en-US Sun, 16 Feb 2025 14:17:49 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 133725114 0 Caryl Churchill AveryMadGirl 4 4.00 1979
author: Caryl Churchill
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1979
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 60913708
After several acclaimed productions in Australia and winning the Australian Writers' Guild Award for Drama, the play received its European premiere at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End in April 2022.]]> 98 Suzie Miller 1839040645 AveryMadGirl 5 4.68
author: Suzie Miller
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.68
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 12222 Death of a Salesman and The Crucible), and Williams� essay “The World I Live In.�

It is a very short list of 20th-century American plays that continue to have the same power and impact as when they first appeared�57 years after its Broadway premiere, Tennessee Williams� A Streetcar Named Desireis one of those plays. The story famously recounts how the faded and promiscuous Blanche DuBois is pushed over the edge by her sexy and brutal brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. Streetcar launched the careers of Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden, and solidified the position of Tennessee Williams as one of the most important young playwrights of his generation, as well as that of Elia Kazan as the greatest American stage director of the �40s and �50s.]]> 192 Tennessee Williams 0811216020 AveryMadGirl 5 3.93 1947
author: Tennessee Williams
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1947
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/22
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 36552920
My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.]]> 289 Ottessa Moshfegh 0525522115 AveryMadGirl 5 faves 3.57 2018
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: faves
review:
life is so beautiful and so fragile and i am so lucky to see that. this book reminded me how happy the world makes me, how miraculous it is. it made me feel things.
]]> 1561703
Say there was a novel in which Holden Caulfield was an alcoholic and Lolita was a photographer’s assistant and, somehow, they met in Bright Lights, Big City. He’s blinded by love. She by ambition. Diary of an Oxygen Thief is an honest, hilarious, and heartrending novel, but above all, a very realistic account of what we do to each other and what we allow to have done to us.]]> 140 Anonymous 908105841X AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 2.72 2006
author: Anonymous
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 2.72
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61237047
"Um, holy shit...This novel will be the most fun you'll have this summer." —Emily Temple, Literary Hub

Remy and Alicia, a couple of insecure  service workers, are not particularly happy together. But they are bound by a shared obsession with Jen, a beautiful former co-worker of Remy’s who now seems to be following her bliss as a globe-trotting jewelry designer. In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia's entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and new age mantra they know by heart.

Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons with her wealthy boyfriend and their group. Once there, Remy and Alicia try (a little too hard) to fit into Jen’s exalted social circle, but violent desire and class resentment bubble beneath the surface of this beachside paradise, threatening to erupt.

As small disturbances escalate into outright horror, we find ourselves tumbling with Remy and Alicia into an uncanny alternate reality, one shaped by their most unspeakable, deviant, and intoxicating fantasies.  Is this what “self-actualization� looks like?

Part millennial social comedy, part psychedelic horror, and all wildly entertaining, A Touch of Jen is a sly, unflinching examination of the hidden drives that lurk just outside the frame of our carefully curated selves.]]> 320 Beth Morgan 031670427X AveryMadGirl 0 3.18 2021
author: Beth Morgan
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/10
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves:
review:
i have the same issue with this book as everyone else and all of them are better writers than me so go read those
]]> 41733839 here and here.

James L.W. West III to include the author’s final revisions and features a note on the composition and text, a personal foreword by Fitzgerald’s granddaughter, Eleanor Lanahan—and a new introduction by two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession,� it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> 180 F. Scott Fitzgerald AveryMadGirl 4 3.95 1925
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1925
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 1760630 51 Ralph Waldo Emerson 1604500093 AveryMadGirl 0 3.98 1841
author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1841
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/01
date added: 2024/11/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 5439 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations. In "A Temporary Matter," published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai and a nuanced depth that recalls Mavis Gallant.]]> 198 Jhumpa Lahiri 0618101365 AveryMadGirl 3 4.18 1999
author: Jhumpa Lahiri
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/11/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 55836536 Gordo is set in a migrant workers camp near Watsonville, California in the 1970s. A young, probably gay, boy named Gordo puts on a wrestler's mask and throws fists with a boy in the neighborhood, fighting his own tears as he tries to grow into the idea of manhood so imposed on him by his father. As he comes of age, Gordo learns about sex, watches his father's drunken fights, and discovers even his own documented Mexican-American parents are wary of illegal migrants. Fat Cookie, high schooler and resident artist, uses tiny library pencils to draw huge murals of graffiti flowers along the camp's blank walls, the words "CHICANO POWER" boldly lettered across, until she runs away from home one day with her mother's boyfriend, Manny, and steals her mother's Panasonic radio for a final dance competition among the camp kids before she disappears. And then there are Los Tigres, the perfect pair of twins so dark they look like indios, Pepito and Manuel, who show up at Gyrich Farms every season without fail. Los Tigres, champion drinkers, end up assaulting each other in a drunken brawl, until one of them is rushed to the emergency room still slumped in an upholstered chair tied to the back of a pick-up truck. These scenes from Steinbeck Country seen so intimately from within are full of humor, family drama, and a sweet frankness about serious matters - who belongs to America and how are they treated? How does one learn decency, when laborers, grown adults, must fear for their lives and livelihoods as they try to do everything to bring home a paycheck? Written with balance and poise, Cortez braids together elegant and inviting stories about life on a California camp, in essence redefining what all-American means.]]> 208 Jaime Cortez 0802158080 AveryMadGirl 3 4.23 2021
author: Jaime Cortez
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/11/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 25852828 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship� (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST � MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST � WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE �

A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.]]> 816 Hanya Yanagihara 0804172706 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 4.36 2015
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60320157 A colorful and eclectic comics anthology exploring a wide range of autistic experiences—from diagnosis journeys to finding community—from autistic contributors.

From artist and curator Bex Ollerton comes an anthology featuring comics from thirty autistic creators about their experiences of living in a world that doesn’t always understand or accept them. Sensory: Life on the Spectrum contains illustrated explorations of everything from life pre-diagnosis to tips on how to explain autism to someone who isn't autistic, to suggestions for how to soothe yourself when you’re feeling overstimulated. With unique, vibrant comic-style illustrations and the emotional depth and vulnerability of memoir, this book depicts these varied experiences with the kind of insight that only those who have lived them can have.]]> 176 Bex Ollerton 1524874760 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 4.25 2021
author: Bex Ollerton
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58890783 From the acclaimed and bestselling author of The Idiot, the continuation of beloved protagonist Selin's quest for self-knowledge, as she travels abroad and tests the limits of her newfound adulthood

Selin is the luckiest person in her family: the only one who was born in America and got to go to Harvard. Now it's sophomore year, 1996, and Selin knows she has to make it count. The first order of business: to figure out the meaning of everything that happened over the summer. Why did Selin's elusive crush, Ivan, find her that job in the Hungarian countryside? What was up with all those other people in the Hungarian countryside? Why is Ivan's weird ex-girlfriend now trying to get in touch with Selin? On the plus side, it feels like the plot of an exciting novel. On the other hand, why do so many novels have crazy abandoned women in them? How does one live a life as interesting as a novel--a life worthy of becoming a novel--without becoming a crazy abandoned woman oneself?

Guided by her literature syllabus and by her more worldly and confident peers, Selin reaches certain conclusions about the universal importance of parties, alcohol, and sex, and resolves to execute them in practice--no matter what the cost. Next on the list: international travel.

Unfolding with the propulsive logic and intensity of youth, Either/Or is a landmark novel by one of our most brilliant writers. Hilarious, revelatory, and unforgettable, its gripping narrative will confront you with searching questions that persist long after the last page.]]> 368 Elif Batuman 0525557598 AveryMadGirl 0 currently-reading 4.00 2022
author: Elif Batuman
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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

The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.]]> 307 Mona Awad 0525559736 AveryMadGirl 5 holiday-gift-list-books i did NOT expect that 3.53 2019
author: Mona Awad
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/14
date added: 2024/06/20
shelves: holiday-gift-list-books
review:
i did NOT expect that
]]> 15688
ł˘'Ă©łŮ°ů˛ą˛Ô˛µ±đ°ů est le premier roman d'Albert Camus, Prix Nobel de littĂ©rature en 1957.]]> 184 Albert Camus 2070360024 AveryMadGirl 0 currently-reading 3.93 1942
author: Albert Camus
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1942
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 30653475 198 Jane Austen AveryMadGirl 2 3.70 1817
author: Jane Austen
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1817
rating: 2
read at: 2024/04/28
date added: 2024/04/28
shelves:
review:
So slow I couldn't even register what the plot was but it gets a bonus point for having a really stupid main character
]]> 58541424 A candid, compulsively readable, hilarious, and heartbreaking memoir of resilience and redemption by comedic genius Molly Shannon

At age four, Molly Shannon's world was shattered when she lost her mother, baby sister, and cousin in a car accident with her father at the wheel. Held together by her tender and complicated relationship with her grieving father, Molly was raised in a permissive household where her gift for improvising and role-playing blossomed alongside the fearlessness that would lead her to become a celebrated actress.

From there, Molly ventured into the wider world of New York and Los Angeles show business, where she created her own opportunities and developed her daring and empathetic comedy. Filled with behind-the-scenes stories involving everyone from Whitney Houston to Adam Sandler to Monica Lewinsky, many told for the first time here, Hello, Molly! spans Molly's time on Saturday Night Live—where she starred alongside Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Cheri Oteri, Tracy Morgan, and Jimmy Fallon, among many others. At the same time, it explores with humor and candor her struggle to come to terms with the legacy of her father, a man who both fostered her gifts and drive and was left with the impossible task of raising his kids alone after the loss of her mother.

Witty, winning, and told with tremendous energy and heart, Hello, Molly!, written with Sean Wilsey, sheds new and revelatory light on the life and work of one of our most talented and free-spirited performers.]]> 291 Molly Shannon 0063056232 AveryMadGirl 3 4.12 2022
author: Molly Shannon
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/21
date added: 2024/04/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 6219656
“The Lottery� stands out as one of the most famous short stories in American literary history. Originally published in The New Yorker, the author immediately began receiving letters from readers who demanded an explanation of the story’s meaning. “The Lottery� has been adapted for stage, television, radio and film.
]]> 30 Shirley Jackson 1563127873 AveryMadGirl 0 4.08 1948
author: Shirley Jackson
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1948
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/09
date added: 2024/04/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 16046554 It's a book 3 Sandra Cisneros AveryMadGirl 0 4.05 2010
author: Sandra Cisneros
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/08
date added: 2024/04/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 200094909 A National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 honoree delivers her first work of nonfiction: a compulsively readable, genre-bending story of finding her missing birth mother and, along the way, learning the priceless power of self-knowledge.

In 2020, Tracy O’Neill began to rethink her ideas of comfort and safety. Just out of a ten-year relationship, thirtysomething, and in a world playing by new rules, she was driven by an acute awareness that the mysterious birth mother she’d never met—may be dying somewhere in South Korea.

Hiring a grizzled private investigator, O’Neill took his suggested homework to heart and, when he disappeared before the job was done, picked up the trail, becoming her own hell-bent detective. Covid could have already gotten to her mother. Yet the promise of whom and what she might discover—the possibility that her biological mother was her own kind of outlaw, whose life could inspire her own—was too tempting.

Written like a mystery novel, Woman of Interest is a tale of self-discovery, featuring a femme fatale of unique proportions, a former CIA operative with a criminal record, and a dogged investigator of radical connections outside the nuclear family and fugitivity from convention. O’Neill gorgeously bends the detective genre to her own will as a writer, stepping out of the shadows of her own self-conception to illuminate the hope-filled woman of interest she is becoming.]]> 288 Tracy O'Neill 0063309866 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.32 2024
author: Tracy O'Neill
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 203654383 "The States by Nora Woodsey manages the almost miraculous achievement of not just actually being a modern Persuasion retelling, however, but it’s also a pretty inventive an interesting one." � Fangirlish

"I loved this novel, with its innovative tale of love and technology. ... A brilliant work of original creativity with a voice all its own. Bravo!" � Amazon reviewer

Tildy Sullivan is the middle child in an elite yet fading Manhattan family. Her quiet practicality hides her deep, profound longing for childhood summers in western Ireland. She also carries a secret regret. After her mother’s death, she’s persuaded to abandon Ireland and the love of the local boy, Aiden.

When Tildy volunteers for a lucid dreaming experiment, it gives her all she wants � a life lived for her family during the day and a secret, perfect Ireland of her own at night. Will she face reality, or succumb to the ease of her dreams?

As featured on Writer's Digest, Fresh Fiction, The Irish Echo, and more, The States is a modern reimagining of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, a story of love, obligation, and second chances.]]> 376 Norah Woodsey AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.54
author: Norah Woodsey
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.54
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199570076
Good villains make good TV.

Romance novelist Jacqueline Matthis’s big career has gone bust and she’s ditched the bright lights of New York City for her more affordable South Carolina hometown. Desperate, Jac dreams up a comeback plan—she is going to be a contestant on the 1, the most obsessively watched reality dating show in the world.

After all Jac is a romance writer—she knows how to pull off a meet-cute and create a spicy plotline.

On set, Jac quickly establishes herself as a front-runner for bachelor Marcus’s heart, but she’s shocked to discover who’s actually pulling the strings. How was she to know that Henry Foster, her last one-night stand before the show, was actually a longtime producer on the 1? Henry is just as horrified…but they can’t seem to keep their hands off each other.

As Jac plays the game and the show unfurls, she slowly discovers that she’s getting the villain edit. They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but as Jac’s secret plan begins crumbling around her, she’s not so sure. What happens if Marcus chooses her? Worse, what happens if her affair with Henry comes to light? What if, in trying to save her career, Jac has ruined her life?

Heartbreaking, smart, and sexy, this novel is for anyone who has ever secretly rooted for—or felt like—the villain.]]> 336 Laurie Devore 0063337606 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.59 2024
author: Laurie Devore
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 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 AveryMadGirl 0 3.54 2023
author: Mona Awad
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 58031 192 William Shakespeare 0521606861 AveryMadGirl 3 3.84
author: William Shakespeare
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/14
date added: 2024/03/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 AveryMadGirl 4 immediate-tbr, faves 4.17 1992
author: Donna Tartt
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/11
date added: 2024/03/11
shelves: immediate-tbr, faves
review:
im a henry winter apologist (i think he’s hot)
]]> 198563695
The American department a palace of consumption that epitomized modern consumerism. Every wish could be met under one roof � afternoon tea, a stroll through the latest fashions, a wedding (or funeral) planned. It was a place where women, shopper and shopgirl alike, could stake out a newfound independence. Whether in New York or Chicago or on Main Street, USA, men owned the buildings, but inside, women ruled.

In this hothouse atmosphere, three women rose to the top. Hortense Odlum of Bonwit Teller, Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor, and Geraldine Stutz of Henri Bendel's took risks, innovated and competed as very different kinds of career women, forging new paths for the women who followed in their footsteps. In the 1930s, Hortense came to her husband's department store as a housewife tasked with attracting more shoppers like herself, and wound up running the company. Dorothy championed American designers during World War II--before which US fashions were almost exclusively Parisian copies--and beyond, becoming the first businesswoman to earn a salary of more than $1.5 million. And Geraldine re-invented the look of the modern department store in the 1960s, and had a preternatural sense for trends, inspiring a devoted following of ultra-chic shoppers as well as decades of copycats.

In When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, journalist Julie Satow draws back the curtain on three American women who made twentieth-century department stores a mecca for women of every age, social class, and ambition. This stylish account, rich with personal drama and trade secrets, captures the department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who made that beautifully curated world go round.]]> 295 Julie Satow 0385548753 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.89 2024
author: Julie Satow
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 195430687 Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death in this unforgettable story of grief, identity, and the complexities of family.

The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.

But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from each other, but from themselves.]]> 342 Coco Mellors 0593723767 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.93 2024
author: Coco Mellors
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199531664 People

"Heavenly hilarity for readers."�Good Housekeeping

A whip-smart, satirical romp through the minefield of modern motherhood, in the vein of Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Fleishman Is in Trouble

It takes a village...just not this one.

Annie Lewin is at the end of her rope. She’s a mother of three young children, her workaholic husband is never around, and the vicious competition for spots in New York City’s kindergartens is heating up. An advice-columnist for a parenting website, Annie can’t help but judge the insanity of it all—even as she finds herself going to impossible lengths to secure the best spot for her own son.

As Annie comes to terms with the infinitesimal odds of success, she is pushed to the brink. Of course, this newly raw and unhinged version of Annie is great for her advice column: the more she spins out, the more clicks and comments she gets.

But when she commits a ghastly social faux pas that goes viral, she’s forced to confront the question: is she really any better than the cutthroat parents she always judged?]]> 320 Sophie Brickman 0063371200 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 2.98
author: Sophie Brickman
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 2.98
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 207294976 He was the troubled face of rock �n� roll…until he suddenly disappeared without a trace.

Jane Pyre was once half of the famous rock �n� roll duo, the Lightning Bottles. Years later, she’s perhaps the most hated—and least understood—woman in music. She was never as popular with fans as her bandmate (and soulmate), Elijah Hart—even if Jane was the one who wrote the songs that catapulted the Lightning Bottles to instant, dizzying fame, first in the Seattle grunge scene, then around the world.

But ever since Elijah disappeared five years earlier and the band’s meteoric rise to fame came crashing down, the public hatred of Jane has taken on new levels, and all she wants to do is retreat. What she doesn’t anticipate is the bombshell that awaits her at her new home in the German countryside: the sullen teenaged girl next door—a Lightning Bottles superfan—who claims to have proof that not only is Elijah alive, he’s also been leaving secret messages for Jane. And they need to find him right away.

A cross-continent road trip about two misunderstood outsiders brought together by their shared love of music, The Lightning Bottles is “both a page-turning mystery and a love letter to the grunge era� (LitHub) that captures a searing portrait of the cost of fame.]]> 304 Marissa Stapley 1668015765 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.93 2024
author: Marissa Stapley
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 198509203
A 29-year-old copywriter realizes that beauty is possible—at a terrible cost—in this surreal, satirical send-up of NYC It-girl culture.

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

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

Glittering with ominous flashes of Sophia’s coming-of-rage story, former beauty editor E.K. Sathue’s horror debut is as incisive as it is stomach-churning in its portrayal of all-consuming female friendship and the beauty industry’s short attention span. youthjuice does to skincare influencers what Bret Easton Ellis did to yuppies. You’ll never moisturize the same way again.]]> 288 E.K. Sathue 1641295929 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.13 2024
author: E.K. Sathue
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.13
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 156009565 288 Damilare Kuku 0063316366 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.96 2024
author: Damilare Kuku
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 196841905
It’s 1992, and ten-year-old Molly is tired of living in the fire-rotted, nun-haunted House of a Semi-Cooperative Living Community of Peace Faith(s) in Action with her formerly blind dad and grieving Evelyn. But when twenty-three-year-old Jeanie, a dirt bike–riding ex-con with a questionable past, moves in, she quickly becomes the object of Molly’s adoration. She might treat Molly terribly, but they both have dead moms and potty mouths, so naturally Molly can’t seem to leave Jeanie alone.

When Jeanie fakes her own death in a hot-air balloon accident, Molly runs away to Chicago with just a stolen credit card and a sweet pair of LA Gear Heatwaves to meet her pen pal Demarcus and hunt down Jeanie. What follows is a race to New Year’s Eve, as Molly and Demarcus plan a séance to reunite with their lost moms in front of a live audience at the World’s Fair.

A surrealist and bold take on the American coming-of-age novel, Holly Wilson’s debut is about the interstices of loss, grief, and friendship.]]> 368 Holly Wilson 1638931089 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.16 2024
author: Holly Wilson
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 179947367
It’s 1985 in Providence, Rhode Island, and the four partners of a prominent, mafia-affiliated law firm have been killed in a private jet that went down outside New York City. Four very different women have just lost the loves of their lives: Justine, a former fashion model adjusting to suburban life; Camille, a beautiful, young second wife some suspect is a gold digger; Krystle, committed to leaving the firm to her sons after her husband worked his whole life to support them all; and Meredith, a stripper at the local club who was in a secret relationship with the firm’s sole female partner. While the crash is initially ruled a tragic accident, something’s not adding up: The team wasn’t supposed to be in New York that day, and it’s soon revealed that there was a very large sum of cash that burned up with the plane. The women find themselves thrown together in search of the truth, with new danger and threats unfolding at every turn.

Could a dissatisfied client be seeking revenge? Or were the partners involved in something bigger—something dangerous and deadly? What other secrets were the partners keeping, and how far might people go to ensure they stay hidden? The widows must find the answers in order to protect their inheritance, their families, and their lives.

Please note: This audio contains strong language, distressing situations, and descriptions of violence that some listeners may find upsetting. Discretion is advised.]]> 352 Kimberly Belle 1728294010 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.53 2022
author: Kimberly Belle
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55188147
Following a brilliant audition arranged by her vocal/dance coach and former '80s pop icon Martin Fox, Dani is thrown full-force into the music industry. She leaves her friends, family and scheming mother behind to move with Martin, who has become her legal guardian, into the Malibu compound of her new manager, Jenner Redman. Jenner, the former swindling manager of Martin's boy band, leverages what's left of his depleted fortune to launch Dani's career.

Isolated from her life at home and trying to stay apace with her demanding schedule, Dani struggles to keep in touch with those she loves, connect to her withholding mother and find her voice as an artist. With Martin and Jenner at odds over their rocky past and finding herself unprepared to handle the pressures of her future singing career, Dani's debut album and future stardom are at risk of falling apart.]]> 268 Michele Kwasniewski 1950544168 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 4.47
author: Michele Kwasniewski
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.47
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 764073
In five chapters, each flawlessly executed from a different point of view "the mother receiving the order to evacuate; the daughter on the long train ride to the camp; the son in the desert encampment; the family's return to their home; and the bitter release of the father after more than four years in captivity" she has created a small tour de force, a novel of unrelenting economy and suppressed emotion.

Spare, intimate, arrestingly understated, When the Emperor Was Divine is a haunting evocation of a family in wartime and an unmistakably resonant lesson for our times. It heralds the arrival of a singularly gifted new novelist.

From the Hardcover edition.]]> 144 Julie Otsuka AveryMadGirl 0 3.80 2002
author: Julie Otsuka
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/21
date added: 2024/01/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 46029842 176 J.D. Salinger 0316769495 AveryMadGirl 3 3.95 1957
author: J.D. Salinger
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1957
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/13
date added: 2024/01/13
shelves:
review:
4 stars for franny 2 stars for zooey
]]> 195790788
Recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement as a young wife, Tia Levings learned that being a good Christian meant following a list of additional life principles—a series of secret, special rules to obey. Being a godly and submissive wife in Christian Patriarchy included strict discipline, isolation, and an alternative lifestyle that appeared wholesome to outsiders. Women were to be silent, “keepers of the home.�

Tia knew that to their neighbors her family was strange, but she also couldn't risk exposing their secret lifestyle to police, doctors, teachers, or anyone outside of their church. Christians were called in scripture to be “in the world, not of it.� So, she hid in plain sight as years of abuse and pain followed. When Tia realized she was the only one who could protect her children from becoming the next generation of patriarchal men and submissive women, she began to resist and question how they lived. But in the patriarchy, a woman with opinions is in danger, and eventually, Tia faced an urgent and extreme stay and face dire consequences, or flee with her children.

Told in a beautiful, honest, and sometimes harrowing voice, A Well-Trained Wife is an unforgettable and timely memoir about a woman's race to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage.]]> 304 Tia Levings 1250288282 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 4.31 2024
author: Tia Levings
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 173957810 384 Denny S. Bryce 0063282909 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.81 2024
author: Denny S. Bryce
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199798217 A heartfelt novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.�

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls� high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.]]> 327 Marjan Kamali 1668036584 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 4.47 2024
author: Marjan Kamali
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 30962053 A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself.

The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate, Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary. Selin may have barely spoken to Ivan, but with each email they exchange, the act of writing seems to take on new and increasingly mysterious meanings.

At the end of the school year, Ivan goes to Budapest for the summer, and Selin heads to the Hungarian countryside, to teach English in a program run by one of Ivan's friends. On the way, she spends two weeks visiting Paris with Svetlana. Selin's summer in Europe does not resonate with anything she has previously heard about the typical experiences of American college students, or indeed of any other kinds of people. For Selin, this is a journey further inside herself: a coming to grips with the ineffable and exhilarating confusion of first love, and with the growing consciousness that she is doomed to become a writer.]]> 423 Elif Batuman 1594205612 AveryMadGirl 3 3.67 2017
author: Elif Batuman
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2023/12/17
date added: 2023/12/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 36739755 Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura.

Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,� she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction―many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual―and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal� person excellently, more or less. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action�

A brilliant depiction of a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures we all feel to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.]]> 163 Sayaka Murata 0802128254 AveryMadGirl 4 3.65 2016
author: Sayaka Murata
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/15
date added: 2023/12/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 59364173
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,� eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?� She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

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

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.]]> 320 Jennette McCurdy AveryMadGirl 5 4.45 2022
author: Jennette McCurdy
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/05
date added: 2023/12/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 505483 A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959.

Indeed Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America--and changed American theater forever.  The play's title comes from a line in Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which warns that a dream deferred might "dry up/like a raisin in the sun."

"The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun," said The New York Times.  "It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic."  This Modern Library edition presents the fully restored, uncut version of Hansberry's landmark work with an introduction by Robert Nemiroff.]]> 151 Lorraine Hansberry 0679755330 AveryMadGirl 5 3.89 1959
author: Lorraine Hansberry
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1959
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/30
date added: 2023/11/30
shelves:
review:
this book is best enjoyed in a middle school classroom
]]> 62047984
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 319 R.F. Kuang 000853277X AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.69 2023
author: R.F. Kuang
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54373691 In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time...

From the author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold comes a story of four new customers each of whom is hoping to take advantage of Cafe Funiculi Funicula's time-travelling offer.

Among some faces that will be familiar to readers of Kawaguchi's previous novel, we will be introduced to:

The man who goes back to see his best friend who died 22 years ago
The son who was unable to attend his own mother’s funeral
The man who travelled to see the girl who he could not marry
The old detective who never gave his wife that gift...

This beautiful, simple tale tells the story of people who must face up to their past, in order to move on with their lives. Kawaguchi once again invites the reader to ask themselves: what would you change if you could travel back in time?]]> 192 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1529050863 AveryMadGirl 0 3.98 2017
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2023/11/20
date added: 2023/11/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 9516
Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Marjane’s child’s-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love.]]> 153 Marjane Satrapi 037571457X AveryMadGirl 5 4.27 2003
author: Marjane Satrapi
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/23
date added: 2023/10/23
shelves:
review:

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

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

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

J.D. Salinger's (1919�2010) classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.]]> 277 J.D. Salinger 0316769177 AveryMadGirl 3 3.81 1951
author: J.D. Salinger
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1951
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/27
date added: 2023/09/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 68783
Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant evocation of a "parallel universe" set within the kaleidoscopically shifting landscape of the late sixties. Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching documnet that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery.]]> 169 Susanna Kaysen 0679746048 AveryMadGirl 5 3.95 1993
author: Susanna Kaysen
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/17
date added: 2023/08/17
shelves:
review:
I have very little to say that could encapsulate this book, but overall it’s incredible. It broaches so many topics without rambling, everything is so relevant today.
]]> 141421 254 Simone de Beauvoir AveryMadGirl 5 faves, 4-favorites 4.01 1967
author: Simone de Beauvoir
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1967
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/20
date added: 2023/08/15
shelves: faves, 4-favorites
review:
God this book was beautiful. Each story was so compelling and held so much emotion. I truly can't recommend this book more. De Beauvoir has this remarkable capability to transport you into the mind of her incredibly dynamic characters, and regardless of right or wrong every character has a relatable and charming arc. Just read this book, it so perfectly encapsulates that "female rage" phenomena in a more eloquent way than I have ever read.
]]> 179512 Bitch is a brilliant tract on the history of manipulative female behavior. By looking at woman who derive their power from their sexuality, Wurtzel offers a trenchant cultural critique of contemporary gender relations. Beginning with Delilah, the first woman to supposedly bring a great man down (latter day Delilahs include Yoko Ono, Pam Smart, Bess Myerson), Wurtzel finds many biblical counterparts to the men and woman in today's headlines. In five brilliant extended essays, she links the lives of women as demanding and disparate as Amy Fisher, Hillary Clinton, Margaux Hemingway, and Nicole Brown Simpson. Wurtzel gives voice to these women whose lives have been misunderstood, who have been dismissed for their beauty, their madness, their youth. She finds in the story of Amy Fisher the tragic plight of all Lolitas, our thirst for their brief and intense flame. She connects Hemingway's tragic suicide to those of Sylvia Plath, Edie Sedgwick, and Marilyn Monroe, women whose beauty was an end, ultimately, in itself. Wurtzel, writing about the wife/mistress dichotomy, explains how some women are anointed as wife material, while others are relegated to the role of mistress. She takes to task the double standard imposed on women, the cultural insistence on goodness and society's complete obsession with badness: what's a girl to do? Let's face it, if women were any real threat to male power, "Gennifer Flowers would be sitting behind the desk of the Oval Office," writes Wurtzel, "and Bill Clinton would be a lounge singer in the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock."

Bitch tells a tale both celebratory and cautionary as Wurtzel catalogs some of the most infamous women in history, defending their outsize desires, describing their exquisite loneliness, championing their take-no-prisoners approach to live and love. Whether writing about Courtney Love, Sally Hemmings, Bathsheba, Kimba Wood, Sharon Stone, Princess Di-- or waxing eloquent on the hideous success of The Rules, the evil that is The Bridges of Madison County, the twisted logic of You'll Never Make Love in This Town Again-- Wurtzel is back with a bitchography that cuts to the core. In prose both blistering and brilliant, Bitch is a treatise on the nature of desperate sexual manipulation and a triumph of pussy power.]]> 436 Elizabeth Wurtzel 0385484011 AveryMadGirl 4
Genuinely made me lose my mind. The chapters ranged from mental health to domestic violence to some of the best jokes I’ve heard in my life. The next time someone calls me a “snowflake� for disliking their poorly executed rape joke, I can use an example from the myriad of conscious and hilarious jokes from this book. Elizabeth Wurtzel had this magical ability to write a sensitive joke about the most emotional topic. This book is a great showcase of third wave feminism and the aftershock of the 90s riot grrrl movement, especially due to the fact that Wurtzel was about thirty at the time and had years of experience leading up to the feminist renaissance of the late 90s.

I could write an essay on this book if my moderately developed bird brain had the capacity, however it doesn’t so I’ll wrap up this goodreads review. I’m a textbook bitch, I love being aggressive and loud music, and this book is for bitches everywhere. It’s an ode to every single girl boy or other that wants to be truly themself with no restriction or threat against them. This book is both for bitches and those who have yet to give in to their angry feminist shoulder devil, so whether you need encouragement or validation, read this book. Read the hell out of this book. Write in it. Show off the fact that you have the guts to read something in public with the word “Bitch� splayed across the cover. Be the biggest bitch in the room.]]> 3.38 1998
author: Elizabeth Wurtzel
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.38
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/19
date added: 2023/08/15
shelves: holiday-gift-list-books, 4-favorites
review:
To preface: I read this book expecting both everything and nothing, knowing nothing but the mile high pedestal it has been put on by the feminist community; and although it did lose me at some points, overall I do believe that a book which covers so much of such a huge topic would do that inherently to anyone.

Genuinely made me lose my mind. The chapters ranged from mental health to domestic violence to some of the best jokes I’ve heard in my life. The next time someone calls me a “snowflake� for disliking their poorly executed rape joke, I can use an example from the myriad of conscious and hilarious jokes from this book. Elizabeth Wurtzel had this magical ability to write a sensitive joke about the most emotional topic. This book is a great showcase of third wave feminism and the aftershock of the 90s riot grrrl movement, especially due to the fact that Wurtzel was about thirty at the time and had years of experience leading up to the feminist renaissance of the late 90s.

I could write an essay on this book if my moderately developed bird brain had the capacity, however it doesn’t so I’ll wrap up this goodreads review. I’m a textbook bitch, I love being aggressive and loud music, and this book is for bitches everywhere. It’s an ode to every single girl boy or other that wants to be truly themself with no restriction or threat against them. This book is both for bitches and those who have yet to give in to their angry feminist shoulder devil, so whether you need encouragement or validation, read this book. Read the hell out of this book. Write in it. Show off the fact that you have the guts to read something in public with the word “Bitch� splayed across the cover. Be the biggest bitch in the room.
]]> 10515068 368 Jane Austen 1435127447 AveryMadGirl 4 4-favorites 4.45 1813
author: Jane Austen
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1813
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/13
date added: 2023/08/15
shelves: 4-favorites
review:
1 star off for the boring socialite stuff, an understandable reason for all the people who call this book boring, BUT THE ROMANCE?!?! I’m so glad I stuck with it because I absolutely devoured this. Mr. Darcy? The perfect man. Elizabeth? The best heroine ever. AND IT PASSES THE BECHDEL TEST? This book had me blushing and kicking my feet IN PUBLIC. I almost cried when it ended but now I get to watch Kiera Knightley absolutely demolish any upset I have over completing the book by bringing my queen, lord and savior Lizzie Bennet, to life on screen!!
]]> 395040 The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.]]> 244 Sylvia Plath AveryMadGirl 5 4-favorites 4.07 1963
author: Sylvia Plath
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1963
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/09
date added: 2023/08/15
shelves: 4-favorites
review:
fighting the urge to reread this and never read anything else
]]> 14595 A Time Out and Daily News Top Ten Book of the Year upon its initial release, Please Kill Me is the first oral history of the most nihilist of all pop movements. Iggy Pop, Danny Fields, Dee Dee and Joey Ramone, Malcom McLaren, Jim Carroll, and scores of other famous and infamous punk figures lend their voices to this definitive account of that outrageous, explosive era. From its origins in the twilight years of Andy Warhol's New York reign to its last gasps as eighties corporate rock, the phenomenon known as punk is scrutinized, eulogized, and idealized by the people who were there and who made it happen.
]]> 488 Legs McNeil 0802142648 AveryMadGirl 4 4.19 1996
author: Legs McNeil
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/22
date added: 2023/08/10
shelves:
review:
80% heroin, 10% death, 10% music. perfection.
]]> 40554328 In the rec room in at a church in Cypress, Texas, Margery leads her students in a puppet pageant to strengthen their faith in the Bible and evade Satan's hand. But when the young members of the Christian Puppet Ministry put those teachings into practice, one devout young man's puppet takes on a shocking personality that no one could have expected. In this hilarious black comedy, a foul-mouthed sock puppet named Tyrone soon teaches those around him that the urges that can drive a person to give in to their darkest desires fit like a glove. In Hand to God , a "true tour de force" ( New York Times ), Robert Askins has written a play of "unerring perfection" ( Huffington Post ). 
The must-see hit of the 2015 Broadway season, starring Steven Boyer and Geneva Carr, garnered an Obie Award and five Tony Award nominations, including Best Play, following its sold out, critically acclaimed off-Broadway runs at MCC Theater and Ensemble Studio Theatre.]]> 96 Robert Askins 1468317180 AveryMadGirl 5 3.84
author: Robert Askins
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/26
date added: 2023/08/10
shelves:
review:
the stage directions are so funny
]]> 16646385 52 David West Read 082222545X AveryMadGirl 2 i love kyle 3.75 2011
author: David West Read
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at: 2023/06/29
date added: 2023/08/10
shelves:
review:
i love kyle
]]> 53447238 And I Do Not Forgive You. Fueled by feminism in all its colors, her surreal worlds—like Kelly Link’s and Karen Russell’s—are all-too-real. In “Mildly Happy, With Moments of Joy,� a friend is ghosted by a text message; in “Everyone’s a Winner at Meadow Park,� a teen coming-of-age in a trailer park befriends an actual ghost. Rife with “sharp wit, and an abiding tenderness� (Ilana Masad, NPR), these stories shine an interrogating light on the adage that “history likes to lie about women,� as the subjects of “You Won’t Believe What Really Happened to the Sabine Women� will attest. Written in prose that both shimmers and stings, the result is “nothing short of a raging success, a volume that points to a potentially incandescent literary future� (Kurt Baumeister, The Brooklyn Rail).]]> 192 Amber Sparks 1631498681 AveryMadGirl 4 really good. that’s it 3.47 2020
author: Amber Sparks
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/09
date added: 2023/08/10
shelves:
review:
really good. that’s it
]]> 40801376 "When my father died I did not cry at all."

"I said to my sister, 'It will be the same for Maman.' I had understood all my sorrows up until that night: even when they flowed over my head I recognized myself in them. This time my despair escaped from my control: someone other than myself was weeping in me."

Simone de Beauvoir has written nothing more moving than this record of her mother's death from cancer. The agonies of a "very easy death," the clinical humiliations of a proud woman, the unforeseen flashes of love and hostility at the bedside are all told with an honesty that would be pitiless if it were not truly pitiable.]]> 106 Simone de Beauvoir AveryMadGirl 5 got a bit misty eyed 4.80 1964
author: Simone de Beauvoir
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.80
book published: 1964
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/25
date added: 2023/08/10
shelves:
review:
got a bit misty eyed
]]> 6719853 from �16�
may i feel said he
(i’ll squeal said she
just once said he)
it’s fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she 12 drawings]]> 72 E.E. Cummings 0871406594 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.96 2010
author: E.E. Cummings
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2195464
Equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon and takes us to places ranging from Tokyo’s Jingu Gaien gardens, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston among young women who outpace him. Through this marvelous lens of sport emerges a panorama of memories and insights: the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer, his greatest triumphs and disappointments, his passion for vintage LPs, and the experience, after fifty, of seeing his race times improve and then fall back.

By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is rich and revelatory, both for fans of this masterful yet guardedly private writer and for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in running.]]> 188 Haruki Murakami AveryMadGirl 2 would-rather-die-than-re-read 3.87 2007
author: Haruki Murakami
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2007
rating: 2
read at: 2023/06/16
date added: 2023/07/26
shelves: would-rather-die-than-re-read
review:

]]> 22693211 273 Kim Gordon 0062295896 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.66 2015
author: Kim Gordon
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 341879 Just Kids, Patti Smith's first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies. An honest and moving story of youth and friendship, Smith brings the same unique, lyrical quality to Just Kids as she has to the rest of her formidable body of work--from her influential 1975 album Horses to her visual art and poetry.]]> 304 Patti Smith AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 4.19 2010
author: Patti Smith
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 14316
Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys� games on a frozen lake; of “nightcreeping� through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigré who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason’s search to replace his dead grandfather’s irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher’s recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons.

Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell’s most subtlest and effective achievement to date.]]> 296 David Mitchell 0812974018 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.97 2006
author: David Mitchell
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17165961
At birth, Peter had been given the Chinese name Juan Chaun, powerful king. The exalted only son in the middle of three daughters, Peter was the one who would finally embody his immigrant father's ideal of power and masculinity. But Peter has different dreams: he is certain he is a girl.

Sensitive, witty, and stunningly assured, Kim Fu’s debut novel lays bare the costs of forsaking one’s own path in deference to one laid out by others. For Today I Am a Boy is a coming-of-age tale like no other, and marks the emergence of an astonishing new literary voice.]]> 256 Kim Fu 0544034724 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.75 2014
author: Kim Fu
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60199552 A portrait of the artist as a work-in-progress (Sharma Shields), this hilarious and incisive coming-of-age novel about an art student from a poor family struggling to find her place in a new social class of rich, well-connected peers is perfect for fans of Elif Batuman's The Idiot and Weike Wang's Chemistry

At her San Francisco art school, Joey enrolls in a film elective that requires her to complete what seems like a straightforward assignment: create a self-portrait. Joey inexplicably decides to remake Wes Anderson's Rushmore despite having never seen the movie. As Tell Me I'm An Artist unfolds over the course of the semester, the assignment hangs over her as she struggles to exist in a well-heeled world that is hugely different from any she has known.

Miles away, Joey's sister goes missing, leaving her toddler with their mother, who in turn suggests that Joey might be the selfish one for pursuing her dreams. Meanwhile, her only friend at school, the enigmatic Suz, makes meaningful, appealing art, a product of Suz's own singular drive and talent as well as decades of careful nurturing by wealthy, sophisticated parents.

A masterful novel from an author known for her candid and searching prose, Tell Me I'm An Artist examines the invisible divide created by class and privilege, ruminates on the shame that follows choosing a path that has not been laid out for you, and interrogates what makes someone an artist at all.]]> 368 Chelsea Martin 1593767218 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.89 2022
author: Chelsea Martin
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 176442848
Andrea Rodríguez is nine years old when her mother whisks her and her brother, Pablo, away from Woronoco, the tiny Massachusetts factory town that is the only home they’ve known. With no plan and no money, she leaves them with family in the mountainside villages of Puerto Rico and promises to return.

Months later, when Andrea and Pablo are brought back to Massachusetts, they find their hometown significantly changed. As they navigate the rifts between their family’s values and all-American culture and face the harsh realities of growing up, they must embrace both the triumphs and heartache that mark the journey to adulthood.

A heartfelt, evocative portrait of another side of life in 1950s America, The Things We Didn’t Know establishes Elba Iris Pérez as a sensational new literary voice.]]> 320 Elba Iris Pérez 1668012065 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.83 2024
author: Elba Iris PĂ©rez
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 71872896 The beloved bestselling author of Here for It presents a collection of heartening, thoughtful, and laugh-out-loud essays about the lifelong search for community and returning home.

After going viral "reading" the chaotic political news, having one-too-many awkward social encounters, and coming to terms with his intersecting identities, R. Eric Thomas is ready to live his best life--or, if not, at least his best-ish life.

Now, in this collection of insightful and hilarious essays, Thomas finds himself doing things completely out of character, starting with moving back to his perpetually misunderstood hometown of Baltimore. They say you can't go home again, but what if you and home have changed beyond recognition? From attending his twenty-year high school reunion and discovering another person's face on his name badge, to splattering an urgent care room with blood Ă  la The Shining, to being terrorized by a plague of gay frogs who've overtaken his backyard, Thomas shares the nitty, and sometimes gritty, details of wrestling with your past life while in the middle of a new one. With wit, heart, and hope for the future, Congratulations, The Best Is Over! is the not-so-gentle reminder we all need that even when life doesn't go according to plan, we can still find our way back home.]]> 240 R. Eric Thomas 0593496264 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 4.04 2023
author: R. Eric Thomas
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 101145361
From the beloved award-winning author Paul Yoon comes a spectacular collection of unique stories, each confronting themes of identity, belonging, and the collision of cultures across countries and centuries.

A boy searches for his father, a prison guard on Sakhalin Island. In Barcelona, a woman is tasked with spying on a prizefighter who may or may not be her estranged son. A samurai escorts an orphan to his countrymen in the Edo Period. A formerly incarcerated man starts a new life in a small town in upstate New York and attempts to build a family.

The Hive and the Honey is a bold and indelible collection by celebrated author Paul Yoon, one that portrays the vastness and complexity of diasporic communities, with each story bringing to light the knotty inheritances of their characters. How does a North Korean defector connect with the child she once left behind? What are the traumas that haunt a Korean settlement in Far East Russia?

Lauded as a “quotidian - surreal craft - master� ( New York magazine), Yoon’s stunning stories are laced with beauty and cruelty, and The Hive and the Honey is the work of an author writing at the very height of his powers.]]> 160 Paul Yoon 1668020793 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.73 2023
author: Paul Yoon
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 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 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.99 2023
author: Jessica Knoll
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62919888
When Sarah Taylor arrives at the exclusive St. Ambrose School, she’s carrying more baggage than just what fits in her suitcase. She knows she’s not like the other girls—if the shabby, all-black, non-designer clothes don’t give that away, the bottle of lithium hidden in her desk drawer sure does.

St. Ambrose’s queen bee, Greta Stanhope, picks Sarah as a target from day one and the most popular, powerful, horrible girl at school is relentless in making sure Sarah knows what the pecking order is. Thankfully, Sarah makes an ally out of her roommate Ellen “Strots� Strotsberry, a cigarette-huffing, devil-may-care athlete who takes no bullshit. Also down the hall is Nick Hollis, the devastatingly handsome RA, and the object of more than one St. Ambrose student’s fantasies. Between Strots and Nick, Sarah hopes she can make it through the semester, dealing with not only her schoolwork and a recent bipolar diagnosis, but Greta’s increasingly malicious pranks.

Sarah is determined not to give Greta the satisfaction of breaking her. But when scandal unfolds, and someone ends up dead, her world threatens to unravel in ways she could never have imagined. The St. Ambrose School for Girls is a dangerous, delicious, twisty coming-of-age tale that will stay with you long after you turn the last page.]]> 358 Jessica Ward 1982194863 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.21 2023
author: Jessica Ward
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.21
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1617 Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel's memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man. This new translation by his wife and most frequent translator, Marion Wiesel, corrects important details and presents the most accurate rendering in English of Elie Wiesel's testimony to what happened in the camps and of his unforgettable message that this horror must simply never be allowed to happen again.]]> 120 Elie Wiesel 0374500010 AveryMadGirl 4 4.38 1956
author: Elie Wiesel
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1956
rating: 4
read at: 2023/06/11
date added: 2023/06/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 39861707 (Dramatists Play Service)]]> 91 Martyna Majok 0822236540 AveryMadGirl 5 faves 4.14 2018
author: Martyna Majok
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/17
date added: 2023/06/11
shelves: faves
review:
guys i think he went to harvard idk tho
]]> 14942 194 Virginia Woolf 0151009988 AveryMadGirl 4 faves 3.80 1925
author: Virginia Woolf
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1925
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/04
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves: faves
review:
sad girl autumn but it’s kind of gay?
]]> 5297
In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.]]> 272 Oscar Wilde AveryMadGirl 5 faves 4.13 1890
author: Oscar Wilde
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1890
rating: 5
read at: 2022/09/15
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves: faves
review:
imagine how unstoppable dorian would be if he had instagram
]]> 35224992 A story of love and duty set in San Francisco's Chinatown during the Red Scare.

“That book. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other.� And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: “Have you ever heard of such a thing?�

Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.

America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.]]> 409 Malinda Lo 0525555250 AveryMadGirl 5 immediate-tbr 4.21 2021
author: Malinda Lo
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/07
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves: immediate-tbr
review:
she’s obviously gay, she wears pants
]]> 11398211 Sooner or later, Wilde notes, we shall all have to pay for what we do. But he adds that, No one should be entirely judged by their past.Together with The Importance of Being Earnest, it is often considered Wilde's dramatic masterpiece. After Earnest, it is his most popularly produced play"]]> 99 Oscar Wilde AveryMadGirl 3 4.12 1893
author: Oscar Wilde
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1893
rating: 3
read at: 2022/10/12
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves:
review:
tldr: drama amongst the bourgeoisie
]]> 286957
In a private journal, the woman records her growing obsession with the “horrid� wallpaper. Its strange pattern mutates in the moonlight, revealing what appears to be a human figure in the design. With nothing else to occupy her mind, the woman resolves to unlock the mystery of the wallpaper. Her quest, however, leads not to the truth, but into the darkest depths of madness.

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

First published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine.

Excerpt:
Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try.]]> 62 Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1558611584 AveryMadGirl 5 faves the blue paint 4.11 1892
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1892
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/19
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves: faves
review:
the blue paint
]]> 24874336
A satirical portrait of a drunken, orgiastic Roman banquet, hosted by the grossly ostentatious Trimalchio.]]> 55 Petronius 0141398000 AveryMadGirl 4 3.05 66
author: Petronius
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.05
book published: 66
rating: 4
read at: 2022/10/27
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves:
review:
the setup for soft gay porn but it’s a really long setup and the porn never happens. the real porn was the friends we made along the way
]]> 32620332
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the �80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501139231 AveryMadGirl 3 immediate-tbr ur dad is gay 4.39 2017
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2022/10/31
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves: immediate-tbr
review:
ur dad is gay
]]> 17251040 25 Edgar Allan Poe 1443423335 AveryMadGirl 5 4.18 1843
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1843
rating: 5
read at: 2022/11/05
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves:
review:
couldn’t read bc i heard some weird sounds from under the floorboards
]]> 813214
The mist is alive, seething with unearthly sounds and movements. What unleashed this terror? Was it the Arrowhead Project—the top secret government operation that everyone has noticed but no one quite understands?

And what happens when the provisions have run out and you're forced to make your escape, edging blindly through the dim light?]]> 176 Stephen King AveryMadGirl 4 3.95 1980
author: Stephen King
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1980
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/14
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves:
review:
locked in the grocery store at 3 am!!! not clickbait!!!
]]> 30289 416 Plato 0140449140 AveryMadGirl 3 3.97 -400
author: Plato
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.97
book published: -400
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/25
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves:
review:
before-common-era alpha male podcast
]]> 32075671 An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062498533 can be found here.

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl's struggle for justice.]]> 454 Angie Thomas 0062498533 AveryMadGirl 4 4.46 2017
author: Angie Thomas
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/14
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves:
review:
genuinely such a good book, especially on audio.
]]> 40883693
Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie's unswerving obedience to the things George taught him.]]> 107 John Steinbeck AveryMadGirl 3 crying about dead puppies 3.79 1937
author: John Steinbeck
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1937
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/15
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves:
review:
crying about dead puppies
]]> 4980 Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here

In Breakfast of Champions, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s most beloved characters, the aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth.]]> 303 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 0385334206 AveryMadGirl 3 4.08 1973
author: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1973
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/25
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves:
review:
kurt vonnegut writes like phoebe bridgers
]]> 42268742 The Dry Heart begins and ends with the matter-of-fact pronouncement: “I shot him between the eyes.� As the tale—a plunge into the chilly waters of loneliness, desperation, and bitterness—proceeds, the narrator’s murder of her flighty husband takes on a certain logical inevitability. Stripped of any preciousness or sentimentality, Natalia Ginzburg’s writing here is white-hot, tempered by rage. She transforms the unhappy tale of an ordinary dull marriage into a rich psychological thriller that seems to beg the question: why don’t more wives kill their husbands?]]> 88 Natalia Ginzburg 0811228789 AveryMadGirl 4 3.98 1947
author: Natalia Ginzburg
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1947
rating: 4
read at: 2023/05/29
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves:
review:
delightfully pedantic and unhinged
]]> 943450
. . . there are many kinds of light.
The light of fires. The light of stars.
The light that reflects off rivers.
Light that penetrates through cracks.
Then there’s the type of light that reflects off the skin.
—Nilo Cruz, Anna in the Tropics

This lush romantic drama depicts a family of cigar makers whose loves and lives are played out against the backdrop of Depression-era America. Set in Ybor City (Tampa) in 1930, Cruz imagines the catalytic effect the arrival of a new "lector" (who reads Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina to the workers as they toil in the cigar factory) has on a Cuban-American family. Cruz celebrates the search for identity in a new land.


"The words of Nilo Cruz waft from the stage like a scented breeze. They sparkle and prickle and swirl, enveloping those who listen in both specific place and time . . . and in timeless passions that touch us all. In Anna in the Tropics , Cruz claims his place as a storyteller of intricate craftsmanship and poetic power."� Miami Herald

“Deeply engrossing.� –Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle

“Earnestly poetic…Mr. Cruz has created a work as wistful and affectingly ambitious as its characters. Anna in the Tropics reaches for the artistic heavens -- specifically, that corner of eternity occupied by the plays of Anton Chekhov, where yearning is an existential condition.� –Ben Brantley, New York Times

Nilo Cruz is a young Cuban-American playwright whose work has been produced widely around the United States, including the Public Theater (New York, NY), South Coast Repertory (Costa Mesa, CA), Magic Theatre (San Francisco, CA), Oregon Shakespeare Festival, McCarter Theater (Princeton, NJ) and New Theatre (Coral Gables, FL). His other plays include Night Train to Bolina, Two Sisters and a Piano, Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams, and Anna in the Tropics (Winner of 2003 Pulitzer Prize). Mr. Cruz teaches playwriting at Yale University and lives in New York City.]]> 85 Nilo Cruz 1559362324 AveryMadGirl 5 3.74 2003
author: Nilo Cruz
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/22
date added: 2023/04/22
shelves:
review:
"I'm so nervous I think I'm going to pee-pee on myself" Act 1 Scene 1 pg. 17
]]> 33385229
Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day.

Adam Silvera reminds us that there’s no life without death and no love without loss in this devastating yet uplifting story about two people whose lives change over the course of one unforgettable day.]]> 389 Adam Silvera 0062457799 AveryMadGirl 2 would-rather-die-than-re-read 3.76 2017
author: Adam Silvera
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2023/03/13
date added: 2023/04/20
shelves: would-rather-die-than-re-read
review:
i giggled every time i was supposed to cry
]]> 10429045 I have a curse
I have a gift

I am a monster
I'm more than human

My touch is lethal
My touch is power

I am their weapon
I will fight back

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war—and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.]]> 338 Tahereh Mafi 0062085484 AveryMadGirl 1 would-rather-die-than-re-read 3.86 2011
author: Tahereh Mafi
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2011
rating: 1
read at: 2023/03/15
date added: 2023/04/20
shelves: would-rather-die-than-re-read
review:
did i read the last few pages? absolutely not. but anyways this book was so funny
]]> 58679358 On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention.
Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule.
Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess.
Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing.
Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher.
And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High's notorious gossip app.

Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention Simon's dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn't an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he'd planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who's still on the loose?

Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them.]]> 416 Karen M. McManus 0593565371 AveryMadGirl 2 would-rather-die-than-re-read the writing was just so bad 3.87 2017
author: Karen M. McManus
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2023/04/02
date added: 2023/04/20
shelves: would-rather-die-than-re-read
review:
the writing was just so bad
]]> 44421460 What would you change if you could go back in time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?]]> 213 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1529029589 AveryMadGirl 5 I SOBBED 3.66 2015
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/14
date added: 2023/04/14
shelves:
review:
I SOBBED
]]> 50358527



Aphrodite was said to have been born from the sea, rising out of a froth of white foam. But long before the Ancient Greeks conceived of this voluptuous blonde, she existed as an early spirit of fertility on the shores of Cyprus -- and thousands of years before that, as a ferocious warrior-goddess in the Middle East. Proving that this fabled figure is so much more than an avatar of commercialized romance, historian Bettany Hughes reveals the remarkable lifestory of one of antiquity's most potent myths.






Venus and Aphrodite brings together ancient art, mythology, and archaeological revelations to tell the story of human desire. From Mesopotamia to modern-day London, from Botticelli to Beyoncé, Hughes explains why this immortal goddess continues to entrance us today -- and how we trivialize her power at our peril.]]> 208 Bettany Hughes 1541674235 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.81 2019
author: Bettany Hughes
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57693168 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs comes a deliciously wicked gothic suspense, set on an isolated Pacific island with a dark history, for fans of Lucy Foley and Ruth Ware.

When Lux McAllister and her boyfriend, Nico, are hired to sail two women to a remote island in the South Pacific, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. Stuck in a dead-end job in Hawaii, and longing to travel the world after a family tragedy, Lux is eager to climb on board The Susannah and set out on an adventure. She’s also quick to bond with their passengers, college best friends Brittany and Amma. The two women say they want to travel off the beaten path. But like Lux, they may have other reasons to be seeking an escape.

Shimmering on the horizon after days at sea, Meroe Island is every bit the paradise the foursome expects, despite a mysterious history of shipwrecks, cannibalism, and even rumors of murder. But what they don’t expect is to discover another boat already anchored off Meroe’s sandy beaches. The owners of the Azure Sky, Jake and Eliza, are a true golden couple: gorgeous, laidback, and if their sleek catamaran and well-stocked bar are any indication, rich. Now a party of six, the new friends settle in to experience life on an exotic island, and the serenity of being completely off the grid. Lux hasn’t felt like she truly belonged anywhere in years, yet here on Meroe, with these fellow free spirits, she finally has a sense of peace.

But with the arrival of a skeevy stranger sailing alone in pursuit of a darker kind of good time, the balance of the group is disrupted. Soon, cracks begin to emerge: it seems that Brittany and Amma haven’t been completely honest with Lux about their pasts––and perhaps not even with each other. And though Jake and Eliza seem like the perfect pair, the rocky history of their relationship begins to resurface, and their reasons for sailing to Meroe might not be as innocent as they first appeared.

When it becomes clear that the group is even more cut off from civilization than they initially thought, it starts to feel like the island itself is closing in on them. And when one person goes missing, and another turns up dead, Lux begins to wonder if any of them are going to make it off the island alive.]]> 320 Rachel Hawkins 1250274257 AveryMadGirl 2 horny millennial bullshit 3.53 2022
author: Rachel Hawkins
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2023/02/22
date added: 2023/02/22
shelves:
review:
horny millennial bullshit
]]> 620790
Two years before Little Women, serialized in a magazine under the alias A.M. Barnard in 1866, this was buried among the author's papers over a century.]]> 356 Louisa May Alcott 0440223016 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.68 1995
author: Louisa May Alcott
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 20910157 Yes Please, she offers up a big juicy stew of personal stories, funny bits on sex and love and friendship and parenthood and real life advice (some useful, some not so much), like when to be funny and when to be serious. Powered by Amy’s charming and hilarious, biting yet wise voice, Yes Please is a book full of words to live by.]]> 329 Amy Poehler 0062268341 AveryMadGirl 4 3.85 2014
author: Amy Poehler
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/11
date added: 2023/02/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 25488361
In the spirit of A Series of Unfortunate Events and the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series, The Unintentional Adventures of the Bland Sisters will captivate middle-grade readers looking for humor, hijinks, and a swashbuckling good time. Meet Jaundice and Kale Bland, two sisters who avoid excitement at any cost. Together, they patiently await the return of their parents, who left on an errand years ago and have never returned.

One day, the Bland sisters are kidnapped by an all-female band of pirates. They’re unwillingly swept into a high-seas romp that might just lead to solving the mystery of what happened to their parents. With whimsical illustrations and Roald Dahl–esque wit, The Unintentional Adventures of the Bland Sisters is the visually stunning, laugh-out-loud funny start to a new series for readers who are looking for an anything-but-bland adventure.]]> 176 Kara LaReau 1613120737 AveryMadGirl 5 3.84 2017
author: Kara LaReau
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/02/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 20588698 Not That Kind of Girl. These are stories about getting your butt touched by your boss, about friendship and dieting (kind of) and having two existential crises before the age of 20. Stories about travel, both successful and less so, and about having the kind of sex where you feel like keeping your sneakers on in case you have to run away during the act. Stories about proving yourself to a room of 50-year-old men in Hollywood and showing up to "an outlandishly high-fashion event with the crustiest red nose you ever saw." Fearless, smart, and as heartbreakingly honest as ever, Not That Kind of Girl establishes Lena Dunham as more than a hugely talented director, actress and producer-it announces her as a fresh and vibrant new literary voice.]]> 265 Lena Dunham 081299499X AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.28 2014
author: Lena Dunham
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43554866 The highly anticipated spoken word poetry collection from Lana Del Rey, Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass

�'Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass' is the title poem of the book and the first poem I wrote of many. Some of which came to me in their entirety, which I dictated and then typed out, and some that I worked laboriously picking apart each word to make the perfect poem. They are eclectic and honest and not trying to be anything other than what they are and for that reason I’m proud of them, especially because the spirit in which they were written was very authentic.� (Lana Del Rey)

Lana Del Rey brings her breathtaking poetry to life in an unprecedented audiobook. In this stunning spoken word performance, Lana Del Rey reads 14 poems from her debut book Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass accompanied by music from Grammy Award-winning musician Jack Antonoff. Lana’s debut book solidifies her further as “the essential writer of her times� (The Atlantic). This audiobook features Lana reading select poems from the book, including "LA Who Am I to Love You?", "The Land of 1,000 Fires", "Past the Bushes Cypress Thriving", "Never to Heaven", "Tessa DiPietro", "Happy", and several others. The result is an extraordinary poetic landscape that reflects the unguarded spirit of its creator.]]> 1 Lana Del Rey AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 4.03 2020
author: Lana Del Rey
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53620541
The last time Maeve saw her cousin was the night she escaped the cult they were raised in. For the past two decades, Maeve has worked hard to build a normal life in New York City, where she keeps everything—and everyone—at a safe distance.

When Andrea suddenly reappears, Maeve regains the only true friend she’s ever had. Soon she’s spending more time at Andrea’s remote Catskills estate than in her own cramped apartment. Maeve doesn’t even mind that her cousin’s wealthy work friends clearly disapprove of her single lifestyle. After all, Andrea has made her fortune in the fertility industry—baby fever comes with the territory.

The more Maeve immerses herself in Andrea’s world, the more disconnected she feels from her life back in the city; and the cousins� increasing attachment triggers memories Maeve has fought hard to bury. But confronting the terrors of her childhood may be the only way for Maeve to transcend the nightmare still to come…]]> 320 Anne Heltzel 1250787513 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.68 2022
author: Anne Heltzel
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 227603 368 Elizabeth Wurtzel 1573225126 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 3.64 1994
author: Elizabeth Wurtzel
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 AveryMadGirl 0 to-read 4.13 2021
author: Claire Keegan
name: AveryMadGirl
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>