISE HIGH THE ROOFBEAM 3064849 256 J.D. Salinger 0434670014 Marissa 3 4.04 1955 RAISE HIGH THE ROOFBEAM
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1955
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2012/11/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Merchant of Venice (Dover Thrift Editions: Plays)]]> 752793 96 William Shakespeare 0486284921 Marissa 4 3.72 1596 The Merchant of Venice (Dover Thrift Editions: Plays)
author: William Shakespeare
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1596
rating: 4
read at: 2011/01/23
date added: 2012/11/05
shelves:
review:

]]> A Jury of Her Peers 264656 48 Susan Glaspell 1420926578 Marissa 3 3.99 1917 A Jury of Her Peers
author: Susan Glaspell
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1917
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2012/11/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A sophisticate's primer of relativity]]> 9991094 191 KnowledgeNotes 1124000798 Marissa 5 3.63 1955 A sophisticate's primer of relativity
author: KnowledgeNotes
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1955
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2012/11/02
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review:

]]> Araby 8332752 “Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness.]]> 25 James Joyce Marissa 3 3.66 1914 Araby
author: James Joyce
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1914
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2012/10/31
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review:

]]> Anthem 667 Anthem is Ayn Rand's classic tale of a dystopian future of the great "We"—a world that deprives individuals of a name or independence—that anticipates her later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

They existed only to serve the state. They were conceived in controlled Palaces of Mating. They died in the Home of the Useless. From cradle to grave, the crowd was one—the great WE.

In all that was left of humanity, there was only one man who dared to think, seek, and love. He lived in the dark ages of the future. In a loveless world, he dared to love the woman of his choice. In an age that had lost all trace of science and civilization, he had the courage to seek and find knowledge. But these were not the crimes for which he would be hunted. He was marked for death because he had committed the unpardonable sin: He had stood forth from the mindless human herd. He was a man alone. He had rediscovered the lost and holy word—I.

"I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals, and I loathe humanity, for its failure to live up to these possibilities."
 —Ayn Rand]]> 105 Ayn Rand 0452281253 Marissa 2 3.59 1938 Anthem
author: Ayn Rand
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1938
rating: 2
read at: 2012/10/31
date added: 2012/10/31
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]]> Young Goodman Brown 562471 48 Nathaniel Hawthorne 1557423628 Marissa 3 3.66 1835 Young Goodman Brown
author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1835
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2012/10/22
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Rose for Emily and Other Stories]]> 426025 140 William Faulkner 0675093244 Marissa 5 4.08 1930 A Rose for Emily and Other Stories
author: William Faulkner
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1930
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2012/10/22
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review:

]]> Go Ask Alice 46799
Read her diary.

Enter her world.

You will never forget her.

]]> 213 Beatrice Sparks 1416914633 Marissa 1 3.75 1971 Go Ask Alice
author: Beatrice Sparks
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1971
rating: 1
read at: 2012/03/12
date added: 2012/03/12
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)]]> 2767052
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.]]> 374 Suzanne Collins Marissa 5 4.34 2008 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2012/03/01
date added: 2012/03/01
shelves:
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]]> A Thousand Acres 41193 371 Jane Smiley 1400033837 Marissa 2 3.82 1991 A Thousand Acres
author: Jane Smiley
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1991
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2011/11/20
shelves:
review:

]]> The Grapes of Wrath 4395 The Grapes of Wrath is a landmark of American literature. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. Although it follows the movement of thousands of men and women and the transformation of an entire nation, The Grapes of Wrath is also the story of one Oklahoma family, the Joads, who are driven off their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity.

First published in 1939, The Grapes of Wrath summed up its era in the way that Uncle Tom's Cabin summed up the years of slavery before the Civil War. Sensitive to fascist and communist criticism, Steinbeck insisted that "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" be printed in its entirety in the first edition of the book—which takes its title from the first verse: "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored." At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s fictional chronicle of the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s is perhaps the most American of American Classics.]]> 455 John Steinbeck Marissa 5 3.88 1939 The Grapes of Wrath
author: John Steinbeck
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1939
rating: 5
read at: 2011/10/03
date added: 2011/10/03
shelves:
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]]> Fool 3684856 --Dallas Morning News

Fool--the bawdy and outrageous New York Times bestseller from the unstoppable Christopher Moore--is a hilarious new take on William Shakespeare's King Lear...as seen through the eyes of the foolish liege's clownish jester, Pocket. A rousing tale of "gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity," Fool joins Moore's own Lamb, Fluke, The Stupidest Angel, and You Suck! as modern masterworks of satiric wit and sublimely twisted genius, prompting Carl Hiassen to declare Christopher Moore "a very sick man, in the very best sense of the word."
]]> 311 Christopher Moore 0060590319 Marissa 5 3.97 2009 Fool
author: Christopher Moore
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2010/10/15
date added: 2011/09/12
shelves:
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]]> O Pioneers! 140963 O Pioneers! (1913) was Willa Cather's first great novel, and to many it remains her unchallenged masterpiece. No other work of fiction so faithfully conveys both the sharp physical realities and the mythic sweep of the transformation of the American frontier—and the transformation of the people who settled it. Cather's heroine is Alexandra Bergson, who arrives on the wind-blasted prairie of Hanover, Nebraska, as a girl and grows up to make it a prosperous farm. But this archetypal success story is darkened by loss, and Alexandra's devotion to the land may come at the cost of love itself.

At once a sophisticated pastoral and a prototype for later feminist novels, O Pioneers! is a work in which triumph is inextricably enmeshed with tragedy, a story of people who do not claim a land so much as they submit to it and, in the process, become greater than they were.]]> 159 Willa Cather 0679743626 Marissa 3 3.89 1913 O Pioneers!
author: Willa Cather
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1913
rating: 3
read at: 2011/09/12
date added: 2011/09/12
shelves:
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]]> Storming Heaven 890210 In 1921, an army of 10,000 unemployed pro-union coal miners took up arms and threatened to overthrow the governments of two West Virginia counties. They were greeted by U.S. Army airplanes, bombs, and poison gas. This book recounts the real story of what happened--and where it all went wrong.
Four people tell this powerful, deeply moving tale: Activist Mayor C. J. Marcum. Fierce, loveless union man Rondal Lloyd. Gutsy nurse Carrie Bishop, who loved Rondal. And lonely, Sicilian immigrant Rosa Angelelli, who lost four sons to the deadly mines. They all bear witness to nearly forgotten events of history, culminating in the final, tragic Battle of Blair Mountain--the first crucial battle of a war that has yet to be won.]]> 293 Denise Giardina 080410297X Marissa 5 4.10 1987 Storming Heaven
author: Denise Giardina
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1987
rating: 5
read at: 2011/09/02
date added: 2011/09/02
shelves:
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]]> The Lovely Bones 12232938
So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling. Out of unspeakable tragedy and loss, The Lovely Bones succeeds, miraculously, in building a tale filled with hope, humor, suspense, even joy.]]> 372 Alice Sebold 0316166685 Marissa 1 3.87 2002 The Lovely Bones
author: Alice Sebold
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2002
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2011/08/09
shelves:
review:

]]> King Lear 324083 160 Shakespeare 0140620656 Marissa 4 3.83 1605 King Lear
author: Shakespeare
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1605
rating: 4
read at: 2011/02/16
date added: 2011/02/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (Tucker Max, #1)]]> 9010 The Book That Inspired The Movie

My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole. I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead. But, I do contribute to humanity in one very important way: I share my adventures with the world. —from the Introduction

Actual reader feedback:

"I find it truly appalling that there are people in the world like you. You are a disgusting, vile, repulsive, repugnant, foul creature. Because of you, I don't believe in God anymore. No just God would allow someone like you to exist."

"I'll stay with God as my lord, but you are my savior. I just finished reading your brilliant stories, and I laughed so hard I almost vomited. I want to bring that kind of joy to people. You're an artist of the highest order and a true humanitarian to boot. I'm in both shock and awe at how much I want to be you."

Now with 16 Pages of Photos and a New Introduction

]]> 277 Tucker Max 0806527285 Marissa 1
Tucker Max is a misogynistic asshole. I know, I know, that is basically how he refers to himself. However, silly me, I thought these kind of men died out around, say, 100 years ago? It goes to show that having an overabundance of money can get you far, even without any talent whatsoever. Needless to say, the grammar was abhorrent, and the stories were hardly coherent. And to believe now, he is really nothing but a "professional writer". Now I remember why I don't believe in god.

Go back to law school, you enormous prick.

]]> 3.49 2006 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (Tucker Max, #1)
author: Tucker Max
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2006
rating: 1
read at: 2011/02/07
date added: 2011/02/07
shelves:
review:
To start, I'm glad I borrowed this book, and didn't waste any amount of money on it. I'm also disappointed in the world that this book was on ANY best seller's list.

Tucker Max is a misogynistic asshole. I know, I know, that is basically how he refers to himself. However, silly me, I thought these kind of men died out around, say, 100 years ago? It goes to show that having an overabundance of money can get you far, even without any talent whatsoever. Needless to say, the grammar was abhorrent, and the stories were hardly coherent. And to believe now, he is really nothing but a "professional writer". Now I remember why I don't believe in god.

Go back to law school, you enormous prick.


]]> Looking for Alaska 99561 Before. Miles “Pudge” Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave “the Great Perhaps” even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then. . . .
After. Nothing is ever the same.]]> 221 John Green 1435249151 Marissa 4 3.97 2005 Looking for Alaska
author: John Green
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2010/11/04
date added: 2010/11/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Perks of Being a Wallflower]]> 22628 offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see
what it looks like from the dance floor.

This haunting novel about the dilemma of passivity vs. passion marks the stunning debut of a provocative new voice in contemporary fiction: The Perks of Being A WALLFLOWER

This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that the perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.

Through Charlie, Stephen Chbosky has created a deeply affecting coming-of-age story, a powerful novel that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller coaster days known as growing up.

(back cover)]]> 213 Stephen Chbosky Marissa 1
I don't mean to offend anyone, but..

This is a book that I thought I would thoroughly enjoy. So many people I know talk about how much they love this work and how I would also love it because of my unhealthy obsession with "Catcher in the Rye". However, I found this to be one of the most horrific pieces of "literature" that I have ever read. It is entirely unrealistic, and I could not relate to Charlie whatsoever. This is not an accurate portrayal of teenage life in the 90's. It isn't an accurate portrayal of any normal teenager who is not somewhat mentally incapacitated and socially inept.

The only reason I even found myself continually reading, was to find out what Charlie's deal was. Obviously, at the end, you find out. However, I was not moved by this books, only slightly depressed. It did not leave me with any profound questions. The only question I could conjure up was "Why the hell did I waste my time?"]]> 4.24 1999 The Perks of Being a Wallflower
author: Stephen Chbosky
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1999
rating: 1
read at: 2010/10/27
date added: 2010/10/27
shelves:
review:
I'm sorry, but really? Really?

I don't mean to offend anyone, but..

This is a book that I thought I would thoroughly enjoy. So many people I know talk about how much they love this work and how I would also love it because of my unhealthy obsession with "Catcher in the Rye". However, I found this to be one of the most horrific pieces of "literature" that I have ever read. It is entirely unrealistic, and I could not relate to Charlie whatsoever. This is not an accurate portrayal of teenage life in the 90's. It isn't an accurate portrayal of any normal teenager who is not somewhat mentally incapacitated and socially inept.

The only reason I even found myself continually reading, was to find out what Charlie's deal was. Obviously, at the end, you find out. However, I was not moved by this books, only slightly depressed. It did not leave me with any profound questions. The only question I could conjure up was "Why the hell did I waste my time?"
]]> Franny and Zooey 5113 ‘Everything everybody does is so—I don’t know—not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and—sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you’re conforming just as much only in a different way.’

First published in The New Yorker as two sequential stories, ‘Franny’ and ‘Zooey’ offer a dual portrait of the two youngest members of J. D. Salinger’s fictional Glass family.

Franny Glass is a pretty, effervescent college student on a date with her intellectually confident boyfriend, Lane. They appear to be the perfect couple, but as they struggle to communicate with each other about the things they really care about, slowly their true feelings come to the surface. The second story in this book, ‘Zooey’, plunges us into the world of her ethereal, sophisticated family. When Franny’s emotional and spiritual doubts reach new heights, her older brother Zooey, a misanthropic former child genius, offers her consolation and brotherly advice.

Written in Salinger’s typically irreverent style, these two stories offer a touching snapshot of the distraught mindset of early adulthood and are full of the insightful emotional observations and witty turns of phrase that have helped make Salinger’s reputation what it is today.]]> 201 J.D. Salinger 0316769029 Marissa 5 3.97 1957 Franny and Zooey
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1957
rating: 5
read at: 2010/06/15
date added: 2010/06/15
shelves:
review:
J.D. Salinger, you never cease to amaze me. Only you can write a book so eloquently and beautifully as to make a more sap like me tear up at the sight of a boy in a tub reading a letter.
]]> <![CDATA[Persepolis. The story of a childhood (Persepolis, #1)]]> 9516
Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Marjane’s child’s-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love.]]> 153 Marjane Satrapi 037571457X Marissa 3 4.27 2003 Persepolis. The story of a childhood (Persepolis, #1)
author: Marjane Satrapi
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2010/04/27
date added: 2010/04/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Hedda Gabler 926133
Universally condemned in 1890 when it was written, Hedda Gabler has since become one of Ibsen's most frequently performed plays. Its title role is elusive and complex: Hedda is an intelligent and ambitious woman, who has no means of finding personal fulfilment in the stifling world of late nineteenth-century bourgeois society. Too frightened of scandal to become involved with a brilliant, wayward writer, she opts for a conventional but loveless marriage in the hope of finding surrogate satisfaction through her husband's career.

Blending comedy and tragedy disconcertingly together, Ibsen probes the thwarted aspirations and hidden anxieties of his characters against a background of contemporary social conditions and attitudes.]]> 208 Henrik Ibsen 0413770702 Marissa 4 3.80 1890 Hedda Gabler
author: Henrik Ibsen
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1890
rating: 4
read at: 2010/03/26
date added: 2010/03/26
shelves:
review:

]]> The Awakening 343196 The Awakening shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity. Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken aback by Chopin's daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the confines of her domestic situation.

Aside from its unusually frank treatment of a then-controversial subject, the novel is widely admired today for its literary qualities. Edmund Wilson characterized it as a work "quite uninhibited and beautifully written, which anticipates D. H. Lawrence in its treatment of infidelity." Although the theme of marital infidelity no longer shocks, few novels have plumbed the psychology of a woman involved in an illicit relationship with the perception, artistry, and honesty that Kate Chopin brought to The Awakening.]]> 116 Kate Chopin Marissa 1 3.55 1899 The Awakening
author: Kate Chopin
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.55
book published: 1899
rating: 1
read at: 2010/03/22
date added: 2010/03/23
shelves:
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If you are a self-respecting, semi-feminist, proud-to-have-a-vagina enthusiast, PUT DOWN THIS BOOK! I would love to give it zero stars for "Absolutely detest this book", but, sadly, it is not an option. I promise not to give the ending away, but although the main character, Edna, is on a long, overly-worded, journey to a life of independence. She ultimately becomes a petty, submissive, childish little girl. This book is the worst example of feminism I've come across so far.
]]> The Girl Who Played Go 92315 280 Shan Sa 1400032288 Marissa 3 3.78 2001 The Girl Who Played Go
author: Shan Sa
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 2010/02/01
date added: 2010/02/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Deep Wizardry (Young Wizards, #2)]]> 176494 own role in the Song of the Twelve, a role that requires only that he do what he's best at…eat someone.]]> 384 Diane Duane 0152049428 Marissa 5 I'm usually not a fan of books centering on animal characters, but Duane seemed to make each one of the sea creatures so realistic that I forgot a shark was speaking, and not a human.
The themes of self-sacrifice and friendship will really strike a chord with anyone who reads it.]]> 4.04 1985 Deep Wizardry (Young Wizards, #2)
author: Diane Duane
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/12/17
shelves:
review:
Much, much better than I would have believed.
I'm usually not a fan of books centering on animal characters, but Duane seemed to make each one of the sea creatures so realistic that I forgot a shark was speaking, and not a human.
The themes of self-sacrifice and friendship will really strike a chord with anyone who reads it.
]]> <![CDATA[Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch]]> 12067
People have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it’s only natural to be sceptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. This time though, the armies of Good and Evil really do appear to be massing. The four Bikers of the Apocalypse are hitting the road. But both the angels and demons – well, one fast-living demon and a somewhat fussy angel – would quite like the Rapture not to happen.

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist…]]> 491 Terry Pratchett Marissa 5
Good Omens was not only hysterical, but it satisfied my craving for quirky philosophy with a sprinkle of religious satire. It was a book that I was distraught at putting down, and when I came to the last page, I really hated to see it end.

I am, however, a heathen, in terms of religion. However, I'd recommend this to anyone who isn't staunchly religious and enjoys a good bit of British humor.]]> 4.27 1990 Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Marissa
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1990
rating: 5
read at: 2009/07/05
date added: 2009/07/05
shelves:
review:
I was given this book as a gift. I knew nothing about either author's writing style, really, but I was thoroughly interested at first sight. As I paged through the book before reading it, I was met with the words "Satanist" "Antichrist" and some references to Bentleys and Hussy's; I was hooked.

Good Omens was not only hysterical, but it satisfied my craving for quirky philosophy with a sprinkle of religious satire. It was a book that I was distraught at putting down, and when I came to the last page, I really hated to see it end.

I am, however, a heathen, in terms of religion. However, I'd recommend this to anyone who isn't staunchly religious and enjoys a good bit of British humor.
]]> Fahrenheit 451 3984393
Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden.

Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.

When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.]]> 180 Ray Bradbury Marissa 3 3.92 1953 Fahrenheit 451
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1953
rating: 3
read at: 2009/03/19
date added: 2009/03/19
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys]]> 10412
Now in bite-size mantras, the abridged empathetic wit and wisdom of the number one New York Times bestseller He's Just Not That Into You will recharge and inspire your dating outlook one wake-up call at a time.

For ages women have come together over coffee, cocktails, or late-night phone chats to analyze the puzzling behavior of men. Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo are here to say that —despite good intentions— you're wasting your time. Men are not complicated, although they'd like you to think they are. And there are no mixed messages.

He's Just Not That Into You —based on a popular episode of Sex and the City— educates otherwise smart women on how to tell when a guy just doesn't like them enough, so they can stop wasting time making excuses for a dead-end relationship. This book knows you're a beautiful, smart, funny woman who deserves better.]]> 208 Greg Behrendt 141694740X Marissa 1 3.67 2004 He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys
author: Greg Behrendt
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2004
rating: 1
read at: 2009/02/19
date added: 2009/02/19
shelves:
review:

]]> The Catcher in the Rye 7178 The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins,

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them."

His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.

]]> 234 J.D. Salinger 0316769487 Marissa 5 3.76 1951 The Catcher in the Rye
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1951
rating: 5
read at: 2009/02/14
date added: 2009/02/14
shelves:
review:

]]> Animal Farm 7613
When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.]]> 129 George Orwell Marissa 3 3.90 1945 Animal Farm
author: George Orwell
name: Marissa
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1945
rating: 3
read at: 2008/12/19
date added: 2008/12/19
shelves:
review:

]]>