In case you missed it...
January 2023 Reads
February 2023 Reads
March 2023 Reads
April 2023 Reads
May 2023 Reads
June 2023 Reads
July 2023 Reads
Reads from previous years
(59) 🔎🔪🎭 Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent (320 pages, 2023). Audiobook. Forty-something Strange Sally Diamond lives in an isolated rural home with her adoptive parents on the outskirts of a little Irish town. She has always struggled with social interactions, physical contact, and knowing when not to take things literally–hence attempting to burn her dead father’s body in the furnace because he’d so often said to “just put me out with the bins” when he died. But the furor surrounding Sally’s unorthodox attempt at disposing of his body is soon overshadowed by a series of letters her father left for Sally to read after his death, explaining the harrowing truth about her adoption and childhood. Sally’s chapters are interspersed with those from a boy called Peter set decades in the past; over the course of the book we discover the connection between their stories, as well as the stories of a few other key characters. This is definitely not a book for the squeamish or faint of heart (cw for kidnapping, rape, confinement, violence, mental illness, and suicide, HOO BOY), but it is also sweet and funny at times which is MUCH needed to balance out the darkness of the rest of the book.
(59.5) ❌ Episode Thirteen by Craig deLouie (448 pages, 2023). Audiobook. The team behind a popular ghost hunting TV show, Fade to Black, get the opportunity to spend 72 hours filming in the notorious Foundation Mansion where a bunch of mysterious government experiments into the paranormal are known to have taken place. But soon (I glean, as I did not finish the book), things go terribly horribly wrong. Yyyyeah, this one felt SUPER gimmicky to me from the get-go but I gave it ~60 pages or so to see if I could get into it. Nope. The characterization and dialogue were embarrassingly cringe and the whole thing seemed more about the found-footage/ documents/whatever angle than any kind of actual story or compelling characters.
(60) 🔎🔪🧨 What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall (336 pages, 2023). Twenty-two years ago, just eleven years old, Naomi, Cass, and Liv survived an attack by a serial killer in the woods near their small Washington mill town, and put the man in prison with their testimony. Ever since, the three have kept shocking secrets about that summer and the day of the attack, and now that their attacker has died in prison, Liv thinks they should finally tell. When Naomi returns to their hometown to meet up with Cass and Liv, a series of unsettling events are set into motion. It’s soon clear that the three were not the only ones with secrets, and may be in danger as a result.
(61) ℹ️ Buddhist Boot Camp by Timber Hawkeye (142 pages, 2012). Paper book. Someone recommended this book to me as one of their favorites of all time and now I’m kind of glad I can’t remember who it was because it was….not good. It’s a collection of journal entries from the author documenting the major lessons he’s learned from living as a Buddhist, but it came across as very naive and patronizing and oversimplified to the point of uselessness. Like: Yyyyyes, but no. A good friend of mine who is a practicing Buddhist recommends instead What Is Zen?: Plain Talk for a Beginner's Mind by Susan Moon and Norman Fischer and Waking Up to What You Do: A Zen Practice for Meeting Every Situation with Intelligence and Compassion by Diane Eshin Rizzetto.
(62) 🔎🔪🧨 The Last Guest House by Megan Miranda (336 pages, 2019). Paper book. The daughter of hospitality and service workers, Avery grew up in the harbor town of Littleport, Maine, striking up an unlikely friendship one summer with Sadie, daughter of a wealthy "summer family" with real estate holdings all around Littleport--until one summer in the girls' early twenties, Sadie turns up dead. The police rule her death a suicide, but to Avery the conclusion doesn't fit. When some in the community begin insinuating that Avery may be to blame, she is forced to figure out the truth on her own. I wouldn't say it was Miranda's most riveting work to date but it made an enjoyable plane read.
(63) 👻🎭 Sundial by Catriona Ward (304 pages, 2022). Audiobook. Something is off with Rob's daughter Callie--collecting of dead animal bones, constantly whispering to imaginary friends, possibly harming her little sister--and it's bringing back unsettling memories of Rob's unorthodox upbringing and family in the Mojave Desert. Meanwhile, Callie feels something is off with her mother, and worries that only one of them is likely to come back alive from the last-minute mother-daughter trip Rob has arranged for them to Sundial, Rob's ancestral family home. Not as twisty and out-there as The Last House on Needless Street, but still plenty dark and sinister, and not completely lacking in its own twists.
(64) 👻🎭 A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher (256 pages, 2023). Audiobook. On a rare extended visit to their mother's house, Sam has to agree with her brother that "Mom seems off." The house now feels uncharacteristically cold and sterile, vultures seem to constantly be circling, Sam finds a jar of teeth in the rose bushes, and her mom seems jumpy and paranoid while insisting that everything is normal. So Sam goes digging, turning up more than she's bargained for. I loved The Hollow Places, but this book was just...weird.
(65) 🔎🔪🧨 Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone (Ernest Cunningham #1) by Benjamin Stevenson (384 pages, 2022). Audiobook. One of my favorites so far this year! Ernest Cunningham's far-flung family is reuniting, and secrets abound. Indeed, we immediately learn from Ernest (the 1st person narrator) that indeed, everyone in his family--brother, stepsister, wife, father, mother, sister-in-law, uncle, stepfather, aunt, and Ernest himself--has killed someone. The story is brilliantly, cleverly, and hilariously told, and kept me guessing all the way to the end.
(66) 🎭🪐 The One by John Marrs (416 pages, 2016). Audiobook. In this light, near-future sci-fi, scientists have discovered a gene that can be used to match everyone in the world with their one perfect genetic partner; just register on the site, take the mouth swab, and await your match. The book follows the story of five people who have done just that. But just how perfectly would things play out in such a world? Surely no surprises or unintended consequences would result?? Read and find out!
(67) 🔎🔪🧨 The Spare Room by Andrea Bartz (336 pages, 2023). Audiobook. After her fiance calls off their wedding during the 2020 lockdown, Kelly is desperate to escape being trapped in a tiny apartment with him. A spontaneously rekindled connection with her childhood friend Sabrina leads to an invitation to decamp to a guest room in Sabrina’s and her rich husband’s remote Virgina mansion. Soon, historically plain vanilla Kelly finds herself in a tawdry threesome with the pair–and also starts making ominous discoveries, such as the fact that the last woman the couple opened their marriage for mysteriously disappeared. The vibe is off and Kelly has to figure out why before something happens to her too. This was the first Andrew Bartz that was kind of a miss for me. It felt like there were a lot of inexplicable leaps and characters acting in irrationally ignorant ways in order to move the plot along.
(68) 🪄🎭🔎 Roses and Rot by Kat Howard (320 pages, 2016). Audiobook. Imogen and her sister Marin are accepted to an elite post-grad arts program—Imogen as a writer and Marin as a dancer—but soon realize there's more to the school than meets the eye. The school offers them the chance to make all their wildest dreams come true—but at what cost? What is each willing to give up, and what will be the implications for their relationship? This book wasn't as good as An Unkindness of Magicians but I enjoyed it well enough.
(69) 🔎🔪🧨 Everyone Here Is Lying by Shari Lapena. (336 pages, 2023). Audiobook. When difficult nine-year-old Avery Wooler goes missing (after school? At school? On the way home?), everyone in the neighborhood is hiding something, including her mother, father, brother, and various friends and neighbors. Plenty of twists and turns and definitely did not see the end coming!
No comments:
Post a Comment