en-US Fri, 02 May 2025 16:56:51 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 27916112 New York Times called extremely provocative explores ideas of transformation both physical and psychological. It s the story of two people in love, in a culture where the notion of gender has become more fluid and at a time when trans people have never been more accepted. As both subjects and creators of these images, Drucker and Ernst, both of whom transitioned gender, represent themselves in the midst of shifting subjectivities and identities. Collectively, these photographs, which have been compared to the work of Larry Clark, Nan Goldin, and Cindy Sherman, document the story of their romantic and creative collaboration over a period of six years. Simultaneously narrative and documentary, they touch on a host of dynamics, offering autobiography as ambiguity and unraveling identity as a construction."]]> 160 Zackary Drucker 3791382489 ruby 0 4.56
author: Zackary Drucker
name: ruby
average rating: 4.56
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/05/02
date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: art, auto, essay, non-fiction, lgbt
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]]> 50371656
Constance Debré poursuit sa quête entamée avec Play Boy, celle du sens, de la vie juste, de la vie bonne. Après la question de l’identité se pose la question de l’autre et de l’amour sous toutes ses formes, de l’amour maternel aux variations amoureuses. Faut-il, pour être libre, accueillir tout ce qui nous arrive ? Faut-il tout embrasser, jusqu’� nos propres défaites ? Peut-on renverser le chagrin ?]]> 122 Constance Debré 2081471922 ruby 0 auto, lgbt 3.84 2020
author: Constance Debré
name: ruby
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2025/05/01
date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: auto, lgbt
review:

]]> 40236059 Wild Milk is like Borscht Belt meets Leonora Carrington; it’s like Donald Barthelme meets Pony Head; it’s like the Brothers Grimm meet Beckett in his swim trunks at the beach. In other words, this remarkable collection of stories is unlike anything else you’ve read.]]> 168 Sabrina Orah Mark 0997366680 ruby 0 3.82 2018
author: Sabrina Orah Mark
name: ruby
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/29
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: humor, literary-fic, short-stories, poetry
review:

]]> 15893653 "I am beginning to realize that taking the self out of our essays is a form of repression. Taking the self out feels like obeying a gag order - pretending an objectivity where there is nothing objective about the experience of confronting and engaging with and swooning over literature." - from Heroines

On the last day of December, 2009 Kate Zambreno began a blog called Frances Farmer Is My Sister, arising from her obsession with the female modernists and her recent transplantation to Akron, Ohio, where her husband held a university job. Widely reposted, Zambreno's blog became an outlet for her highly informed and passionate rants about the fates of the modernist "wives and mistresses." In her blog entries, Zambreno reclaimed the traditionally pathologized biographies of Vivienne Eliot, Jane Bowles, Jean Rhys, and Zelda Fitzgerald: writers and artists themselves who served as male writers' muses only to end their lives silenced, erased, and institutionalized. Over the course of two years, Frances Farmer Is My Sister helped create a community where today's "toxic girls" could devise a new feminist discourse, writing in the margins and developing an alternative canon.

In Heroines, Zambreno extends the polemic begun on her blog into a dazzling, original work of literary scholarship. Combing theories that have dictated what literature should be and who is allowed to write it - from T. S. Eliot's New Criticism to the writings of such mid-century intellectuals as Elizabeth Hardwick and Mary McCarthy to the occasional "girl-on-girl crime" of the Second Wave of feminism - she traces the genesis of a cultural template that consistently exiles female experience to the realm of the "minor" and diagnoses women for transgressing social bounds.

"ANXIETY: When she experiences it, it's pathological," writes Zambreno. "When he does, it's existential."

By advancing the Girl-As-Philosopher, Zambreno reinvents feminism for her generation while providing a model for a newly subjectivized criticism.]]> 312 Kate Zambreno 1584351144 ruby 0 4.16 2012
author: Kate Zambreno
name: ruby
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: currently-reading, essay, feminism, writing, auto, historical
review:

]]> 36336078 Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks' duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.

The psychological maneuvers that accompany attraction have seldom been more shrewdly captured than in André Aciman's frank, unsentimental, heartrending elegy to human passion. Call Me by Your Name is clear-eyed, bare-knuckled, and ultimately unforgettable.]]> 248 André Aciman 1786495252 ruby 0 books-i-own, romance, lgbt 4.08 2007
author: André Aciman
name: ruby
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: books-i-own, romance, lgbt
review:

]]> 211934956 A bold, provocative collection of essays on one of the most urgent questions of our What is authority when everyone has an opinion on everything?

Since her canonical 2017 essay “On Liking Women,� the Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Andrea Long Chu has established herself as a public intellectual straight out of the 1960s. With devastating wit and polemical clarity, she defies the imperative to leave politics out of art, instead modeling how the left might brave the culture wars without throwing in with the cynics and doomsayers. Authority brings together Chu’s critical work across a wide range of media—novels, television, theater, video games—as well as an acclaimed tetralogy of literary essays first published in n+1. As a critic, Chu places The Phantom of the Opera within a centuries-old conflict between music and drama; questions the enduring habit of reading Octavia Butler’s science fiction as a parable of slavery; teases out the ideology behind Hillary Clinton’s (fictional) sex life; and charges fellow critics like Maggie Nelson and Zadie Smith with a complacent humanism.

Criticism is in a crisis of authority—or rather, that’s what critics have been saying ever since the Enlightenment. In a magisterial new essay, Chu offers a revised intellectual history of this supposed crisis, tracing the surprisingly political contours of criticism from its origins in eighteenth-century aesthetics all the way to its present form in the age of social media. Rather than succumbing to an endless cycle of trumped-up emergencies, Authority makes a compelling case for how to do criticism in light of the genuine crises, from authoritarianism to genocide, that confront us today.]]> 288 Andrea Long Chu 0374600333 ruby 0 3.97 2025
author: Andrea Long Chu
name: ruby
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: books-i-own, essay, lgbt, feminism, auto
review:

]]> 219522067
After resigning from an adjunct teaching position, our narrator Sebastian Castillo, who shares a name with our author, Sebastian Castillo, and also with a translated Spanish writer, Sebastián Castillo, resolves to spend an entire year without speaking, passing the time by exercising each day and watching self-improvement videos.

But, come New Year’s Eve, Sebastian (the narrator)—whose rich interiority in precontemplation alone is curiously and addictively easy to read—will break his silence by accepting an invitation to the home of a former professor for a reunion amongst his cohort, one decade after graduating. This invitation surely would have been ignored if not for the promised attendance of Maria, Sebastian’s former classmate and love interest. What follows is an inexplicable series of fascinating events charting the erosion of young, male hope.

Inside a world with a peripheral understanding of Rilke, Descartes, Kant, Deleuze, Derrida, Lacan, and more, Castillo has written a short epic that is curiously addictive and unexpectedly delightful. FRESH, GREEN LIFE is a meditation on literature, academia, and philosophy; a trek through the past that forecasts a mediocre future; and a compact miracle of the fake-real.]]> 160 Sebastian Castillo 1593767919 ruby 0 to-read 4.30
author: Sebastian Castillo
name: ruby
average rating: 4.30
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: to-read
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]]> 24392810
Eileen Myles's poetry and prose are known for their blend of reality and fiction, the sublime and the ephemeral, in which Myles not only lets her readers peer into existent places, like the East Village in her iconic Chelsea Girls, but also lifts them into dreams, imbuing the landscapes of her writing with the vividness and energy of fantasy.

I Must Be Living Twice brings selections from the poet's previous work together with a set of bold new poems, through which Myles continues to refine her sardonic, unapologetic, and fiercely intellectual literary voice. Steeped in the culture of New York City, Myles's stomping grounds and the home of her most well-known work, she provides a wide-open lens into a radical life.]]> 368 Eileen Myles 0062389106 ruby 0 4.15 2015
author: Eileen Myles
name: ruby
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: books-i-own, poetry, lgbt, feminism
review:

]]> 404522 150 Alice Notley 0140587640 ruby 0 to-read 4.31 1996
author: Alice Notley
name: ruby
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1996
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59808598 Marigold and Rose is a magical and incandescent fiction from Nobel Prize laureate Louise GlĂĽck.

"Marigold was absorbed in her book; she had gotten as far as the V." So begins Marigold and Rose, Louise GlĂĽck's astonishing chronicle of the first year in the life of twin girls. Imagine a fairy tale that is also a multi-generational saga; a piece for two hands that is also a symphony; a poem that is also, in the spirit of Kafka's Metamorphosis, an incandescent act of autobiography.

Here are the elements you'd expect to find in a story of infant twins--Father and Mother, Grandmother and Other Grandmother, bath time and nap time--but more than that, Marigold and Rose is an investigation of the great mystery of language and of time itself, of what is and what has been and what will be.

Simultaneously sad and funny, and shot through with a sense of stoic wonder, this small miracle of a book follows thirteen books of poetry and two collections.]]> 55 Louise GlĂĽck 0374607583 ruby 0 literary-fic, short-stories 3.66 2022
author: Louise GlĂĽck
name: ruby
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/04
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: literary-fic, short-stories
review:

]]> 203166731 152 Renee Gladman 1948980231 ruby 0 art, lgbt, romance, writing 3.96 2023
author: Renee Gladman
name: ruby
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: art, lgbt, romance, writing
review:

]]> 56889176 167 Caren Beilin 194898007X ruby 0 to-read 3.41 2022
author: Caren Beilin
name: ruby
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 101137620 A gripping, unforgettable memoir from one of the best, most original writers of the 21st century.

Blake Butler and Molly Brodak instantly connected, fell in love, married and built a life together. Both writers with deep roots in contemporary American literature, their union was an iconic joining of forces between two major and beloved talents.

Nearly three years into their marriage, grappling with mental illness and a lifetime of trauma, Molly took her own life. In the days and weeks after Molly’s death, Blake discovered shocking secrets she had held back from the world, fundamentally altering his view of their relationship and who she was.

A masterpiece of autobiography, Molly is a riveting journey into the darkest and most unthinkable parts of the human heart, emerging with a hard-won, unsurpassedly beautiful understanding that expands the possibilities of language to comprehend and express true love.

Unrelentingly clear, honest and concise, Molly approaches the impossible directly, with a total empathy that has no parallel or precedent. A supremely important work that will be taught, loved, relied on and passed around for years to come, Blake Butler affirms now beyond question his position at the very top rank of writers.]]> 320 Blake Butler 1648230377 ruby 0 3.60 2023
author: Blake Butler
name: ruby
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: auto, writing, 2025-faves, non-fiction
review:

]]> 7331435
We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist’s couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then as a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We plunge into the hidden yearnings and disappointments of her uncle, an art historian stuck in a dead marriage, who travels to Naples to extract Sasha from the city’s demimonde and experiences an epiphany of his own while staring at a sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Museo Nazionale. We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life—divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house—and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco’s punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang—who thrived and who faltered—and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie’s catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou’s far-flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both—and escape the merciless progress of time—in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.]]> 274 Jennifer Egan 0307592839 ruby 0 books-i-own, literary-fic 3.70 2010
author: Jennifer Egan
name: ruby
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: books-i-own, literary-fic
review:

]]> 615570 The Artist’s Way is the seminal book on the subject of creativity. An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today—or perhaps even more so—than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work. In a new introduction to the book, Julia Cameron reflects upon the impact of The Artist’s Way and describes the work she has done during the last decade and the new insights into the creative process that she has gained. Updated and expanded, this anniversary edition reframes The Artist’s Way for a new century.]]> 237 Julia Cameron 1585421464 ruby 0 3.93 2002
author: Julia Cameron
name: ruby
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: currently-reading, art, non-fiction, writing
review:

]]> 199346799
In 1990, the Hong Kong cult classic writer Xi Xi was diagnosed with breast cancer and began writing in order to make sense of her diagnosis and treatment. Mourning a Breast , published two and a half years later, is a disarmingly honest and deeply personal account of the author’s experience of a mastectomy and of her subsequent recovery.

The book opens with her gently rolling up a swimsuit. A beginning swimmer, she loves going to the pool, eavesdropping on conversations in the changing room, shopping for swimsuits. As this routine pleasure is revoked, the small loss stands in for the greater one. But Xi Xi’s mourning begins to take shape as a form of activism. In a conversational, even humorous, manner, she describes her previous blinkered life of the mind before she came into her body and learned its language.

Addressing her reader as frankly and unashamedly as an old friend, she coaxes and confesses, confronts society’s failings, and advocates for a universal literacy of the body. Mourning a Breast was heralded as the first Chinese language book to cast off the stigma of writing about illness and to expose the myths associated with breast cancer. A radical and generous book about creating in the midst of mourning.]]> 320 Xi Xi 1681378221 ruby 0 3.89
author: Xi Xi
name: ruby
average rating: 3.89
book published:
rating: 0
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]]> 60018618
Essential lessons in hospitality for every business, from the former co-owner of legendary restaurant Eleven Madison Park.

Will Guidara was twenty-six when he took the helm of Eleven Madison Park, a struggling two-star brasserie that had never quite lived up to its majestic room. Eleven years later, EMP was named the best restaurant in the world.
Ěý
How did Guidara pull off this unprecedented transformation? Radical reinvention, a true partnership between the kitchen and the dining room—and memorable, over-the-top, bespoke hospitality. Guidara’s team surprised a family who had never seen snow with a magical sledding trip to Central Park after their dinner; they filled a private dining room with sand, complete with mai-tais and beach chairs, to console a couple with a cancelled vacation. And his hospitality extended beyond those dining at the restaurant to his own team, who learned to deliver praise and criticism with intention; why the answer to some of the most pernicious business dilemmas is to give more—not less; and the magic that can happen when a busser starts thinking like an owner.
Ěý
Today, every business can choose to be a hospitality business—and we can all transform ordinary transactions into extraordinary experiences. Featuring sparkling stories of his journey through restaurants, with the industry’s most famous players like Daniel Boulud and Danny Meyer, Guidara urges us all to find the magic in what we do—for ourselves, the people we work with, and the people we serve.]]> 288 Will Guidara 0593418573 ruby 0 auto, essay, non-fiction 4.42
author: Will Guidara
name: ruby
average rating: 4.42
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: auto, essay, non-fiction
review:

]]> 43176861 Space Struck explores the wonders and cruelties occurring within the realms of nature, science, and religion, with the acuity of a sage, the deftness of a hunter, and a hilarious sensibility for the absurd. The universe is seen as an endless arrow �. . . and it asks only one question: How dare you?�

The poems are physically and psychologically tied to the animal world, replete with ivory-billed woodpeckers, pelicans, and constellations-as-organisms. They are also devastatingly human, well anchored in emotion and self-awareness, like art framed in a glass that also holds one’s reflection. Silky and gruesome, the poems of Space Struck pulse like starlight.]]> 72 Paige Lewis 1946448443 ruby 0 poetry, lgbt 4.06 2019
author: Paige Lewis
name: ruby
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: poetry, lgbt
review:

]]> 204639639 WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

An account of Annie Ernaux’s love affair with journalist Marc Marie while she was undergoing treatment for cancer, and their combined project to document images and memories.

Includes 14 black and white still-life photographs by the authors.

Love and death cohabit in The Use of Photography, with alternating chapters by the two authors. First published in France in 2005, the book recounts a passionate love affair between Ernaux and the journalist and author Marc Marie, after the two met in January 2003. Ernaux had been receiving intensive chemo for breast cancer during the prior three months, and had lost all her hair from the treatments. At the end of January she had surgery, followed by radiation therapy.

The affair took place in different locations and Ernaux describes how, shortly after it began, she found herself entranced each morning by the sight of clothes strewn about, chairs out of place and the remains of their last meal of the evening still on the table—and how painful it felt to put things back in order afterward. She went and got her camera, and began to take photographs of the scenes of disarray. When she told Marc Marie what she had done, he said he had felt the same desire.

The Use of Photography is one of the quintessential Ernaux books, told primarily through words in Ernaux’s inimitable style, which is adopted here by both authors, and with their photographs adding another lens through which to capture the story.]]> 127 Annie Ernaux 1644214148 ruby 0 to-read 3.95 2005
author: Annie Ernaux
name: ruby
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 51283450 Ěý
For Myles, time’s “optic quality� is what enables writing in the first place—as attention, as devotion, as excess. It is this chronologized vision that enables the writer to love the world as it presently is, lending love a linguistic permanence amid social and political systems that threaten to eradicate it. Irreverent, generous, and always insightful, For Now is a candid record of the creative process from one of our most beloved artists.]]> 96 Eileen Myles 0300244649 ruby 0 4.16 2020
author: Eileen Myles
name: ruby
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: art, auto, books-i-own, essay, non-fiction, writing
review:

]]> 55202021 120 Estelle Hoy 2955948640 ruby 0 to-read 4.29
author: Estelle Hoy
name: ruby
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199635125
Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the touchiest problems of modern life. The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex, relationships, identity, and the internet.

In “The Feminist,� a young man’s passionate allyship turns to furious nihilism as he realizes, over thirty lonely years, that it isn’t getting him laid. A young woman’s unrequited crush in “Pics� spirals into borderline obsession and the systematic destruction of her sense of self. And in “Ahegao; or, The Ballad of Sexual Repression,� a shy late bloomer’s flailing efforts at a first relationship leads to a life-upending mistake. As the characters pop up in each other’s dating apps and social media feeds, or meet in dimly lit bars and bedrooms, they reveal the ways our delusions can warp our desire for connection.

These brilliant satires explore the underrated sorrows of rejection with the authority of a modern classic and the manic intensity of a manifesto. Audacious and unforgettable, Rejection is a stunning mosaic that redefines what it means to be rejected by lovers, friends, society, and oneself.]]> 272 Tony Tulathimutte 0063337878 ruby 0 3.87 2024
author: Tony Tulathimutte
name: ruby
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves:
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]]> 54860443
But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.

Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.]]> 418 Casey McQuiston 1250244498 ruby 0 books-i-own, romance, lgbt 3.90 2021
author: Casey McQuiston
name: ruby
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/19
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, romance, lgbt
review:
bruh what if my soul mate is stuck in the 70s right now..........
]]> 41150487
As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?]]> 448 Casey McQuiston 1250316774 ruby 0 lgbt, romance, ya supa cute 4.06 2019
author: Casey McQuiston
name: ruby
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2021/04/01
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: lgbt, romance, ya
review:
supa cute
]]> 28919058
But when his best friend Autumn dares him to take Provo High’s prestigious Seminar—where honor roll students diligently toil to draft a book in a semester—Tanner can’t resist going against his better judgment and having a go, if only to prove to Autumn how silly the whole thing is. Writing a book in four months sounds simple. Four months is an eternity.

It turns out, Tanner is only partly right: four months is a long time. After all, it takes only one second for him to notice Sebastian Brother, the Mormon prodigy who sold his own Seminar novel the year before and who now mentors the class. And it takes less than a month for Tanner to fall completely in love with him.]]> 407 Christina Lauren 1481481681 ruby 0 ya, romance, lgbt
but now let's do a quick ruby-crash-course version of the synopsis: this book follows tanner, a bisexual high school senior who has to be closeted again once entering into a small mormon-filled provo, utah. in his senior year, he attends a seminar where he is required to write an entire book in a semester (uhhhhh) until his life takes a WHOLE 360 when super hot sebastian brother enters his life.

this book is really cute! i really enjoyed reading from our protagonist, tanner. he was really cute! i also loved sebastian, he was.... you guessed it.... really cute! i'm not bisexual nor am i mormon so i have no idea if christina lauren depicted the two well, but for me i felt that she did a good job handling mormon beliefs without insulting them, if that makes any sense.

unfortunately, a few not-so-cute things stopped me from making this a favorite for me.

autumn
this book really did her dirty, she had no purpose, her character followed no logic, and i didn't care about her at all. the relationship between her and tanner is awkward from the beginning..... he likes her as a friend? are they dating? no? but she loves him a little bit? i thought it was me not comprehending what was written but then some SHIT HAPPENS. [spoilers removed]

the parents
the parents are quite honestly the most fucking annoying thing in this. we have to believe that tanner's mom is all liberal and supportive of lgbt because she has rainbow banners, wears lgbt aprons and gives tanner bumper stickers.......... but you moved your son to provo?

and one of the big things about the parents are that they don't want their son to be with an lds because they wouldn't want them to have to deal with what tanner's aunt did...... but it happens anyways? if you were gonna make that a big thing, why not get even more into it when we were in sebastian's pov when he comes out to his parents and [spoilers removed]? funny enough, we don't see any of that, it all cuts off to a quick epilogue to wrap everything up in a pretty bow. if i was promised some forbidden romance, i want some damn forbidden romance! the concept of a gay kid coming out to mormon parents is really interesting, i wish we could've actually seen more of that in this book..... about a mormon kid coming out to his parents....

and to add on top of that, we never meet tanner's aunt. we hear his mother's backstory with his aunt, we hear his mother bitch and moan about her backstory with his aunt, but we don't ever meet his aunt. it would've been so much nicer if we could've actually read tanner's interactions with his aunt, or even a flashback of a dialogue between them or SOMETHING.

my beef with sebastian & tanner and the plot
ok, i don't actually have THAT much beef about this but...

there really isn't a cohesive plot the book follows? but i guess i can forgive that because this is technically more of a slice of life and we're just in tanner's life. but we're supposed to be following tanner and the book he's writing? but i end up not caring at all about the book he writes? i kind of wish we could see some excerpts of the book he writes; poems he writes about sebastian is included but nothing from the actual book :(

and in void of a plot revolving around tanner writing his book, we get one revolving tanner falling in love with sebastian! you should've seen how excited i was to see a relationship get developed and to see them slowly fall in love..... hahahaha YOU THOUGHT. nope, it's instalove! tanner looks at sebastian. sebastian blushes. tanner talks to sebastian. sebastian's the one!!!!! and it's kind of disappointing because i really liked their relationship once you get past the initial instalove.

also this is pretty nitpicky but the author uses such hyperbolic language and makes tanner SO DRAMATIC. sometimes when he's flustered it's pretty cute but sometimes it's just.... TOO MUCH. sometimes. (i don't really know how to describe this but in a single chapter tanner will think "x feelings sIMMERS IN MY BLOOD or my hEART FEELS SO X" what feels a million times".) (although note that this might just be me overreacting to something so small hahaha.)]]> 4.11 2017
author: Christina Lauren
name: ruby
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2018/04/05
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance, lgbt
review:
i've ascended from my slump! i'm thoroughly happy i picked up this book! i've been really in the mood and on the lookout for some lgbt reads, and this book filled my void.

but now let's do a quick ruby-crash-course version of the synopsis: this book follows tanner, a bisexual high school senior who has to be closeted again once entering into a small mormon-filled provo, utah. in his senior year, he attends a seminar where he is required to write an entire book in a semester (uhhhhh) until his life takes a WHOLE 360 when super hot sebastian brother enters his life.

this book is really cute! i really enjoyed reading from our protagonist, tanner. he was really cute! i also loved sebastian, he was.... you guessed it.... really cute! i'm not bisexual nor am i mormon so i have no idea if christina lauren depicted the two well, but for me i felt that she did a good job handling mormon beliefs without insulting them, if that makes any sense.

unfortunately, a few not-so-cute things stopped me from making this a favorite for me.

autumn
this book really did her dirty, she had no purpose, her character followed no logic, and i didn't care about her at all. the relationship between her and tanner is awkward from the beginning..... he likes her as a friend? are they dating? no? but she loves him a little bit? i thought it was me not comprehending what was written but then some SHIT HAPPENS. [spoilers removed]

the parents
the parents are quite honestly the most fucking annoying thing in this. we have to believe that tanner's mom is all liberal and supportive of lgbt because she has rainbow banners, wears lgbt aprons and gives tanner bumper stickers.......... but you moved your son to provo?

and one of the big things about the parents are that they don't want their son to be with an lds because they wouldn't want them to have to deal with what tanner's aunt did...... but it happens anyways? if you were gonna make that a big thing, why not get even more into it when we were in sebastian's pov when he comes out to his parents and [spoilers removed]? funny enough, we don't see any of that, it all cuts off to a quick epilogue to wrap everything up in a pretty bow. if i was promised some forbidden romance, i want some damn forbidden romance! the concept of a gay kid coming out to mormon parents is really interesting, i wish we could've actually seen more of that in this book..... about a mormon kid coming out to his parents....

and to add on top of that, we never meet tanner's aunt. we hear his mother's backstory with his aunt, we hear his mother bitch and moan about her backstory with his aunt, but we don't ever meet his aunt. it would've been so much nicer if we could've actually read tanner's interactions with his aunt, or even a flashback of a dialogue between them or SOMETHING.

my beef with sebastian & tanner and the plot
ok, i don't actually have THAT much beef about this but...

there really isn't a cohesive plot the book follows? but i guess i can forgive that because this is technically more of a slice of life and we're just in tanner's life. but we're supposed to be following tanner and the book he's writing? but i end up not caring at all about the book he writes? i kind of wish we could see some excerpts of the book he writes; poems he writes about sebastian is included but nothing from the actual book :(

and in void of a plot revolving around tanner writing his book, we get one revolving tanner falling in love with sebastian! you should've seen how excited i was to see a relationship get developed and to see them slowly fall in love..... hahahaha YOU THOUGHT. nope, it's instalove! tanner looks at sebastian. sebastian blushes. tanner talks to sebastian. sebastian's the one!!!!! and it's kind of disappointing because i really liked their relationship once you get past the initial instalove.

also this is pretty nitpicky but the author uses such hyperbolic language and makes tanner SO DRAMATIC. sometimes when he's flustered it's pretty cute but sometimes it's just.... TOO MUCH. sometimes. (i don't really know how to describe this but in a single chapter tanner will think "x feelings sIMMERS IN MY BLOOD or my hEART FEELS SO X" what feels a million times".) (although note that this might just be me overreacting to something so small hahaha.)
]]> 35412372 Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side." Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities.

Ada begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency. A traumatic assault leads to a crystallization of her alternate selves: Asụghara and Saint Vincent. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these selves--now protective, now hedonistic--move into control, Ada's life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction.

Narrated by the various selves within Ada and based in the author's realities, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace, heralding the arrival of a fierce new literary voice.]]> 229 Akwaeke Emezi 0802127355 ruby 0 what a woozy 4.03 2018
author: Akwaeke Emezi
name: ruby
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2022/11/08
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, literary-fic, read-for-school, lgbt, auto
review:
what a woozy
]]> 10306358
“A tremendously gifted writer whose highly personal voice should excite us in much the same way that Raymond Carver’s or Jeffrey Eugenides’s voice did when we first heard it."� The Washington Post

Three brothers tear their way through childhood� smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from trash, hiding out when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma are from Brooklyn—he’s Puerto Rican, she’s white—and their love is a serious, dangerous thing that makes and unmakes a family many times. Life in this family is fierce and absorbing, full of chaos and heartbreak and the euphoria of belonging completely to one another. From the intense familial unity felt by a child to the profound alienation he endures as he begins to see the world, this beautiful novel reinvents the coming-of-age story in a way that is sly and punch-in-the-stomach powerful.

"We the Animals is a dark jewel of a book. It’s heartbreaking. It’s beautiful. It resembles no other book I’ve read.”—Michael Cunningham

"A fiery ode to boyhood . . . A welterweight champ of a book."� NPR, Weekend Edition]]> 128 Justin Torres 0547576722 ruby 0 3.72 2011
author: Justin Torres
name: ruby
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/17
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: lgbt, literary-fic, read-for-school, short-stories, auto
review:
faves were "seven" and "the night i am made"
]]> 50144 Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, is an enchantingly original and deeply affecting book about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine of Kitchen, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, she is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who was once his father), Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale that recalls early Marguerite Duras. Kitchen and its companion story, "Moonlight Shadow," are elegant tales whose seeming simplicity is the ruse of a writer whose voice echoes in the mind and the soul.]]> 160 Banana Yoshimoto 0802142443 ruby 0 3.91 1988
author: Banana Yoshimoto
name: ruby
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at: 2022/05/22
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: as-am, short-stories, lgbt, books-i-own, romance
review:
suffocating experiment on grief
]]> 41880609 On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born � a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam � and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.]]> 246 Ocean Vuong 0525562028 ruby 0 4.05 2019
author: Ocean Vuong
name: ruby
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2022/12/25
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: as-am, literary-fic, lgbt, poetry
review:

]]> 25014114
To make things worse, the only person who truly understands his heartache is Jackson. But no matter how much they open up to each other, Griffin's downward spiral continues. He's losing himself in his obsessive compulsions and destructive choices, and the secrets he's been keeping are tearing him apart.

If Griffin is ever to rebuild his future, he must first confront his history, every last heartbreaking piece in the puzzle of his life.]]> 320 Adam Silvera 1616956933 ruby 0 lgbt, ya, romance 3.93 2017
author: Adam Silvera
name: ruby
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2018/06/28
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: lgbt, ya, romance
review:

]]> 7144 671 Fyodor Dostoevsky ruby 0 Jail. get it 4.26 1866
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: ruby
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1866
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/21
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: classics, baby-phil, literary-fic
review:
Jail. get it
]]> 41865
First, Edward was a vampire.

Second, there was a part of him - and I didn't know how dominant that part might be - that thirsted for my blood.

And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Deeply seductive and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight is a love story with bite.]]> 498 Stephenie Meyer 0316015849 ruby 0 3.66 2005
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: ruby
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade, books-i-own, ya, romance
review:

]]> 1162543 "Don't be afraid," I murmured. "We belong together."
I was abruptly overwhelmed by the truth of my own words.
This moment was so perfect, so right, there was no way to doubt it.
His arms wrapped around me,
holding me against him....
It felt like every nerve ending in my body was a live wire.
"Forever," he agreed.

WHEN YOU LOVED THE ONE WHO WAS KILLING YOU, IT LEFT YOU NO OPTIONS. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved?

TO BE IRREVOCABLY IN LOVE WITH A VAMPIRE is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fates of two tribes hangs.

NOW THAT BELLA HAS MADE HER DECISION, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating, and unfathomable, consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life - first discovered in Twilight, then scattered and torn in New Moon and Eclipse - seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed... forever?

THE ASTONISHING, BREATHLESSLY anticipated conclusion to the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.]]> 756 Stephenie Meyer 031606792X ruby 0 3.74 2008
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: ruby
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, middle-grade, ya, romance
review:

]]> 7260188 My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.

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

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

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay—no matter what the personal cost.]]> 390 Suzanne Collins 0439023513 ruby 0 middle-grade, ya, romance 4.10 2010
author: Suzanne Collins
name: ruby
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade, ya, romance
review:

]]> 1582996 Also see: Alternate Cover Editions for this ISBN [ACE]
ACE #1

Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what's normal when you're a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who's becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn't ready to let her go � especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary's only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil � and also her father.

To complicate matters, someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings � and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop Valentine if Jace is willing to betray everything he believes in to help their father?

In this breathtaking sequel to City of Bones, Cassandra Clare lures her readers back into the dark grip of New York City's Downworld, where love is never safe and power becomes the deadliest temptation.]]> 453 Cassandra Clare 1416914293 ruby 0 ya, romance 4.12 2008
author: Cassandra Clare
name: ruby
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at: 2017/09/03
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance
review:
i'm going to have to reread city of bones again before picking this up again
]]> 22328546 This is a world divided by blood—red or silver.

The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change.

That is until she finds herself working in the Silver Palace. Here, surrounded by the people she hates the most, Mare discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power.

Fearful of Mare's potential, the Silvers hide her in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess, now engaged to a Silver prince. Despite knowing that one misstep would mean her death, Mare works silently to help the Red Guard, a militant resistance group, and bring down the Silver regime.

But this is a world of betrayal and lies, and Mare has entered a dangerous dance—Reds against Silvers, prince against prince, and Mare against her own heart.]]> 388 Victoria Aveyard 0062310631 ruby 0 ya, romance 3.98 2015
author: Victoria Aveyard
name: ruby
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance
review:

]]> 7541858 Librarian's Note: this is an alternate cover edition for ASIN B0013TXA5Y.

When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder - much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air.

It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing - not even a smear of blood - to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk.

Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know...]]> 485 Cassandra Clare ruby 0 ya, romance 4.03 2007
author: Cassandra Clare
name: ruby
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance
review:

]]> 10224616 272 Loretta Ellsworth 0802723055 ruby 0 books-i-own, ya, romance 3.75 2011
author: Loretta Ellsworth
name: ruby
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2021/08/13
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, ya, romance
review:

]]> 18304322
Instead of finding new heights of self-assurance in her relationship with Bo, Will starts to doubt herself. So she sets out to take back her confidence by doing the most horrifying thing she can imagine: entering the Miss Clover City beauty pageant—along with several other unlikely candidates—to show the world that she deserves to be up there as much as any twiggy girl does. Along the way, she’ll shock the hell out of Clover City—and maybe herself most of all.

With starry Texas nights, red candy suckers, Dolly Parton songs, and a wildly unforgettable heroineâ€�¶ŮłÜłľ±č±ôľ±˛Ôâ€� is guaranteed to steal your heart.]]> 375 Julie Murphy 0062327186 ruby 0 books-i-own, ya, romance 1) girl hate! boo! why does ya continue to do this? as much as i loved the girl support in this book, it was so unnecessary to antagonize the other girls in the pageant.
2) nobody talks like this? i've only recently started to get really annoyed by this in my reads, but i cannot STAND it when dialogue feels so unnatural and disconnected from reality. for real, nobody talks the way some of these characters do.
3) willow's relationship with her mother. willow is constantly yelling, screaming, and acting ungrateful towards her mother. whether her mother be rude, whether her mother be irrational, whether her mother be doing everything right, no matter what it is! willow is downright horrible towards her mother and this doesn't really ever resolve.
4) bouncing right off of willow's mother, the plot with willow, her mother, and lucy doesn't receive any closure. it feels like the author didn't know how to wrap it up so willow just ends up rambling about how much she wishes lucy were here and that's that, which is so disappointing because so much of the story is involved with willow dealing with the grief of her aunt.
5) boring characters. bo falls into the generic love interest whose boring but is masked over a boring backstory. ellen is the boring best friend who isn't in half of the book. all of willow's reject friends (with boring names) are boring and forgettable. mitch is a boring rebound off of bo who's boring. yeah, these characters? they're boring.]]> 3.88 2015
author: Julie Murphy
name: ruby
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2018/05/29
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, ya, romance
review:
kinda disappointed because:
1) girl hate! boo! why does ya continue to do this? as much as i loved the girl support in this book, it was so unnecessary to antagonize the other girls in the pageant.
2) nobody talks like this? i've only recently started to get really annoyed by this in my reads, but i cannot STAND it when dialogue feels so unnatural and disconnected from reality. for real, nobody talks the way some of these characters do.
3) willow's relationship with her mother. willow is constantly yelling, screaming, and acting ungrateful towards her mother. whether her mother be rude, whether her mother be irrational, whether her mother be doing everything right, no matter what it is! willow is downright horrible towards her mother and this doesn't really ever resolve.
4) bouncing right off of willow's mother, the plot with willow, her mother, and lucy doesn't receive any closure. it feels like the author didn't know how to wrap it up so willow just ends up rambling about how much she wishes lucy were here and that's that, which is so disappointing because so much of the story is involved with willow dealing with the grief of her aunt.
5) boring characters. bo falls into the generic love interest whose boring but is masked over a boring backstory. ellen is the boring best friend who isn't in half of the book. all of willow's reject friends (with boring names) are boring and forgettable. mitch is a boring rebound off of bo who's boring. yeah, these characters? they're boring.
]]> 16096824
Dragged to a magical kingdom for the murder of a faerie, Feyre discovers that her captor, his face obscured by a jewelled mask, is hiding far more than his piercing green eyes would suggest. Feyre's presence at the court is closely guarded, and as she begins to learn why, her feelings for him turn from hostility to passion and the faerie lands become an even more dangerous place. Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose him forever.]]> 419 Sarah J. Maas 1619634449 ruby 0 books-i-own, ya, romance 4.17 2015
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: ruby
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2017/08/18
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, ya, romance
review:

]]> 18135 Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud.

In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers� final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers.]]> 281 William Shakespeare 0743477111 ruby 0 3.74 1597
author: William Shakespeare
name: ruby
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1597
rating: 0
read at: 2017/03/01
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: read-for-school, romance, non-fiction, classics, theater
review:

]]> 2850535 248 Mari Mancusi 0525479953 ruby 0 ya, romance, middle-grade 3.76 2008
author: Mari Mancusi
name: ruby
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance, middle-grade
review:

]]> 428263 "BELLA?"
Edward's soft voice came from behind me. I turned to see him spring lightly up the porch steps, his hair windblown from running. He pulled me into his arms at once, just like he had in the parking lot, and kissed me again.
This kiss frightened me. There was too much tension, too strong an edge to the way his lips crushed mine - like he was afraid we had only so much time left to us.

As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob - knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. But which is which?

READERS CAPTIVATED BY Twilight AND New Moon will eagerly devour Eclipse, the much-anticipated third book in Stephenie Meyer's riveting vampire love saga.]]> 629 Stephenie Meyer 0316160202 ruby 0 3.73 2007
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: ruby
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, middle-grade, ya, romance
review:

]]> 49041 There is an alternate cover edition for ISBN13 9780316160193 here.

I knew we were both in mortal danger. Still, in that instant, I felt well. Whole. I could feel my heart racing in my chest, the blood pulsing hot and fast through my veins again. My lungs filled deep with the sweet scent that came off his skin. It was like there had never been any hole in my chest. I was perfect - not healed, but as if there had never been a wound in the first place.

I FELT LIKE I WAS TRAPPED IN ONE OF THOSE TERRIFYING NIGHTMARES, the one where you have to run, run till your lungs burst, but you can't make your body move fast enough.... But this was no dream, and, unlike the nightmare, I wasn't running for my life; I was racing to save something infinitely more precious. My own life meant little to me today.

FOR BELLA SWAN THERE IS ONE THING more important than life itself: Edward Cullen. But being in love with a vampire is even more dangerous than Bella could ever have imagined. Edward has already rescued Bella from the clutches of one evil vampire, but now, as their daring relationship threatens all that is near and dear to them, they realize their troubles may be just beginning....

LEGIONS OF READERS ENTRANCED BY THE New York Times bestseller Twilight are hungry for the continuing story of star-crossed lovers Bell and Edward. In New Moon, Stephanie Meyer delivers another irresistible combination of romance and suspense with a supernatural spin. passionate, riveting, and full of surprising twists and turns, this vampire love saga is well on its way to literary immortality.]]> 563 Stephenie Meyer 0316160199 ruby 0 3.61 2006
author: Stephenie Meyer
name: ruby
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, middle-grade, ya, romance
review:

]]> 40864841 All Freddy Riley wants is for Laura Dean to stop breaking up with her.

The day they got together was the best one of Freddy's life, but nothing's made sense since. Laura Dean is popular, funny, and SO CUTE ... but she can be really thoughtless, even mean. Their on-again, off-again relationship has Freddy's head spinning � and Freddy's friends can't understand why she keeps going back.

When Freddy consults the services of a local mystic, the mysterious Seek-Her, she isn't thrilled with the advice she receives. But something's got to give: Freddy's heart is breaking in slow motion, and she may be about to lose her very best friend as well as her last shred of self-respect. Fortunately for Freddy, there are new friends, and the insight of advice columnist Anna Vice, to help her through being a teenager in love.

Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O'Connell bring to life a sweet and spirited tale of young love that asks us to consider what happens when we ditch the toxic relationships we crave to embrace the healthy ones we need.]]> 289 Mariko Tamaki 1250312841 ruby 0 3.86 2019
author: Mariko Tamaki
name: ruby
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/03
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, lgbt, romance, graphic-novel, as-am
review:

]]> 43449920
Meanwhile Tao and Elle will face their feelings for each other, Tara and Darcy share more about their relationship origin story, and the teachers supervising the trip seem� rather close�?]]> 384 Alice Oseman ruby 0 4.55 2020
author: Alice Oseman
name: ruby
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance, lgbt, graphic-novel
review:

]]> 43307358
But love works in surprising ways, and Nick is discovering all kinds of things about his friends, his family ... and himself.]]> 320 Alice Oseman 1444951408 ruby 0 4.52 2019
author: Alice Oseman
name: ruby
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, lgbt, romance, graphic-novel
review:

]]> 11870085
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.]]> 313 John Green ruby 0 middle-grade, ya, romance 4.13 2012
author: John Green
name: ruby
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2014/12/01
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade, ya, romance
review:

]]> 6442769 Who is the real Margo?

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew...]]> 305 John Green 014241493X ruby 0 3.68 2008
author: John Green
name: ruby
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade, books-i-own, ya, romance
review:

]]> 6148028 Sparks are igniting.
Flames are spreading.
And the Capitol wants revenge.

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

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

In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before . . . and surprising readers at every turn.]]> 391 Suzanne Collins 0439023491 ruby 0 middle-grade, ya, romance 4.34 2009
author: Suzanne Collins
name: ruby
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade, ya, romance
review:

]]> 8492825 Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Juilliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future - and each other.

Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.

]]> 264 Gayle Forman 0525422943 ruby 0 ya, romance 3.98 2011
author: Gayle Forman
name: ruby
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance
review:

]]> 4374400 208 Gayle Forman 0525421033 ruby 0 ya, romance 3.92 2009
author: Gayle Forman
name: ruby
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance
review:

]]> 13335037
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.]]> 487 Veronica Roth 0062024035 ruby 0 middle-grade, ya, romance 4.13 2011
author: Veronica Roth
name: ruby
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade, ya, romance
review:

]]> 11250317
Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.]]> 352 Madeline Miller 1408816032 ruby 0 4.38 2011
author: Madeline Miller
name: ruby
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2021/07/04
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, lgbt, ya, romance, historical, war
review:

]]> 22299763
Kaz Brekker and his crew of deadly outcasts have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn't think they'd survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they're right back to fighting for their lives.

Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz's cunning and test the team's fragile loyalties.

A war will be waged on the city's dark and twisting streets - a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of the Grisha world.]]> 561 Leigh Bardugo ruby 0 4.58 2016
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: ruby
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2020/07/25
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, ya, romance, lgbt
review:

]]> 28220739 It’s the summer of 1982, and for Scott and Cath, everything is about to change.

Growing up across the street from each other, Scott and Cath have been best friends for most of their lives. Now they’ve graduated high school, and Cath is off to college while Scott stays at home trying to get his band off the ground. Neither of them realized that their first year after high school would be so hard.

Fortunately, Scott and Cath still have each other, and it’s through their letters that they survive heartache, annoying roommates, family dramas, and the pressure of figuring out what to do with the rest of their lives. And through it all, they realize that the only person they’ve ever wanted to turn to is each other. But does that mean they should think about being more than friends? One thing is clear: Change is an inescapable part of growing up, and we share unbreakable bonds with the friends who help us navigate it.]]> 304 Michael Kun 1250098408 ruby 0 ya, romance, historical 3.88 2016
author: Michael Kun
name: ruby
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2018/08/12
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance, historical
review:

]]> 27190613
Ever since she and her brother were abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman sultan’s courts, Lada has known that ruthlessness is the key to survival. For the lineage that makes her and her brother special also makes them targets.

Lada hones her skills as a warrior as she nurtures plans to wreak revenge on the empire that holds her captive. Then she and Radu meet the sultan’s son, Mehmed, and everything changes. Now Mehmed unwittingly stands between Lada and Radu as they transform from siblings to rivals, and the ties of love and loyalty that bind them together are stretched to breaking point.

The first of an epic new trilogy starring the ultimate anti-princess who does not have a gentle heart. Lada knows how to wield a sword, and she'll stop at nothing to keep herself and her brother alive.]]> 475 Kiersten White 0553522310 ruby 0 3.81 2016
author: Kiersten White
name: ruby
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2018/06/13
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, lgbt, ya, romance, war, historical
review:

]]> 17347389 439 Maggie Stiefvater 0545424941 ruby 0 books-i-own, romance, ya 4.22 2013
author: Maggie Stiefvater
name: ruby
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2017/11/23
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, romance, ya
review:

]]> 23299512 , a young woman and a young man must choose whether to become heroes or villains—and friends or enemies—with the future of their home at stake. The first of two books.

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives.]]> 464 Victoria E. Schwab 0062380877 ruby 0 books-i-own, ya
after seeing so many good reviews on this book from reviewers i trust so dearly and the immense respect victoria schwab receives from her lovely stories, i knew it was inevitable that i picked up this savage song. and boy, was i glad i did!

schwab created such amazing characters. kate harker is such a badass heroine, i adore her so much. on the other hand we have august flynn, with so many dimensions, sO COMPLEX, and a dark eeriness to him. out of the two, i think i preferred august's pov slightly more just because i was so intrigued by the sunai/monster concept. his power was so interesting, i was completely sucked in by his violin.

also really enjoyed the family dynamic, especially between kate and her father. if i wasn't reading closely, i could've easily not have even realized harker was kate's father because of how distant they were! i noticed it before her pov even brought it up, and it was clever foreshadowing to see the big twist at the end.

for me, there was not a moment in this book where i was bored. it was gripping throughout, and i FLEW through it. when i can't imagine the book getting any more intense, this book GOES THERE.

[spoilers removed]

hearing that this book is actually one of her weaker ones makes me very excited to read her other works!]]> 4.08 2016
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: ruby
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2017/08/24
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, ya
review:
4/5 stars

after seeing so many good reviews on this book from reviewers i trust so dearly and the immense respect victoria schwab receives from her lovely stories, i knew it was inevitable that i picked up this savage song. and boy, was i glad i did!

schwab created such amazing characters. kate harker is such a badass heroine, i adore her so much. on the other hand we have august flynn, with so many dimensions, sO COMPLEX, and a dark eeriness to him. out of the two, i think i preferred august's pov slightly more just because i was so intrigued by the sunai/monster concept. his power was so interesting, i was completely sucked in by his violin.

also really enjoyed the family dynamic, especially between kate and her father. if i wasn't reading closely, i could've easily not have even realized harker was kate's father because of how distant they were! i noticed it before her pov even brought it up, and it was clever foreshadowing to see the big twist at the end.

for me, there was not a moment in this book where i was bored. it was gripping throughout, and i FLEW through it. when i can't imagine the book getting any more intense, this book GOES THERE.

[spoilers removed]

hearing that this book is actually one of her weaker ones makes me very excited to read her other works!
]]> 32768522
That's what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he's probably right.

Half the time, Simon can't even make his wand work, and the other half, he starts something on fire. His mentor's avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there's a magic-eating monster running around, wearing Simon's face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here � it's their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon's infuriating nemesis didn't even bother to show up.

Carry On - The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow is a ghost story, a love story and a mystery. It has just as much kissing and talking as you'd expect from a Rainbow Rowell story - but far, far more monsters.]]> 522 Rainbow Rowell 1250135028 ruby 0 *inserts Carry On*]]> 4.17 2015
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: ruby
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2018/06/05
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, lgbt, ya, romance
review:
what is the cutest book ever?
*inserts Carry On*
]]> 15842439 Now a major motion picture from Summit Entertainment.

R is having a no-life crisis—he is a zombie. He has no memories, no identity, and no pulse, but he is a little different from his fellow Dead. He may occasionally eat people, but he’d rather be riding abandoned airport escalators, listening to Sinatra in the cozy 747 he calls home, or collecting souvenirs from the ruins of civilization.

And then he meets a girl.

First as his captive, then his reluctant guest, Julie is a blast of living color in R’s gray landscape, and something inside him begins to bloom. He doesn't want to eat this girl—although she looks delicious—he wants to protect her. But their unlikely bond will cause ripples they can’t imagine, and their hopeless world won’t change without a fight.]]> 256 Isaac Marion 147671746X ruby 0 ya, romance 3.87 2010
author: Isaac Marion
name: ruby
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2016/02/28
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance
review:

]]> 23302416
You can't blend in when you were born to stand out.

My name is August. I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.

August Pullman wants to be an ordinary ten-year-old. He does ordinary things. He eats ice cream. He plays on his Xbox. He feels ordinary - inside.

But Auggie is far from ordinary. Ordinary kids don't make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. Ordinary kids don't get stared at wherever they go.

Born with a terrible facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life, in an attempt to protect him from the cruelty of the outside world. Now, for the first time, he's being sent to a real school - and he's dreading it. All he wants is to be accepted - but can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, underneath it all?

Narrated by Auggie and the people around him whose lives he touches forever, Wonder is a funny, frank, astonishingly moving debut to read in one sitting, pass on to others, and remember long after the final page.]]> 318 R.J. Palacio ruby 0 middle-grade, ya 4.41 2012
author: R.J. Palacio
name: ruby
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade, ya
review:

]]> 14290364 He is a Legend.
She is a Prodigy.
Who will be Champion?

June and Day have sacrificed so much for the people of the Republic—and each other—and now their country is on the brink of a new existence. June is back in the good graces of the Republic, working within the government’s elite circles as Princeps-Elect, while Day has been assigned a high-level military position.

But neither could have predicted the circumstances that will reunite them: just when a peace treaty is imminent, a plague outbreak causes panic in the Colonies, and war threatens the Republic’s border cities. This new strain of plague is deadlier than ever, and June is the only one who knows the key to her country’s defense. But saving the lives of thousands will mean asking the one she loves to give up everything.

With heart-pounding action and suspense, Marie Lu’s bestselling trilogy draws to a stunning conclusion.]]> 369 Marie Lu 0399256776 ruby 0 ya, romance, as-am 4.32 2013
author: Marie Lu
name: ruby
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance, as-am
review:

]]> 16068905 A coming-of-age tale of fanfiction, family, and first love.

Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan.... But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she's really good at it. She and her twin, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it's what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere. Cath's sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can't let go. She doesn't want to.

Now that they're going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn't want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She's got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend; a fiction-writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world; a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words... and she can't stop worrying about her dad, who's loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?]]> 483 Rainbow Rowell ruby 0 ya, romance 3.93 2013
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: ruby
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2017/01/01
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance
review:

]]> 19547856
With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has suddenly gotten all kinds of complicated. Now, change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met.]]> 320 Becky Albertalli 0062348671 ruby 0 4.14 2015
author: Becky Albertalli
name: ruby
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2018/03/28
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, ya, romance, lgbt
review:

]]> 19542841
Sixteen-year-old Aaron Soto is struggling to find happiness after a family tragedy leaves him reeling. He's slowly remembering what happiness might feel like this summer with the support of his girlfriend Genevieve, but it's his new best friend, Thomas, who really gets Aaron to open up about his past and confront his future.

As Thomas and Aaron get closer, Aaron discovers things about himself that threaten to shatter his newfound contentment. A revolutionary memory-alteration procedure, courtesy of the Leteo Institute, might be the way to straighten himself out. But what if it means forgetting who he truly is?]]> 293 Adam Silvera 1616955600 ruby 0 lgbt, romance, ya 3.96 2015
author: Adam Silvera
name: ruby
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2018/07/08
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: lgbt, romance, ya
review:
u right silvera lets keep breaking my heart
]]> 15837671
Aza Holmes never intended to pursue the disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Pickett’s son Davis.

Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.]]> 304 John Green 0141346019 ruby 0 books-i-own, ya, romance 4.02 2017
author: John Green
name: ruby
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2017/01/01
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, ya, romance
review:

]]> 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 ruby 0 4.11 1892
author: Charlotte Perkins Gilman
name: ruby
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1892
rating: 0
read at: 2022/06/04
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: classics, feminism, historical, literary-fic, short-stories
review:
john where u take gaslighting 101 i just know bestie was on the deans list the semester he took it
]]> 13414446 371 Marie Lu 0399256768 ruby 0 ya, romance, as-am 4.24 2013
author: Marie Lu
name: ruby
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance, as-am
review:

]]> 12000020
But against all odds, when Ari and Dante meet, they develop a special bond that will teach them the most important truths of their lives, and help define the people they want to be. But there are big hurdles in their way, and only by believing in each other—and the power of their friendship—can Ari and Dante emerge stronger on the other side.]]> 390 Benjamin Alire Sáenz 1442408928 ruby 0 lgbt, ya, romance 4.29 2012
author: Benjamin Alire Sáenz
name: ruby
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2020/07/30
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: lgbt, ya, romance
review:

]]> 256683
This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know...]]> 485 Cassandra Clare 1416914285 ruby 0 ya 4.08 2007
author: Cassandra Clare
name: ruby
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2015/10/13
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya
review:

]]> 4137 272 David Sedaris 0349113912 ruby 0 4.01 2000
author: David Sedaris
name: ruby
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at: 2019/12/05
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, non-fiction, humor, lgbt, short-stories
review:

]]> 37781 Things Fall Apart is written with remarkable economy and subtle irony. Uniquely and richly African, at the same time it reveals Achebe's keen awareness of the human qualities common to men of all times and places.]]> 215 Chinua Achebe ruby 0 3.73 1958
author: Chinua Achebe
name: ruby
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1958
rating: 0
read at: 2021/10/24
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: read-for-school, literary-fic, classics, books-i-own, historical
review:

]]> 6334 288 Kazuo Ishiguro 1400078776 ruby 0 3.85 2005
author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: ruby
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2021/11/10
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: as-am, books-i-own, romance, read-for-school
review:
little judy bridgewater song can say a lot
]]> 99561 Before. Miles “Pudge� Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave “the Great Perhaps� even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then. . . .
After. Nothing is ever the same.]]> 221 John Green 1435249151 ruby 0 ya, romance 3.97 2005
author: John Green
name: ruby
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at: 2016/06/01
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance
review:

]]> 305688 166 Richard Wright 1560254467 ruby 0 shits fucked yo 4.12 1969
author: Richard Wright
name: ruby
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1969
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/23
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves:
review:
shits fucked yo
]]> 77013 As I Lay Dying is Faulkner’s harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Narrated in turn by each of the family members -- including Addie herself -- as well as others; the novel ranges in mood, from dark comedy to the deepest pathos. Considered one of the most influential novels in American fiction in structure, style, and drama, As I Lay Dying is a true 20th-century classic.

This edition reproduces the corrected text of As I Lay Dying as established in 1985 by Noel Polk.]]> 288 William Faulkner ruby 0 3.71 1930
author: William Faulkner
name: ruby
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1930
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/28
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, classics, historical, literary-fic, read-for-school
review:

]]> 18660669
Lissa Dragomir is a Moroi princess: a mortal vampire with a rare gift for harnessing the earth's magic. She must be protected at all times from Strigoi; the fiercest vampires - the ones who never die. The powerful blend of human and vampire blood that flows through Rose Hathaway, Lissa's best friend, makes her a dhampir. Rose is dedicated to a dangerous life of protecting Lissa from the Strigoi, who are hell-bent on making Lissa one of them.

After two years of freedom, Rose and Lissa are caught and dragged back to St. Vladimir's Academy, a school for vampire royalty and their guardians-to-be, hidden in the deep forests of Montana. But inside the iron gates, life is even more fraught with danger... and the Strigoi are always close by.

Rose and Lissa must navigate their dangerous world, confront the temptations of forbidden love, and never once let their guard down, lest the evil undead make Lissa one of them forever...]]> 332 Richelle Mead ruby 0 ya, romance 4.09 2007
author: Richelle Mead
name: ruby
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2015/08/18
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, romance
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 ruby 0 4.27 2003
author: Marjane Satrapi
name: ruby
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2018/03/21
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: read-for-school, as-am, war, historical, graphic-novel
review:

]]> 4502507
While the Olympians struggle to contain the rampaging monster Typhon, Kronos begins his advance on New York City, where Mount Olympus stands virtually unguarded. Now it's up to Percy Jackson and an army of young demigods to stop the Lord of Time.

In this momentous final book in the New York Times best-selling series, the long-awaited prophecy surrounding Percy's sixteenth birthday unfolds. And as the battle for Western civilization rages on the streets of Manhattan, Percy faces a terrifying suspicion that he may be fighting against his own fate.]]> 11 Rick Riordan ruby 0 middle-grade 4.48 2009
author: Rick Riordan
name: ruby
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade
review:

]]> 11387515 I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.

August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade at Beecher Prep, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face. Wonder, begins from Auggie’s point of view, but soon switches to include his classmates, his sister, her boyfriend, and others.]]> 315 R.J. Palacio 0375869026 ruby 0 middle-grade, ya 4.34 2012
author: R.J. Palacio
name: ruby
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade, ya
review:

]]> 15881
And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor and a spirit who haunts the girls� bathroom. But then the real trouble begins � someone is turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects� Harry Potter himself!]]> 352 J.K. Rowling ruby 0 ya, middle-grade 4.42 1998
author: J.K. Rowling
name: ruby
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at: 2015/09/21
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya, middle-grade
review:

]]> 77203 371 Khaled Hosseini 159463193X ruby 0 4.34 2003
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: ruby
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2017/01/01
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: historical, i-cried, literary-fic, read-for-school, war, classics
review:

]]> 2
Harry has had enough. He is beginning to think he must do something, anything, to change his situation, when the summer holidays come to an end in a very dramatic fashion. What Harry is about to discover in his new year at Hogwarts will turn his world upside down...]]> 912 J.K. Rowling ruby 0 middle-grade, ya 4.50 2003
author: J.K. Rowling
name: ruby
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at: 2016/02/05
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade, ya
review:

]]> 6 734 J.K. Rowling 0439139597 ruby 0 ya 4.56 2000
author: J.K. Rowling
name: ruby
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at: 2015/11/25
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: ya
review:

]]> 561456
But when you're the son of a Greek god, it happens. And now my friend Annabeth is missing, a goddess is in chains and only five half-blood heroes can join the quest to defeat the doomsday monster.

Oh, and guess what? The Oracle has predicted that not all of us will survive...]]> 352 Rick Riordan ruby 0 middle-grade 4.37 2007
author: Rick Riordan
name: ruby
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade
review:

]]> 2767052
Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . .

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

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.]]> 374 Suzanne Collins ruby 0 middle-grade, ya, romance 4.34 2008
author: Suzanne Collins
name: ruby
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade, ya, romance
review:

]]> 5 435 J.K. Rowling 043965548X ruby 0 middle-grade, ya 4.57 1999
author: J.K. Rowling
name: ruby
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at: 2015/10/06
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade, ya
review:

]]> 2120932
In this fourth installment of the blockbuster series, time is running out as war between the Olympians and the evil Titan lord Kronos draws near. Even the safe haven of Camp Half-Blood grows more vulnerable by the minute as Kronos's army prepares to invade its once impenetrable borders. To stop the invasion, Percy and his demigod friends must set out on a quest through the Labyrinth - a sprawling underground world with stunning surprises at every turn.]]> 361 Rick Riordan 1423101464 ruby 0 middle-grade 4.41 2008
author: Rick Riordan
name: ruby
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade
review:

]]> 11337 The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison's first novel, a book heralded for its richness of language and boldness of vision. Set in the author's girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the year the marigolds in the Breedloves' garden do not bloom. Pecola's life does change—in painful, devastating ways.

With its vivid evocation of the fear and loneliness at the heart of a child's yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment. The Bluest Eye remains one of Toni Morrison's most powerful, unforgettable novels- and a significant work of American fiction.]]> 216 Toni Morrison ruby 0 4.13 1970
author: Toni Morrison
name: ruby
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/26
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: books-i-own, classics, historical, literary-fic, read-for-school, 2022-faves
review:

]]> 357486 Written by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred in Chernobyl and contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Voices from Chernobyl is the first book to present personal accounts of the tragedy. Journalist Svetlana Alexievich interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltdown—from innocent citizens to firefighters to those called in to clean up the disaster—and their stories reveal the fear, anger, and uncertainty with which they still live. Composed of interviews in monologue form, Voices from Chernobyl is a crucially important work of immense force, unforgettable in its emotional power and honesty.]]> 236 Svetlana Alexievich 0312425848 ruby 0 4.39 1997
author: Svetlana Alexievich
name: ruby
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at: 2018/02/11
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: read-for-school, non-fiction, historical
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 ruby 0 4.38 1956
author: Elie Wiesel
name: ruby
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1956
rating: 0
read at: 2017/09/28
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: read-for-school, non-fiction, war, historical, classics
review:

]]> 223379 60 Ted Chiang 1596061006 ruby 0 yas 4.39 2007
author: Ted Chiang
name: ruby
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at: 2022/01/22
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves:
review:
yas
]]> 28186
In this episode, The Sea of Monsters, Percy sets out to retrieve the Golden Fleece before his summer camp is destroyed, surpassing the first book's drama and setting the stage for more thrills to come.]]> 279 Rick Riordan 0786856866 ruby 0 middle-grade 4.25 2006
author: Rick Riordan
name: ruby
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: middle-grade
review:

]]> 123273110 96 Mary Ruefle 1950268845 ruby 0 poetry, essay, 2025-faves amazing! 4.50
author: Mary Ruefle
name: ruby
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: poetry, essay, 2025-faves
review:
amazing!
]]> 34234631 My love for him felt so total and so annihilating that it was often impossible for me to see him clearly at all.

Years ago, Sukie moved in with Nathan because her mother was dead and her father was difficult, and she had nowhere else to go. Now they are on the brink of the inevitable.

Sally Rooney is one of the most acclaimed young talents of recent years. With her minute attention to the power dynamics in everyday speech, she builds up sexual tension and throws a deceptively low-key glance at love and death.]]> 33 Sally Rooney 0571351956 ruby 0 3.76 2016
author: Sally Rooney
name: ruby
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/26
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: romance, short-stories, literary-fic
review:
sally rooney fangirl luvs sally rooney
]]> 13591921 Crapalachia is a portrait of these formative years, coming-of-age in rural West Virginia.

Peopled by colorful characters and their quirky stories, Crapalachia interweaves oral folklore and area history, providing an ambitious and powerful snapshot of overlooked Americana.]]> 169 Scott McClanahan 1937512037 ruby 0 4.12
author: Scott McClanahan
name: ruby
average rating: 4.12
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2023/05/22
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: books-i-own, humor, non-fiction, literary-fic, 2023-faves, auto
review:

]]> 46041465
When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming an adult, journalist and former Sunday Times columnist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, she vividly recounts falling in love, finding a job, getting drunk, getting dumped, realizing that Ivan from the corner shop might just be the only reliable man in her life, and that absolutely no one can ever compare to her best girlfriends. Everything I Know About Love is about bad dates, good friends and—above all else� realizing that you are enough.

Glittering with wit and insight, heart and humor, Dolly Alderton’s unforgettable debut weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age—making you want to pick up the phone and tell your best friends all about it. Like Bridget Jones� Diary but all true, Everything I Know About Love is about the struggles of early adulthood in all its terrifying and hopeful uncertainty.]]> 368 Dolly Alderton 0062968785 ruby 0 auto, essay, romance 3.97 2018
author: Dolly Alderton
name: ruby
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/15
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: auto, essay, romance
review:

]]> 802673 230 Chay Yew 0802135005 ruby 0 4.24 1997
author: Chay Yew
name: ruby
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/22
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: as-am, lgbt, literary-fic, read-for-school, theater
review:
“does the word homophobia mean anything to you�
]]> 34120242 Play: 2 acts; 6 scenes; Epilogue]]> Qui Nguyen ruby 0 4.00 2015
author: Qui Nguyen
name: ruby
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2022/10/24
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
love reading things for class in a delirious state now im crying about tong because i am tong and i want a romance like tong and i want a musical number and i want to fight a redneck biker
]]>