Kayla's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 28 Apr 2025 01:48:18 -0700 60 Kayla's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Mapping the Interior 33099584 Mapping the Interior is a horrifying, inward-looking novella from Stephen Graham Jones that Paul Tremblay calls "emotionally raw, disturbing, creepy, and brilliant."

Walking through his own house at night, a fifteen-year-old thinks he sees another person stepping through a doorway. Instead of the people who could be there, his mother or his brother, the figure reminds him of his long-gone father, who died mysteriously before his family left the reservation. When he follows it he discovers his house is bigger and deeper than he knew.

The house is the kind of wrong place where you can lose yourself and find things you'd rather not have. Over the course of a few nights, the boy tries to map out his house in an effort that puts his little brother in the worst danger, and puts him in the position to save them . . . at terrible cost.]]> 109 Stephen Graham Jones 076539510X Kayla 4 genre-bias 3.76 2017 Mapping the Interior
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/05
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: genre-bias
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism]]> 55338982
What makes “cults� so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we’re looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join—and more importantly, stay in—extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell’s argument is that, on some level, it already has . . .

Our culture tends to provide pretty flimsy answers to questions of cult influence, mostly having to do with vague talk of “brainwashing.� But the true answer has nothing to do with freaky mind-control wizardry or Kool-Aid. In Cultish, Montell argues that the key to manufacturing intense ideology, community, and us/them attitudes all comes down to language. In both positive ways and shadowy ones, cultish language is something we hear—and are influenced by—every single day.

Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities “cultish,� revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven’s Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. Incisive and darkly funny, this enrapturing take on the curious social science of power and belief will make you hear the fanatical language of “cultish� everywhere.]]> 309 Amanda Montell 0062993151 Kayla 3 audiobooks, non-fiction 3.82 2021 Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism
author: Amanda Montell
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: audiobooks, non-fiction
review:

]]> I Might Be in Trouble 210331628 A suspenseful, satirical dark comedy about a struggling writer who wakes up to find his date from the night before dead—and must then decide how far he’s willing to go to spin the misadventure into his next big book.

A few years ago, David Alvarez had it all: a six-figure book deal, a loving boyfriend, and an exciting writing career. His debut novel was a resounding success, which made the publication of his second book—a total flop—all the more devastating. Now, David is single, lonely, and desperately trying to come up with the next great idea for his third manuscript, one that will redeem him in the eyes of readers, reviewers…and maybe even his ex-boyfriend.

The issue is, good ideas are hard to come by, and the mounting pressure of a near-empty bank account isn’t helping. But when David connects with a sexy stranger on a dating app, he figures a wild night out in New York City may be just what he needs to find inspiration. Lucky for him, his date turns out to be handsome, confident, and wealthy, not to mention the perfect distraction from yet another evening staring at a blank screen.

After one of the best nights of his life, David wakes up hungover but giddy—only to find prince charming dead next to him in bed. Horrified, completely confused, and suddenly faced with the implausible-but-somehow-plausible idea that he may have actually killed his date, David calls the only person he can trust in a moment of crisis: his literary agent, Stacey.

Together, David and Stacey must untangle the events of the previous night, cover their tracks, and spin the entire misadventure into David’s career-defining novel—if only they can figure out what to do with the body first.]]> 329 Daniel Aleman 1538766345 Kayla 4 audiobooks, queer 3.60 2024 I Might Be in Trouble
author: Daniel Aleman
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: audiobooks, queer
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #2)]]> 78418
If you have picked up this book with the hope of finding a simple and cheery tale, I'm afraid you have picked up the wrong book altogether. The story may seem cheery at first, when the Baudelaire children spend time in the company of some interesting reptiles and a giddy uncle, but don't be fooled. If you know anything at all about the unlucky Baudelaire children, you already know that even pleasant events lead down the same road to misery.

In fact, within the pages you now hold in your hands, the three siblings endure a car accident, a terrible odor, a deadly serpent, a long knife, a large brass reading lamp, and the appearance of a person they'd hoped never to see again.

I am bound to record these tragic events, but you are free to put this book back on the shelf and seek something lighter.

With all due respect,

Lemony Snicket]]> 192 Lemony Snicket Kayla 0 dnf-for-now 4.02 1999 The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #2)
author: Lemony Snicket
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: dnf-for-now
review:

]]> The Seven Year Slip 62926938 An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.

Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.

So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.

And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.

Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.

Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.

After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.]]> 336 Ashley Poston Kayla 0 currently-reading 4.17 2023 The Seven Year Slip
author: Ashley Poston
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Turn of the Key 42080142
What she doesn’t know is that she’s stepping into a nightmare—one that will end with a child dead and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder.

Writing to her lawyer from prison, she struggles to explain the unravelling events that led to her incarceration. It wasn’t just the constant surveillance from the cameras installed around the house, or the malfunctioning technology that woke the household with booming music, or turned the lights off at the worst possible time. It wasn’t just the girls, who turned out to be a far cry from the immaculately behaved model children she met at her interview. It wasn’t even the way she was left alone for weeks at a time, with no adults around apart from the enigmatic handyman, Jack Grant.

It was everything.

She knows she’s made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post, and that her behavior toward the children wasn’t always ideal. She’s not innocent, by any means. But, she maintains, she’s not guilty—at least not of murder. Which means someone else is.

Full of spellbinding menace and told in Ruth Ware’s signature suspenseful style, The Turn of the Key is an unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.]]> 337 Ruth Ware 1501188771 Kayla 4 3.91 2019 The Turn of the Key
author: Ruth Ware
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/27
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

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

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

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 387 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Kayla 5 4.62 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/22
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life]]> 30724899
Everywhere we turn, a startling new device promises to transfigure our lives. But at what cost? In this urgent and revelatory excavation of our Information Age, leading technology thinker Adam Greenfield forces us to reconsider our relationship with the networked objects, services and spaces that define us. It is time to re-evaluate the Silicon Valley consensus determining the future.

We already depend on the smartphone to navigate every aspect of our existence. We’re told that innovations—from augmented-reality interfaces and virtual assistants to autonomous delivery drones and self-driving cars—will make life easier, more convenient and more productive. 3D printing promises unprecedented control over the form and distribution of matter, while the blockchain stands to revolutionize everything from the recording and exchange of value to the way we organize the mundane realities of the day to day. And, all the while, fiendishly complex algorithms are operating quietly in the background, reshaping the economy, transforming the fundamental terms of our politics and even redefining what it means to be human.

Having successfully colonized everyday life, these radical technologies are now conditioning the choices available to us in the years to come. How do they work? What challenges do they present to us, as individuals and societies? Who benefits from their adoption? In answering these questions, Greenfield’s timely guide clarifies the scale and nature of the crisis we now confront —and offers ways to reclaim our stake in the future.]]> 368 Adam Greenfield 178478043X Kayla 0 to-read 4.03 2017 Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life
author: Adam Greenfield
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time]]> 84699
Climb the ladder to personal success?

The secret, master networker Keith Ferrazzi claims, is in reaching out to other people. As Ferrazzi discovered early in life, what distinguishes highly successful people from everyone else is the way they use the power of relationships—so that everyone wins.

In Never Eat Alone , Ferrazzi lays out the specific steps—and inner mindset—he uses to reach out to connect with the thousands of colleagues, friends, and associates on his Rolodex, people he has helped and who have helped him.

The son of a small-town steelworker and a cleaning lady, Ferrazzi first used his remarkable ability to connect with others to pave the way to a scholarship at Yale, a Harvard MBA, and several top executive posts. Not yet out of his thirties, he developed a network of relationships that stretched from Washington’s corridors of power to Hollywood’s A-list, leading to him being named one of Crain’s 40 Under 40 and selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the Davos World Economic Forum.

Ferrazzi's form of connecting to the world around him is based on generosity, helping friends connect with other friends. Ferrazzi distinguishes genuine relationship-building from the crude, desperate glad-handling usually associated with “networking.� He then distills his system of reaching out to people into practical, proven principles. Among them:

Don’t keep score: It’s never simply about getting what you want. It’s about getting what you want and making sure that the people who are important to you get what they want, too.

“Ping� constantly: The Ins and Outs of reaching out to those in your circle of contacts all the time—not just when you need something.

Never eat alone: The dynamics of status are the same whether you’re working at a corporation or attending a society event� “invisibility� is a fate worse than failure.

In the course of the book, Ferrazzi outlines the timeless strategies shared by the world’s most connected individuals, from Katherine Graham to Bill Clinton, Vernon Jordan to the Dalai Lama.

Chock full of specific advice on handling rejection, getting past gatekeepers, becoming a “conference commando,� and more, Never Eat Alone is destined to take its place alongside How to Win Friends and Influence People as an inspirational classic.]]> 309 Keith Ferrazzi 0385512058 Kayla 0 to-read 3.84 Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time
author: Keith Ferrazzi
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What You Are Looking For Is in the Library]]> 91274427 For fans of The Midnight Library and Before the Coffee Gets Cold, this charming Japanese novel shows how the perfect book recommendation can change a reader's life.

What are you looking for?

This is the famous question routinely asked by Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. Like most librarians, Komachi has read every book lining her shelves—but she also has the unique ability to read the souls of her library guests. For anyone who walks through her door, Komachi can sense exactly what they’re looking for in life and provide just the book recommendation they never knew they needed to help them find it.

Each visitor comes to her library from a different juncture in their careers and dreams, from the restless sales attendant who feels stuck at her job to the struggling working mother who longs to be a magazineĚýeditor. The conversation that they have with Sayuri Komachi—and the surprise book she lends each of them—will have life-altering consequences.

With heartwarming charm and wisdom, What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is a paean to the magic of libraries, friendship and community, perfect for anyone who has ever found themselves at an impasse in their life and in need of a little inspiration.]]> 304 Michiko Aoyama 1335005625 Kayla 0 to-read 4.07 2020 What You Are Looking For Is in the Library
author: Michiko Aoyama
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Spooky Lakes: 25 Strange and Mysterious Lakes that Dot Our Planet]]> 199455332 From TikTok sensation and educator Geo Rutherford, creator of the hit series “Spooky Lake Month,� comes a thrilling nonfiction book that plumbs the depths of unusual lakes around the world.

Some of Earth’s strangest—and creepiest—wonders lie deep below the surface. There’s Lake Natron, a Tanzanian lake so briny that its waters can mummify any creature that touches its surface; Lake Maracaibo, a Venezuelan tidal bay where a constantly brewing storm sends an average of 28 lightning bolts per second into the water; and at the bottom of Lake Superior, the crew of the USS Kamloops—which mysteriously disappeared in 1921—remains somehow almost perfectly preserved.

Middle-grade readers will learn not only about the science of hydrology, but why understanding the natural world is crucial to protecting it from pollution and climate change. Backed by extensive research and packed with all-new content—including eerie and eye-catching watercolor illustrations�Spooky Lakes takes readers on an adventure through weird and wild waters.]]> 91 Geo Rutherford 1419770535 Kayla 0 to-read 4.65 Spooky Lakes: 25 Strange and Mysterious Lakes that Dot Our Planet
author: Geo Rutherford
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.65
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Difficult Women 28818921 An Untamed State and the New York Times bestselling essay collection Bad Feminist (Harper Perennial). Gay returns with Difficult Women, a collection of stories of rare force and beauty, of hardscrabble lives, passionate loves, and quirky and vexed human connection.

The women in these stories live lives of privilege and of poverty, are in marriages both loving and haunted by past crimes or emotional blackmail. A pair of sisters, grown now, have been inseparable ever since they were abducted together as children, and must negotiate the elder sister's marriage. A woman married to a twin pretends not to realize when her husband and his brother impersonate each other. A stripper putting herself through college fends off the advances of an overzealous customer. A black engineer moves to Upper Michigan for a job and faces the malign curiosity of her colleagues and the difficulty of leaving her past behind. From a girls� fight club to a wealthy subdivision in Florida where neighbors conform, compete, and spy on each other, Gay delivers a wry, beautiful, haunting vision of modern America reminiscent of Merritt Tierce, Jamie Quatro, and Miranda July.

I will follow you --
Water, all its weight --
The mark of Cain --
Difficult women --
FLORIDA --
La negra blanca --
Baby arm --
North country --
How --
Requiem for a glass heart --
In the event of my father's death --
Break all the way down --
Bad priest --
Open marriage --
A pat --
Best features --
Bone density --
I am a knife --
The sacrifice of darkness --
Noble things --
Strange gods]]> 260 Roxane Gay 0802125395 Kayla 0 to-read 3.96 2017 Difficult Women
author: Roxane Gay
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Bright Young Women 101124639
The survivors, including key witness Pamela Schumacher, will be forever changed by this night. They have all become victims. But they tell their perspectives here, they remain masters of their stories. And they hunt the perpetrator on their own - against resistance from the justice system and the police; against public opinion, which idolizes the serial killer.]]> 384 Jessica Knoll 1501153226 Kayla 0 to-read 3.99 2023 Bright Young Women
author: Jessica Knoll
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Gathering of Shadows (Shades of Magic, #2)]]> 20764879
Now, restless after having given up his smuggling habit, Kell is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila, who disappeared from the docks as she always meant to do. As Red London finalizes preparations for the Element Games--an extravagant international competition of magic meant to entertain and keep healthy the ties between neighboring countries--a certain pirate ship draws closer, carrying old friends back into port.

And while Red London is caught up in the pageantry and thrills of the Games, another London is coming back to life. After all, a shadow that was gone in the night will reappear in the morning. But the balance of magic is ever perilous, and for one city to flourish, another London must fall.]]> 512 Victoria E. Schwab 0765376474 Kayla 4 audiobooks 4.20 2016 A Gathering of Shadows (Shades of Magic, #2)
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/24
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: audiobooks
review:

]]> The Perfect Marriage 223688351 Would you defend your husband if he was accused of killing his mistress?

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

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

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

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

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

But is Adam guilty or is he innocent?]]> 352 Jeneva Rose Kayla 0 to-read 4.01 2020 The Perfect Marriage
author: Jeneva Rose
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Elegy for the Undead 53387857
Fond remembrances of young love meet the challenges of navigating a partner's terminal illness in this bittersweet tale that explores both how we fall in love and how we say goodbye when the time comes far too soon.]]> 188 Matthew Vesely 1941360459 Kayla 0 to-read, queer 3.85 2020 Elegy for the Undead
author: Matthew Vesely
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read, queer
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)]]> 58416952 At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington.

AUDI. VIDE. TACE.

The Catenan Republic � the Hierarchy � may rule the world now, but they do not know everything.

I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus � what they call Will � to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do.

I tell them that I belong, and they believe me.

But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart.

And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family.

To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me.

And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.]]> 639 James Islington 1982141190 Kayla 0 to-read 4.60 2023 The Will of the Many (Hierarchy, #1)
author: James Islington
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Society of Lies 202102003 How far would you go to belong?

Maya has returned to Princeton for her college reunion - it's been a decade since she graduated, and this visit is special because she will also be attending the graduation of her little sister, Naomi.

But what should have been a dream weekend becomes Maya's worst nightmare when she receives the news that Naomi is dead. The police are calling it an accident, but Maya suspects that there is more to the story than they are letting on.

As Maya pieces together what happened in the months leading up to her sister's death, she begins to realise how much Naomi hid from her. Despite Maya's warnings, Naomi had joined Sterling Club, the most exclusive social club on campus - the same one Maya belonged to. And if she had to guess, Naomi was likely tapped for the secret society within it.

Maya knows that her sister isn't the first person in the society to turn up dead. Now every clue is leading Maya back to the past . . . and to the secret she's been keeping all these years.]]> 384 Lauren Ling Brown 059372335X Kayla 0 to-read 3.48 2024 Society of Lies
author: Lauren Ling Brown
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The House of My Mother: A Daughter's Quest for Freedom]]> 214151420 From eldest daughter Shari Franke, the shocking true story behind the viral 8 Passengers family vlog and the hidden abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and how, in the face of unimaginable pain, she found freedom and healing.

Shari Franke’s childhood was a constant battle for survival. Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day life of raising six children for a staggering 2.5 million subscribers. But a darker truth lurked beneath the surface—Ruby’s wholesome online persona masked a more tyrannical parenting style than anyone could have imagined.

As the family’s YouTube notoriety grew, so too did Ruby’s delusions of righteousness. Fueled by the sadistic influence of relationship coach Jodi Hildebrandt, together they implemented an inhumane and merciless disciplinary regime.

Ruby and Jodi were arrested in Utah in 2023 on multiple charges of aggravated child abuse. On that fateful day, Shari shared a photo online of a police car outside their home. Her caption had one word: “Finally.�

For the first time, Shari will reveal the disturbing truth behind 8 Passengers and her family’s devastating involvement with Jodi Hildebrandt’s cultish life coaching program, “ConneXions.� No stone is left unturned as Shari exposes the perils of influencer culture and shares for the first time her battle for truth and survival in the face of her mother’s cruelty.]]> 320 Shari Franke 1668065398 Kayla 0 to-read 4.43 2025 The House of My Mother: A Daughter's Quest for Freedom
author: Shari Franke
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Woman, Eating 58536037 A young, mixed-race vampire must find a way to balance her deep-seated desire to live amongst humans with her incessant hunger in this stunning debut novel from a writer-to-watch.

Lydia is hungry. She's always wanted to try Japanese food. Sashimi, ramen, onigiri with sour plum stuffed inside - the food her Japanese father liked to eat. And then there is bubble tea and iced-coffee, ice cream and cake, and foraged herbs and plants, and the vegetables grown by the other young artists at the London studio space she is secretly squatting in. But, Lydia can't eat any of these things. Her body doesn't work like those of other people. The only thing she can digest is blood, and it turns out that sourcing fresh pigs' blood in London--where she is living away from her vampire mother for the first time - is much more difficult than she'd anticipated.

Then there are the humans--the other artists at the studio space, the people at the gallery she interns at, the strange men that follow her after dark, and Ben, a boyish, goofy-grinned artist she is developing feelings for. Lydia knows that they are her natural prey, but she can't bring herself to feed on them. In her windowless studio, where she paints and studies the work of other artists, binge-watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer and videos of people eating food on YouTube and Instagram, Lydia considers her place in the world. She has many of the things humans wish for--perpetual youth, near-invulnerability, immortality--but, she is miserable; she is lonely; and she is hungry--always hungry.

As Lydia develops as a woman and an artist, she will learn that she must reconcile the conflicts within her--between her demon and human sides, her mixed ethnic heritage, and her relationship with food, and, in turn, humans if she is to find a way to exist in the world. Before any of this, however, she must eat.]]> 240 Claire Kohda 0063140888 Kayla 0 to-read 3.46 2022 Woman, Eating
author: Claire Kohda
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Mrs Death Misses Death 52568660
Mrs Death has had enough. She is exhausted from spending eternity doing her job and now she seeks someone to unburden her conscience to. Wolf Willeford, a troubled young writer, is well acquainted with death, but until now hadn’t met Death in person � a black, working-class woman who shape-shifts and does her work unseen.

Enthralled by her stories, Wolf becomes Mrs Death’s scribe, and begins to write her memoirs. Using their desk as a vessel and conduit, Wolf travels across time and place with Mrs Death to witness deaths of past and present and discuss what the future holds for humanity. As the two reflect on the losses they have experienced � or, in the case of Mrs Death, facilitated � their friendship grows into a surprising affirmation of hope, resilience and love. All the while, despite her world-weariness, Death must continue to hold humans� fates in her hands, appearing in our lives when we least expect her . . .]]> 302 Salena Godden 1838851194 Kayla 0 to-read 3.50 2021 Mrs Death Misses Death
author: Salena Godden
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Vampires of El Norte 63892214 Vampires and vaqueros face off on the Texas-Mexico border in this supernatural western from the author of The Hacienda.

As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters—her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead.

Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago.

Believing Nena dead, NĂ©stor has been on the run from his grief ever since, moving from ranch to ranch working as a vaquero. But no amount of drink can dispel the night terrors of sharp teeth; no woman can erase his childhood sweetheart from his mind.

When the United States attacks Mexico in 1846, the two are brought abruptly together on the road to war: Nena as a curandera, a healer striving to prove her worth to her father so that he does not marry her off to a stranger, and Néstor as a member of the auxiliary cavalry of ranchers and vaqueros. But the shock of their reunion—and Nena’s rage at Néstor for seemingly abandoning her long ago—is quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a nightmare made flesh.

And unless Nena and Néstor work through their past and face the future together, neither will survive to see the dawn.]]> 371 Isabel Cañas 0593436725 Kayla 0 to-read 3.87 2023 Vampires of El Norte
author: Isabel Cañas
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Secret History 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Kayla 0 dnf-for-now, audiobooks 4.17 1992 The Secret History
author: Donna Tartt
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: dnf-for-now, audiobooks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)]]> 35068705
When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.

But surprises aren’t always good.

Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .

Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.]]> 545 R.F. Kuang 0062662597 Kayla 0 audiobooks, dnf-for-now 4.16 2018 The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: audiobooks, dnf-for-now
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)]]> 51901147
The odds are against him. He's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined -- every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute... and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.]]> 541 Suzanne Collins Kayla 0 audiobooks, dnf-for-now 3.99 2020 The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: audiobooks, dnf-for-now
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Study in Drowning (A Study in Drowning, #1)]]> 75302266 Angharad—Emrys Myrddin’s epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King, then destroys him—is the only thing keeping her afloat. So when Myrddin’s family announces a contest to redesign the late author’s estate, Effy feels certain it’s her destiny.

But musty, decrepit Hiraeth Manor is an impossible task, and its residents are far from welcoming. Including Preston Héloury, a stodgy young literature scholar determined to expose Myrddin as a fraud. As the two rivals piece together clues about Myrddin’s legacy, dark forces, both mortal and magical, conspire against them—and the truth may bring them both to ruin.]]> 378 Ava Reid 0063211505 Kayla 0 dnf-for-now 3.73 2023 A Study in Drowning (A Study in Drowning, #1)
author: Ava Reid
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: dnf-for-now
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey]]> 29807222 448 Trenton Lee Stewart 0316038628 Kayla 0 childhood, dnf-for-now 4.24 2008 The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey
author: Trenton Lee Stewart
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: childhood, dnf-for-now
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2)]]> 17347389 439 Maggie Stiefvater 0545424941 Kayla 0 dnf-for-now 4.22 2013 The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2)
author: Maggie Stiefvater
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: dnf-for-now
review:

]]> Honey Girl 49362138 A refreshingly timely and relatable debut novel about a young woman whose life plans fall apart when she meets her wife.

With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls� trip to Vegas to celebrate. She’s a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn’t know…until she does exactly that.

This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father’s plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn’t feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her father’s expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows.

In New York, she’s able to ignore all the annoying questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she’s been running from all along—the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.]]> 352 Morgan Rogers 1488077509 Kayla 0 dnf-for-now, queer 3.65 2021 Honey Girl
author: Morgan Rogers
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: dnf-for-now, queer
review:

]]> All Rhodes Lead Here 57605091 572 Mariana Zapata Kayla 0 ebooks, dnf-for-now 4.24 2021 All Rhodes Lead Here
author: Mariana Zapata
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: ebooks, dnf-for-now
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)]]> 85302 here.

World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization--- the Illuminati. Desperate to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra. Together they embark on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and the most secretive vault on the earth... the long-forgotten Illuminati lair.]]> 569 Dan Brown 0671027360 Kayla 0 dnf-for-now 3.75 2000 Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1)
author: Dan Brown
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: dnf-for-now
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking]]> 8520610 The book that started the Quiet Revolution

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society.Ěý

In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts—from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.

Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content.]]> 333 Susan Cain 0307352145 Kayla 0 dnf-for-now, audiobooks 4.07 2012 Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
author: Susan Cain
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: dnf-for-now, audiobooks
review:

]]> Don't Call Us Dead 33375618 Don't Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth. Smith turns then to desire, mortality the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood and a diagnosis of HIV positive. "Some of us are killed / in pieces," Smith writes, some of us all at once. Don't Call Us Dead is an astonishing and ambitious collection, one that confronts, praises, and rebukes America--"Dear White America"--where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle.]]> 96 Danez Smith 1555977855 Kayla 0 queer, dnf-for-now 4.47 2017 Don't Call Us Dead
author: Danez Smith
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: queer, dnf-for-now
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #2)]]> 28186
In this episode, The Sea of Monsters, Percy sets out to retrieve the Golden Fleece before his summer camp is destroyed, surpassing the first book's drama and setting the stage for more thrills to come.]]> 279 Rick Riordan 0786856866 Kayla 5 childhood, dnf-for-now 4.25 2006 The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #2)
author: Rick Riordan
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: childhood, dnf-for-now
review:

]]> Outlander (Outlander, #1) 10964
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.]]> 850 Diana Gabaldon 0440242940 Kayla 0 dnf-for-now 4.25 1991 Outlander (Outlander, #1)
author: Diana Gabaldon
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: dnf-for-now
review:

]]> <![CDATA[City of Lost Souls (The Mortal Instruments, #5)]]> 8755776 New York Times bestselling Mortal Instruments continues—and so do the thrills and danger for Jace, Clary, and Simon.

What price is too high to pay, even for love? When Jace and Clary meet again, Clary is horrified to discover that the demon Lilith’s magic has bound her beloved Jace together with her evil brother Sebastian, and that Jace has become a servant of evil. The Clave is out to destroy Sebastian, but there is no way to harm one boy without destroying the other. As Alec, Magnus, Simon, and Isabelle wheedle and bargain with Seelies, demons, and the merciless Iron Sisters to try to save Jace, Clary plays a dangerous game of her own. The price of losing is not just her own life, but Jace’s soul. She’s willing to do anything for Jace, but can she still trust him? Or is he truly lost?

Love. Blood. Betrayal. Revenge. Darkness threatens to claim the Shadowhunters in the harrowing fifth book of the Mortal Instruments series.]]> 535 Cassandra Clare 1442416866 Kayla 0 dnf-for-now 4.22 2012 City of Lost Souls (The Mortal Instruments, #5)
author: Cassandra Clare
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: dnf-for-now
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray]]> 13747794 260 Oscar Wilde 0674066316 Kayla 0 dnf-for-now 4.32 1890 The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1890
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: dnf-for-now
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Perfume: The Story of a Murderer]]> 231565
In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille’s genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the “ultimate perfume”—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.Ěý

Translated from the German by John E. Woods.]]> 255 Patrick SĂĽskind 0375725849 Kayla 0 dnf-for-now 3.88 1985 Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
author: Patrick SĂĽskind
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: dnf-for-now
review:

]]> Gender Queer 46037381 240 Maia Kobabe Kayla 0 graphic-novels, queer 4.49 2019 Gender Queer
author: Maia Kobabe
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2022/06/13
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: graphic-novels, queer
review:

]]> Black Paradox 60433186 "I SAW IT. A DAZZLING WORLD ...YES, ANOTHER WORLD."

"I'M SURE I SAW A WORLD THAT WAS NOT THIS ONE."

Four people intent on killing themselves meet through the suicide website Black Paradox: Maruso, a nurse who despairs about the future; Taburo, a man who is tortured by his doppelganger; Pii-tan, an engineer with his own robot clone; and Baracchi, a girl who agonizes about the birthmark on her face.

They wander together in search of the perfect death, fatefully opening a door thatĚýleads them to aĚýrather bizarre destiny...]]> 208 Junji Ito 1974728633 Kayla 4 graphic-novels 3.91 2009 Black Paradox
author: Junji Ito
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/08
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: graphic-novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Orochi: The Perfect Edition, Vol. 1 (1)]]> 58532693
A mysterious young woman slithers her way into the lives of unsuspecting people like the legendary multitailed serpent for which she is named—Orochi.

Umezz’s classic horror manga opens with “Sisters,� in which Orochi affects the lives of two wealthy siblings who couldn’t be more alike…or more different. Next, in “Bones,� Orochi helps a man come back to life after a terrible accident, but resurrection can be a deadly business…]]> 320 Kazuo Umezz 1974725839 Kayla 4 genre-bias, graphic-novels 3.72 1969 Orochi: The Perfect Edition, Vol. 1 (1)
author: Kazuo Umezz
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/09
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: genre-bias, graphic-novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Orochi: The Perfect Edition, Vol. 2]]> 59366027
The second volume of Umezz’s classic horror manga begins with “Prodigy,â€� in which Orochi watches from the shadows while a baby boyĚýmatures and proves that you never know who someone will grow up to be. In “Home,â€� Orochi accompanies a man home after an accident—but as they say, you can never go home againâ€� Finally, in “Key,â€� the rules of good and evil are blurred for two families when Orochi moves into a new apartment.]]> 352 Kazuo Umezz 1974729427 Kayla 5 graphic-novels 3.78 2005 Orochi: The Perfect Edition, Vol. 2
author: Kazuo Umezz
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/28
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: graphic-novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)]]> 7260188 My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans—except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay—no matter what the personal cost.]]> 390 Suzanne Collins 0439023513 Kayla 4 childhood 4.10 2010 Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/13
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: childhood
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)]]> 6148028 Sparks are igniting.
Flames are spreading.
And the Capitol wants revenge.

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol—a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest that she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before . . . and surprising readers at every turn.]]> 391 Suzanne Collins 0439023491 Kayla 5 childhood 4.34 2009 Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/13
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: childhood
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)]]> 2767052
Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . .

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

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.]]> 374 Suzanne Collins Kayla 5 childhood 4.34 2008 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/05
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: childhood
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier, #1)]]> 58724626
What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.]]> 165 T. Kingfisher 1250830753 Kayla 5 genre-bias, queer 3.86 2022 What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier, #1)
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/07
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: genre-bias, queer
review:

]]> Cursed Bunny 56648660 Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society.

Anton Hur’s translation skilfully captures the way Chung’s prose effortlessly glides from being terrifying to wryly humorous. Winner of a PEN/Heim Grant.]]> 251 Bora Chung 1916277187 Kayla 3 genre-bias 3.76 2017 Cursed Bunny
author: Bora Chung
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/29
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: genre-bias
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Requiem of the Rose King, Vol. 2]]> 23492354
Richard's father, the patriarch of the House of York, seems poised to become king of medieval England during the Wars of the Roses. But just as success appears imminent, he is attacked. Now in the midst of deep despair, Richard acts out in revenge and must face a powerful and beautiful new enemy.]]> 192 Aya Kanno 142158090X Kayla 0 graphic-novels 4.06 2014 Requiem of the Rose King, Vol. 2
author: Aya Kanno
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/17
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: graphic-novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Requiem of the Rose King, Vol. 1]]> 22545974 192 Aya Kanno 1421567784 Kayla 0 graphic-novels 3.90 2014 Requiem of the Rose King, Vol. 1
author: Aya Kanno
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/17
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: graphic-novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tombs: Junji Ito Story Collection]]> 61317867 FRESH NIGHTMARES BROUGHT TO YOU BY HORROR MASTER JUNJI ITO.

Countless tombstones stand in rows, forming a bizarre town. What fate awaits a brother and sister after a traffic accident in this town of the dead? In another tale, a girl falls silent, her tongue transformed into a slug. Can a friend save her? Then, when a young man moves to a new town, he finds the house next door has only a single window. What does his grotesque neighbor want, calling out to him every evening from that lone window?]]> 344 Junji Ito 1974736040 Kayla 4 graphic-novels 4.22 1994 Tombs: Junji Ito Story Collection
author: Junji Ito
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1994
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: graphic-novels
review:

]]> Carmilla: The First Vampire 63042495
At the height of the Lunar New Year in 1990s New York City, an idealistic social worker turns detective when she discovers young, homeless LGBTQ+ women are being murdered and no one, especially the police, seems to care.

A series of clues points her to Carmilla's, a mysterious nightclub in the heart of her neighborhood, Chinatown. There she falls for the next likely target, landing her at the center of a real-life horror story—and face-to-face with illusions about herself, her life, and her hidden past.

Inspired by the gothic novel that started the vampire genre and layered with dark Chinese folklore, this queer, feminist murder mystery is a tale of identity, obsession and fateful family secrets.]]> 112 Amy Chu 1506734642 Kayla 4 queer, graphic-novels 3.40 2023 Carmilla: The First Vampire
author: Amy Chu
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/13
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: queer, graphic-novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Empress of Salt and Fortune (The Singing Hills Cycle, #1)]]> 51190882
Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.

At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She's a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.

Librarian Note: Older cover of B07VH6Y4JD.]]> 119 Nghi Vo Kayla 4 queer 3.91 2020 The Empress of Salt and Fortune (The Singing Hills Cycle, #1)
author: Nghi Vo
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: queer
review:

]]> The Perfect Marriage 56080087
There’s Jessica’s ex-husband. He pretends for all the world that he’s resilient and strong. If only for the sake of their teenage son, profoundly vulnerable in his own way. James’s ex has taken a different road. Bitter, vengeful, and threatening, she wants only the worst for the happy couple. And then there’s the couple themselves: Are they truly as in love as they seem?

When James enters into an extraordinarily profitable, if shady, transaction with a beautiful art dealer, Jessica and James’s seemingly perfect marriage takes a dark and tragic turn.

Amid suspicions, tested loyalties, revenge, and guilt, no one escapes unscathed from sins committed in the name of love.]]> 292 Adam Mitzner 1542005779 Kayla 4 audiobooks 3.72 2021 The Perfect Marriage
author: Adam Mitzner
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: audiobooks
review:

]]> The Vegetarian 25489025
Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.]]> 188 Han Kang 0553448188 Kayla 4 genre-bias 3.61 2007 The Vegetarian
author: Han Kang
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: genre-bias
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Immortal Dark (Immortal Dark Trilogy, #1)]]> 204593711
It began long before my time, but something has always hunted our family.

Orphaned heiress Kidan Adane grew up far from the arcane society she was born into, where human bloodlines gain power through vampire companionship. When her sister, June, disappears, Kidan is convinced a vampire stole her—the very vampire bound to their family, the cruel yet captivating Susenyos Sagad.

To find June, Kidan must infiltrate the elite Uxlay University—where students study to ensure peaceful coexistence between humans and vampires and inherit their family legacies. Kidan must survive living with Susenyos—even as he does everything he can to drive her away. It doesn’t matter that Susenyos’s wickedness speaks to Kidan’s own violent nature and tempts her to surrender to a life of darkness. She must find her sister and kill Susenyos at all costs.

When a murder mirroring June’s disappearance shakes Uxlay, Kidan sinks further into the ruthless underworld of vampires, risking her very soul. There she discovers a centuries-old threat—and June could be at the center of it. To save her sister, Kidan must bring Uxlay to its knees and either break free from the horrors of her own actions or embrace the dark entanglements of love—and the blood it requires.]]> 432 Tigest Girma Kayla 0 to-read 3.66 2024 Immortal Dark (Immortal Dark Trilogy, #1)
author: Tigest Girma
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Thicker than Water: A Memoir 88564046
While on a drive in Los Angeles, on a seemingly average afternoon, Kerry Washington received a text message that would send her on a life-changing journey of self-discovery. In an instant, her very identity was torn apart, with everything she thought she knew about herself thrown into question.
Ěý
In Thicker than Water, Washington gives readers an intimate view into both her public and private worlds—as a mother, daughter, wife, artist, advocate, and trailblazer. Chronicling her upbringing and life’s journey thus far, she reveals how she faced a series of challenges and setbacks, effectively hid childhood traumas, met extraordinary mentors, managed to grow her career, and crossed the threshold into stardom and political advocacy, ultimately discovering her truest self and, with it, a deeper sense of belonging.
Ěý
Throughout this profoundly moving and beautifully written memoir, Washington attempts to answer the questions so many have struggled Who am I? What is my truest and most authentic self? How do I find a deeper sense of connection and belonging? With grace and honesty, she inspires readers to search for—and find—themselves.]]> 320 Kerry Washington 0316497398 Kayla 0 to-read 3.85 2023 Thicker than Water: A Memoir
author: Kerry Washington
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Woman in Cabin 10 (Lo Blacklock, #1)]]> 28187230 341 Ruth Ware 1501132938 Kayla 0 to-read 3.73 2016 The Woman in Cabin 10 (Lo Blacklock, #1)
author: Ruth Ware
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Land Without Jasmine 14929216 A Land without Jasmine is a sexy, satirical detective story about the sudden disappearance of a young female student from Yemen's Sanaa University. Each chapter is narrated by a different character, beginning with Jasmine herself. The mystery surrounding her disappearance comes into clearer focus with each self-serving and idiosyncratic account provided by an acquaintance, family member, or detective. The hallucinatory ending, although appropriately foreshadowed, may come as a Sufi surprise for the reader. Less mystically inclined readers may want to reread this tale to construct an alternative ending. This short novel has echoes of both the Sherlock Holmes stories and The Catcher in the Rye as, in addition to the mystery and a murder, the novel contains candid discussions of coming of age in a land of sexual repression. Wajdi al-Ahdal is a satirical author with a fresh and provocative voice and an excellent eye for the telling details of his world.]]> 82 Wajdi Al-Ahdal 1859643108 Kayla 0 to-read 3.41 2012 A Land Without Jasmine
author: Wajdi Al-Ahdal
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Doll (CEU Press Classics) 538871 doll, Izabela. Embattled aristocrats, the new men of finance, Dickensian tradesmen, and the urban poor all come vividly to life on the vast, superbly detailed canvas against which Wokulski’s personal tragedy is played out.

Unlike his Western European counterparts, Prus had to work under official censorship. In this edition, most of the smaller cuts made by the Tsarist censor have been restored, and one longer fragment is included as an appendix.
]]> 702 Bolesław Prus 1858660653 Kayla 0 to-read 3.89 1890 The Doll (CEU Press Classics)
author: Bolesław Prus
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1890
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth]]> 42462068
The original Thai langaue edition of The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth won the prestigious South East Asian Writers ("S.E.A. Write") Award for fiction and was best-seller in Thailand. It is translated into English by Thai film critic and recipient of France's Chevalier dans I'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Kong Rithdee.

Attuned to the addictive rhythms of a Thai soap opera and written with the consuming intensity of a fever dream, this novel opens an insightful and truly compelling window onto the Thai heart.]]> 208 Veeraporn Nitiprapha 6164510139 Kayla 0 to-read 3.95 2013 The Blind Earthworm in the Labyrinth
author: Veeraporn Nitiprapha
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Blind Owl 45967 The Blind Owl is a haunting tale of loss and spiritual degradation. Replete with potent symbolism and terrifying surrealistic imagery, Sadegh Hedayat's masterpiece details a young man's despair after losing a mysterious lover. And as the author gradually drifts into frenzy and madness, the reader becomes caught in the sandstorm of Hedayat's bleak vision of the human condition. The Blind Owl, which has been translated into many foreign languages, has often been compared to the writing of Edgar Allan Poe.]]> 148 Sadegh Hedayat 0802131808 Kayla 0 to-read 4.02 1937 The Blind Owl
author: Sadegh Hedayat
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1937
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures]]> 12609 The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, written with the deepest of human feeling. Sherwin Nuland said of the account, "There are no villains in Fadiman's tale, just as there are no heroes. People are presented as she saw them, in their humility and their frailty—and their nobility.]]> 341 Anne Fadiman 0374525641 Kayla 0 to-read 4.20 1997 The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
author: Anne Fadiman
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Exorcist's House (The Exorcist's House, #1)]]> 60718943
Along with his wife, Nora, and their teenage daughter, Alice, the family uproots their lives in Ohio and moves south. At first, they are seduced by the natural beauty of the farm and enjoy the bonding experience of fixing the old house, but that all changes when they discover a hidden room in the basement with a well, boarded shut and adorned with crucifixes.

Local legends about the previous owner’s predilection for performing exorcisms come to light, but by then, all Hell has broken loose.]]> 287 Nick Roberts Kayla 0 to-read 3.93 2022 The Exorcist's House (The Exorcist's House, #1)
author: Nick Roberts
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Intercepts 45868683 Joe works at a facility that performs human experimentation.
His work just followed him home.

The government wanted to unlock hidden abilities in the human mind.

They put subjects in extreme sensory deprivation.

All the test subjects went violently insane.

But the research continued.

Today it has been perfected.

Almost perfected.


From the author of In My Father's Basement comes another chilling novel that's a must-read for fans of horror. "Gruesome, gripping, and terrifyingly real!"]]> 327 T.J. Payne Kayla 0 to-read 4.11 2019 Intercepts
author: T.J. Payne
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Seed 11422798
In the vine-twisted swamps of Louisiana, the shadows have teeth.

Jack Winter has spent his entire life running from something no one else can see. His childhood is his darkest secret, but after a near fatal accident along a deserted road, the darkness he was sure he’d escaped rears its ugly head� and smiles.

But this time, he isn’t the only one who sees the soulless eyes of his past. This time, his six-year-old daughter Charlie leans into his ear and whispers: Daddy, I saw it too.

And then she begins to change.

Faced with reliving the nightmares of his childhood, Jack watches his daughter spiral into the shadows that had nearly consumed him twenty years before.

But Charlie isn’t the only one who’s changing.

Jack never outran the darkness. It’s been with him all along.

And it’s hungrier than ever.

A new breed of dark fiction: the subtlety of Seed will haunt you, and the end will wickedly satisfy.]]> 246 Ania Ahlborn Kayla 0 to-read 3.75 2011 Seed
author: Ania Ahlborn
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> I Who Have Never Known Men 60811826 Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.


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


Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.]]> 184 Jacqueline Harpman 1945492600 Kayla 0 to-read 4.11 1995 I Who Have Never Known Men
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma]]> 58214328 A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life.

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

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

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

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

Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body—and examines one woman's ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.]]> 352 Stephanie Foo 0593238109 Kayla 0 to-read 4.50 2022 What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma
author: Stephanie Foo
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing]]> 53238858 Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, and What Happened to You? provides powerful scientific and emotional insights into the behavioral patterns so many of us struggle to understand.

“Through this lens we can build a renewed sense of personal self-worth and ultimately recalibrate our responses to circumstances, situations, and relationships. It is, in other words, the key to reshaping our very lives.�—Oprah Winfrey

This book is going to change the way you see your life.

Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can't I just control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What's wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question.

Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?� to “What happened to you?�

Here, Winfrey shares stories from her own past, understanding through experience the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age. In conversation throughout the book, she and Dr. Perry focus on understanding people, behavior, and ourselves. It’s a subtle but profound shift in our approach to trauma, and it’s one that allows us to understand our pasts in order to clear a path to our future—opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.]]> 304 Bruce D. Perry 1250223180 Kayla 0 to-read 4.43 2021 What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing
author: Bruce D. Perry
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Sky Full of Elephants 207293815 In this exquisite speculative novel set in a world where white people no longer exist, college professor Charlie Brunton receives a call from his estranged daughter Sidney, setting off a chain of events as they journey across a truly “post-racial� America in search of answers.

One day, a cataclysmic event occurs: all of the white people in America walk into the nearest body of water. A year later, Charles Brunton is a Black man living in an entirely new world. Having served time in prison for a wrongful conviction, he’s now a professor of electric and solar power systems at Howard University when he receives a call from someone he wasn’t even sure existed: his daughter Sidney, a nineteen-year-old who watched her white mother and step-family drown themselves in the lake behind their house.

Traumatized by the event, and terrified of the outside world, Sidney has spent a year in isolation in Wisconsin. Desperate for help, she turns to the father she never met, a man she has always resented. Sidney and Charlie meet for the first time as they embark on a journey across America headed for Alabama, where Sidney believes she may still have some family left. But neither Sidney or Charlie is prepared for this new world and how they see themselves in it.

When they enter the Kingdom of Alabama, everything Charlie and Sidney thought they knew about themselves, and the world, will be turned upside down. Brimming with heart and humor, Cebo Campbell’s astonishing debut novel is about the power of community and connection, about healing and self-actualization, and a reckoning with what it means to be Black in America, in both their world and ours.]]> 304 Cebo Campbell 1668034921 Kayla 0 to-read 3.82 2024 Sky Full of Elephants
author: Cebo Campbell
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> We Used to Live Here 199798006
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.

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

This unputdownable and spine-tingling novel “is like quicksand: the further you delve into its pages, the more immobilized you become by a spiral of terror. We Used to Live Here will haunt you even after you have finished it� (Agustina Bazterrica, author of Tender Is the Flesh).]]> 312 Marcus Kliewer 1982198788 Kayla 0 to-read 3.67 2024 We Used to Live Here
author: Marcus Kliewer
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Sunny Place for Shady People]]> 203956643 A diabolical collection of stories featuring achingly human characters whose lives intertwine with ghosts, goblins, and the macabre, by “one of Latin America’s most exciting authors� (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)

On the shores of this river, all the birds that fly, drink, perch on branches, and disturb siestas with the demonic squawking of the possessed—all those birds were once women.

Welcome to Argentina and the fascinating, frightening, fantastical imagination of Mariana Enriquez. In twelve spellbinding new stories, Enriquez writes about ordinary people, especially women, whose lives turn inside out when they encounter terror, the surreal, and the supernatural. A neighborhood nuisanced by ghosts, a family whose faces melt away, a faded hotel haunted by a girl who dissolved in the water tank on the roof, a riverbank populated by birds that used to be women—these and other tales illuminate the shadows of contemporary life, where the line between good and evil no longer exists.

Lyrical and hypnotic, heart-stopping and deeply moving, Enriquez’s stories never fail to enthrall, entertain, and leave us shaken. Translated by the award-winning Megan McDowell, A Sunny Place for Shady People showcases Enriquez’s unique blend of the literary and the horrific, and underscores why Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, calls her “the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for some time.”]]> 257 Mariana Enríquez 0593733258 Kayla 0 to-read 3.80 2024 A Sunny Place for Shady People
author: Mariana EnrĂ­quez
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Graveyard Shift 203578770 Author of sales sensation If We Were Villains returns with a story about a ragtag group of night shift workers who meet in the local cemetery to unearth the secrets lurking in an open grave.

Every night, in the college’s ancient cemetery, five people cross paths as they work the late shift: a bartender, a rideshare driver, a hotel receptionist, the steward of the derelict church that looms over them, and the editor-in-chief of the college paper, always in search of a story.

One dark October evening in the defunct churchyard, they find a hole that wasn’t there before. A fresh, open grave where no grave should be. But who dug it, and for whom?

Before they go their separate ways, the gravedigger returns. As they trail him through the night, they realize he may be the key to a string of strange happenings around town that have made headlines for the last few weeks—and that they may be closer to the mystery than they thought.

Atmospheric and eerie, with the ensemble cast her fans love and a delightfully familiar academic backdrop, Graveyard Shift is a modern Gothic tale in If We Were Villains author M. L. Rio’s inimitable style.]]> 144 M.L. Rio 1250356792 Kayla 3 audiobooks 3.18 2024 Graveyard Shift
author: M.L. Rio
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves: audiobooks
review:

]]> After Sappho 61089551 What did we want? To begin with, we wanted what half the population had got by just being born.

It’s 1895. Amid laundry and bruises, Rina Pierangeli Faccio gives birth to the child of the man who raped her � the man she has been forced to marry. Unbroken, she determines to change her name and, alongside it, her life.

1902. Romaine Brooks sails for Capri. She has barely enough money for the ferry, nothing for lunch; her paintbrushes are bald and clotted. But she is sure she can sell a painting � and is fervent in her belief that the island is detached from all fates she has previously suffered.

In 1923, Virginia Woolf writes: I want to make life fuller � and fuller.

Told in a series of cascading vignettes, featuring a multitude of voices, After Sappho reimagines the lives of a brilliant group of feminists, sapphists, artists and writers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as they battle for liberation, justice and control over their own lives.

Sarah Bernhardt, Colette, Eileen Gray, Lina Poletti: these are just a few of the women (some famous, others hitherto unsung) sharing the pages of a novel as fierce as it is luminous. Lush and poetic, furious and funny, After Sappho celebrates the women and trailblazers of the past � and offers hope for our present, and our futures.]]> 272 Selby Wynn Schwartz 1324092319 Kayla 0 to-read, queer 3.46 2022 After Sappho
author: Selby Wynn Schwartz
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read, queer
review:

]]> The Song of Achilles 13623848 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062060624.

Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.]]> 408 Madeline Miller Kayla 0 to-read, queer 4.30 2011 The Song of Achilles
author: Madeline Miller
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read, queer
review:

]]> The Turn of the Screw 12948
A very young woman's first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate... An estate haunted by a beckoning evil. Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls. But worse-much worse- the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil. For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them.

Excerpt:
I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, to meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad days - found myself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake. In this state of mind I spent the long hours of bumping, swinging coach that carried me to the stopping place at which I was to be met by a vehicle from the house.]]> 121 Henry James 0140620613 Kayla 3 audiobooks 3.42 1898 The Turn of the Screw
author: Henry James
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.42
book published: 1898
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/20
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: audiobooks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant (Fred, the Vampire Accountant, #1)]]> 22081680
One fateful night � different from the night he died, which was more inconvenient than fateful � Fred reconnects with an old friend at his high school reunion. This rekindled relationship sets off a chain of events thrusting him right into the chaos that is the parahuman world, a world with chipper zombies, truck driver wereponies, maniacal necromancers, ancient dragons, and now one undead accountant trying his best to “survive.� Because even after it’s over, life can still be a downright bloody mess.]]> 300 Drew Hayes Kayla 2 audiobooks 3.81 2014 The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant (Fred, the Vampire Accountant, #1)
author: Drew Hayes
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: audiobooks
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #1)]]> 196864520

The viral TikTok friends-to-lovers dark romantic comedy full of murder, chaos, and spice—unlike anything you’ve read before—now available in all bookstores.


When a chance encounter sparks an unlikely bond between rival murderers Sloane and Rowan, the two find something elusive—the friendship of like-minded, pitch-black souls. From small town West Virginia to upscale California, from downtown Boston to rural Texas, the two hunters collide in an annual game of blood and suffering, one that pits them against the most dangerous monsters in the country.


But as their friendship develops into something more, the restless ghosts left in their wake are only a few steps behind, ready to claim more than just their newfound love. Can Rowan and Sloane dig themselves out of a game of graves? Or have they finally met their match?

]]> 360 Brynne Weaver Kayla 0 to-read 4.00 2023 Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #1)
author: Brynne Weaver
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> Talking at Night 62583508
They’re opposites in every way. She overthinks everything; he is her twin brother’s wild and unpredictable friend. But over secret walks home and late-night phone calls, they become closer—destined to be one another’s great love story.

Until, one day, tragedy strikes, and their future together is shattered.

But as the years roll on, Will and Rosie can’t help but find their way back to each other. Time and again, they come close to rekindling what might have been.

What do you do when the one person you should forget is the one you just can’t let go?]]> 400 Claire Daverley 0593653483 Kayla 0 to-read 3.91 2023 Talking at Night
author: Claire Daverley
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/26
shelves: to-read
review:

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

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

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

With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone family, and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.]]> 310 Kiley Reid 052554190X Kayla 4 audiobooks 3.76 2019 Such a Fun Age
author: Kiley Reid
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/18
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: audiobooks
review:

]]> The Last of the Moon Girls 49343950
Lizzy discovers a Book of Remembrances meant to help Lizzy embrace her own special gifts. When she reconnects with Andrew Greyson, one of the few in town who believed in Althea’s innocence, she resolves to clear her Grandmother’s name.]]> 397 Barbara Davis 1542006481 Kayla 0 to-read 4.20 2020 The Last of the Moon Girls
author: Barbara Davis
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> There There 36692478 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780525520375.

Tommy Orange's wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.

Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.

Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.]]> 294 Tommy Orange Kayla 0 to-read 3.98 2018 There There
author: Tommy Orange
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Big Swiss 60701439
One day, Greta recognizes Big Swiss’s voice in town and they quickly become enmeshed. While Big Swiss is unaware Greta has eavesdropped on her most intimate exchanges, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she’ll do anything to sustain the relationship…]]> 336 Jen Beagin 1982153083 Kayla 0 to-read 3.69 2023 Big Swiss
author: Jen Beagin
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Complete Persepolis 991197
Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming—both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up.

Edgy, searingly observant, and candid, often heartbreaking but threaded throughout with raw humor and hard-earned wisdom�Persepolis is a stunning work from one of the most highly regarded, singularly talented graphic artists at work today.]]> 341 Marjane Satrapi 0375714839 Kayla 5 non-fiction 4.38 2007 The Complete Persepolis
author: Marjane Satrapi
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: non-fiction
review:

]]> Dracula 17245 You can find an alternative cover edition for this ISBN here and here.

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the 'Master' and his imminent arrival.

In Dracula, Bram Stoker created one of the great masterpieces of the horror genre, brilliantly evoking a nightmare world of vampires and vampire hunters and also illuminating the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire.

This Norton Critical Edition includes a rich selection of background and source materials in three areas: Contexts includes probable inspirations for Dracula in the earlier works of James Malcolm Rymer and Emily Gerard. Also included are a discussion of Stoker's working notes for the novel and "Dracula's Guest," the original opening chapter to Dracula. Reviews and Reactions reprints five early reviews of the novel. "Dramatic and Film Variations" focuses on theater and film adaptations of Dracula, two indications of the novel's unwavering appeal. David J. Skal, Gregory A. Waller, and Nina Auerbach offer their varied perspectives. Checklists of both dramatic and film adaptations are included.

Criticism collects seven theoretical interpretations of Dracula by Phyllis A. Roth, Carol A. Senf, Franco Moretti, Christopher Craft, Bram Dijkstra, Stephen D. Arata, and Talia Schaffer.

A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are included.]]> 488 Bram Stoker 0393970124 Kayla 5 audiobooks, genre-bias 4.02 1897 Dracula
author: Bram Stoker
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1897
rating: 5
read at: 2018/07/15
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: audiobooks, genre-bias
review:

]]> Rouge 157184735 From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lonely dress shop clerk whose mother’s unexpected death sends her down a treacherous path in pursuit of youth and beauty. Can she escape her mother’s fate—and find a connection that is more than skin deep?

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

Snow White meets Eyes Wide Shut in this surreal descent into the dark side of beauty, envy, grief, and the complicated love between mothers and daughters. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry—as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Brimming with California sunshine and blood-red rose petals, Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.]]> 383 Mona Awad Kayla 5 genre-bias 3.54 2023 Rouge
author: Mona Awad
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/11
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: genre-bias
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Anatomy: A Love Story (The Anatomy Duology, #1)]]> 57917042 Edinburgh, 1817. Hazel Sinnett is a lady who wants to be a surgeon more than she wants to marry.

Jack Currer is a resurrection man who’s just trying to survive in a city where it’s too easy to die.

When the two of them have a chance encounter outside the Edinburgh Anatomist’s Society, Hazel thinks nothing of it at first. But after she gets kicked out of renowned surgeon Dr. Beecham’s lectures for being the wrong gender, she realizes that her new acquaintance might be more helpful than she first thought. Because Hazel has made a deal with Dr. Beecham: if she can pass the medical examination on her own, the university will allow her to enroll. Without official lessons, though, Hazel will need more than just her books � she’ll need bodies to study, corpses to dissect.

Lucky that she’s made the acquaintance of someone who digs them up for a living, then.

But Jack has his own problems: strange men have been seen skulking around cemeteries, his friends are disappearing off the streets. Hazel and Jack work together to uncover the secrets buried not just in unmarked graves, but in the very heart of Edinburgh society.

A gothic tale full of mystery and romance about a willful female surgeon, a resurrection man who sells bodies for a living, and the buried secrets they must uncover together.]]> 338 Dana Schwartz Kayla 0 to-read 3.81 2022 Anatomy: A Love Story (The Anatomy Duology, #1)
author: Dana Schwartz
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Melancholy of Resistance 119512 314 László Krasznahorkai 0811215040 Kayla 0 to-read 4.22 1989 The Melancholy of Resistance
author: László Krasznahorkai
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language]]> 41716694
Amanda Montell, feminist linguist and staff features editor at online beauty and health magazine Byrdie.com, deconstructs language—from insults and cursing to grammar and pronunciation patterns—to reveal the ways it has been used for centuries to keep women form gaining equality. Ever wonder why so many people are annoyed when women use the word “like� as a filler? Or why certain gender neutral terms stick and others don’t? Or even how linguists have historically discussed women’s speech patterns? Wordslut is no stuffy academic study; Montell’s irresistible humor shines through, making linguistics not only approachable but both downright hilarious and profound.]]> 304 Amanda Montell 006286887X Kayla 5 audiobooks, queer 4.26 2019 Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language
author: Amanda Montell
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/04
date added: 2024/10/09
shelves: audiobooks, queer
review:

]]> The Troop 17571466 358 Nick Cutter 1476717710 Kayla 0 to-read 3.83 2014 The Troop
author: Nick Cutter
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)]]> 60556912
Every day I clean the Winchesters� beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.

I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out� and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

They don’t know what I’m capable of�

An unbelievably twisty read that will have you glued to the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train won’t be able to put this down!]]> 329 Freida McFadden 1803144378 Kayla 0 to-read 4.31 2022 The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)
author: Freida McFadden
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

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

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

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

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?]]> 319 Lucy Foley Kayla 0 to-read 3.82 2020 The Guest List
author: Lucy Foley
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rare Beasts (Edgar & Ellen, #1)]]> 177680
Twins Edgar and Ellen live alone -- their parents disappeared years ago, and who can blame them? -- in the quaint, little town of Nod's Limbs, in a grim, gray house overlooking the cemetery and the junkyard. They spend their days avoiding Heimertz, the mysterious accordion-playing caretaker; pestering Pet, a hairy, one-eyed creature of indeterminate species and gender; and wreaking havoc on the hapless citizens of Nod's Limbs.

But wreaking havoc can incur expenses, so the twins come up with a unique fund-raising scheme: They'll nab the pets of Nod's Limbs and transform them into exotic animals they can sell for big bucks. Not a bad plan, if one of the purloined pets wasn't a lethargic python with a raging appetite....]]> 111 Charles Ogden 1416914099 Kayla 0 to-read 3.53 2003 Rare Beasts (Edgar & Ellen, #1)
author: Charles Ogden
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality]]> 176443264 Cultish and host of the podcast Sounds Like a Cult, a delicious blend of cultural criticism and personal narrative that explores our cognitive biases and the power, disadvantages, and highlights of magical thinking.

Utilizing the linguistic insights of her “witty and brilliant� first book Wordslut and the sociological explorations of her breakout hit Cultish, Amanda Montell now turns her erudite eye to the inner workings of the human mind and its biases in her most personal and electrifying work yet.

“Magical thinking� can be broadly defined as the belief that one’s internal thoughts can affect unrelated events in the external Think of the conviction that one can manifest their way out of poverty, stave off cancer with positive vibes, thwart the apocalypse by learning to can their own peaches, or transform an unhealthy relationship to a glorious one with loyalty alone. In all its forms, magical thinking works in service of restoring agency amid chaos, but in The Age of Magical Overthinking, Montell argues that in the modern information age, our brain’s coping mechanisms have been overloaded, and our irrationality turned up to an eleven.

In a series of razor sharp, deeply funny chapters, Montell delves into a cornucopia of the cognitive biases that run rampant in our brains, from how the “Halo effect� cultivates worship (and hatred) of larger than life celebrities, to how the “Sunk Cost Fallacy� can keep us in detrimental relationships long after we’ve realized they’re not serving us. As she illuminates these concepts with her signature brilliance and wit, Montell’s prevailing message is one of hope, empathy, and ultimately forgiveness for our anxiety-addled human selves. If you have all but lost faith in our ability to reason, Montell aims to make some sense of the senseless. To crack open a window in our minds, and let a warm breeze in. To help quiet the cacophony for a while, or even hear a melody in it.]]> 259 Amanda Montell 1668007975 Kayla 0 to-read 3.45 2024 The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality
author: Amanda Montell
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Girl from the Other Side: SiĂşil, A RĂşn, Vol. 3 (The Girl from the Other Side, #3)]]> 33946221 Homecoming

Shiva's aunt has come to the Outside to bring her home, with several soldiers in tow. Alarmed at this show of force, Teacher tries to protect Shiva, but to no avail. Meanwhile, chaos threatens to engulf the small hamlet on the Inside. Where does Shiva truly belong?]]> 180 Nagabe 1626925585 Kayla 5 graphic-novels 4.34 2017 The Girl from the Other Side: SiĂşil, A RĂşn, Vol. 3 (The Girl from the Other Side, #3)
author: Nagabe
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/12
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: graphic-novels
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Girl from the Other Side: SiĂşil, A RĂşn, Vol. 2 (The Girl from the Other Side, #2)]]> 31949122 Untouchable

To be touched by an Outsider is to become an Outsider. A clawed, black hand reaches out to touch Shiva's cheek in her sleep. The hand does not belong to Teacher. Who is this strange new Outsider, and what do its creepy murmurings about "mother" portend?

Enter a fantasy realm shrouded in mystery, in a dark fairy tale-like setting for fans of The Ancient Magus' Bride.]]> 174 Nagabe 1626925232 Kayla 4 graphic-novels 4.22 2016 The Girl from the Other Side: SiĂşil, A RĂşn, Vol. 2 (The Girl from the Other Side, #2)
author: Nagabe
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/12
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: graphic-novels
review:

]]> Salt to the Sea 25614492
Sepetys (writer of 'Between Shades of Gray') crafts four fictionalized but historically accurate voices to convey the real-life tragedy. Joana, a Lithuanian with nursing experience; Florian, a Prussian soldier fleeing the Nazis with stolen treasure; and Emilia, a Polish girl close to the end of her pregnancy, converge on their escape journeys as Russian troops advance; each will eventually meet Albert, a Nazi peon with delusions of grandeur, assigned to the Gustloff decks.]]> 391 Ruta Sepetys Kayla 0 to-read 4.35 2016 Salt to the Sea
author: Ruta Sepetys
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Over My Dead Body: A Witchy Graphic Novel (An Over My Dead Body Book, 1)]]> 59787427 240 Sweeney Boo 0063056313 Kayla 4 3.85 2022 Over My Dead Body: A Witchy Graphic Novel (An Over My Dead Body Book, 1)
author: Sweeney Boo
name: Kayla
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/30
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves: genre-bias, graphic-novels, queer
review:

]]> <![CDATA[SiĂşil, a RĂşn: The Girl From the Other Side, Vol. 1 (The Girl from the Other Side, #1)]]> 30139736 Once upon a time...

In a land far away, there were two kingdoms: the Outside, where twisted beasts roamed that could curse with a touch, and the Inside, where humans lived in safety and peace. The girl and the beast should never have met, but when they do, a quiet fairytale begins.

This is a story of two people - one human, one inhuman - who linger in the hazy twilight that separates night from day.]]> 177 Nagabe 1626924678 Kayla 4 graphic-novels 4.23 2016 SiĂşil, a RĂşn: The Girl From the Other Side, Vol. 1 (The Girl from the Other Side, #1)
author: Nagabe
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/12
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves: graphic-novels
review:

]]> How Not to Diet 43252570
But HOW NOT TO DIET goes beyond food to identify twenty-one weight-loss accelerators available to our bodies, incorporating the latest discoveries in cutting-edge areas like chronobiology to reveal the factors that maximize our natural fat-burning capabilities. Dr. Greger builds the ultimate weight loss guide from the ground up, taking a timeless, proactive approach that can stand up to any new trend.]]> 608 Michael Greger 1250199247 Kayla 0 to-read 4.42 How Not to Diet
author: Michael Greger
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.42
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1)]]> 76703559 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

In a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king's champion. Her name is Celaena Sardothien.

The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. But something evil dwells in the castle of glass—and it's there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena's fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world.]]> 406 Sarah J. Maas 163973094X Kayla 4 ebooks 4.18 2012 Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Kayla
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/28
date added: 2024/08/03
shelves: ebooks
review:

]]>