en-US Tue, 13 May 2025 17:12:56 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 57792084 Mrs. Post, the President and First Lady are here to see you. . . .

So begins another average evening for Marjorie Merriweather Post. Presidents have come and gone, but she has hosted them all. Growing up in the modest farmlands of Battle Creek, Michigan, Marjorie was inspired by a few simple rules: always think for yourself, never take success for granted, and work hard—even when deemed American royalty, even while covered in imperial diamonds. Marjorie had an insatiable drive to live and love and to give more than she got. From crawling through Moscow warehouses to rescue the Tsar's treasures to outrunning the Nazis in London, from serving the homeless of the Great Depression to entertaining Roosevelts, Kennedys, and Hollywood's biggest stars, Marjorie Merriweather Post lived an epic life few could imagine.

Marjorie's journey began gluing cereal boxes in her father's barn as a young girl. No one could have predicted that C. W. Post's Cereal Company would grow into the General Foods empire and reshape the American way of life, with Marjorie as its heiress and leading lady. Not content to stay in her prescribed roles of high-society wife, mother, and hostess, Marjorie dared to demand more, making history in the process. Before turning thirty she amassed millions, becoming the wealthiest woman in the United States. But it was her life-force, advocacy, passion, and adventurous spirit that led to her stunning legacy.

And yet Marjorie's story, though full of beauty and grandeur, set in the palatial homes she built such as Mar-a-Lago, was equally marked by challenge and tumult. A wife four times over, Marjorie sought her happily-ever-after with the blue-blooded party boy who could not outrun his demons, the charismatic financier whose charm turned to betrayal, the international diplomat with a dark side, and the bon vivant whose shocking secrets would shake Marjorie and all of society. Marjorie did everything on a grand scale, especially when it came to love.

Bestselling and acclaimed author Allison Pataki has crafted an intimate portrait of a larger-than-life woman, a powerful story of one woman falling in love with her own voice and embracing her own power while shaping history in the process.]]> 400 Allison Pataki 0593355687 Carly 0 to-read 4.05 2022
author: Allison Pataki
name: Carly
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 127305890
On a brisk fall night in a New York apartment, 35-year-old Billie West hears terrified screams. It's her lifelong best friend Cassie Barnwell, one floor above, and she's just realized her infant daughter has gone missing. Billie is shaken as she looks down into her own arms to see the baby, remembering—with a jolt of fear—that she is responsible for the kidnapping that has instantly shattered Cassie’s world.

So begins the story of Billie and Cassie's friendship--both in recent weeks, and since they met twenty-three years ago, in their small Hudson Valley hometown the summer before seventh grade. Once fiercely bonded by their secrets, including a traumatic, unspeakable incident in high school, Cassie and Billie have drifted apart in adulthood, no longer the inseparable pair they used to be. Cassie is married to a wealthy man, has recently become a mother, and is building a following as a fashion and lifestyle influencer. She is desperate to leave her past behind--including Billie, who is single and childless, and no longer fits into her world. Hurt and rejected by Cassie’s new priorities, Billie will do anything to restore their friendship, even as she hides the truth about what really happened the night the baby was taken.

Told in alternating perspectives in Lovering’s signature suspenseful style, Bye Baby confronts the myriad ways friendships change and evolve over time, the lingering echoes of childhood trauma, and the impact of women’s choices on their lifelong relationships.]]> 352 Carola Lovering 125028936X Carly 0 to-read 3.70 2024
author: Carola Lovering
name: Carly
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60194162 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780063251922.

"Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver Carly 0 to-read 4.46 2022
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Carly
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13330943
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway - a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love - a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.]]> 516 Erin Morgenstern 0307744434 Carly 0 4.05 2011
author: Erin Morgenstern
name: Carly
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/04
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025, 52-book-challenge-2024, currently-reading
review:

]]> 40212477
Louis and Claudia travel Europe, eventually coming to Paris and the ragingly successful Theatre des Vampires--a theatre of vampires pretending to be mortals pretending to be vampires. Here they meet the magnetic and ethereal Armand, who brings them into a whole society of vampires. But Louis and Claudia find that finding others like themselves provides no easy answers and in fact presents dangers they scarcely imagined.

Originally begun as a short story, the book took off as Anne wrote it, spinning the tragic and triumphant life experiences of a soul. As well as the struggles of its characters, Interview captures the political and social changes of two continents. The novel also introduces Lestat, Anne's most enduring character, a heady mixture of attraction and revulsion. The book, full of lush description, centers on the themes of immortality, change, loss, sexuality, and power.
source: annerice.com]]> 354 Anne Rice Carly 0 3.90 1976
author: Anne Rice
name: Carly
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025, currently-reading
review:

]]> 59349956 How far would you go to find The One?

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner the one you are genetically made for.

That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.

Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.” They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after” isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others…

A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.]]> 418 John Marrs Carly 4 4.11 2016
author: John Marrs
name: Carly
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/29
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 100183621
In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm - and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow's disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors.

It's been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren't there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere - the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own.

After her grandmother's death, June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother's decades-old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer she's been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart in an epic star-crossed love.

With The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young delivers a brilliant novel of romance, mystery, and a touch of the impossible--a story you will never forget.]]> 321 Adrienne Young 0593598687 Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2025 4.23 2023
author: Adrienne Young
name: Carly
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 50285519
Witnesses to the brutal murder of their families and neighbors and the violent destruction of their communities, a cadre of Jewish women in Poland—some still in their teens—helped transform the Jewish youth groups into resistance cells to fight the Nazis. With courage, guile, and nerves of steel, these “ghetto girls” paid off Gestapo guards, hid revolvers in loaves of bread and jars of marmalade, and helped build systems of underground bunkers. They flirted with German soldiers, bribed them with wine, whiskey, and home cooking, used their Aryan looks to seduce them, and shot and killed them. They bombed German train lines and blew up a town’s water supply. They also nursed the sick, taught children, and hid families.

Yet the exploits of these courageous resistance fighters have remained virtually unknown.

As propulsive and thrilling as Hidden Figures, In the Garden of Beasts, and Band of Brothers, The Light of Days at last tells the true story of these incredible women whose courageous yet little-known feats have been eclipsed by time. Judy Batalion—the granddaughter of Polish Holocaust survivors—takes us back to 1939 and introduces us to Renia Kukielka, a weapons smuggler and messenger who risked death traveling across occupied Poland on foot and by train. Joining Renia are other women who served as couriers, armed fighters, intelligence agents, and saboteurs, all who put their lives in mortal danger to carry out their missions. Batalion follows these women through the savage destruction of the ghettos, arrest and internment in Gestapo prisons and concentration camps, and for a lucky few—like Renia, who orchestrated her own audacious escape from a brutal Nazi jail—into the late 20th century and beyond.

Powerful and inspiring, featuring twenty black-and-white photographs, The Light of Days is an unforgettable true tale of war, the fight for freedom, exceptional bravery, female friendship, and survival in the face of staggering odds.  

NPR's Best Books of 2021

National Jewish Book Award, 2021

Canadian Jewish Literary Award, 2021]]> 573 Judy Batalion 0062874233 Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2025 4.15 2021
author: Judy Batalion
name: Carly
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 54493401
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]> 476 Andy Weir 0593135202 Carly 0 to-read 4.49 2021
author: Andy Weir
name: Carly
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218554737
Aboard are the heirs of the twelve provinces of Concordia, each graced with a unique and secret magical ability known as a Blessing.

Except Ganymedes Piscero - class clown, slacker, and all-round disappointment.

When a beloved heir is murdered, everyone is a suspect. Stuck at sea and surrounded by powerful people without a Blessing to protect him, odds of survival are slim.

But as the bodies pile higher, Ganymedes must become the hero he was not born to be. Can he unmask the killer and their blessing before this bloody crusade reaches the shores of Concordia?

Or will the empire as he knows it fall?]]> 464 Frances White 0778387909 Carly 0 to-read 3.78 2024
author: Frances White
name: Carly
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61796683 REESE'S BOOK CLUB MAY 2023 PICK

BOOK OF THE MONTH MAY 2023 PICK

A multigenerational saga that traverses the glamour of old Hollywood and the seductive draw of modern-day showbiz

When Kitty Karr Tate, a White icon of the silver screen, dies and bequeaths her multimillion-dollar estate to the St. John sisters, three young, wealthy Black women, it prompts questions. Lots of questions.

A celebrity in her own right, Elise St. John would rather focus on sorting out Kitty’s affairs than deal with the press. But what she discovers in one of Kitty’s journals rocks her world harder than any other brewing scandal could—and between a cheating fiancé and the fallout from a controversial social media post, there are plenty.

The truth behind Kitty's ascent to stardom from her beginnings in the segregated South threatens to expose a web of unexpected family ties, debts owed, and debatable crimes that could, with one pull, unravel the all-American fabric of the St. John sisters and those closest to them.

As Elise digs deeper into Kitty's past, she must also turn the lens upon herself, confronting the gifts and burdens of her own choices and the power that the secrets of the dead hold over the living. Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? is a sprawling page-turner set against the backdrop of the Hollywood machine, an insightful and nuanced look at the inheritances of family, race, and gender—and the choices some women make to break free of them.]]> 416 Crystal Smith Paul 1250815304 Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2025 3.70 2023
author: Crystal Smith Paul
name: Carly
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/04
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 40670312 How far would you go to find The One?

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner the one you are genetically made for.

That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.

Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.” They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after” isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others…

A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.]]> 418 John Marrs Carly 0 4.09 2016
author: John Marrs
name: Carly
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025, to-read
review:

]]> 214151519 A novel about a Malayan mother who becomes an unlikely spy for the invading Japanese forces during WWII—and the shocking consequences that rain upon her community and family.

Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara’s family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day.

Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth.

A decade prior, Cecily had been desperate to be more than a housewife to a low-level bureaucrat in British-colonized Malaya. A chance meeting with the charismatic General Fuijwara lured her into a life of espionage, pursuing dreams of an “Asia for Asians.” Instead, Cecily helped usher in an even more brutal occupation by the Japanese. Ten years later as the war reaches its apex, her actions have caught up with her. Now her family is on the brink of destruction—and she will do anything to save them.]]> 368 Vanessa Chan 1668015153 Carly 0 to-read 3.52 2024
author: Vanessa Chan
name: Carly
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 176443930
A decade ago, two vans filled with high school seniors on a school service trip crashed into a Tennessee ravine—a tragedy that claimed the lives of multiple classmates and teachers. The nine students who managed to escape the river that night were irrevocably changed. A year later, after one of the survivors dies by suicide on the anniversary of the crash, the rest of them make a to come together each year to commemorate that terrible night.

To keep one another safe.
To hold one another accountable.
Or both.

Their annual meeting place, a house on the Outer Banks, has long been a refuge. But by the tenth anniversary, Cassidy Bent has worked to distance herself from the tragedy and from the other survivors. She’s changed her mobile number. She’s blocked the others’ email addresses. This year, she is determined to finally break ties once and for all. But on the day of the reunion, she receives a text with an obituary another survivor is gone. Now they are seven—and Cassidy finds herself hurling back toward the group, wild with grief—and suspicion.

Almost immediately, something feels off this year. Cassidy is the first to notice when Amaya, the annual organizer, slips away, overwhelmed. This wouldn’t raise alarm except for the impending storm. Suddenly, they’re facing the threat of closed roads and surging waters…again. Then Amaya stops responding to her phone. After all they’ve been through, she wouldn’t willfully make them worry. Would she?

And—as they promised long ago—each survivor will do whatever he or she can do to save one another. Won’t they?

A propulsive and chilling locked-box mystery filled with the dazzling hairpin twists that are the author’s signature, The Only Survivors is New York Times bestselling author Megan Miranda’s best novel yet.]]> 352 Megan Miranda 1668010429 Carly 0 to-read 3.58 2023
author: Megan Miranda
name: Carly
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 15815342 A dark comic masterpiece—the first solo adult novel in more than a decade from the Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times–bestselling author.

Seth Weinstein knew Tina was way out of his league in pretty much any way you could imagine, which is why it continued to astonish him that he was on the plane now for their destination wedding in Florida. The Groom Posse had already sprung an airport prank on him, and he’d survived it, and if that was the worst of it, everything should be okay. Smooth sailing from now on.

Seth has absolutely no idea what he’s about to get into. In the next several hours, he and his friends will become embroiled with rioters, Russian gangsters, angry strippers, a pimp as big as the Death Star, a very desperate Haitian refugee on the run with her two children from some very bad men, and an eleven-foot albino Burmese python named Blossom. And there’re still two days to go before the wedding.

As it turns out, it’s not smooth sailing, it’s more like a trip on the Titanic. And the water below him is getting deeper every minute. By the end, amid gunfire, high-speed chases, and mayhem of the most unimaginable sort, violent men will fall, heroes will rise, and many lives will change.

Seth’s, not least of all.]]> 341 Dave Barry 0399158685 Carly 0 to-read 3.72 2013
author: Dave Barry
name: Carly
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218615956 From Christine Pride, the beloved coauthor of the Good Morning America Book Club Pick We Are Not Like Them, comes a dazzling solo debut novel about a woman who finds herself in the impossible situation of being in love with the same two men who won her heart in her early twenties again as she nears forty.

It’s 1999, TLC’s “No Scrubs” is topping the charts, y2k is looming on everyone’s mind, and Cora Belle has arrived at college ready to change her life. She’s determined to grow out of the shy, sheltered girl who attended an all-white prep in her all-white suburb. Cora is ready to conquer her fears and find her people, her place in the world, and herself.

What she’s totally unprepared for is Lincoln, with his dark skin, charming southern drawl, and that smile. Because how can you ever prepare yourself for the rollercoaster of first love with all its glorious, bewildering contradictions? Just when Cora thinks she’s got things figured out, a series of surprises and secrets threaten to upend everything she thought she understood about love and loyalty.

In the wake of these developments and a shocking tragedy, a new man enters Cora’s life—Aaron—further complicating everything. He’s the only one who seems to get her, and the letters she writes to him when the two are separated reveal the truth of their inescapable connection. There’s only one problem—how can she fall in love with one man when her heart belongs to another?

Twenty years later, and Cora is all grown up, or mostly, and has cloaked herself in loneliness like a warm blanket. It’s the safest choice. But then an unexpected reconnection and a chance encounter puts her right back where she started. The same two men, the same agonizing decision.

Finding herself in this position—again—will test everything Cora thought she knew about fate, love, and most importantly, herself. All The Men I’ve Loved Again is a big-hearted coming-of-age story for anyone who’s thought what if about a past love and what it would be like to have a second chance.]]> 320 Christine Pride 1668049538 Carly 0 to-read 3.53
author: Christine Pride
name: Carly
average rating: 3.53
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217927382 A sparkling rom-com in which an unexpected reunion could lead to a career-ending catastrophe or a second-chance romance . . .

When Andie lands her dream job as a senior book publicist, she’s ready to take the world of New York publishing by storm.

Until her first day, when she discovers that her biggest author is Jack Carlson—the same Jack who ruined her life at university. Whom she hasn’t spoken to in five years. Who is not only still infuriatingly hot but also incredibly successful. And whose campaign she definitely cannot mess up, if she wants to keep her job.

To make matters even worse, the central part of this career-defining campaign is a book tour. For a month, Andie will have to travel across Europe with the man whom, if she were being totally honest, she’d like to hit with her car.

But she will not lose this opportunity, especially not because of him. One month on tour with Jack Carlson, visiting some of the most romantic spots in Europe. Deep breath. She can do this.]]> 336 Bianca Gillam 014313860X Carly 0 to-read 3.18
author: Bianca Gillam
name: Carly
average rating: 3.18
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 215057185 From the acclaimed author of The Girls in the Stilt House comes a long-awaited novel both atmospheric and lyrical, a haunting Southern story about memory, family secrets, and fierce and fragile love.

For nearly thirty years, Nell has kept a childhood promise to never reveal what she and Evie found tucked inside a copy of Jane Eyre in their mother's bookcase—a record of Evie's birth naming a stranger as her mother. But lately, Nell has been haunted by hazy memories of their early life in Mississippi, years their reclusive mother, Hazel, has kept shrouded in secrecy. Evie recalls nothing before their house on Clay Mountain in North Carolina, but Nell remembers abrupt moves, odd accommodations, and the rainy night a man in a dark coat and a hat pulled low climbed their porch steps with a very little girl—Evie—then left without her.

In dual storylines, Nell, forty-two in 1971, reaches into the past to uncover dangerous, long-buried secrets, and Becca, a young mother in the early 1930s, presses ahead, each moving toward 1934, the catastrophic year that would forever link them. 

From a windswept ghost town long forgotten, to a river house in notorious Natchez Under-the-Hill, to a moody nightclub stage, Evie's other mother emerges from the shadows of Depression-era Mississippi in a story of hardship and perseverance, of betrayal and trust, and of unexpected redemption in a world in which the lines between heroes and culprits are not always clearly drawn.]]> 432 Kelly Mustian 1464230374 Carly 0 to-read 3.93 2025
author: Kelly Mustian
name: Carly
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218484140
Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth.

A decade prior, Cecily had been desperate to be more than a housewife to a low-level bureaucrat in British-colonized Malaya. A chance meeting with the charismatic General Fuijwara lured her into a life of espionage, pursuing dreams of an “Asia for Asians.” Instead, Cecily helped usher in an even more brutal occupation by the Japanese. Ten years later as the war reaches its apex, her actions have caught up with her. Now her family is on the brink of destruction—and she will do anything to save them.

Spanning years of pain and triumph, told from the perspectives of four unforgettable characters, The Storm We Made is a dazzling saga about the horrors of war; the fraught relationships between the colonized and their oppressors, and the ambiguity of right and wrong when survival is at stake.]]> 350 Vanessa Chan Carly 0 to-read 3.97 2024
author: Vanessa Chan
name: Carly
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25550445
First published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice is one of the most popular novels in the English literature and a cornerstone of Jane Austen's reputation as one of the greatest novelists of all time.This volume is one of Barnes & Noble's Collectible Editions classics. Each volume features authoritative texts by the world's greatest authors in an exquisitely designed foil-stamped binding, with distinctive colored edging and an attract silk-ribbon bookmark. Decorative, durable, and collectible, these books offer hours of pleasure to readers young and old and are an indispensable cornerstone for any home library.]]> 361 Jane Austen 1435159632 Carly 2 52-book-challenge-2025 4.39 1813
author: Jane Austen
name: Carly
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1813
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 46000520
But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?

Alternate cover edition can be found here .]]> 382 Richard Osman Carly 0 to-read 3.86 2020
author: Richard Osman
name: Carly
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57945316 From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire

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

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

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

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 544 R.F. Kuang 0063021420 Carly 0 to-read 4.17 2022
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Carly
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
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]]> 42360548 406 T.W. Neal 1732771200 Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2025 4.37 2018
author: T.W. Neal
name: Carly
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 60684731 Wildblumen sind stark. Widerstandsfähig. Sie gedeihen unter den widrigsten Bedingungen und biegen sich im stärksten Sturm. Aber sie brechen nicht. Niemals.

Es hat einige Zeit gedauert, bis ich erkennen konnte, dass es in manchen Momenten notwendig ist loszulassen. Egal, wie stark die Liebe ist.

Manchmal gibt es jemanden, fĂĽr den man stark sein und weitermachen muss und der einen mehr braucht.

Ich habe eine Entscheidung getroffen. Eine folgenreiche Entscheidung.

Und trotzdem hoffe ich, dass eines Tages die Liebe zu mir zurĂĽckfindet.

Fortsetzung der Wildflower Duet Reihe von Micalea Smeltzer. Wir empfehlen, die Bücher in der korrekten Reihenfolge zu lesen. ]]> 331 Micalea Smeltzer Carly 3 4.12
author: Micalea Smeltzer
name: Carly
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 224277538 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Greer Hendricks comes a chilling story about the hidden cost of perfection.

Anne is barely keeping it together. A frazzled ghostwriter and aspiring novelist, she juggles nine-year-old twins and a listless marriage from an overcrowded Manhattan apartment, spreading herself thinner each day. Just as Anne is about to give up on her dreams, she lands her biggest client Melody Wells.

Melody paints a picture of serenity and empowerment in the lavender haze of her visualization workshops—however, the one thing she can’t manifest are the pages her publisher is demanding for her new motivational book. Enter Anne.

As Melody invites Anne deeper into her magical world, Anne finds herself working impossibly long days and traveling far beyond her comfort zone.

When Melody passes along a lead on a spacious sublet complete with East River views, built-in closets, and three bedrooms, Anne can’t believe her luck. Melody seems to know just what her family needs. But as small, unsettling incidents begin to accumulate, Anne starts to wonder what price she’s willing to pay for the good life.]]> 61 Greer Hendricks 1662528515 Carly 4 3.23 2025
author: Greer Hendricks
name: Carly
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 33026457 An arresting collection of short stories, reminiscent of Shirley Jackson and Julio Cortazar, by an exciting new international talent

Macabre, disturbing, and exhilarating, Things We Lost in the Fire is a collection of twelve short stories that use fear and horror to explore multiple dimensions of life in contemporary Argentina. From women who set themselves on fire in protest of domestic violence, to angst-ridden teenage girls, friends until death do they part, to street kids and social workers, young women bored of their husbands or boyfriends, to a nine-year-old serial killer of babies and a girl who pulls out her nails and eyelids in the classroom, to hikikomori, abandoned houses, black magic, northern Argentinean superstition, disappearances, crushes, heartbreak, regret, and compassion. This is a strange, surreal, and unforgettable collection by an astonishing new talent, asking vital questions of the world as we know it.]]> 208 Mariana EnrĂ­quez Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2025 4.06 2016
author: Mariana EnrĂ­quez
name: Carly
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 101160309 From the New York Times bestselling author who inspired the hit Netflix series about a struggling mother barely making ends meet as a housecleaner—a gripping memoir about college, motherhood, poverty, and life after Maid.

When Stephanie Land set out to write her memoir Maid, she never could have imagined what was to come. Handpicked by President Barack Obama as one of the best books of 2019, it was called “an eye-opening journey into the lives of the working poor” (People). Later it was adapted into the hit Netflix series Maid, which was viewed by 67 million households and was Netflix’s fourth most-watched show in 2021, garnering three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Stephanie’s escape out of poverty and abuse in search of a better life inspired millions.

Maid was a story about a housecleaner, but it was also a story about a woman with a dream. In Class, Land takes us with her as she finishes college and pursues her writing career. Facing barriers at every turn including a byzantine loan system, not having enough money for food, navigating the judgments of professors and fellow students who didn’t understand the demands of attending college while under the poverty line—Land finds a way to survive once again, finally graduating in her mid-thirties.

Class paints an intimate and heartbreaking portrait of motherhood as it converges and often conflicts with personal desire and professional ambition. Who has the right to create art? Who has the right to go to college? And what kind of work is valued in our culture? In clear, candid, and moving prose, Class grapples with these questions, offering a searing indictment of America’s educational system and an inspiring testimony of a mother’s triumph against all odds.]]> 288 Stephanie Land 1982151412 Carly 0 to-read 3.58 2023
author: Stephanie Land
name: Carly
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 150260809
Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College—Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky.

Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders’ capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves.

Although Violet’s body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she still has her wits—and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules.

But a determination to survive won’t be enough this year.

Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College—and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.]]> 886 Rebecca Yarros Carly 5 52-book-challenge-2025 4.56 2023
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Carly
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 209439446
Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.]]> 527 Rebecca Yarros 1649374186 Carly 0 4.17 2025
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Carly
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: to-read, 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 57777139 A dead body is one mess she can't clean up on her own.

Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by.

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

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

Both a Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different--and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.]]> 304 Nita Prose 0735241333 Carly 0 to-read 3.71 2022
author: Nita Prose
name: Carly
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 60726415
In this book, you'll discover the root cause of all psychological and emotional suffering and how to achieve freedom of mind to effortlessly create the life you've always wanted to live.

Although pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

This book offers a completely new paradigm and understanding of where our human experience comes from, allowing us to end our own suffering and create how we want to feel at any moment.

No matter what has happened to you, where you are from, or what you have done, you can still find total peace, unconditional love, complete fulfillment, and an abundance of joy in your life.

No person is an exception to this. Darkness only exists because of the light, which means even in our darkest hour, light must exist.

Within the pages of this book, contains timeless wisdom to empower you with the understanding of our mind’s infinite potential to create any experience of life that we want no matter the external circumstances.

Don’t Believe Everything You Think is not about rewiring your brain, rewriting your past, positive thinking or anything of the sort.

We cannot solve our problems with the same level of consciousness that created them. Tactics are temporary. An expansion of consciousness is permanent.

This book was written to help you go beyond your thinking and discover the truth of what you already intuitively know deep inside your soul.]]> 99 Joseph Nguyen Carly 0 to-read 3.80 2022
author: Joseph Nguyen
name: Carly
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 58733693 Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.]]> 368 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204150 Carly 5 52-book-challenge-2025 4.35 2022
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: Carly
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/26
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025
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]]> 54848595 A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family—and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for—and everything she feared.

Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had.

But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter—she doesn’t behave like most children do.

Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.

Then their son Sam is born—and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth.

The Push is a tour de force you will read in a sitting, an utterly immersive novel that will challenge everything you think you know about motherhood, about what we owe our children, and what it feels like when women are not believed.]]> 320 Ashley Audrain 1984881671 Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2025 4.12 2021
author: Ashley Audrain
name: Carly
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 30241301
A brand-new recording narrated by Elphaba herself, Cynthia Erivo!

With millions of copies in print around the world, Gregory Maguire’s Wicked is established not only as a commentary on our time but as a novel to revisit for years to come. Wicked relishes the inspired inventions of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, while playing sleight of hand with our collective memories of the 1939 MGM film starring Margaret Hamilton (and Judy Garland). In this fast-paced, fantastically real, and supremely entertaining novel, Maguire has populated the largely unknown world of Oz with the power of his own imagination.

Years before Dorothy and her dog crash-land, another little girl makes her presence known in Oz. This girl, Elphaba, is born with emerald-green skin—no easy burden in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not strong enough to explain or overcome the natural disasters of flood and famine. Still, Elphaba is smart, and by the time she enters Shiz University, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz’s most promising young citizens.

But Elphaba’s Oz is no utopia. The Wizard’s secret police are everywhere. Animals—those creatures with voices, souls, and minds—are threatened with exile. Young Elphaba, green and wild and misunderstood, is determined to protect the Animals—even if it means combating the mysterious Wizard, even if it means risking her single chance at romance. Ever wiser in guilt and sorrow, she can find herself grateful when the world declares her a witch. And she can even make herself glad for that young girl from Kansas.

Recognized as an iconoclastic tour de force on its initial publication, the novel has inspired the blockbuster musical of the same name—one of the longest-running plays in Broadway history. Popular, indeed. But while the novel’s distant cousins hail from the traditions of magical realism, mythopoeic fantasy, and sprawling nineteenth-century sagas of moral urgency, Maguire’s Wicked is as unique as its green-skinned witch.]]> 406 Gregory Maguire Carly 0 to-read 3.51 1995
author: Gregory Maguire
name: Carly
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/19
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]]> 218171630 “If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.”

Alexis Spencer will use any inspirational quote to rationalize her failures and shortcomings. Her closest friends are a distant memory, and her college debt is still as high as the day she left—but that’s all fine and dandy, because “whatever will be, will be.” However, when Alexis loses her job and her relationship on the same day, there’s no quote strong enough to help her cope. In typical fashion, she blames the world for her problems, including her younger self, who should have tried harder. Feeling sorry for herself, Alexis finds a bottle of vodka from her college days and goes on a bender, blacking out in the process. Only this time she doesn’t wake up at home—or even in the right city. In fact, she isn’t even in the right year.]]> 304 Jeneva Rose 0778387488 Carly 0 to-read 3.73 2021
author: Jeneva Rose
name: Carly
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> 25814222 A charming, warmhearted novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller A Man Called Ove.

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy—as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry is told with the same comic accuracy and beating heart as Fredrik Backman’s bestselling debut novel, A Man Called Ove. It is a story about life and death and one of the most important human rights: the right to be different.]]> 372 Fredrik Backman 1501115073 Carly 0 to-read 4.07 2013
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Carly
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> 220817728 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s Space Shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

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

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

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

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

Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, with complex protagonists, telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love, this time among the stars.]]> 352 Taylor Jenkins Reid 0593158717 Carly 0 to-read 4.45 2025
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Carly
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> 220160814 From #1 New York Times bestseller Lisa Jewell, an author “at the very top of her game” (Lucy Foley)—three women are connected by one man in this kaleidoscopic thriller.

“Who are you? Who are you really?”

Nick Radcliffe is a man of substance and good taste. He has a smile that could melt the coldest heart and a knack for putting others at ease. He’s just what Nina Swann needed in her life after her husband’s unexpected death. But to Nina’s adult daughter, Ash, Nick seems too slick, too polished, too good to be true. Without telling her mother, Ash begins digging into Nick’s past. What she finds is more than unsettling…

“Because there are things that don’t make sense, and I’ve been so patient, so very patient…”

Martha is a florist living in a neighboring town with her infant daughter and her devoted husband Alistair. But lately, Alistair has been traveling more and more frequently for work, disappearing for days at a time. When Martha questions him about his frequent absences, he always has a legitimate explanation, but Martha can’t share the feeling that something isn't right.

“You know that’s mad, don’t you? I’m your husband. We know everything there is to know about each other.”

Nina, Martha, and Ash are on a collision course with a shocking truth that is far darker than anyone could have imagined. And all three are about to wish they had heeded the same warning: Don’t let him in. But the past won’t stay buried forever.]]> 368 Lisa Jewell 1668033879 Carly 0 to-read 3.99 2025
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Carly
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> 165914668
Brady Hartsfield wants that rush again, but this time he’s going big, with an attack that would take down thousands—unless Hodges and two new unusual allies he picks up along the way can throw a wrench in Hartsfield’s diabolical plans.]]> 538 Stephen King Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2025 4.44 2014
author: Stephen King
name: Carly
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025
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]]> 217313011
In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible.

Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

By an “endlessly inventive” (Vulture) author with a “wicked sense of humor” (NPR), The Tainted Cup mixes the charms of detective fiction with brilliant world-building to deliver a fiendishly clever mystery that’s at once instantly recognizable and thrillingly new.]]> 432 Robert Jackson Bennett 1984820710 Carly 0 to-read 4.31 2024
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Carly
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 28187230 341 Ruth Ware 1501132938 Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 3.73 2016
author: Ruth Ware
name: Carly
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 222115912 A must-read debut novel! Meet Elizabeth Zott: a one-of-a-kind scientist in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the star of a beloved TV cooking show.

“It's the world versus Elizabeth Zott, an extraordinary woman determined to live on her own terms, and I had no trouble choosing a side.... A page-turning and highly satisfying tale: zippy, zesty, and Zotty.” —Maggie Shipstead, best-selling author of Great Circle

ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022—New York Times, Bustle, Real Simple, Parade, CNN, Today, E! News, Library Journal

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

]]> 400 Bonnie Garmus 0385547374 Carly 5 52-book-challenge-2024 4.41 2022
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Carly
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/03
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 211003854 Der Weltbestseller – die Nr. 1 aus den USA.
Zwei Schwestern im von den Deutschen besetzten Während Vianne ums Überleben ihrer Familie kämpft, schließt sich die jüngere Isabelle der Résistance an und sucht die Freiheit auf dem Pfad der Nachtigall, einem geheimen Fluchtweg über die Pyrenäen. Doch wie weit darf man gehen, um zu überleben? Und wie kann man die schützen, die man liebt?
In diesem epischen, kraftvollen und zutiefst berührenden Roman erzählt Kristin Hannah die Geschichte zweier Frauen, die ihr Schicksal auf ganz eigene Weise meistern.]]> 448 Kristin Hannah 1250370116 Carly 0 to-read 4.75 2015
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Carly
average rating: 4.75
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> 212510254
Team leader Liev and his band of survivors are stranded in the bitter winds with little hope of rescue—or outlasting the wolves that have scented blood. In the distance is the apparent sanctuary of an abandoned stone fortress. That an ancient bulwark even exists on this forsaken summit is beyond comprehension. So is what lies on the other side of its walls.

From Academy Award–winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro comes Falling Down, part one of The Boy in the Iron Box, a blood-chilling series of short stories about an ancient secret that was never meant to be unleashed, featuring exclusive interior artwork. Each can be read or listened to in one breathless sitting.]]> 30 Guillermo del Toro 1542023688 Carly 3 52-book-challenge-2025 3.59 2024
author: Guillermo del Toro
name: Carly
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/30
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 33413128
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.]]> 432 Fredrik Backman Carly 5 52-book-challenge-2024 4.27 2016
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Carly
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 62060532
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 329 R.F. Kuang Carly 0 to-read 3.77 2023
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Carly
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 127305853
Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm's way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Carly 0 4.58 2024
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Carly
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read, 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 58570335
But when other women in the village decide that they, too, want to be "self-made" widows and rid themselves of their abusive husbands, Geeta's reputation becomes a double-edged sword--the very thing that's meant to keep her safe is now threatening everything she's built as she unwittingly becomes the go-to consultant for village husband-disposal.

Unfortunately, Geeta finds that even the best-laid plans of would-be widows tend to go awry, and the women find themselves caught in a web of their own making--and long-estranged friendships will have to be re-formed if they hope to make it out of their mess alive.

Acerbic, insightful, and full of dark humor, Parini Shroff's The Bandit Queens--with its unique combination of poignant social commentary and irreverence--is an absolutely unforgettable novel.]]> 342 Parini Shroff Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 4.04 2023
author: Parini Shroff
name: Carly
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 62334530
A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?]]> 390 Lisa Jewell 1982179007 Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 4.08 2023
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Carly
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 58804928 288 Sulari Gentill 146421588X Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 3.77 2022
author: Sulari Gentill
name: Carly
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 91239387 Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for that world or ours.

Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. When Charlie is seventeen, he meets a dog named Radar and her aging master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. Sometimes strange sounds emerge from it.

Charlie starts doing jobs for Mr. Bowditch and loses his heart to Radar. Then, when Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie a cassette tape telling a story no one would believe. What Bowditch knows, and has kept secret all his long life, is that inside the shed is a portal to another world.]]> 624 Stephen King 1668002191 Carly 5 52-book-challenge-2024 4.04 2022
author: Stephen King
name: Carly
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 116536542
Lucian Rollins is a lean, mean vengeance-seeking mogul. On a quest to erase his father’s mark on the family name, he spends every waking minute pulling strings and building an indestructible empire. The more money and power he amasses, the safer he is from threats.

Except when it comes to the feisty small-town librarian that keeps him up at night…

Sloane Walton is a spitfire determined to carry on her father’s quest for justice. She’ll do that just as soon as she figures out exactly what the man she hates did to—or for—her family. Bonded by an old, dark secret from the past and the dislike they now share for each other, Sloane trusts Lucian about as far as she can throw his designer-suited body.

When bickering accidentally turns to foreplay, these two find themselves not quite regretting their steamy one-night stand. Once those flames are fanned, it seems impossible to put them out again. But with Sloane ready to start a family and Lucian refusing to even consider the idea of marriage and kids, these enemies-to-lovers are stuck at an impasse.

Broken men break women. It’s what Lucian believes, what he’s witnessed, and he’s not going to take that chance with Sloane. He’d rather live a life of solitude than put her in danger. But he learns the hard way that leaving her means leaving her unprotected from other threats.

It’s the second time he’s ruthlessly cut her out of his life. There’s no way she’s going to give him a third chance. He’s just going to have to make one for himself.]]> 698 Lucy Score Carly 0 to-read 4.41 2023
author: Lucy Score
name: Carly
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 197600306 In this debut thriller, a troubled child psychologist returns to a small Louisiana town to protect her secrets but winds up having to protect her life.

Dr. Willa Watters is a prominent child psychologist at the height of her career. But when a viral video of a disastrous television interview puts her reputation on the line, Willa retreats to Broken Bayou, the town where she spent most of her childhood summers. There she visits her aunts’ old house and discovers some of her troubled mother’s belongings still languishing in the attic—dusty mementos harboring secrets of her harrowing past.

Willa’s hopes for a respite are quickly crushed, not only by what she finds in that attic but also by what’s been found in the bayou.

With waters dropping due to drought, mysterious barrels containing human remains have surfaced, alongside something else from Willa’s past, something she never thought she’d see again. Divers, police, and media flood the area, including a news reporter gunning for Willa and Travis Arceneaux—a local deputy and old flame.

Willa’s fate seems eerily tied to the murders. And with no one to trust, she must use her wits to stay above water and make it out alive.]]> 265 Jennifer Moorhead 1662518765 Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 4.14 2024
author: Jennifer Moorhead
name: Carly
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 213562784
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 322 R.F. Kuang 0063250853 Carly 0 to-read 3.78 2023
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Carly
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199797783 This edition contains a bonus chapter.

Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summer crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.

A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realize that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?]]> 400 Lisa Jewell 1982179015 Carly 0 to-read 4.06 2023
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Carly
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43419431 Frank Herbert’s classic masterpiece—a triumph of the imagination and one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time.

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice” melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for....

When House Atreides is betrayed, the destruction of Paul’s family will set the boy on a journey toward a destiny greater than he could ever have imagined. And as he evolves into the mysterious man known as Muad’Dib, he will bring to fruition humankind’s most ancient and unattainable dream.

A stunning blend of adventure and mysticism, environmentalism and politics, Dune won the first Nebula Award, shared the Hugo Award, and formed the basis of what is undoubtedly the grandest epic in science fiction.]]> 883 Frank Herbert Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 4.44 1965
author: Frank Herbert
name: Carly
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1965
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 49123943
Jezzie Flanagan is the first woman ever to hold the highly sensitive job as supervisor of the Secret Service in Washington. Blond, mysterious, seductive, she's got an outer shell that's as tough as it is beautiful. She rides her black BMW motorcycle at speeds of no less than 100 mph. What is she running from? What is her secret?

Alex Cross and Jezzie Flanagan are about to have a forbidden love affair-at the worst possible time for both of them. Because Gary Soneji, who wants to commit the "crime of the century," is playing at the top of his game. Soneji has outsmarted the FBI, the Secret Service, and the police. Who will be his next victim?

Gary Soneji is every parent's worst nightmare. He has become Alex Cross's nightmare. And now, reader, he's about to become yours.]]> 528 James Patterson Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 4.37 1993
author: James Patterson
name: Carly
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 210832955 A costume designer’s past casts a long shadow over her well-constructed lies in this intriguing story about stolen identities, friendship, and betrayal from the author of A Splendid Ruin and A Dangerous Education.

Hollywood, 1955. As head costume designer for Lux Pictures, Lena Taylor hears startling confessions from the biggest movie stars. She knows how to keep their secrets—after all, none of their scandals can match her own.

Lena was once Elsie Gruner, the daughter of an Ohio dressmaker. Her gift for fashion design helped her win a coveted spot at an art academy in Rome. While in Italy, she became enthralled by the charismatic Julia, who drew her into a shadowy world of jazz clubs, code words, and mysterious deliveries. When one of Julia’s intrigues ended in murder, Elsie found herself in the middle of a bewildering sinister international plot. So she ran.

After fleeing to LA, Elsie became Lena—but she’s never stopped looking over her shoulder. Now, as her engagement to a screenwriter throws her into the spotlight, she’s terrified her façade won’t hold up. Will she figure out the truth about her past before everything falls apart?]]> 369 Megan Chance 1662515782 Carly 0 4.03 2025
author: Megan Chance
name: Carly
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: to-read, 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 211102993 A hopeful, funny, and untraditional love story about second chances, the ripple effects of love, and the myriad ways in which the simplest lives have the power to change the world.

The next step in Ellie Baker’s divorce. She and her husband, Jonah, are heading to Florida to break it to the family. No great drama to share. After twenty years of marriage, they’ve just fallen out of love. Simple.

Not to their college-age daughter, Maggie, who is devastated. Or to Ellie’s father, Frank, who grows as cold as a retiree can get in Orlando. As for Ellie’s mother, Bunny: no, no, no. She doesn’t want to hear it. After a dreadful weekend, Ellie and Jonah return home to New Jersey with hearts and minds still set on a split. Until the extraordinary morning Ellie wakes up to an alternate version of the present day—one in which she, and a passing stranger named Jonah, never married.

Over the span of an inexplicable week, Ellie sees how her world—and the world of everyone she loves—unfolded through a different course in time. And this time could change everything all over again.]]> 297 Angela Brown 166251638X Carly 0 to-read 3.54 2025
author: Angela Brown
name: Carly
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211003781
Emma has never told anyone what she saw the night her parents died, even when she became the prime suspect. But her presence in the house threatens to uncover secrets that have stayed hidden for years, and the sisters are drawn together once again. As they face their memories of the past, rivalries restart, connections are forged, and, for the first time, Emma starts to ask questions about what really happened that night.

The more Emma learns, the more riddles emerge. And Emma begins to wonder just what her siblings will do to keep the past buried, and whether she did the right thing staying quiet about what was whispered that night: “No one can know.”]]> 336 Kate Alice Marshall 1250859921 Carly 0 to-read 3.55 2024
author: Kate Alice Marshall
name: Carly
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 5107 It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school...

Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends. The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.

The Catcher in the Rye is an all-time classic in coming-of-age literature- an elegy to teenage alienation, capturing the deeply human need for connection and the bewildering sense of loss as we leave childhood behind.

J.D. Salinger's (1919–2010) classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.]]> 277 J.D. Salinger 0316769177 Carly 0 3.81 1951
author: J.D. Salinger
name: Carly
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1951
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read, 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 54817545
2017, London: When Aurelia Leclaire inherits an opulent Paris apartment, she is shocked to discover her grandmother’s hidden secrets—including a treasure trove of famous art and couture gowns. One obscure painting leads her to Gabriel Seymour, a highly respected art restorer with his own mysterious past. Together they attempt to uncover the truths concealed within the apartment’s walls.

Paris, 1942: The Germans may occupy the City of Lights, but glamorous Estelle Allard flourishes in a world separate from the hardships of war. Yet when the Nazis come for her friends, Estelle doesn’t hesitate to help those she holds dear, no matter the cost. As she works against the forces intent on destroying her loved ones, she can’t know that her actions will have ramifications for generations to come.

Set seventy-five years apart, against a perilous and a prosperous Paris, both Estelle and Lia must summon hidden courage as they navigate the dangers of a changing world, altering history—and their family’s futures—forever.]]> 406 Kelly Bowen 1538718154 Carly 0 4.24 2021
author: Kelly Bowen
name: Carly
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read, 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 9791 A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in).]]> 397 Bill Bryson 0307279464 Carly 0 52-book-challenge-2025 4.07 1998
author: Bill Bryson
name: Carly
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 6514 294 Sylvia Plath 0571268862 Carly 0 4.05 1963
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Carly
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read, 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 40718386
When someone hacks into the systems of eight self-drive cars, their passengers are set on a fatal collision course.

The passengers are: a TV star, a pregnant young woman, a disabled war hero, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife - and parents of two - who are travelling in separate vehicles and a suicidal man. Now the public have to judge who should survive but are the passengers all that they first seem?]]> 400 John Marrs 1473558522 Carly 0 4.04 2019
author: John Marrs
name: Carly
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read, 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 197108968 From the acclaimed author of The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and brilliant speculative thriller about families: real and virtual.

Some families are virtually perfect…

The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, the breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families, let alone raise them.

But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality TV show called The Substitute. It will follow ten couples as they raise a Virtual Child from birth to the age of eighteen but in a condensed nine-month time period. The prize: the right to keep their virtual child, or risk it all for the chance of a real baby…

Set in the same universe as John Marrs's bestselling novel The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and twisted thriller about the ultimate Tamagotchi—a virtual baby.]]> 384 John Marrs 1335000364 Carly 0 4.00 2024
author: John Marrs
name: Carly
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read, 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 6101718
Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.

He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.

At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.]]> 402 Lev Grossman 0670020559 Carly 0 3.53 2009
author: Lev Grossman
name: Carly
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read, 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 218038285 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

This beloved Newbery Honor-winning story about a feisty heroine is sure to enchant readers new and old.

At her birth, Ella of Frell receives a foolish fairy's gift—the “gift” of obedience. Ella must obey any order, whether it's to hop on one foot for a day and a half, or to chop off her own head! But strong-willed Ella does not accept her fate...

Against a bold backdrop of princes, ogres, giants, wicked stepsisters, and fairy godmothers, Ella goes on a quest to break the curse forever.

A tween favorite for 25 years—now shared with today's young readers by moms, teachers, and other adults who remember the pleasure of discovering this fun fairy-tale retelling themselves!]]> Gail Carson Levine 0064407055 Carly 0 4.30 1997
author: Gail Carson Levine
name: Carly
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read, 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 270730 Crank, Ellen Hopkins chronicles the turbulent and often disturbing relationship between Kristina, a character based on her own daughter, and the "monster," the highly addictive drug crystal meth, or "crank." Kristina is introduced to the drug while visiting her largely absent and ne'er-do-well father. While under the influence of the monster, Kristina discovers her sexy alter-ego, Bree: "there is no perfect daughter, / no gifted high school junior, / no Kristina Georgia Snow. / There is only Bree." Bree will do all the things good girl Kristina won't, including attracting the attention of dangerous boys who can provide her with a steady flow of crank.]]> 537 Ellen Hopkins 0689865198 Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2025 4.17 2004
author: Ellen Hopkins
name: Carly
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 66087062 A woman risks everything to end her family’s centuries-old curse, solve her mother’s disappearance, and find love in this mesmerizing novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Spells for Forgetting.

In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm—and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow’s disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors.

It’s been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere—the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own.

After her grandmother’s death, June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother’s decades-old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer she’s been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart in an epic star-crossed love.

With The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young delivers a brilliant novel of romance, mystery, and a touch of the impossible—a story you will never forget.]]> 320 Adrienne Young 0593598679 Carly 0 4.13 2023
author: Adrienne Young
name: Carly
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2025, to-read
review:

]]> 60214567 464 Jodi Picoult 1984818392 Carly 0 4.20 2022
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Carly
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read, 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 22896 Alternate cover for ISBN 9780425190371 (currently here).

The Owens sisters confront the challenges of life and love in this bewitching novel from New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman.

For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape.

One will do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they share will bring them back—almost as if by magic...
]]> 286 Alice Hoffman Carly 0 3.70 1995
author: Alice Hoffman
name: Carly
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read, 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 209411839 Three women scheme to avenge an old friend in a darkly witty short story about loyalty, ambition, and delicious retribution by Margaret Atwood, the #1 bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Myrna, Leonie, and Chrissy meet every Thursday to sample fine cheeses, to reminisce about their former lives as professors, and lately, to muse about murder. Decades ago, a vicious cabal of male poets contrived—quite publicly and successfully—to undermine the writing career, confidence, and health of their dear friend Fern. Now, after Fern has taken a turn for the worse, her three old friends decide that it’s finally time to strike back—in secret, of course, since Fern is far too gentle to approve of a vendetta. All they need is a plan with suitably Shakespearean drama. But as sweet and satisfying as revenge can be, it’s not always so cut and dried.]]> 35 Margaret Atwood 1662523335 Carly 3 3.13 2024
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Carly
average rating: 3.13
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 25387599
For a start there's the gloriously out-of-shape Stephen Katz, a buddy from Iowa along for the walk. Despite Katz's overwhelming desire to find cozy restaurants, he and Bryson eventually settle into their stride, and while on the trail they meet a bizarre assortment of hilarious characters. But A Walk in the Woods is more than just a laugh-out-loud hike. Bryson's acute eye is a wise witness to this beautiful but fragile trail, and as he tells its fascinating history, he makes a moving plea for the conservation of America's last great wilderness. An adventure, a comedy, and a celebration, A Walk in the Woods has become a modern classic of travel literature.]]> 304 Bill Bryson 1101905492 Carly 0 to-read 3.81 1998
author: Bill Bryson
name: Carly
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54698748 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn comes the story of Daphne Bridgerton, in the first of her beloved Regency-set novels featuring the charming, powerful Bridgerton family, now a series created by Shondaland for Netflix.

In the ballrooms and drawing rooms of Regency London, rules abound. From their earliest days, children of aristocrats learn how to address an earl and curtsey before a prince—while other dictates of the ton are unspoken yet universally understood. A proper duke should be imperious and aloof. A young, marriageable lady should be amiable…but not too amiable.

Daphne Bridgerton has always failed at the latter. The fourth of eight siblings in her close-knit family, she has formed friendships with the most eligible young men in London. Everyone likes Daphne for her kindness and wit. But no one truly desires her. She is simply too deuced honest for that, too unwilling to play the romantic games that captivate gentlemen.

Amiability is not a characteristic shared by Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings. Recently returned to England from abroad, he intends to shun both marriage and society—just as his callous father shunned Simon throughout his painful childhood. Yet an encounter with his best friend’s sister offers another option. If Daphne agrees to a fake courtship, Simon can deter the mamas who parade their daughters before him. Daphne, meanwhile, will see her prospects and her reputation soar.

The plan works like a charm—at first. But amid the glittering, gossipy, cut-throat world of London’s elite, there is only one certainty: love ignores every rule...

This novel includes the 2nd epilogue, a peek at the story after the story.]]> 464 Julia Quinn 0063078902 Carly 5 52-book-challenge-2024 3.80 2000
author: Julia Quinn
name: Carly
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2000
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 58884736
"A story of love and hope as interweaving characters display: how all moments, big and small, can measure a life. If you want joy, love, romance, and hope—read with us." —Jenna Bush Hager
A luminous, spirit-lifting blockbuster that asks: would you choose to find out the length of your life?

Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice.

It seems like any other day. You wake up, drink a cup of coffee, and head out.

But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. The contents of this mysterious box tells you the exact number of years you will live.

From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise?

As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?

The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another: best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, a couple who thought they didn’t have to rush, a doctor who cannot save himself, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything.

Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is an ambitious, invigorating story about family, friendship, hope, and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest.]]> 353 Nikki Erlick 0063204207 Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 3.96 2022
author: Nikki Erlick
name: Carly
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 220506847
A Christmas mission…

Mirren’s beloved great-aunt Violet is seriously ill. Her one Christmas wish is to be reunited with a long-lost hand-illustrated book from her childhood, a challenge Mirren gladly accepts to give Violet some much-needed festive cheer.

An enchanting journey…

With no sign of the cherished volume online, Mirren falls into the fascinating world of rare books. From London to snowy Hay-on-Wye and Edinburgh’s cobbled streets, she chases leads from bookshop to bookshop—and bumps into mysterious, charming Theo, who, unbeknownst to her, is searching for the same book for reasons of his own…

The start of a new chapter?

As the two join forces to track the book down before time runs out for Violet, will Mirren find her Christmas miracle—and maybe even a kiss under the mistletoe… ?

For fans of Josie Silver, Jill Mansell and the Queen of Christmas herself, a snow-swept love story to warm even the coldest winter’s day.]]> 127 Jenny Colgan 1662522576 Carly 0 to-read 3.73 2024
author: Jenny Colgan
name: Carly
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 209354715
Eddie Asher arrives at Hudson Valley Psychiatric Hospital panicked that he may have murdered his brother’s fiancée, Lucy, with whom he shared a profound kinship. He can’t imagine doing such a terrible thing, but Eddie hasn’t been himself lately.

Eddie’s anxiety is nothing new to Pär, the one Eddie calls his Other, who protects Eddie from truths he’s too sensitive to face. Or so Pär says. Troubled by Pär’s increasing sway over his life, Eddie seeks out Dr. Richard Montgomery, a specialist in dissociative identities. The psychiatrist is Eddie’s best chance for piecing together the puzzle of what really happened to Lucy and to understanding his inexplicable memories of another man’s life. But Montgomery’s methods trigger a kaleidoscope of memories that Pär can’t contain, bringing Eddie closer to an unimaginable truth about his identity.]]> 308 Lisa Williamson Rosenberg 1662521278 Carly 0 to-read 3.66 2024
author: Lisa Williamson Rosenberg
name: Carly
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214151881 On a New England morning in the late 1980s, a group of young cousins wander deep into the woods on their family’s property, drawn in by uncanny visions and the disappearance of one of their own—but the farther they go, the stranger their surroundings become.

Lingering at the edge of a family party, a troop of cousins loses track of the youngest child among them. With their parents preoccupied with bickering about decades-old crises, the children decide they must set out to investigate themselves—to the rickety chicken coop, the barn and its two troublesome horses, and into the woods that once comprised their late grandmother’s property. The more the children search, and the deeper they walk, the more threatening the woods become and the more lost they are, caught between their aunt’s home in the present day, their parents’ childhood home just through the trees, and the memory of the house their grandmother grew up in. Soon, what began as a quest for answers gives way to a journey that undermines everything they’ve been told about who they are, where they came from, and what they deserve.

Disquieting and delightful, Idle Grounds is a rich exploration of the interior lives of children and a gripping meditation on birthright, decline, and weight of family history. A fable of the distortions of privilege and the impossibility of keeping secrets hidden, this is a novel about straying from home—only to come back unraveled, unsettled, and irrevocably changed.]]> 208 Krystelle Bamford 1668070456 Carly 0 to-read 3.28 2025
author: Krystelle Bamford
name: Carly
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220738193
For lovers of women’s fiction with characters who linger long after the close of a book, Lunch Ladies immerses readers in lives and relationships that are joyful, troubled, and emotionally charged. Characters’ intertwined lives, their dreams and heartbreaks, their histories, and their secrets, emerge as this story develops with startling honesty and depth.

Lunch Ladies offers a spot-on depiction of the 1970’s in small-town America. As the book opens, it's 1976 and there's a bicentennial parade in the works. Is this a task for the school district's lunch ladies? Their answer would be "no." And yet Crystal, Coralene, and Sheila find themselves crafting food stands to feed parade goers, come the Fourth of July.

Crystal has other things to do: matching lonely travelers from the newspaper obituaries with kind souls still living. Coralene doesn't need this nonsense. She has a home and family, and a nephew she must save before it's too late. Is it already too late for Sheila? Her safe harbor is a booth at Denny's on Friday nights, with the only person who might help her move beyond her past.

Lunch Ladies serves up a poignant, tender, and humorous view of the flawed and fascinating citizens of Hanley. Peppered with wit and insight, the book captures the absurdities of family and community life, while revealing the humanity of those who've been lost, or left behind.]]> 282 Jodi Thompson Carr Carly 0 to-read 3.70 2024
author: Jodi Thompson Carr
name: Carly
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 210670872 A rich, deeply moving portrait of a young Korean woman in 1930s Japan who is torn between two worlds and must reclaim her true identity to provide a future for her family.

1928, Japan-occupied Korea. Eleven-year-old Miyoung has dreams too big for her tiny farming village near Pyongyang: to become a teacher, to avoid an arranged marriage, to write her own future. When she is offered the chance to live with her older sister in Japan and continue her education, she is elated, even though it means leaving her sick mother—and her very name—behind.

In Kyoto, anti-Korean sentiment is rising every day, and Miyoung quickly realizes she must pass as Japanese if she expects to survive. Her Japanese name, Miyoko, helps her find a new calling as a nurse, but as the years go by, she fears that her true self is slipping away. She seeks solace in a Korean church group and, within it, finds something she never expected: a romance with an activist that reignites her sense of purpose and gives her a cherished son.

As war looms on a new front and Miyoung feels the constraints of her adopted home tighten, she is faced with a choice that will change her life—and the lives of those she loves—forever.]]> 321 Rosa Kwon Easton 1662519702 Carly 0 to-read 4.02 2024
author: Rosa Kwon Easton
name: Carly
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 123573776
In San Miguel de Allende, Jane and her young sons delight in new adventures, but Kevin still seethes. Jane befriends a circle of intriguing women and helps two girls who remind her of the brother she abandoned when her own parents divorced. After witnessing violence involving the girls’ father, Jane’s vivid dreams, possibly guided by a hummingbird messenger from the hereafter, grow ever darker. When tragedy strikes San Miguel, the community fractures and then rises, and Jane must make a dangerous choice.

The Broken Hummingbird has received the following honors:
2024 Independent Publisher Book Awards Silver Winner,
2024 National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist for Literary Fiction,
2023 International Book Awards Finalist for Women’s Fiction,
2023 American Fiction Awards Finalist, Women's Fiction & Best New Fiction, and
2023 Story Circle Network Sarton Prize for Contemporary Fiction Finalist.]]> 328 Ann Marie Jackson 164742559X Carly 0 to-read 3.80 2023
author: Ann Marie Jackson
name: Carly
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 9723667 The World's Bestselling Mystery

"Ten . . ."
Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion off the Devon coast by a mysterious "U.N. Owen."

"Nine . . ."
At dinner a recorded message accuses each of them in turn of having a guilty secret, and by the end of the night one of the guests is dead.

"Eight . . ."
Stranded by a violent storm, and haunted by a nursery rhyme counting down one by one . . . one by one they begin to die.

"Seven . . ."
Who among them is the killer and will any of them survive?

]]> 300 Agatha Christie Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 4.26 1939
author: Agatha Christie
name: Carly
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1939
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 9408584
Sophie Beckett never dreamed she'd be able to sneak into Lady Bridgerton's famed masquerade ball—or that "Prince Charming" would be waiting there for her! Though the daughter of an earl, Sophie has been relegated to the role of servant by her disdainful stepmother. But now, spinning in the strong arms of the debonair and devastatingly handsome Benedict Bridgerton, she feels like royalty. Alas, she knows all enchantments must end when the clock strikes midnight.

Who was that extraordinary woman? Ever since that magical night, a radiant vision in silver has blinded Benedict to the attractions of any other—except, perhaps this alluring and oddly familiar beauty dressed in housemaid's garb whom he feels compelled to rescue from a most disagreeable situation. He has sworn to find and wed his mystery miss, but this breathtaking maid makes him weak with wanting her. Yet, if he offers his heart, will Benedict sacrifice his only chance for a fairy tale love?

Alternate cover for ISBN 0380815583 / 9780380815586]]> 390 Julia Quinn Carly 0 3.89 2001
author: Julia Quinn
name: Carly
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/13
shelves: to-read, 52-book-challenge-2025
review:

]]> 53288434 A female apothecary secretly dispenses poisons to liberate women from the men who have wronged them - setting three lives across centuries on a dangerous collision course.

Rule #1: The poison must never be used to harm another woman.
Rule #2: The names of the murderer and her victim must be recorded in the apothecary’s register.

One cold February evening in 1791, at the back of a dark London alley in a hidden apothecary shop, Nella awaits her newest customer. Once a respected healer, Nella now uses her knowledge for a darker purpose - selling well-disguised poisons to desperate women who would kill to be free of the men in their lives. But when her new patron turns out to be a precocious twelve-year-old named Eliza Fanning, an unexpected friendship sets in motion a string of events that jeopardizes Nella’s world and threatens to expose the many women whose names are written in her register.

In present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, reeling from the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. When she finds an old apothecary vial near the river Thames, she can’t resist investigating, only to realize she’s found a link to the unsolved “apothecary murders” that haunted London over two centuries ago. As she deepens her search, Caroline’s life collides with Nella’s and Eliza’s in a stunning twist of fate - and not everyone will survive.]]> 301 Sarah Penner 0778311015 Carly 0 to-read 3.72 2021
author: Sarah Penner
name: Carly
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56931613 “The first rule is that you don’t fall in love," he said…, "There are other rules too, but that is the main one. No falling in love. No staying in love. No daydreaming of love. If you stick to this you will just about be okay."

A love story across the ages - and for the ages - about a man lost in time, the woman who could save him, and the lifetimes it can take to learn how to live.

Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history--performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life.

So Tom moves back his to London, his old home, to become a high school history teacher--the perfect job for someone who has witnessed the city's history first hand. Better yet, a captivating French teacher at his school seems fascinated by him.

But the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: Never fall in love. As painful memories of his past and the erratic behavior of the Society's watchful leader threaten to derail his new life and romance, the one thing he can't have just happens to be the one thing that might save him. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past, or finally begin living in the present.

How to Stop Time is a bighearted, wildly original novel about losing and finding yourself, the inevitability of change, and how with enough time to learn, we just might find happiness.]]> 333 Matt Haig Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 4.06 2018
author: Matt Haig
name: Carly
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/01
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 56292974 Winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor National Bestseller • Wall Street Journal Bestseller • USA Today BestsellerAn NPR Book of the Yea rFinalist for the 2021 ŔĎ»˘»úÎČÓ®·˝·¨ Choice Awards
From the bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus and The Editor comes a warm and deeply funny novel about a once-famous gay sitcom star whose unexpected family tragedy leaves him with his niece and nephew for the summer.

Patrick, or Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP, for short), has always loved his niece, Maisie, and nephew, Grant. That is, he loves spending time with them when they come out to Palm Springs for weeklong visits, or when he heads home to Connecticut for the holidays. But in terms of caretaking and relating to two children, no matter how adorable, Patrick is, honestly, overwhelmed.

So when tragedy strikes and Maisie and Grant lose their mother and Patrick's brother has a health crisis of his own, Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian. Despite having a set of "Guncle Rules" ready to go, Patrick has no idea what to expect, having spent years barely holding on after the loss of his great love, a somewhat-stalled acting career, and a lifestyle not-so-suited to a six- and a nine-year-old. Quickly realizing that parenting--even if temporary--isn't solved with treats and jokes, Patrick's eyes are opened to a new sense of responsibility, and the realization that, sometimes, even being larger than life means you're unfailingly human.

With the humor and heart we've come to expect from bestselling author Steven Rowley, The Guncle is a moving tribute to the power of love, patience, and family in even the most trying of times.]]> 326 Steven Rowley Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 4.25 2021
author: Steven Rowley
name: Carly
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/01
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 9525672 A tale of true love and high adventure, pirates, princesses, giants, miracles, fencing, and a frightening assortment of wild beasts—The Princess Bride is a modern storytelling classic.

As Florin and Guilder teeter on the verge of war, the reluctant Princess Buttercup is devastated by the loss of her true love, kidnapped by a mercenary and his henchmen, rescued by a pirate, forced to marry Prince Humperdinck, and recused once again by the very crew who absconded with her in the first place. In the course of this dazzling adventure, she'll meet Vizzini—the criminal philosopher who'll do anything for a bag of gold; Fezzik—the gentle giant; Inigo—the Spaniard whose steel thirsts for revenge; and Count Rugen—the evil mastermind behind it all. Foiling all their plans and jumping into their stories is Westley, Princess Buttercup's one true love and a very good friend of a very dangerous pirate.]]> 465 William Goldman Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 4.19 1973
author: William Goldman
name: Carly
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1973
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/20
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 59366244
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died , Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly , she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.]]> 304 Jennette McCurdy 1982185821 Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 4.42 2022
author: Jennette McCurdy
name: Carly
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/25
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 32735369 Tell Me Lies is about that one person who still haunts you—the other one. The wrong one. The one you couldn’t let go of. The one you’ll never forget.

Lucy Albright is far from her Long Island upbringing when she arrives on the campus of her small California college, and happy to be hundreds of miles from her mother, whom she’s never forgiven for an act of betrayal in her early teen years. Quickly grasping at her fresh start, Lucy embraces college life and all it has to offer—new friends, wild parties, stimulating classes. And then she meets Stephen DeMarco. Charming. Attractive. Complicated. Devastating.

Confident and cocksure, Stephen sees something in Lucy that no one else has, and she’s quickly seduced by this vision of herself, and the sense of possibility that his attention brings her. Meanwhile, Stephen is determined to forget an incident buried in his past that, if exposed, could ruin him, and his single-minded drive for success extends to winning, and keeping, Lucy’s heart.

Alternating between Lucy’s and Stephen’s voices, Tell Me Lies follows their connection through college and post-college life in New York City. Deep down, Lucy knows she has to acknowledge the truth about Stephen. But before she can free herself from this addicting entanglement, she must confront and heal her relationship with her mother—or risk losing herself in a delusion about what it truly means to love.

With the psychological insight and biting wit of Luckiest Girl Alive, and the yearning ambitions and desires of Sweetbitter, this keenly intelligent and staggeringly resonant novel chronicles the exhilaration and dilemmas of young adulthood, and the difficulty of letting go, even when you know you should.]]> 352 Carola Lovering Carly 5 52-book-challenge-2024 3.46 2018
author: Carola Lovering
name: Carly
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/10
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 123877606 256 Alaina Urquhart 1638930961 Carly 3 52-book-challenge-2024 3.87 2022
author: Alaina Urquhart
name: Carly
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/05
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 28214468
#1 New York Times Bestseller | NBCC Award Finalist | New York Times Best Book of the Year | USA Today Best Book | TIME Magazine Top 10 Selection | Oprah Favorite Book | New York Magazine Best Book of The Year

The acclaimed, bestselling author—winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize—tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families’ lives.

One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.

Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.

When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.

Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.]]> 352 Ann Patchett 0062491814 Carly 3 52-book-challenge-2024 3.97 2016
author: Ann Patchett
name: Carly
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/17
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 63219094 Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from #1 New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Yarros.

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.]]> 665 Rebecca Yarros Carly 5 52-book-challenge-2024 4.74 2023
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Carly
average rating: 4.74
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/03
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 203578804 A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret.

Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 416 T.J. Klune 1250357241 Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 4.38 2020
author: T.J. Klune
name: Carly
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/17
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 32795900 Fourteen-year-old Linda lives with her parents in the beautiful, austere woods of northern Minnesota, where their nearly abandoned commune stands as a last vestige of a lost counter-culture world. Isolated at home and an outlander at school, Linda is drawn to the enigmatic, attractive Lily and new history teacher Mr. Grierson. When Mr. Grierson is charged with possessing child pornography, the implications of his arrest deeply affect Linda as she wrestles with her own fledgling desires and craving to belong.

And then the young Gardner family moves in across the lake and Linda finds herself welcomed into their home as a babysitter for their little boy, Paul. It seems that her life finally has purpose but with this new sense of belonging she is also drawn into secrets she doesn’t understand. Over the course of a few days, Linda makes a set of choices that reverberate throughout her life. As she struggles to find a way out of the sequestered world into which she was born, Linda confronts the life-and-death consequences of the things people do—and fail to do—for the people they love.]]> 288 Emily Fridlund 0802189776 Carly 3 52-book-challenge-2024 3.50 2017
author: Emily Fridlund
name: Carly
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/07
date added: 2024/12/07
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 50659467
At least, he’s not a beast all the time.

As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

From bestselling author Sarah J. Maas comes a seductive, breathtaking book that blends romance, adventure, and faerie lore into an unforgettable read.]]> 419 Sarah J. Maas 1635575567 Carly 5 52-book-challenge-2024 4.16 2015
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Carly
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/13
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

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As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a U.S. marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.]]> 306 Laura Dave 1501171356 Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 3.81 2021
author: Laura Dave
name: Carly
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 36684941 A forty-ton truck hurtles out of control on a snowy country road, a teenage girl on horseback in its path. In a few terrible seconds the life of a family is shattered. And a mother's quest beings - to save her maimed daughter and a horse driven mad by pain. It is an odyssey that will bring her to...

THE HORSE WHISPERER

He is the stuff of legend. His voice can calm wild horses and his touch heal broken spirits. For secrets uttered softly into pricked and troubled ears, such men were once called Whisperers. Now Tom Booker, the inheritor of this ancient gift, is to meet his greatest challenge.

Annie Graves has traveled across a continent with her daughter, Grace, and their wounded horse, Pilgrim, to the Booker ranch in Montana. Annie has risked everything - her career, her marriage, her comfortable life - in her desperate belief that the Whisperer can help them. The accident has turned Pilgrim savage. He is now so demented and dangerous that everyone says he should be destroyed. But Annie won't give up on him. For she feels his fate is inextricably entwined with that of he daughter, who has retreated into a heartrending, hostile silence. Annie knows that if the horse dies, something in Grace will die too.

In the weeks to come, under the massive sky of the Rocky Mountain Front, all their lives - including Tom Booker's - will be transformed forever in a way none could have foretold. At once an epic love story and a gripping adventure, The Horse Whisperer weaves an extraordinary tale of healing and redemption - a magnificent emotional journey that explores our ancient bonds with earth and sky and hearts untamed. It is a stirring elegy to the power of belief and self-discovery, to hopes lost and found again.]]> 451 Nicholas Evans Carly 4 52-book-challenge-2024 4.38 1995
author: Nicholas Evans
name: Carly
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

]]> 5868297 When Margaret Lea opened the door to the past, what she confronted was her destiny.

All children mythologize their birth... So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter’s collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist.

The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself—all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter’s story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.

As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.

Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida’s storytelling but remains suspicious of the author’s sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.

The Thirteenth Tale is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.]]> 416 Diane Setterfield Carly 3 52-book-challenge-2024 4.16 2006
author: Diane Setterfield
name: Carly
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/28
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

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Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn's luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the `80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn's story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique's own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501161938 Carly 5 52-book-challenge-2024 4.47 2017
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Carly
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/02
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: 52-book-challenge-2024
review:

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