en-US Mon, 05 Jun 2023 04:33:36 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 58724626
What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.]]> 165 T. Kingfisher 1250830753 Matthew 0 to-read 3.86 2022
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40864030
They hope to find the answers they seek, while making new friends, learning new concepts, and experiencing the entropic nature of the universe.

Becky Chambers's new series continues to ask: in a world where people have what they want, does having more even matter?

They're going to need to ask it a lot.]]> 152 Becky Chambers Matthew 5 4.40 2022
author: Becky Chambers
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/14
date added: 2023/05/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 68045674
The Eidolon is a 200-page expansion to the story told in Book 3 of KD Edwards' main series, The Tarot Sequence. It begins to show the younger generation of the Sun Court coming together as a true team, which will lead to future novel-length story arcs set at Magnus Academy, New Atlantis's premier spellcasting school.

The book was printed in partnership with Rainbow Crate, the world's largest queer subscription box service, which produced a limited-edition hardcover. The Audible and Kindle versions are available through Amazon. The eBook will begin appearing on more platforms, along with a paperback version, in Spring 2023.]]> 217 K.D. Edwards Matthew 0 to-read 4.35
author: K.D. Edwards
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.35
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59912428 A soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past, and what we choose to leave behind.

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father's beekeeping business.

Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.

And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can she trust him completely . . .

Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in him, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.

Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.]]> 464 Jodi Picoult 1984818384 Matthew 0 to-read 4.05 2022
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59808611
Masterfully constructed with heart and humor, the linked stories in Jonathan Escoffery's If I Survive You center on Trelawny as he struggles to carve out a place for himself amid financial disaster, racism, and flat-out bad luck. After a fight with Topper--himself reckoning with his failures as a parent and his longing for Jamaica--Trelawny claws his way out of homelessness through a series of odd, often hilarious jobs. Meanwhile, his brother, Delano, attempts a disastrous cash grab to get his kids back, and his cousin, Cukie, looks for a father who doesn't want to be found. As each character searches for a foothold, they never forget the profound danger of climbing without a safety net.

Pulsing with vibrant lyricism and inimitable style, sly commentary and contagious laughter, Escoffery's debut unravels what it means to be in between homes and cultures in a world at the mercy of capitalism and whiteness. With If I Survive You, Escoffery announces himself as a prodigious storyteller in a class of his own, a chronicler of American life at its most gruesome and hopeful.]]> 260 Jonathan Escoffery 037460598X Matthew 0 to-read 3.67 2022
author: Jonathan Escoffery
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61416777 57 Lula Lucent Matthew 0 to-read 4.29
author: Lula Lucent
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58496078 If you love fierce bunnies, lots of fun characters, and a brisk pace with plenty of adventure and world building, you may like this YA/adult adventure story about a young rabbit who fights back.

In a post-apocalyptic world where humans are extinct and animals thrive, a young rabbit starts to wonder why rabbits must accept their status as prey animals. She asks pointed questions of the warren elders, and gets exiled for it.

Without a warren, she's enormously vulnerable, but she reaches out to others in desperate straits. Soon, she's locked in a ferocious battle for survival—and maybe even freedom.

Part naturalistic adventure, part modern-day fable, War Bunny is a fast-paced story about friendship, honor, standing up for yourself, and coming of age.

This is the first book in the War Bunny Chronicles. Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and Scribd.

A great adventure read for teens and adults!

Summerday, (War Bunny Chronicles, #2), is available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, and Scribd. ]]> 442 Christopher St. John Matthew 0 to-read 3.94
author: Christopher St. John
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.94
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58756502 A young Black girl goes missing in the woods outside her white Rust Belt town. But she’s not the first—and she may not be the last. . . .

It’s watching.

Liz Rocher is coming home . . . reluctantly. As a Black woman, Liz doesn’t exactly have fond memories of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white town. But her best friend is getting married, so she braces herself for a weekend of awkward and passive-aggressive reunions. Liz has grown, though; she can handle whatever awaits her. But on the day of the wedding, somewhere between dancing and dessert, the bride’s daughter, Caroline, goes missing—and the only thing left behind is a piece of white fabric covered in blood.

It’s taking.

As a frantic search begins, with the police combing the trees for Caroline, Liz is the only one who notices a pattern: a summer night. A missing girl. A party in the woods. She’s seen this before. Keisha Woodson, the only other Black girl in school, walked into the woods with a mysterious man and was later found with her chest cavity ripped open and her heart missing. Liz shudders at the thought that it could have been her, and now, with Caroline missing, it can’t be a coincidence. As Liz starts to dig through the town’s history, she uncovers a horrifying secret about the place she once called home. Children have been going missing in these woods for years. All of them Black. All of them girls.

It’s your turn.

With the evil in the forest creeping closer, Liz knows what she must do: find Caroline, or be entirely consumed by the darkness.]]> 336 Erin E. Adams 0593499301 Matthew 0 to-read 3.64 2022
author: Erin E. Adams
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61361681 For fans of Madeline Miller's Circe, a stunning debut following Clytemnestra, the most notorious villainess of the ancient world and the events that forged her into the legendary queen.

As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her best...

You were born to a king, but you marry a tyrant. You stand by helplessly as he sacrifices your child to placate the gods. You watch him wage war on a foreign shore, and you comfort yourself with violent thoughts of your own. Because this was not the first offence against you. This was not the life you ever deserved. And this will not be your undoing. Slowly, you plot.

But when your husband returns in triumph, you become a woman with a choice.

Acceptance or vengeance, infamy follows both. So, you bide your time and force the gods' hands in the game of retribution. For you understood something long ago that the others never did.

If power isn't given to you, you have to take it for yourself.

A blazing novel set in the world of Ancient Greece for fans of Jennifer Saint and Natalie Haynes, this is a thrilling tale of power and prophecies, of hatred, love, and of an unforgettable Queen who fiercely dealt out death to those who wronged her.]]> 435 Costanza Casati 1728268230 Matthew 0 to-read 4.22 2023
author: Costanza Casati
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60840490 Two track and field athletes find an unexpected but powerful love in this unapologetically blunt and unforgettably real YA debut.
Ěý
Sebastian Villeda is over it. Over his rep. Over his bros. Over being "Bash the Flash," fastest sprinter in South Jersey. His dad is gone, his mom is dead, and his stepfather is clueless. Bash has no idea what he wants out of life. Until he meets Sandro.
Ěý
Sandro Miceli is too nice for his own good. The middle child in an always-growing, always-screaming Italian family, Sandro walks around on a broken foot to not bother his busy parents. All he wants is to get out and never look back.
Ěý
When fate—in the form of a party that gets busted—brings these two very different boys together, neither of them could’ve predicted finding a love that they’d risk everything for…]]> 400 James Acker 1335428623 Matthew 0 to-read 4.24 2023
author: James Acker
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60461898
Forced to flee her home once more, Xingyin and her companions venture to unexplored lands of the Immortal Realm, encountering legendary creatures and shrewd monarchs, beloved friends and bitter adversaries. With alliances shifting quicker than the tides, Xingyin has to overcome past grudges and enmities to forge a new path forward, seeking aid where she never imagined she would. As an unspeakable terror sweeps across the realm, Xingyin must uncover the truth of her heart and claw her way through devastation--to rise against this evil before it destroys everything she holds dear, and the worlds she has grown to love... even if doing so demands the greatest price of all.

The stunning sequel to Daughter of the Moon Goddess delves deeper into beloved Chinese mythology, concluding the epic story of Xingyin--the daughter of Chang'e and the mortal archer, Houyi--as she battles a grave new threat to the realm, in this powerful tale of love, sacrifice, and hope.]]> 466 Sue Lynn Tan 0063031361 Matthew 0 to-read 4.00 2022
author: Sue Lynn Tan
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60017804 A road trip rom-com about heartbreak, social media hijinks, and learning to be happy with who you are, perfect for fans of Becky Albertalli and Phil Stamper.

One of the most hilarious, heart-flippingly romantic, charmingly observant writers in the game right now. --Becky Albertalli, author of Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda

When their ex-boyfriends get together and start Instagramming a disgustingly perfect summer of love, Jack and Nate decide to concoct a mutual Insta-worthy summer adventure of their own to prove they're just fine and everything's great.

Of course, it's hard to have an epic summer road trip when they're stuck in a van with Nate's mid-life crisis-bound parents and his annoying younger sister. And it's been years since Jack and Nate have said more than a few sentences to each other. But their followers don't have to know any of that.

How hard could faking the high life be? Posting as @TheHeartBreakBoys, the duo stumbles into one hilarious situation after another--and each discover that maybe the cure for heartbreak has been the boy riding next to him all along.]]> 384 Simon James Green 0358617251 Matthew 0 to-read 3.96 2020
author: Simon James Green
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 45304101 A dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris

In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico's funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister.

Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.

The Great Believers has become a critically acclaimed, indelible piece of literature; it was selected as one of New York Times Best 10 Books of the Year, a Washington Post Notable Book, a Buzzfeed Book of the Year, a Skimm Reads pick, and a pick for the New York Public Library's Best Books of the year.]]> 421 Rebecca Makkai 073522353X Matthew 0 to-read 4.26 2018
author: Rebecca Makkai
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56892889 An "effervescent" (Rachel Lynn Solomon) stand-alone Christmas LGBTQIA+ New Adult RomCom, perfect for fans of Schitt's Creek and Red White & Royal Blue.

BRING A LITTLE JOY TO THE WORLD? NOT TODAY, SANTA.

Matthew Prince is young, rich, and thoroughly spoiled. So what if his parents barely remember he exists and the press is totally obsessed with him? He's on top of the world. But one major PR misstep later, and Matthew is cut off and shipped away to spend the holidays in his grandparents' charming small town hellscape. Population: who cares?

It's bad enough he's stuck in some festive winter wonderland—it's even worse that he has to share space with Hector Martinez, an obnoxiously attractive local who's unimpressed with anything and everything Matthew does.

Just when it looks like the holiday season is bringing nothing but heated squabbles, the charity gala loses its coordinator and Matthew steps in as a saintly act to get home early on good behavior...with Hector as his maddening plus-one. But even a Grinch can't resist the unexpected joy of found family, and in the end, the forced proximity and infectious holiday cheer might be enough to make a lonely Prince's heart grow three sizes this year.]]> 304 Timothy Janovsky 1728250617 Matthew 0 to-read 3.62 2022
author: Timothy Janovsky
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62037702 Yael's childhood best friend, Molina, has lived the opposite a stern and serious member of The Sunrisers, the universe's premiere peacekeeping organization, she's just been promoted to Captain, serving under her father. Her first assignment of her new Bring down The Order of the Banshee.
Yael and Molina now find themselves on opposite sides of a conflict neither of them will escape unscathed. The love they have for each other is the same as when they were young, but either their personal values or their love will break.
In this game of cat and mouse, both women must use all their wits and tricks to stay ahead of their new enemy. Will order triumph, or will chaos? No matter what, Yael and Molina will both lose.]]> 324 Robyn Singer 1953971598 Matthew 0 to-read 3.30
author: Robyn Singer
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.30
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60462539 Set against a changing Singapore, a sweeping novel about one boy's unique gifts and the childhood love that will complicate the fate of his community and country

Ah Boon is born into a fishing village amid the heat and beauty of twentieth-century coastal Singapore in the waning years of British rule. He is a gentle boy who is not much interested in fishing, preferring to spend his days playing with the neighbor girl, Siok Mei. But when he discovers he has the unique ability to locate bountiful, movable islands that no one else can find, he feels a new sense of obligation and possibility--something to offer the community and impress the spirited girl he has come to love.

By the time they are teens, Ah Boon and Siok Mei are caught in the tragic sweep of history: the Japanese army invades, the resistance rises, grief intrudes, and the future of the fishing village is in jeopardy. As the nation hurtles toward rebirth, the two friends, newly empowered, must decide who they want to be, and what they are willing to give up.

An aching love story and powerful coming-of-age that reckons with the legacy of British colonialism, the World War II Japanese occupation, and the pursuit of modernity, The Great Reclamation confronts the wounds of progress, the sacrifices of love, and the difficulty of defining home when nature and nation collide, literally shifting the land beneath people's feet.]]> 464 Rachel Heng 059342011X Matthew 0 to-read 3.99 2023
author: Rachel Heng
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60181538 Henry Gerber was the father of American gay liberation.

Born in 1892 in Germany, Henry Gerber was expelled from school as a boy and lost several jobs as a young man because of his homosexual activities. He emigrated to the United States and enlisted in the army for employment. After his release, he explored Chicago’s gay subculture: cruising Bughouse Square, getting arrested for “disorderly conduct,� and falling in love. He was institutionalized for being gay, branded an “enemy alien� at the end of World War I, and given a choice: to rejoin the army or be imprisoned in a federal penitentiary.

Gerber re-enlisted and was sent to Germany in 1920. In Berlin, he discovered a vibrant gay rights movement, which made him vow to advocate for the rights of gay men at home. He founded the Society for Human Rights, the first legally recognized US gay-rights organization, on December 10, 1924.

When police caught wind of it, he and two members were arrested. He lost his job, went to court three times, and went bankrupt. Released, he moved to New York, disheartened.

Later in life, he joined the DC chapter of the Mattachine Society, a gay-rights advocacy group founded by Harry Hay who had heard of Gerber’s group, leading him to found Mattachine.Ěý

An Angel in Sodom is the first and long overdue biography of the founder of the first US gay rights organization.]]> 304 Jim Elledge 1641606053 Matthew 0 to-read 3.65 2022
author: Jim Elledge
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60702777
The conventional wisdom about Felix Frankfurter—Harvard law professor and Supreme Court justice—is that he struggled to fill the seat once held by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Scholars have portrayed Frankfurter as a judicial failure, a liberal lawyer turned conservative justice, and the Warren Court’s principal villain. And yet none of these characterizations rings true.

A pro-government, pro-civil rights liberal who rejected shifting political labels, Frankfurter advocated for judicial restraint—he believed that people should seek change not from the courts but through the democratic political process. Indeed, he knew American presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, advised Franklin Roosevelt, and inspired his students and law clerks to enter government service.

Organized around presidential administrations and major political and world events, this definitive biography chronicles Frankfurter’s impact on American life. As a young government lawyer, he befriended Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Brandeis, and Holmes. As a Harvard law professor, he earned fame as a civil libertarian, Zionist, and New Deal power broker. As a justice, he hired the first African American law clerk and helped the Court achieve unanimity in outlawing racially segregated schools in Brown v. Board of Education.

In this sweeping narrative, Brad Snyder offers a full and fascinating portrait of the remarkable life and legacy of a long misunderstood American figure. This is the biography of an Austrian Jewish immigrant who arrived in the United States at age eleven speaking not a word of English, who by age twenty-six befriended former president Theodore Roosevelt, and who by age fifty was one of Franklin Roosevelt’s most trusted advisers. It is the story of a man devoted to democratic ideals, a natural orator and often overbearing justice, whose passion allowed him to amass highly influential friends and helped create the liberal establishment.]]> 957 Brad Snyder 1324004886 Matthew 0 to-read 4.44 2022
author: Brad Snyder
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57695734 From International Latino Book Award-winning author Ann Dávila Cardinal comes a gorgeously written family saga about a Puerto Rican woman who finds herself gifted (or cursed?) with a strange ability.

There was always an old woman dying in the back room of her family’s house when Isla was a child...

Isla Larsen Sanchez’s life begins to unravel when her father passes away. Instead of being comforted at home in New Jersey, her mother starts leaving her in Puerto Rico with her grandmother and great-aunt each summer like a piece of forgotten luggage.

When Isla turns eighteen, her grandmother, a great storyteller, dies. It is then that Isla discovers she has a gift passed down through her family’s cuentistas. The tales of dead family storytellers are brought back to life, replaying themselves over and over in front of her.

At first, Isla is enchanted by this connection to the Sanchez cuentistas. But when Isla has a vision of an old murder mystery, she realizes that if she can't solve it to make the loop end, these seemingly harmless stories could cost Isla her life.]]> 315 Ann Dávila Cardinal 1728250773 Matthew 0 to-read 3.77 2022
author: Ann Dávila Cardinal
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60621176 The first book of the smash-hit Wayward Pines trilogy, from the New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter and Recursion

Secret service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines, Idaho, with a clear mission: locate and recover two federal agents who went missing in the bucolic town one month earlier. But within minutes of his arrival, Ethan is involved in a violent accident. He comes to in a hospital, with no ID, no cell phone, and no briefcase. The medical staff seems friendly enough, but something feels...off.

As the days pass, Ethan's investigation into the disappearance of his colleagues turns up more questions than answers. Why can't he get any phone calls through to his wife and son in the outside world? Why doesn't anyone believe he is who he says he is? And what is the purpose of the electrified fences surrounding the town? Are they meant to keep the residents in? Or something else out?

Each step closer to the truth takes Ethan further from the world he thought he knew, from the man he thought he was, until he must face a horrifying fact--he may never get out of Wayward Pines alive.]]> 300 Blake Crouch 0593598326 Matthew 0 to-read 3.95 2012
author: Blake Crouch
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59424755
In Calcutta’s notorious red-light district, Lalee aspires to a better life. Her unfailingly loyal client Tilu Shau has dreams too. A heady romantic and marginal novelist, Tilu is in love with the indifferent Lalee and wants to liberate her from her street life with marriage. But when a fellow sex worker and young mother is brutally murdered, the solicitous madam of the Blue Lotus invites Lalee to take the woman’s place “upstairs� as a high-end escort. The offer comes with the promise of a more lucrative life but quickly spirals into violence, corruption, and unfathomable secrets that threaten to upset the fragile stability of Lalee’s very existence. As Tilu is drawn deeper into his rescue mission, he and Lalee embark on life-altering journeys to escape a savage fate.

As much a page-turner as it is poignant, Small Deaths is a brilliantly drawn modern noir that exposes the reality of society’s preyed-upon outcasts, their fierce resilience, and the dangerous impediments that stand in the way of their dignity, love, and survival.]]> 319 Rijula Das 1542036682 Matthew 0 to-read 3.52 2021
author: Rijula Das
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59937680 From J. Todd Scott comes a chillingly engrossing thriller about a cult survivor who must confront the horrors of her past to ensure the safety of the future.

Ten years after a fiery raid kills her family, former cult member Sybilla “Billie� Laure has a completely new identity. She’s settled in rural Colorado with her daughter, hoping for a quieter life. But the world has other plans.

With wildfires raging and birds dropping from the sky, Billie wonders if her cult leader father’s apocalyptic predictions are finally coming true. When an intruder murders her husband and kidnaps her daughter, Billie has no choice but to confront the secrets of her past. But Billie’s journey has other perils, too—namely, a police chief hot on her trail, determined to expose the dangers of the defunct doomsday cult.

To save her daughter, Billie will have to go back to where it all began—to the ruined compound in New Mexico where the real threat is the truth.]]> 416 J. Todd Scott 1662500408 Matthew 0 to-read 3.54 2022
author: J. Todd Scott
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58523656 How can we live with integrity and pleasure in this world of police brutality and racism? An Asian American activist is challenged by his mother to face this question in this powerful—and funny—debut novel of generational change, a mother’s secret, and an activist’s coming-of-age

Twenty-one-year-old Reed is fed up. Angry about the killing of a Black man by an Asian American NYPD officer, he wants to drop out of college and devote himself to the Black Lives Matter movement. But would that truly bring him closer to the moral life he seeks?

In a series of intimate, charged conversations, his mother—once the leader of a Korean-Black coalition—demands that he rethink his outrage, and along with it, what it means to be an organizer, a student, an ally, an American, and a son. As Reed zips around his hometown of Los Angeles with his mother, searching and questioning, he faces a revelation that will change everything.

Inspired by his family’s roots in activism, Ryan Lee Wong offers an extraordinary debut novel for readers of Anthony Veasna So, Rachel Kushner, and Michelle Zauner: a book that is as humorous as it is profound, a celebration of seeking a life that is both virtuous and fun, an ode to mothering and being mothered.]]> 175 Ryan Lee Wong 1646221486 Matthew 0 to-read 3.59 2022
author: Ryan Lee Wong
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60323114 For over thirty years, Drizzt Do'Urden has been one of the most important characters in fantasy literature. Throughout his novels, Drizzt has written down his thoughts about life and love, the nature of good and evil, the joys (and frustrations) of family, and so much more. Bound together for the first time, the collected wisdom and philosophy of Drizzt will be a beautifully-packaged gift book—complete with deckled edges, faux-leather cover, and an introduction by bestselling fantasy author Evan Winter—for his biggest fans and readers wanting to learn about this iconic figure.

Growing up in the chaos of Menzoberranzan, one young drow elf tries to make sense of the conflict between the traditions he must serve and the protestations of his own conscience. To lay bare the injustices he sees and to strengthen his own resolve to follow the ethical call of his heart, Drizzt Do'Urden is both an agent of action and self-reflection.

These, his writings, become critical to his salvation, the way in which he makes sense of a world that to him makes little sense at all. The impact of his words, of his meditation, of his inward determination will carry him forward, forcing upon him decisions that others would consider noble, perhaps, but surely foolhardy…impossible even.

But to Drizzt, the only choice is to do what is true and right.

These journal entries, then, show the struggle between what has always been and what should be, where the courage to transcend the many obstacles of societal expectations and entrenched power—if nowhere else, then in the soul of an idealist. They were written to help Drizzt understand himself. But the universal truths will resonate with readers throughout the Realms.]]> 432 R.A. Salvatore 006301128X Matthew 0 to-read 4.01
author: R.A. Salvatore
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.01
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55868710 272 Pik-Shuen Fung 0771096461 Matthew 0 to-read 4.21 2021
author: Pik-Shuen Fung
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59835059 A tale of doom and ambition, loss and revenge, love and murder.

Unwieldy Creatures, a biracial queer, nonbinary retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, follows the story of three beings who all navigate life from the margins: Plum (she/her), a queer biracial Chinese intern at one of the world’s top embryology labs, who runs away from home to openly be with her girlfriend only to be left on her own; Dr. Frank (she/her), a queer biracial Indonesian scientist who compromises everything she claims to love in the name of science and ambition when she sets out to procreate without sperm or egg; and Dr. Frank’s nonbinary creation, painstakingly brought into the world due to complications at birth that result from a cruel twist of revenge, only to be abandoned. Plum struggles to determine the limits of her own ambition when Dr. Frank offers her a chance to assist with her next project. How far will Plum go in the name of scientific advancement and what is she willing to risk?]]> 296 Addie Brook Tsai 1938841360 Matthew 0 to-read 3.74 2022
author: Addie Brook Tsai
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59807966 Magic! Murder! Shipboard romance!

Maud Blyth has always longed for adventure. She expected plenty of it when she volunteered to serve as an old lady’s companion on an ocean liner, in order to help her beloved older brother unravel a magical conspiracy that began generations ago.

What she didn’t expect was for the old lady in question to turn up dead on the first day of the voyage. Now she has to deal with a dead body, a disrespectful parrot, and the lovely, dangerously outrageous Violet Debenham, who’s also returning home to England. Violet is everything that Maud has been trained to distrust yet can’t help but desire: a magician, an actress, and a magnet for scandal.

Surrounded by the open sea and a ship full of suspects, Maud and Violet must first drop the masks that they’ve both learned to wear before they can unmask a murderer and somehow get their hands on a magical object worth killing for—without ending up dead in the water themselves.]]> 388 Freya Marske 1250788919 Matthew 0 to-read 3.86 2022
author: Freya Marske
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 51959368
Ken Liu is one of the most lauded short story writers of our time. This collection includes a selection of his science fiction and fantasy stories from the last five years � sixteen of his best � plus a new novelette.

In addition to these seventeen selections, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories also features an excerpt from the forthcoming book three in the Dandelion Dynasty series, "The Veiled Throne".

Contents:
- Ghost Days (2013)
- Maxwell's Demon (2012)
- The Reborn (2014)
- Thoughts and Prayers (2019)
- Byzantine Empathy (2018)
- The Gods Will Not Be Chained (2014)
- Staying Behind (2011)
- Real Artists (2011)
- The Gods Will Not Be Slain (2014)
- Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer (2011)
- The Gods Have Not Died in Vain (2015)
- Memories of My Mother (2012)
- Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit - Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts (2016)
- Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard (2020)
- A Chase Beyond the Storms: An excerpt from "The Veiled Throne", Book 3 of the Dandelion Dynasty
- The Hidden Girl (2017)
- Seven Birthdays (2016)
- The Message (2012)
- Cutting (2012)

]]> 432 Ken Liu 1982134046 Matthew 0 to-read 3.90 2020
author: Ken Liu
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60839741 In this gripping debut tinged with supernatural horror, a young Cree woman's dreams lead her on a perilous journey of self-discovery that ultimately forces her to confront the toll of a legacy of violence on her family, her community and the land they call home.

When Mackenzie wakes up with a severed crow's head in her hands, she panics. Only moments earlier she had been fending off masses of birds in a snow-covered forest. In bed, when she blinks, the head disappears.

Night after night, Mackenzie's dreams return her to a memory from before her sister Sabrina's untimely death: a weekend at the family's lakefront campsite, long obscured by a fog of guilt. But when the waking world starts closing in, too--a murder of crows stalks her every move around the city, she wakes up from a dream of drowning throwing up water, and gets threatening text messages from someone claiming to be Sabrina--Mackenzie knows this is more than she can handle alone.

Traveling north to her rural hometown in Alberta, she finds her family still steeped in the same grief that she ran away to Vancouver to escape. They welcome her back, but their shaky reunion only seems to intensify her dreams--and make them more dangerous.

What really happened that night at the lake, and what did it have to do with Sabrina's death? Only a bad Cree would put their family at risk, but what if whatever has been calling Mackenzie home was already inside?]]> 259 Jessica Johns 0385548699 Matthew 0 to-read 3.91 2023
author: Jessica Johns
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60321513
When a terrifying new breed of vampire is sighted outside of the city, Remy prepares to investigate alone. But then he encounters the shockingly warmhearted vampire heiress Xiaodan Song and her infuriatingly arrogant fiancé, vampire lord Zidan Malekh, who may hold the key to defeating the creatures—though he knows associating with them won’t do his reputation any favors. When he’s offered a spot alongside them to find the truth about the mutating virus Rot that’s plaguing the kingdom, Remy faces a choice.

It’s one he’s certain he’ll regret.

But as the three face dangerous hardships during their journey, Remy develops fond and complicated feelings for the couple. He begins to question what he holds true about vampires, as well as the story behind his own family legacy. As the Rot continues to spread across the kingdom, Remy must decide where his loyalties lie: with his father and the kingdom he’s been trained all his life to defend or the vampires who might just be the death of him.]]> 512 Rin Chupeco 1982195711 Matthew 0 to-read 3.94 2022
author: Rin Chupeco
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13651 387 Ursula K. Le Guin Matthew 5 sci-fi, postmodern Ursula K. Le Guin's novel, The Dispossessed, is one of those treasures in the science fiction genre that will not only make you think deeply and at length, but has skillfully avoided sacrificing so much as an inch in the department of beautiful prose in order to achieve its admirable density of ideas.

I normally can't stand to reread a book until four or five years after the most recent time that I've read it. It is very seldom that I break that habit, and yet I find myself wanting to reach for it again already, to dive into it again once or twice more before the year is over. I feel like a deep sea diver, convinced that I've found a place I can dive over and over again and keep surfacing with yet more treasure.

I can't say for certain that this book has definitively climbed proverbial Everest to sit at the summit of my list of favorite books, but I will confidently say that by the hundredth page it had claimed the top spot on my list of favorite reads so far in 2022.

The set up is fairly simple. A world, Urras, very much analogous to our own and instantly familiar to the reader, experienced great resource disparities. In response to the great gulfs between the Haves and the Have Nots of this world a philosophy which is essentially anarcho-syndicalism grew around a dauntless Ghandi-analog thinker named Odo and this philosophy's followers came to be known as Odonians. Ultimately, the powers that be on Urras offered the Odonians the barren but still inhabitable moon as a means of ensuring an end to the unrest. The Odonians left Urras, colonizing Annares and the two have been estranged from each other for generations-- save from the minute amount of goods shipped between the two.

Enter our protagonist, Shevek. No last name and I don't want to spoil the delicious reason why. He is a superbly gifted physicist, and an apparent traitor to his fellow Odonians/anarchists, leaving his life on Annares for a cushy position on Urras. Except that he means to tear down the walls between the two, and find a path toward reconciliation using what tools he has. The book is organized into alternating chapters, with odd numbered chapters occupied by the present/future Shevek on Urras and even numbered chapters showing us a "past" Shevek on his home planet of Annares. There is a plot, a plot in which big events happen, but I would not say that this is a plot driven novel. The interesting events largely form a backdrop to provide context for the bigger picture. Its beauty is more in its ideas and the narrative skill (including organizational shape, which will be symbolic to the reader paying close attention) with which it was written.

This, it would appear, is generally agreed to be Le Guin's most political novel. In it, she fits a beautifully rich web of social theorizing that came on the back of researching Kropotkin and Paul Goodman while learning about alternative theories against war as her country decimated Vietnam. The book certainly hits the key planks of anarchist theory time (mutual aid and solidarity), but wades into deeper waters still in several key ways. In envisioning the two main societies in the book (The Odonians on Annares and the Urrassians of Urras), and their deep connections to one another despite their long held estrangement, Le Guin demonstrates an incredible knack for portraying complex social relationships be they between individuals and other individuals, between individuals and institutions (such as the state!) and between institutions and other institutions. This element of the book still has me thinking. Le Guin's societies, fictions though they are, are so well developed as to seem case studies. It's a real treat for any political philosophy nerd.

The second main strain of ideas in the book, and Le Guin's other great subversion of thought, is what has me eager to read this book again and again until I feel I've dug what I can out of it. Shevek's great work, that which has crowned his passions, and the struggle for the pursuit of which causes him much hardship, is really Le Guin's great work in this novel. Shevek/ Le Guin work out a deeply subversive philosophy of time. In the book, the actualization of the philosophy could potentially change everything. On our "real world" side of the novel, the framework still possesses the capacity to change the way we look at everything.

There's a point, roughly halfway through the book, where Shevek notes that the birds which have been silent in their trees all Winter have begun to sing again. It represents a great turmoil within him, and it recalled to me another book I've read recently which liked to make me think. This moment with the birds and their song representing inner turmoil made me think of A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers in which the protagonist, Dex, sets out upon a life changing calling in answer to their own inner turmoil, spurred by restlessness at never hearing the chirping of crickets (which may or may not exist). I can't help but wonder if Chambers drew inspiration from this book.

I absolutely loved this book and I wholeheartedly give it 5 out of 5 stars. I think there is a lot here for a fan of narrative structure to get excited about and a great wealth for junkies of political philosophy and postmodernist thinking like myself to stew over several nights after reading it. Even if that's not your jam, it's just a damn good book with beautiful sentences and a fascinating world for any fan of the genre to explore.

For more book reviews, check out my Substack: ]]> 4.24 1974
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1974
rating: 5
read at: 2022/08/21
date added: 2022/08/25
shelves: sci-fi, postmodern
review:
Ursula K. Le Guin's novel, The Dispossessed, is one of those treasures in the science fiction genre that will not only make you think deeply and at length, but has skillfully avoided sacrificing so much as an inch in the department of beautiful prose in order to achieve its admirable density of ideas.

I normally can't stand to reread a book until four or five years after the most recent time that I've read it. It is very seldom that I break that habit, and yet I find myself wanting to reach for it again already, to dive into it again once or twice more before the year is over. I feel like a deep sea diver, convinced that I've found a place I can dive over and over again and keep surfacing with yet more treasure.

I can't say for certain that this book has definitively climbed proverbial Everest to sit at the summit of my list of favorite books, but I will confidently say that by the hundredth page it had claimed the top spot on my list of favorite reads so far in 2022.

The set up is fairly simple. A world, Urras, very much analogous to our own and instantly familiar to the reader, experienced great resource disparities. In response to the great gulfs between the Haves and the Have Nots of this world a philosophy which is essentially anarcho-syndicalism grew around a dauntless Ghandi-analog thinker named Odo and this philosophy's followers came to be known as Odonians. Ultimately, the powers that be on Urras offered the Odonians the barren but still inhabitable moon as a means of ensuring an end to the unrest. The Odonians left Urras, colonizing Annares and the two have been estranged from each other for generations-- save from the minute amount of goods shipped between the two.

Enter our protagonist, Shevek. No last name and I don't want to spoil the delicious reason why. He is a superbly gifted physicist, and an apparent traitor to his fellow Odonians/anarchists, leaving his life on Annares for a cushy position on Urras. Except that he means to tear down the walls between the two, and find a path toward reconciliation using what tools he has. The book is organized into alternating chapters, with odd numbered chapters occupied by the present/future Shevek on Urras and even numbered chapters showing us a "past" Shevek on his home planet of Annares. There is a plot, a plot in which big events happen, but I would not say that this is a plot driven novel. The interesting events largely form a backdrop to provide context for the bigger picture. Its beauty is more in its ideas and the narrative skill (including organizational shape, which will be symbolic to the reader paying close attention) with which it was written.

This, it would appear, is generally agreed to be Le Guin's most political novel. In it, she fits a beautifully rich web of social theorizing that came on the back of researching Kropotkin and Paul Goodman while learning about alternative theories against war as her country decimated Vietnam. The book certainly hits the key planks of anarchist theory time (mutual aid and solidarity), but wades into deeper waters still in several key ways. In envisioning the two main societies in the book (The Odonians on Annares and the Urrassians of Urras), and their deep connections to one another despite their long held estrangement, Le Guin demonstrates an incredible knack for portraying complex social relationships be they between individuals and other individuals, between individuals and institutions (such as the state!) and between institutions and other institutions. This element of the book still has me thinking. Le Guin's societies, fictions though they are, are so well developed as to seem case studies. It's a real treat for any political philosophy nerd.

The second main strain of ideas in the book, and Le Guin's other great subversion of thought, is what has me eager to read this book again and again until I feel I've dug what I can out of it. Shevek's great work, that which has crowned his passions, and the struggle for the pursuit of which causes him much hardship, is really Le Guin's great work in this novel. Shevek/ Le Guin work out a deeply subversive philosophy of time. In the book, the actualization of the philosophy could potentially change everything. On our "real world" side of the novel, the framework still possesses the capacity to change the way we look at everything.

There's a point, roughly halfway through the book, where Shevek notes that the birds which have been silent in their trees all Winter have begun to sing again. It represents a great turmoil within him, and it recalled to me another book I've read recently which liked to make me think. This moment with the birds and their song representing inner turmoil made me think of A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers in which the protagonist, Dex, sets out upon a life changing calling in answer to their own inner turmoil, spurred by restlessness at never hearing the chirping of crickets (which may or may not exist). I can't help but wonder if Chambers drew inspiration from this book.

I absolutely loved this book and I wholeheartedly give it 5 out of 5 stars. I think there is a lot here for a fan of narrative structure to get excited about and a great wealth for junkies of political philosophy and postmodernist thinking like myself to stew over several nights after reading it. Even if that's not your jam, it's just a damn good book with beautiful sentences and a fascinating world for any fan of the genre to explore.

For more book reviews, check out my Substack:
]]> 58988176 Part memoir, part sweeping journalistic saga: As Casey Parks follows the mystery of a stranger's past, she is forced to reckon with her own sexuality, her fraught Southern identity, her tortured yet loving relationship with her mother, and the complicated role of faith in her life.

When Casey Parks came out as a lesbian in college back in 2002, she assumed her life in the South was over. Her mother shunned her, and her pastor asked God to kill her. But then Parks's grandmother, a stern conservative who grew up picking cotton, pulled her aside and revealed a startling secret: "I grew up across the street from a woman who lived as a man." Then she implored Casey to find out what happened to him. Diary of a Misfit is the story of Parks's life-changing journey to unravel the mystery of Roy Hudgins, the small-town country singer from grandmother's youth, all the while confronting ghosts of her own.

For ten years, Parks traveled back to rural Louisiana and knocked on strangers' doors, dug through nursing home records, and doggedly searched for Roy's own diaries, trying to uncover what Roy was like as a person--what he felt; what he thought; and how he grappled with his sense of otherness. With an enormous heart and an unstinting sense of vulnerability, Parks writes about finding oneself through someone else's story, and about forging connections across the gulfs that divide us.]]> 368 Casey Parks 052565853X Matthew 0 to-read 4.10 2022
author: Casey Parks
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60199855 An NPR Best Book of the Year, exploring the impact of Latinos' new collective racial identity on the way Americans understand race, with a new afterword by the author

Latinos will comprise a third of the American population in just a matter of decades, but many Americans still struggle with two basic questions: Who are Latinos, and where do they fit in America's racial order? In this timely and important examination of Latinx identity Laura E. GĂłmez, a leading critical-race scholar, argues that it is only recently that Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, Central Americans, and others are seeing themselves (and being seen by others) under the banner of a cohesive racial identity. And the catalyst for this emergent identity, she argues, has been the ferocity of anti-Latino racism.]]> 288 Laura E. GĂłmez 1620977613 Matthew 0 to-read 3.67 2020
author: Laura E. GĂłmez
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61880099
Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood, the gay sons of immigrants featured in Brown and Gay in LA could not have felt further removed from a world where queerness was accepted and celebrated. Instead, the men profiled here maneuver through family and friendship circles where masculinity dominates, gay sexuality is unspoken, and heterosexuality is strictly enforced. For these men, the path to sexual freedom often involves chasing the dreams while resisting the expectations of their immigrant parents—and finding community in each other.

Ocampo also details his own story of reconciling his queer Filipino American identity and those of men like him. He shows what it was like for these young men to grow up gay in an immigrant family, to be the one gay person in their school and ethnic community, and to be a person of color in predominantly White gay spaces. Brown and Gay in LA is an homage to second-generation gay men and their radical redefinition of what it means to be gay, to be a man, to be a person of color, and, ultimately, what it means to be an American.]]> 240 Anthony Christian Ocampo 1479824259 Matthew 0 to-read 4.35 2022
author: Anthony Christian Ocampo
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 85893 312 Samuel R. Delany 081956298X Matthew 0 to-read 3.75 1976
author: Samuel R. Delany
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60021457
The future is sh* the literal kind. For most of human history we’ve been, well, disinclined to take a closer look at our body’s natural product—the complex antihero of this story—save for gleaning some prophecy of our own health. But if we were to take more than a passing look at our poop, we would spy a veritable cornucopia of possibilities. We would see potent medicine, sustainable power, and natural fertilizer to restore the world’s depleted lands. We would spy a time capsule of evidence for understanding past lives and murderous ends. We would glimpse effective ways of measuring and improving human health from the cradle to the grave, early warnings of community outbreaks like Covid-19, and new means of identifying environmental harm—and then reversing it.

Flush is both an urgent exploration of the world’s single most squandered natural resource, and a cri de coeur (or cri de colon?) for the vast, hidden value in our “waste.� Award-winning journalist and microbiologist Bryn Nelson, PhD, leads readers through the colon and beyond with infectious enthusiasm, helping to usher in a necessary mental shift that could restore our balance with the rest of the planet and save us from ourselves. Unlocking poop’s enormous potential will require us to overcome our shame and disgust and embrace our role as the producers and architects of a more circular economy in which lowly byproducts become our species� salvation. Locked within you is a medicine cabinet, a biogas pipeline, a glass of drinking water, a mound of fuel briquettes; it’s time to open the doors (carefully!). A dose of medicine, a glass of water, a gallon of rocket fuel, an acre of sometimes hope arrives in surprising packages.]]> 432 Bryn Nelson 1538720027 Matthew 0 to-read 3.89
author: Bryn Nelson
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.89
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61190701 In this lush, magical, queer, and feminist take on Hamlet in modern-day New York City, a neuro-atypical physicist, along with his best friend Horatio and artist ex-fiancée, Lia, are caught up in the otherworldly events surrounding the death of his father.

Meet Ben Dane: brilliant, devastating, devoted, honest to a fault (truly, a fault). His Broadway theater baron father is dead--but on purpose or by accident? The question rips him apart.

Unable to face alone his mother's ghastly remarriage to his uncle, Ben turns to his dearest friend, Horatio Patel, whom he hasn't seen since their relationship changed forever from platonic to something...other. Loyal to a fault (truly, a fault), Horatio is on the first flight to New York City when he finds himself next to a sly tailor who portends inevitable disaster--and who seems ominously like an architect of mayhem himself.

Meanwhile, Lia, sundered her from her loved ones thanks to her addiction recovery, and torn from her art, has been drawn into the fold of three florists from New Orleans, seemingly ageless sisters who teach her the language of flowers and whose magical bouquets hold both curses and cures--for a price.

On one explosive night, these kinetic forces will collide, and the only possible outcome is death. But in the masterly hands of Lyndsay Faye, the story we all know has abundant surprises in store. Impish, captivating, and achingly romantic, this is Hamlet as you've never seen it before.]]> 400 Lyndsay Faye 0525535918 Matthew 0 to-read 4.05 2021
author: Lyndsay Faye
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61741166
Zack Standish couldn't be happier that his best friend is back home, and although he's not sure how to respond to the fact that Josh is gay, there is one very clear silver lining: Missy, the girl of his dreams, is dating his best friend's crush.

The plan is simple:

1. Break up Brian and Missy.

2. Confess their love to their respective crushes.

3. Live happily ever after.

It's a win-win for everyone... or maybe not.

When the plan spirals out of control, Zack and Josh must choose what matters most—their childhood friendship or the romance just within reach.

Debut young adult author Dean Backus spins a fun and crafty tale of friendship, identity, secrets, and love in this LGBTQ romantic comedy set in the 1990s at a private Seattle high school. Darts and Flowers is inspired by Shakespeare’s comedies and iconic teen films of the 90s.]]> 332 Dean Backus Matthew 0 to-read 4.35
author: Dean Backus
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.35
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57580217 Two lifelong friends, occasional lovers, and constant conmen find themselves on top of the world after founding a company that promises instant enlightenment to its users in this thrilling, brainy caper about scams, schemes, and the absurdity of the American Dream.

At seventeen, Ezra Green doesn’t have a lot going for him. He is shorter than average, gap-toothed, internet-addicted, and halfway to being legally blind. He’s also on his way to Last Chance Camp, the final stop before juvie.

Ezra's summer at Last Chance turns life-changing when he meets Orson, brilliant and Adonis-like, with a mind for hustling. Together, the two embark upon what promises to be a fruitful career of scam artistry. But when they try to pull off their biggest scam yet--NuLife, a corporation that promises its consumers a lifetime of bliss--things start to spin wildly out of control. Searing and charming, Confidence is a story for anyone who knows that the American Dream is just another pyramid scheme.]]> 320 Rafael Frumkin 1982189738 Matthew 0 to-read 3.58 2023
author: Rafael Frumkin
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59808381 From an electrifying new voice, a "stone-cold masterpiece" (Olivia Laing) of queer friendship, first love, and unbridled youth.

It's four in the morning, and our narrator is walking home from the club when they realize the date is February 29th-the birthday of the man who was something like their first love. Piecing together art, letters, and memory, they set about trying to write the story of a doomed affair that first sparked and burned a decade ago.

Ten years earlier, our young narrator and a boy named Thomas James fall into bed with one another over the summer of their graduation. Their ensuing affair, with its violent, animal intensity and its intoxicating and toxic power plays initiates a dance of repulsion and attraction that will cross years, span continents, drag in countless victims-and culminate in terrible betrayal.

At Certain Points We Touch is a story of first love and last rites, conjured against a vivid backdrop of London, San Francisco, and New York-a riotous, razor-sharp coming-of-age story that marks the arrival of an extraordinary new talent.]]> 384 Lauren John Joseph 152663130X Matthew 0 to-read 3.62 2022
author: Lauren John Joseph
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59358268 A darkly humorous, surprisingly poignant, and utterly gripping debut novel about a guy who works in Hell (literally) and is on the cusp of a big promotion if only he can get one more member of the wealthy Harrison family to sell their soul.

Peyote Trip has a pretty good gig in the deals department on the fifth floor of Hell. Sure, none of the pens work, the coffee machine has been out of order for a century, and the only drink on offer is Jägermeister, but Pey has a plan—and all he needs is one last member of the Harrison family to sell their soul.

When the Harrisons retreat to the family lake house for the summer, with their daughter Mickey’s precocious new friend, Ruth, in tow, the opportunity Pey has waited a millennium for might finally be in his grasp. And with the help of his charismatic coworker Calamity, he sets a plan in motion.

But things aren’t always as they seem, on Earth or in Hell. And as old secrets and new dangers scrape away at the Harrisons� shiny surface, revealing the darkness beneath, everyone must face the consequences of their choices.]]> 416 Claudia Lux 0593545761 Matthew 0 to-read 3.78 2022
author: Claudia Lux
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62032647
You've heard of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but what if there were secret forces that prevented a third atomic bomb?

After her mother's death, orphaned child Lee Haeun leaves Korea to find the spring of her family's unspoken past. She arrives in Japan as the first bombs of war drop, only to be kidnapped by the people she believes have saved her. Behind the walls of captivity, Haeun learns news of a secret tunnel that might lead to safety, as evidence comes to light that a person from her mother's life might be inside with her.

Is it possible for her to find a family in this new world, or will she forever be separated by countries at war with one another? As she struggles with her ethnic identity, she also comes to realize the heroes of the story may not be the people she has assumed, and the results of the war may be in the hands of a child.]]> 292 Michaela McCune Matthew 0 to-read 4.77 2022
author: Michaela McCune
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60321061 LIFE IS FULL OF GUARDIAN ANGELS.

Lucas Goodgame lives in Majestic, Pennsylvania, a quaint suburb that has been torn apart by a recent tragedy. Everyone in Majestic sees Lucas as a hero—everyone, that is, except Lucas himself. Insisting that his deceased wife, Darcy, visits him every night in the form of an angel, Lucas spends his time writing letters to his former Jungian analyst, Karl. It is only when Eli, an eighteen-year-old young man whom the community has ostracized, begins camping out in Lucas’s backyard that an unlikely alliance takes shape and the two embark on a journey to heal their neighbors and, most important, themselves.

From Matthew Quick, the New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook, We Are the Light is an unforgettable novel about the quicksand of grief and the daily miracle of love. The humorous, soul-baring story of Lucas Goodgame offers an antidote to toxic masculinity and celebrates the healing power of art. In this tale that will stay with you long after the final page is turned, Quick reminds us that guardian angels are all around us—sometimes in the forms we least expect.]]> 256 Matthew Quick 1668005425 Matthew 0 to-read 3.73 2022
author: Matthew Quick
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59948518 A charming YA rom-com perfect for fans of Red, White, and Royal Blue and What If It’s Us.

Micah Summers runs a popular Instagram full of drawings of his numerous imaginary boyfriends (ninety-nine so far)—though he's never had a real boyfriend before. But when a meet-cute with Boy 100 goes wrong, Micah embarks on a Prince Charming-like quest throughout Chicago to find true love—for real this time.

Will Boy 100 be the One?

Micah is rich, dreamy, and charming. As the “Prince of Chicago,”—the son of local celebrity sports radio host known as the King of Chicago—he has everything going for him. Unfortunately, he’s also the prince of imaginary meet-cutes, since he’s too nervous to actually ask boys out.

Instead, Micah draws each crush to share on Instagram with a post about their imaginary dates. Ninety-nine “boyfriends� later, his account is hugely popular, and everyone is eagerly awaiting Boy 100. So is Micah. He’s determined that Boy 100 will be different. This time, Micah will sweep the boy off his feet, for real!

So when Micah flirts with a hot boy on the L who’s wearing a vegan leather jacket and lugging a ton of library books, he is sure this is Boy 100. But right before he can make his move and ask for the boy’s number, the guy rushes off the train, leaving behind his pumpkin-embroidered jacket. The jacket holds clues to the boy’s identity, so Micah and his friends set off on a quest to return it. Along the way, Micah will discover that the best relationships aren’t fairy tales. In fact, the perfect fit—and true love—might be closer than he thinks.]]> 344 Adam Sass 0593464788 Matthew 0 to-read 3.49 2022
author: Adam Sass
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59251248 Welcome to The Sunbearer Trials, where teen semidioses compete in a series of challenges with the highest of stakes, in this electric new Mexican-inspired fantasy from Aiden Thomas, the New York Times bestselling author of Cemetery Boys.

“Only the most powerful and honorable semidioses get chosen. I’m just a Jade. I’m not a real hero.�

As each new decade begins, the Sun’s power must be replenished so that Sol can keep traveling along the sky and keep the evil Obsidian gods at bay. Ten semidioses between the ages of thirteen and eighteen are selected by Sol himself as the most worthy to compete in The Sunbearer Trials. The winner carries light and life to all the temples of Reino del Sol, but the loser has the greatest honor of all—they will be sacrificed to Sol, their body used to fuel the Sun Stones that will protect the people of Reino del Sol for the next ten years.

Teo, a 17-year-old Jade semidiós and the trans son of Quetzal, goddess of birds, has never worried about the Trials…or rather, he’s only worried for others. His best friend Niya—daughter of Tierra, the god of earth—is one of the strongest heroes of their generation and is much too likely to be chosen this year. He also can’t help but worry (reluctantly, and under protest) for Aurelio, a powerful Gold semidiós and Teo’s friend-turned-rival who is a shoo-in for the Trials. Teo wouldn’t mind taking Aurelio down a notch or two, but a one-in-ten chance of death is a bit too close for Teo’s taste.

But then, for the first time in over a century, Sol chooses a semidiós who isn’t a Gold. In fact, he chooses two: Xio, the 13-year-old child of Mala Suerte, god of bad luck, and…Teo. Now they must compete in five mysterious trials, against opponents who are both more powerful and better trained, for fame, glory, and their own survival.]]> 405 Aiden Thomas 1250822130 Matthew 0 to-read 4.35 2022
author: Aiden Thomas
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 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 Matthew 5 4.05 2019
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2022/08/24
date added: 2022/08/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 44177149 From the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You, a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives.

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned—from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren—an enigmatic artist and single mother—who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town—and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.

Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood—and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.]]> 338 Celeste Ng 0735224315 Matthew 0 to-read 4.07 2017
author: Celeste Ng
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43301737 The mesmerizing adult debut from #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo

Galaxy “Alex� Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs� are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.]]> 476 Leigh Bardugo 1250313082 Matthew 0 to-read 4.13 2019
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61953453
But then my eccentric grandfather buried two million dollars on the property and couldn’t remember where.

So I’m back, and asking Peter for help. He’s an Ivy League lawyer now. Still gorgeous, and able to gut me with a single smile. And I’m still a disappointment, living in the city and washing dishes to get by. As soon as we strike off down the first sunlit path, the Meadows Park magic begins to fill my heart with yearning, lust, and most dangerous of all—dreams.

I’m secretly relieved each time the day ends, leaving us empty-handed. I know it’s wrong—without that money, we could lose the park.

But if I find the treasure, I lose the guy.]]> 232 Rachel Ember 195450070X Matthew 0 to-read 3.89 2022
author: Rachel Ember
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59808295
In 2010 in South Fulton, Tennessee, each household paid the local fire department a yearly fee of $75.00. That year, Gene Cranick's house accidentally caught fire. But the fire department refused to come because Cranick had forgotten to pay his yearly fee, leaving his home in ashes. Observers across the political spectrum agreed―some with horror and some with enthusiasm―that this revealed the true face of libertarianism. But libertarianism did not always require callous indifference to the misfortunes of others.

Modern libertarianism began with Friedrich Hayek’s admirable corrective to the Depression-era vogue for central economic planning. It resisted oppressive state power. It showed how capitalism could improve life for everyone. Yet today, it's a toxic blend of anarchism, disdain for the weak, and rationalization for environmental catastrophe. Libertarians today accept new, radical arguments―which crumble under scrutiny―that justify dishonest business practices and Covid deniers who refuse to wear masks in the name of “freedom.�

Andrew Koppelman’s book traces libertarianism's evolution from Hayek’s moderate pro-market ideas to the romantic fabulism of Murray Rothbard, Robert Nozick, and Ayn Rand, and Charles Koch’s promotion of climate change denial. Burning Down the House is the definitive history of an ideological movement that has reshaped American politics.]]> 320 Andrew Koppelman 1250280133 Matthew 0 to-read 3.75
author: Andrew Koppelman
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.75
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59808602
“Ricks does a tremendous job of putting the reader inside the hearts and souls of the young men and women who risked so much to change America . . . Riveting.� ―Charles Kaiser, The Guardian

In Waging a Good War , the bestselling author Thomas E. Ricks offers a fresh perspective on America’s greatest moral revolution―the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s―and its legacy today. While the Movement has become synonymous with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ethos of nonviolence, Ricks, a Pulitzer Prize–winning war reporter, draws on his deep knowledge of tactics and strategy to advance a surprising but revelatory idea: the greatest victories for Black Americans of the past century were won not by idealism alone, but by paying attention to recruiting, training, discipline, and organization―the hallmarks of any successful military campaign.

An engaging storyteller, Ricks deftly narrates the Movement’s triumphs and defeats. He follows King and other key figures from Montgomery to Memphis, demonstrating that Gandhian nonviolence was a philosophy of active, not passive, resistance―involving the bold and sustained confrontation of the Movement’s adversaries, both on the ground and in the court of public opinion. While bringing legends such as Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis into new focus, Ricks also highlights lesser-known figures who played critical roles in fashioning nonviolence into an effective tool―the activists James Lawson, James Bevel, Diane Nash, and Septima Clark foremost among them. He also offers a new understanding of the Movement’s later difficulties as internal disputes and white backlash intensified. Rich with fresh interpretations of familiar events and overlooked aspects of America’s civil rights struggle, Waging a Good War is an indispensable addition to the literature of racial justice and social change―and one that offers vital lessons for our own time.]]> 448 Thomas E. Ricks 0374605165 Matthew 0 to-read 4.45 2022
author: Thomas E. Ricks
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58363565 In a future where memories are a commodity, bought, sold, swapped, stolen, etc., you never know what you might run across. How about a brutal murder? And the killer wants the evidence back.
That’s just one of the tales.
How about a future with a couple of creepy robot children? One woman only wants her son back, but she gets more than she bargains for.
In another story, a computer genius has a puzzle to solve. She helps a detective try and figure out why there were three seemingly accidental murders, and yet there are no bodies.
There’s a story in which a woman isn’t really sure whether she murdered her husband or not.
And the horror story? Well, is the woman crazy, or is something weird actually happening as she takes her flights of fantasy?
Definitely a dark collection of tales!
Think Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison, mixed with a little bit of Stephen King.]]> 151 Mark Stattelman Matthew 0 to-read 3.87
author: Mark Stattelman
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.87
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60141382 The enchanting second novel in the series Another Day, returning to the world first created in Wicked.

The Oracle of Maracoor, the second in the trilogy called Another Day, continues the story of Elphaba's green-skinned granddaughter, Rain. That strange land, Maracoor--across the ocean from Oz--is beset by an invading army. In the mayhem, Rain and Cossy, a child felon, break out of prison. Helped by a few flying monkeys, they struggle to escape the city before it falls under siege. Their arresting officer, Lucikles, also retreats with his family to a highland redoubt. But safety eludes them all. Chaos thunders upon them in the form of warriors, refugees, and brigands. The very fabric of reality loosens, liberating creatures of myth and legend--huge blue wolves, harpies, and giants made of the very landscape.

Cued in by secrets known only to the most highly placed members of the royal court, Rain and her companions hunt the fabled Oracle of Maracoor for guidance and soothsaying. Rain has to recover her forgotten past if she is to consider returning home. Cossy, the ten-year-old convicted of murder, must become invisible to avoid being taken into custody again. Meanwhile, the Fist of Mara, an arcane artifact that renders all around it barren, hammers against human lives. If the reclusive Oracle should spin a prophecy, might the desperate wicked years promise another day, one less perilous?]]> 288 Gregory Maguire 0063094010 Matthew 0 to-read 3.79 2022
author: Gregory Maguire
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43521657
Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.]]> 374 Alix E. Harrow 0316421995 Matthew 0 to-read 3.99 2019
author: Alix E. Harrow
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 44581558 The sisters of the Order of Saint Rita captain their living ship into the reaches of space in Lina Rather's debut novella, Sisters of the Vast Black.

Years ago, Old Earth sent forth sisters and brothers into the vast dark of the prodigal colonies armed only with crucifixes and iron faith. Now, the sisters of the Order of Saint Rita are on an interstellar mission of mercy aboard Our Lady of Impossible Constellations, a living, breathing ship which seems determined to develop a will of its own.

When the order receives a distress call from a newly-formed colony, the sisters discover that the bodies and souls in their care—and that of the galactic diaspora—are in danger. And not from void beyond, but from the nascent Central Governance and the Church itself.]]> 176 Lina Rather 1250260264 Matthew 0 to-read 3.98 2019
author: Lina Rather
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36341204
Ben thinks the universe needs to mind its business. If the universe had his back, he wouldn’t be on his way to the post office carrying a box of his ex-boyfriend’s things.

But when Arthur and Ben meet-cute at the post office, what exactly does the universe have in store for them?

Maybe nothing. After all, they get separated.

Maybe everything. After all, they get reunited.

But what if they can’t quite nail a first date . . . or a second first date . . . or a third?

What if Arthur tries too hard to make it work . . . and Ben doesn’t try hard enough?

What if life really isn’t like a Broadway play?

But what if it is?]]> 437 Becky Albertalli 0062795252 Matthew 0 to-read 3.81 2018
author: Becky Albertalli
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57370780 The official release of The Magic Between includes an updated prologue not found in advanced copies.

In a world where everyone has magic coursing through them, legend says magic itself craves a mate. Legend says those with opposite magics have the greatest chance of forming the unbreakable Bond it desires.

A.B. Cerise is an obsessive compulsive pop star with the ability to turn invisible. He’s an out bisexual with absolutely no belief in Bonds. He has a love-bruised heart, thinks dating in the spotlight is a hassle at best and a nightmare at worst, and has no intention of going through it all over again.

Matthew Hellman-Levoie is the NHL’s number one goalie prospect, the youngest in a hockey dynasty, and one of the rare few who can see the unseeable. He’s a straight man who wears his heart on his sleeve, has grown up searching for a Bond, and dreams of finding the love of his life.

Legend never said anything about what to do when sparks fly between two people opposite in more ways than just magic.]]> 379 Stephanie Hoyt 1648904343 Matthew 0 to-read 3.70 2022
author: Stephanie Hoyt
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 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 Matthew 0 to-read 3.90 2021
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60445521
When mistaken identity leads to Saffron learning the true name of brooding, self-centered, high fey Prince Cylvan, what begins as a risk of losing his life (or his tongue) becomes an opportunity to earn the future he wants. In exchange for an endorsement, he and Cylvan form a geis where Saffron agrees to find a spell to strip power from Cylvan's true name. While Prince Cylvan doesn't know Saffron can barely read, Saffron is determined to meet his end of the deal in order to remain in Alfidel—or, maybe, just to remain by Cylvan's side, as affections grow stronger every night they spend alone in the library together.

But as other human servants soon fall victim to a beast known only as “the wolf�, Saffron realizes he has embroiled himself in a manipulative reach for power like he never anticipated—and even Prince Cylvan cannot be trusted. Between the wolf, uncovering forbidden magic, and his growing feelings for the prince, Saffron will have to decide which is most important to him—his endorsement, the lives of his friends, or the prince’s life and wellbeing.

Prince of the Sorrows is a queer fantasy romance for New Adults.]]> 393 Kellen Graves Matthew 0 to-read 3.90 2022
author: Kellen Graves
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55163759
Haruka Hirano is alive, but not quite living. Surviving but not thriving. As an elite purebred vampire in the twenty-first century, he is broken. Content in his subpar existence.

He is done with life. But life is not finished with him.

When he receives a formal request to oversee an antiquated vampire ritual at Hertsmonceux Castle, Haruka grudgingly leaves his home to meet another purebred. The vampire is not what he expects. Truly, he is unlike any vampire Haruka has ever encountered: cautious, innocent and with the warmth and gravitational pull of the sun.

Lore and Lust is an exploration of cultures, contemporary society and romance. It puts a whimsical spin on traditional vampire lore, while also creating a vivid new world where love is love. No questions asked.

Mature sexual content.]]> 266 Karla Nikole 1735589810 Matthew 0 to-read 3.85 2020
author: Karla Nikole
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 33099588 The Black Tides of Heaven is one of a pair of standalone introductions to Neon Yang's Tensorate Series. For more of the story you can read its twin novella The Red Threads of Fortune

Mokoya and Akeha, the twin children of the Protector, were sold to the Grand Monastery as children. While Mokoya developed her strange prophetic gift, Akeha was always the one who could see the strings that moved adults to action. While his sister received visions of what would be, Akeha realized what could be. What's more, he saw the sickness at the heart of his mother's Protectorate.

A rebellion is growing. The Machinists discover new levers to move the world every day, while the Tensors fight to put them down and preserve the power of the state. Unwilling to continue to play a pawn in his mother's twisted schemes, Akeha leaves the Tensorate behind and falls in with the rebels. But every step Akeha takes towards the Machinists is a step away from his sister Mokoya. Can Akeha find peace without shattering the bond he shares with his twin sister?]]> 236 Neon Yang 076539541X Matthew 0 to-read 3.70 2017
author: Neon Yang
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50520939
Enter the latest round of six: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, unwilling halves of an unfathomable whole, who exert uncanny control over every element of physicality. Reina Mori, a naturalist, who can intuit the language of life itself. Parisa Kamali, a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious, navigating worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova, an empath easily mistaken for a manipulative illusionist, who can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through illusions to a new structure of reality—an ability so rare that neither he nor his peers can fully grasp its implications.

When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will.

Most of them.]]> 376 Olivie Blake Matthew 0 to-read 3.55 2020
author: Olivie Blake
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54228607
The folklore that has shaped our dominant culture teems with frightening female creatures. In our language, in our stories (many written by men), we underline the idea that women who step out of bounds—who are angry or greedy or ambitious, who are overtly sexual or not sexy enough—aren’t just outside the norm. They’re unnatural. Monstrous. But maybe, the traits we’ve been told make us dangerous and undesirable are actually our greatest strengths.

Through fresh analysis of 11 female monsters, including Medusa, the Harpies, the Furies, and the Sphinx, Jess Zimmerman takes us on an illuminating feminist journey through mythology. She guides women (and others) to reexamine their relationships with traits like hunger, anger, ugliness, and ambition, teaching readers to embrace a new image of the female hero: one that looks a lot like a monster, with the agency and power to match.

Often, women try to avoid the feeling of monstrousness, of being grotesquely alien, by tamping down those qualities that we’re told fall outside the bounds of natural femininity. But monsters also get to do what other female characters—damsels, love interests, and even most heroines—do not. Monsters get to be complete, unrestrained, and larger than life. Today, women are becoming increasingly aware of the ways rules and socially constructed expectations have diminished us. After seeing where compliance gets us—harassed, shut out, and ruled by predators—women have never been more ready to become repellent, fearsome, and ravenous.]]> 224 Jess Zimmerman 0807054933 Matthew 0 to-read 3.74 2021
author: Jess Zimmerman
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]> 288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Matthew 0 to-read 3.96 2020
author: Matt Haig
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50523477 Empire of Sand and Realm of Ash Tasha Suri's The Jasmine Throne, beginning a new trilogy set in a world inspired by the history and epics of India, in which a captive princess and a maidservant in possession of forbidden magic become unlikely allies on a dark journey to save their empire from the princess's traitor brother.

Imprisoned by her dictator brother, Malini spends her days in isolation in the Hirana: an ancient temple that was once the source of the powerful, magical deathless waters � but is now little more than a decaying ruin.

Priya is a maidservant, one among several who make the treacherous journey to the top of the Hirana every night to clean Malini’s chambers. She is happy to be an anonymous drudge, so long as it keeps anyone from guessing the dangerous secret she hides.

But when Malini accidentally bears witness to Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled. One is a vengeful princess seeking to depose her brother from his throne. The other is a priestess seeking to find her family. Together, they will change the fate of an empire.]]> 533 Tasha Suri 0356515648 Matthew 0 to-read 4.12 2021
author: Tasha Suri
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 41951626 Impossible love between two girls —one human, one Made.
A love that could birth a revolution.

After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, Designed to be the playthings of royals, took over the estates of their owners and bent the human race to their will.

Now, Ayla, a human servant rising the ranks at the House of the Sovereign, dreams of avenging the death of her family� by killing the Sovereign’s daughter, Lady Crier. Crier, who was Made to be beautiful, to be flawless. And to take over the work of her father.

Crier had been preparing to do just that—to inherit her father’s rule over the land. But that was before she was betrothed to Scyre Kinok, who seems to have a thousand secrets. That was before she discovered her father isn’t as benevolent as she thought. That was before she met Ayla.

Set in a richly-imagined fantasy world, Nina Varela’s debut novel is a sweepingly romantic tale of love, loss and revenge, that challenges what it really means to be human.]]> 464 Nina Varela 0062823965 Matthew 0 to-read 4.12 2019
author: Nina Varela
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 91981
Simon, a kitchen boy from the royal castle unknowingly apprenticed to a member of this League, will be sent on a quest that offers the only hope of salvation, a deadly riddle concerning long-lost swords of power. Compelled by fate and perilous magics, he must leave the only home he’s ever known and face enemies more terrifying than Osten Ard has ever seen, even as the land itself begins to die.

After the landmark Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy, the epic saga of Osten Ard continues with the brand-new novel, The Heart of What Was Lost. Then don’t miss the upcoming trilogy, The Last King of Osten Ard, beginning with The Witchwood Crown!]]> 672 Tad Williams 0756402697 Matthew 0 to-read 3.96 1988
author: Tad Williams
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59148724
From an award-winning writer at the New York Times Magazine and a contributor to the 1619 Project comes a landmark book that tells the full story of racial health disparities in America, revealing the toll racism takes on individuals and the health of our nation.

In 2018, Linda Villarosa's New York Times Magazine article on maternal and infant mortality among black mothers and babies in America caused an awakening. Hundreds of studies had previously established a link between racial discrimination and the health of Black Americans, with little progress toward solutions. But Villarosa's article exposing that a Black woman with a college education is as likely to die or nearly die in childbirth as a white woman with an eighth grade education made racial disparities in health care impossible to ignore.

Now, in Under the Skin , Linda Villarosa lays bare the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker� compared to their white counterparts. Today's medical texts and instruments still carry fallacious slavery-era assumptions that Black bodies are fundamentally different from white bodies. Study after study of medical settings show worse treatment and outcomes for Black patients. Black people live in dirtier, more polluted communities due to environmental racism and neglect from all levels of government. And, most powerfully, Villarosa describes the new understanding that coping with the daily scourge of racism ages Black people prematurely. Anchored by unforgettable human stories and offering incontrovertible proof, Under the Skin is dramatic, tragic, and necessary reading.]]> 288 Linda Villarosa Matthew 0 to-read 4.46 2022
author: Linda Villarosa
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57499884
The Jedi are the most loyal servants of the Empire.

Two decades ago, Jedi clans clashed in service to feuding lords. Sickened by this endless cycle, a sect of Jedi rebelled, seeking to control their own destiny and claim power in service of no master. They called themselves Sith.

The Sith rebellion failed, succumbing to infighting and betrayal, and the once rival lords unified to create an Empire . . . but even an Empire at peace is not free from violence.

Far on the edge of the Outer Rim, one former Sith wanders, accompanied only by a faithful droid and the ghost of a less civilized age. He carries a lightsaber, but claims lineage to no Jedi clan, and pledges allegiance to no lord. Little is known about him, including his name, for he never speaks of his past, nor his regrets. His history is as guarded as the red blade of destruction he carries sheathed at his side.

As the galaxy's perpetual cycle of violence continues to interrupt his self-imposed exile, and he is forced to duel an enigmatic bandit claiming the title of Sith, it becomes clear that no amount of wandering will ever let him outpace the specters of his former life.]]> 331 Emma Mieko Candon 059335866X Matthew 0 to-read 3.30 2021
author: Emma Mieko Candon
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40886114
When Padmé Naberrie, "Queen Amidala" of Naboo, steps down from her position, she is asked by the newly-elected queen to become Naboo's representative in the Galactic Senate. Padmé is unsure about taking on the new role, but cannot turn down the request to serve her people. Together with her most loyal handmaidens, Padmé must figure out how to navigate the treacherous waters of politics and forge a new identity beyond the queen's shadow.]]> 400 E.K. Johnston Matthew 0 to-read 3.85 2019
author: E.K. Johnston
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40603587
But not everything monstrous-looking is evil and not everything fair is good... and in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth.

Librarian's Note: Alternate cover edition of ASIN B0010SIPT4]]> 400 Andrzej Sapkowski Matthew 0 to-read 4.12 1993
author: Andrzej Sapkowski
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59235877 Obi-Wan Kenobi struggles with his place in the Force as a young Padawan in this coming-of-age adventure!

Obi-Wan Kenobi really wants to be a good Padawan. The best Padawan, even. But that’s feeling more and more impossible with his new master, Qui-Gon Jinn. All of Obi-Wan’s friends are off training to be real Jedi, getting mission experience, while he’s still on Coruscant, practicing his forms and sitting in silent contemplation. Ever since Qui-Gon’s former master, Dooku, left the Order, it feels like Qui-Gon has been too busy trying to connect with the Force or arguing with the Jedi Council to properly train his Padawan.

When Obi-Wan finally convinces Qui-Gon to take him on a mission to a remote planet once explored by an ancient Jedi, his master doesn’t show up the morning they are to leave—so Obi-Wan impulsively takes off by himself. Upon arriving on the mysterious, lush planet, he encounters a group of teenagers with no adult supervision—and who all seem to have some connection to the Force. Free from the constraints of the Order, Obi-Wan joins them in their daring adventures, but the Padawan side of him keeps questioning the teens� strange relationship to the Force, and to the verdant planet around them, and what all of it might mean to his future. Obi-Wan will test the limits of his relationship to the Jedi and to the Force in this exciting, yet soulful exploration of one of Star Wars� most enduring heroes.]]> 410 Kiersten White Matthew 0 to-read 3.92 2022
author: Kiersten White
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 42207529 The first novel in a new trilogy starring veteran New Republic pilots!

On the brink of victory in a brutal war, five New Republic pilots transform from hunted to hunters in this epic Star Wars adventure. Set after Return of the Jedi, Alphabet Squadron follows a unique team, each flying a different class of starfighter as they struggle to end their war once and for all.

The Emperor is dead. His final weapon has been destroyed. The Imperial Army is in disarray. In the aftermath, Yrica Quell is just one of thousands of defectors from her former cause living in a deserters� shantytown—until she is selected to join Alphabet Squadron.

Cobbled together from an eclectic assortment of pilots and starfighters, the five members of Alphabet are tasked by New Republic general Hera Syndulla herself. Like Yrica, each is a talented pilot struggling to find their place in a changing galaxy. Their mission: to track down and destroy the mysterious Shadow Wing, a lethal force of TIE fighters exacting bloody, reckless vengeance in the twilight of their reign.

The newly formed unit embodies the heart and soul of the Rebellion: ragtag, resourceful, scrappy, and emboldened by their most audacious victory in decades. But going from underdog rebels to celebrated heroes isn’t as easy as it seems, and their inner demons threaten them as much as their enemies among the stars. The wayward warriors of Alphabet Squadron will have to learn to fly together if they want to protect the new era of peace they’ve fought so hard to achieve.

Part of a Marvel and Del Rey crossover event, Alphabet Squadron is the counterpart to Marvel’s TIE Fighter miniseries, which follows the exploits of Shadow Wing as they scheme to thwart the New Republic.]]> 560 Alexander Freed 1984821997 Matthew 0 to-read 3.80 2019
author: Alexander Freed
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52617889 An original novel based on the new Star Trek TV series!

A thrilling novel leading into the new CBS series, Una McCormack’s The Last Best Hope introduces you to brand new characters featured in the life of beloved Star Trek captain Jean-Luc Picard—widely considered to be one of the most popular and recognizable characters in all of science fiction.]]> 326 Una McCormack Matthew 0 to-read 4.01 2020
author: Una McCormack
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 8855321
Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.]]> 592 James S.A. Corey 1841499889 Matthew 0 to-read 4.30 2011
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17934530 Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.

The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.]]> 195 Jeff VanderMeer 0374104093 Matthew 0 to-read 3.80 2014
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17333324
On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.

Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.

Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.]]> 386 Ann Leckie Matthew 0 to-read 3.98 2013
author: Ann Leckie
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 20518872 472 Liu Cixin Matthew 0 to-read 4.07 2006
author: Liu Cixin
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60929
The Oankali survive by genetically merging with primitive civilizations—whether their new hosts like it or not. For the first time since the nuclear holocaust, Earth will be inhabited. Grass will grow, animals will run, and people will learn to survive the planet’s untamed wilderness. But their children will not be human. Not exactly.]]> 248 Octavia E. Butler 0446603775 Matthew 0 to-read 4.15 1987
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58446227 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

"One of [Mandel's] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet." --The New York Times

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]> 259 Emily St. John Mandel 0593321448 Matthew 0 to-read 4.04 2022
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

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

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

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

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

Or does he?]]> 476 Andy Weir 0593135202 Matthew 0 to-read 4.49 2021
author: Andy Weir
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50892360 The first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic.

A god will return
When the earth and sky converge
Under the black sun

In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.

Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.]]> 454 Rebecca Roanhorse 1534437673 Matthew 0 to-read 4.17 2020
author: Rebecca Roanhorse
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50202953
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.]]> 272 Susanna Clarke 163557563X Matthew 0 to-read 4.22 2020
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60931 The visionary author’s masterpiece pulls us—along with her Black female hero—through time to face the horrors of slavery and explore the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.

Dana, a modern Black woman, is celebrating her 26th birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana’s life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.]]> 288 Octavia E. Butler 0807083690 Matthew 0 to-read 4.30 1979
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60890215
When a parcel of mushrooms native to her mother-in-law’s province is delivered seemingly by mistake, Song Yan sees an opportunity to bond with her, and as the packages continue to arrive every week, the women stir-fry and grill the mushrooms, adding them to soups and noodles. When a letter arrives in the mail from the sender of the mushrooms, Song Yan’s world begins to tilt further into the surreal. Summoned to an uncanny, seemingly ageless house hidden in a hutong that sits in the middle of the congested city, she finds Bai Yu, a once world-famous pianist who disappeared ten years ago.]]> 240 An Yu 0802159621 Matthew 0 to-read 3.50 2022
author: An Yu
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58511106
On the one-year anniversary of her divorce, Alex Martinez is getting closure—and margaritas with her two best friends. But just before the celebratory meetup, Alex is clobbered by life once again. Damping the cheer is the diagnosis of a brain tumor she can’t pronounce, a procedure she’d rather postpone, and the prospect of what to say to an already heartbroken mother. Not that Alex plans to tell her anything anytime soon.

Going from blissful to blindsided in one afternoon, Alex has other plans: to be impulsive and embark on an adventure she’ll never forget. Expected destinations: the Grand Canyon, Puerto Rico, and zip-lining through Costa Rica. Unexpected companion: a hiker named David who’s found a woman after his own heart. But no matter how enriching the journey, how long can Alex keep running?

It’s time to accept past griefs, reconnect with her mother, and find her way back to happy. For Alex, whatever the future holds, maybe everything she really needs to face is right where she left it.]]> 250 Jeanette Escudero 1542032660 Matthew 0 to-read 4.14 2022
author: Jeanette Escudero
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 37173847
But unbeknownst to her, Sancia’s been sent to steal an artifact of unimaginable power, an object that could revolutionize the magical technology known as scriving. The Merchant Houses who control this magic--the art of using coded commands to imbue everyday objects with sentience--have already used it to transform Tevanne into a vast, remorseless capitalist machine. But if they can unlock the artifact’s secrets, they will rewrite the world itself to suit their aims.

Now someone in those Houses wants Sancia dead, and the artifact for themselves. And in the city of Tevanne, there’s nobody with the power to stop them.

To have a chance at surviving—and at stopping the deadly transformation that’s under way—Sancia will have to marshal unlikely allies, learn to harness the artifact’s power for herself, and undergo her own transformation, one that will turn her into something she could never have imagined.]]> 501 Robert Jackson Bennett 1524760374 Matthew 0 to-read 4.16 2018
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60182281 Finding work is easy. Staying alive is a little bit harder.

When Russ Wesley finds an unusual artifact in his grandfather’s collection of rare antiquities, the last thing he expects is for it to draw the attention of a ferocious alien from a distant planet. Equally surprising is the adventurous team of intergalactic exterminators dispatched to deal with the alien threat. They’re a little wild, and a little reckless. Worse yet, they’re so impressed with Russ’s marksmanship that they insist he join their squad . . . whether he wants to or not.]]> 416 Ash Bishop 0744305616 Matthew 0 to-read 3.72 2022
author: Ash Bishop
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18505747
For centuries, the five greatest kingdoms of North and South Tembria, twin continents on the world of Garn, have coexisted in peace. But the balance of power is destroyed when four of the kingdoms violate an ancient covenant and betray the fifth: Ithrace, the Kingdom of Flames, ruled by Steveren Langene, known as "the Firemane" for his brilliant red hair. As war engulfs the world, Ithrace is destroyed and the Greater Realms of Tembria are thrust into a dangerous struggle for supremacy.
As a Free Lord, Baron Daylon Dumarch owes allegiance to no king. When an abandoned infant is found hidden in Daylon’s pavilion, he realizes that the child must be the missing heir of the slain Steveren. The boy is valuable—and vulnerable. A cunning and patient man, Daylon decides to keep the baby’s existence secret, and sends him to be raised on the Island of Coaltachin, home of the so-called Kingdom of Night, where the powerful and lethal Nocusara, the "Hidden Warriors," legendary assassins and spies, are trained.

Years later, another orphan of mysterious provenance, a young man named Declan, earns his Masters rank as a weapons smith. Blessed with intelligence and skill, he unlocks the secret to forging King’s Steel, the apex of a weapon maker’s trade known by very few. Yet this precious knowledge is also deadly, and Declan is forced to leave his home to safeguard his life. Landing in Lord Daylon’s provinces, he hopes to start anew.

Soon, the two young men—an unknowing rightful heir to a throne and a brilliantly talented young swordsmith—will discover that their fates, and that of Garn, are entwined. The legendary, long-ago War of Betrayal has never truly ended . . . and they must discover the secret of who truly threatens their world.]]> 499 Raymond E. Feist 0061468452 Matthew 0 to-read 4.01 2018
author: Raymond E. Feist
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40916679
Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town.

But she can't shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day. She knew Sal when she was a child, and he was always so kind to her. How could he possibly have been a killer?

Now a senior herself, Pip decides to reexamine the closed case for her final project, at first just to cast doubt on the original investigation. But soon she discovers a trail of dark secrets that might actually prove Sal innocent . . . and the line between past and present begins to blur. Someone in Fairview doesn't want Pip digging around for answers, and now her own life might be in danger.]]> 433 Holly Jackson 1405293187 Matthew 0 to-read 4.29 2019
author: Holly Jackson
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 47212 HARRY DRESDEN � WIZARD

Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment.

Harry Dresden is the best at what he does. Well, technically, he's the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the "everyday" world is actually full of strange and magical things—and most don't play well with humans. That's where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a—well, whatever. There's just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks.

So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry's seeing dollar signs. But where there's black magic, there's a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry's name. And that's when things start to get interesting.

Magic - it can get a guy killed.]]> 372 Jim Butcher 0451457811 Matthew 0 to-read 3.99 2000
author: Jim Butcher
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54675872
Son. Brother. Demi-God. Hero.

Monsters.

Gifted and burdened with beauty far beyond that of mere mortals, Medusa seeks sanctuary with the Goddess Athena. But when the lustful gaze of mighty Poseidon falls upon her, even the Temple of Athena cannot protect her.

Young Perseus embarks on a seemingly impossible quest. Equipped with only bravado and determination, his only chance of success lays in the hands of his immortal siblings.

Medusa and Perseus soon become pawns of spiteful and selfish gods. Faced with the repercussions of Athena's wrath Medusa has no choice but to flee and hide. But can she do so without becoming the monster they say she is.

History tells of conquering heroes. Tales distorted by time. Medusa’s truth has long been lost. Until now. Now it is time to hear her truth.

Revel in this powerful retelling of one of mythologies greatest tales today.]]> 236 Hannah M. Lynn Matthew 0 to-read 3.89 2020
author: Hannah M. Lynn
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56898248 Ever After. As the most successful producer in the franchise’s history, Dev always scripts the perfect love story for his contestants, even as his own love life crashes and burns. But then the show casts disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw as its star.

Charlie is far from the romantic Prince Charming Ever After expects. He doesn’t believe in true love, and only agreed to the show as a last-ditch effort to rehabilitate his image. In front of the cameras, he’s a stiff, anxious mess with no idea how to date twenty women on national television. Behind the scenes, he’s cold, awkward, and emotionally closed-off.

As Dev fights to get Charlie to connect with the contestants on a whirlwind, worldwide tour, they begin to open up to each other, and Charlie realizes he has better chemistry with Dev than with any of his female co-stars. But even reality TV has a script, and in order to find to happily ever after, they’ll have to reconsider whose love story gets told.

In this witty and heartwarming romantic comedy—reminiscent of Red, White & Royal Blue and One to Watch—an awkward tech wunderkind on a reality dating show goes off-script when sparks fly with his producer.]]> 354 Alison Cochrun 1982170719 Matthew 0 to-read 4.11 2021
author: Alison Cochrun
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 34473 56 Jun'ichirĹŤ Tanizaki Matthew 0 to-read 4.06 1933
author: Jun'ichirĹŤ Tanizaki
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1933
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 37390 The the Pat Hobby, a down-and-out screenwriter trying to break back into show business, but having better luck getting into bars. Written between 1939 and 1940, when F. Scott Fitzgerald was working for Universal Studios, the seventeen Pat Hobby stories were first published in Esquire magazine and present a bitterly humorous portrait of a once-successful writer who becomes a forgotten hack on a Hollywood lot. "This was not art" Pat Hobby often said, "this was an industry" where whom "you sat with at lunch was more important than what you dictated in your office."
The Pat Hobby sequence, as Arnold Gingrich writes in his introduction, is Fitzgerald's "last word from his last home, for much of what he felt about Hollywood and about himself permeated these stories."]]> 192 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0684804425 Matthew 0 to-read 3.60 1941
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1941
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60766189 A Day of Fallen Night, Samantha Shannon sweeps readers back to the universe of Priory of the Orange Tree and into the lives of four women, showing us a course of events that shaped their world for generations to come.

Tunuva Melim is a sister of the Priory. For fifty years, she has trained to slay wyrms � but none have appeared since the Nameless One, and the younger generation is starting to question the Priory's purpose.

To the north, in the Queendom of Inys, Sabran the Ambitious has married the new King of Hróth, narrowly saving both realms from ruin. Their daughter, Glorian, trails in their shadow � exactly where she wants to be.

The dragons of the East have slept for centuries. Dumai has spent her life in a Seiikinese mountain temple, trying to wake the gods from their long slumber. Now someone from her mother's past is coming to upend her fate.

When the Dreadmount erupts, bringing with it an age of terror and violence, these women must find the strength to protect humankind from a devastating threat.]]> 868 Samantha Shannon 1635577926 Matthew 0 to-read 4.34 2023
author: Samantha Shannon
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60666852 Being a vampire is far from glamorous...but it can be pretty punk rock.

Everything you've heard about vampires is a lie. They can't fly. No murders allowed (the community hates that). And turning into a bat? Completely ridiculous. In fact, vampire life is really just a lot of blood bags and night jobs. For Louise Chao, it's also lonely, since she swore off family ages ago.

At least she's gone to decades of punk rock shows. And if she can join a band of her own (while keeping her...situation under wraps), maybe she'll finally feel like she belongs, too.

Then a long-lost teenage relative shows up at her door. Whether it's Ian's love of music or his bad attitude, for the first time in ages, Louise feels a connection.

But as Ian uncovers Louise's true identity, things get dangerous--especially when he asks her for the ultimate favor. One that goes beyond just family...one that might just change everything vampires know about life and death forever.

]]> 368 Mike Chen 0778386961 Matthew 0 to-read 3.52 2023
author: Mike Chen
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60531406 #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson expands his Cosmere universe shared by The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn with a new standalone novel for everyone who loved The Princess Bride.

The only life Tress has known on her island home in an emerald-green ocean has been a simple one, with the simple pleasures of collecting cups brought by sailors from faraway lands and listening to stories told by her friend Charlie. But when his father takes him on a voyage to find a bride and disaster strikes, Tress must stow away on a ship and seek the Sorceress of the deadly Midnight Sea. Amid the spore oceans where pirates abound, can Tress leave her simple life behind and make her own place sailing a sea where a single drop of water can mean instant death?]]> 443 Brandon Sanderson Matthew 0 to-read 4.35 2023
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60099655 “A rich backstory� a highly satisfying ending� All the stars for Chen's warmhearted space-travel story.� �Kirkus, starred review

Every family has issues. Most can’t blame them on extraterrestrials.

Evie Shao and her sister, Kass, aren’t on speaking terms. Fifteen years ago on a family camping trip, their father and brother vanished. Their dad turned up days later, dehydrated and confused—and convinced he'd been abducted by aliens. Their brother, Jakob, remained missing. The women dealt with it very differently. Kass, suspecting her college-dropout twin simply ran off, became the rock of the family. Evie traded academics to pursue alien conspiracy theories, always looking for Jakob.

When Evie's UFO network uncovers a new event, she goes to investigate. And discovers Jakob is back. He's different—older, stranger, and talking of an intergalactic war—but the tensions between the siblings haven't changed at all. If the family is going to come together to help Jakob, then Kass and Evie are going to have to fix their issues, and fast. Because the FBI is after Jakob, and if their brother is telling the truth, possibly an entire space armada, too.

The perfect combination of action, imagination and heart, Light Years from Home is a touching drama about a challenge as difficult as saving the galaxy: making peace with your family…and yourself.

"With heart and insight...Chen crosses the stakes and imagination of a space opera with the emotional depth and intricacy of a family drama." �Erika Swyler, bestselling author of Light from Other Stars]]> 400 Mike Chen 0778386945 Matthew 0 to-read 3.55 2022
author: Mike Chen
name: Matthew
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59808117
"I inhaled this one like I needed it to live." � New York Times Book Review

Rich socialite, inveterate flirt, and walking disaster Tennalhin Halkana can read minds. Tennal, like all neuromodified “readers,� is a security threat on his own. But when controlled, readers are a rare asset. Not only can they read minds, but they can navigate chaotic space, the maelstroms surrounding the gateway to the wider universe.

Conscripted into the military under dubious circumstances, Tennal is placed into the care of Lieutenant Surit Yeni, a duty-bound soldier, principled leader, and the son of a notorious traitor general. Whereas Tennal can read minds, Surit can influence them. Like all other neuromodified “architects,� he can impose his will onto others, and he’s under orders to control Tennal by merging their minds.

Surit accepted a suspicious promotion-track request out of desperation, but he refuses to go through with his illegal orders to sync and control an unconsenting Tennal. So they They fake a sync bond and plan Tennal's escape.

Their best chance arrives with a salvage-retrieval mission into chaotic space―to the very neuromodifcation lab that Surit's traitor mother destroyed twenty years ago. And among the rubble is a treasure both terrible and unimaginably powerful, one that upends a decades-old power struggle, and begins a war.

Tennal and Surit can no longer abandon their unit or their world. The only way to avoid life under full military control is to complete the very sync they've been faking.

Can two unwilling weapons of war bring about peace?]]> 464 Everina Maxwell 1250758866 Matthew 0 to-read 4.11 2022
author: Everina Maxwell
name: Matthew
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>