"- Stay with Me on Halloween"..

Well, I just finished reading a Halloween-themed book by Daniel Kraus called "Blood Sugar"... and of course, at first I was expecting something completely different from this book, but overall I liked it...

I was definitely expecting some kind of gritty, mystical horror, but what I got was a sharp social drama thriller in the vein of early Stephen King (when he wrote works like "The Body" and "Stay with Me")

And of course, I picked up on the vibe of that legendary ’70s myth, “Halloween Sadism”—only the author of this book did it a little differently; he took that iconic fear of the “sadistic stranger” and turned it inside out. Instead of scaring the reader with how dangerous it is to accept candy, he showed the story from the inside—through the eyes of destitute street children whom a psychologically broken adult uses as tools to commit this crime..

Personally, I like the style and tone of the writing; we see the story through the eyes of children from dysfunctional families, and punctuation is generally absent. It reads vividly and engagingly, with a touch of dark humor. As both a writer and a director, Kraus constructs the narrative in a highly visual and coherent manner; instead of dynamic action, he relies on a viscous, suffocating atmosphere of anticipation of disaster (the plot revolves around a madman and the children preparing to poison Halloween candy with razor blades and poison)...

And as he said, behind the facade of a classic “horror story” lies heavy social commentary on poverty, abuse in foster homes, shattered lives, and how adults break children... The story’s main focus is on the inner voice of 12-year-old Jody, from whose perspective the narrative is told. He tries to come across as a cynical, tough, streetwise kid, using a distinctive slang. However, as sunset and Halloween approach, the remnants of his childlike humanity begin to struggle within him, gradually helping him mature and break free from Robbie’s toxic circle (a former school star who has hit rock bottom and, embittered toward the whole world, incites three outcast teenagers to help him poison candy meant for children)...

Kraus articulates the book’s key message through a bitter insight: “Realizing that your ‘achievements’ are fake—that’s what growing up is.” Halloween becomes the point of no return and a moment of brutal confrontation with reality.

The teenagers’ illusions shatter when they realize that the “cool” adult is a deeply unhappy, broken, and vengeful psychopath, and that their own devotion was merely a tool in someone else’s hands.. And Jodi’s final choice—to go all the way or stop the plan—reveals a painful act of separation, when a child must instantly grow up, take on moral responsibility, and step over the destructive authority figures imposed upon her..

“Blood Sugar” is a detailed psychological portrait of how loneliness, a deteriorating environment, and a lack of parental love can turn innocent children into accomplices to monstrous violence. It is a story about the struggle to preserve the remnants of humanity in conditions of absolute social isolation..

P.S If you’re not put off by the author’s writing style—where the exposition can be a bit slow, and all the action and chaos are saved for the very end—then you’ll enjoy this book, but keep in mind that this isn’t a classic horror story but rather a social tale about children growing up in a terrible neighborhood..

Just finished reading FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC by V.C. Andrews. When their father dies in a car accident, four children (Chris, Cathy, Cory & Carrie) and their mother, Corinne, now having fallen on hard financial times, have packed up and moved to her parents’ mansion.

Corinne grew up rich but was cast out the family when she fell in love with their father Christopher (a.k.a. her father’s half-brother/her half-uncle). She hopes to get herself into her now-elderly father’s good graces once more so that he’ll put her back in the will and so that she can be rich again.

Oh, and there’s one more thing: Her father Malcolm doesn’t know that Corinne had children. Bad enough Corinne smashed his half-brother. Knowing she had four children with him definitely would not make her father accept her back.

So therefore, the children are confined upstairs to the attic by their evil grandmother (who considers their very existence an abomination, literally calling them “the Devil’s spawn) where they are forced to be quiet during the day lest the servants or anyone else in the family hear them. They’re only allowed to make a minimal amount of noise in a far part of the attic later in the day.

Corinne assures them that, while this arrangement totally sucks, it won’t be for long. Once she breaks the news to her daddy, he’ll totally accept them and they’ll all be able to live rich new lives.

The kids try to make the most of their new normal. Living under strict rules, isolated from the outside world. Their mom visits them regularly once a day at first, but after a while those visits decrease significantly. The two oldest, Chris & Cathy, after spending many months in the attic, confront their mother who now claims they have to stay in the attic until their grandfather dies. Considering he’s already old, that shouldn’t be too long of a wait.

Many months pass. The food supply becomes irregular. Their isolation grows. Both Chris & Cathy hit puberty and start developing certain…urges. And it seems there is no end in sight. And then their mother reappears for the first time in a year, talking about she just got back from her honeymoon with her new man. To say Chris & Cathy are pissed off is an understatement. But confronting her means she may abandon them and so they have to get out of here for good…

I’ve known about the movies based off this and of just how controversial this novel is yet I felt compelled to read this because out of curiosity I needed to know exactly how wild it was. And…it was a lot. It is an engrossing read that tackles themes of religious oppression, childhood trauma and abuse and how that was inherited throughout the family.

That being said, this is also a difficult read at times because some scenes are…uncomfortable in their explicit nature (that’s the nicest way I can put it). Yes, sexual abuse and trauma is a part of this novel and how it affects the family (especially Chris & Cathy). But having to read about lingering desire and sexual dominance was…A LOT. I mean, there’s not a lot of those scenes (and such behavior is not glorified) but what’s there is more than enough.

But overall this is a complicated family drama of morality, abuse, and what the novel tries to define as healing (or something close to it). Yes, it’s dark but that’s the point. It doesn’t shy away from the environment the children endured and how they were forced to survive it. It’s a messy yet powerful read.

This is part one of a 5-part series (though whether or not I can bring myself to read the other four books in this series remains to be seen as I type this).

For those who read this, what did you think?

A second-chance romance about Matt and Grace, two college best friends who fall deeply in love in New York but end up losing touch after graduation. Fifteen years later, Matt randomly spots Grace on a subway, but the train pulls away before he can speak to her. Unable to stop thinking about the girl who got away, he posts a Craigslist missed connection hoping to find her again. The story switches between their college years and the present, slowly revealing what happened between them, why they separated, and whether they can find their way back to each other. It's very much a nostalgic, emotional, right-person-wrong-time kind of romance about first love, missed opportunities, heartbreak, and wondering what could've been if life had gone differently.

—

FUCK. It ended in a HEA but why the tears???? I really need to stop reading bittersweet stuff. This book entirely gave off To My 19-Year-Old vibes but with a better ending 😭

If you’ve read this book and you liked it, you should DEFINITELY watch the movie.

I have to watch that movie again. I went in blind but it’s funny how my last read book/s also focused on time. (Ribbon duet by Pepper Winters + The Son and His Hope)

Elizabeth is a fucking bitch and I hate how everything just caused a butterfly effect. Like yeah, just carve a fucking hole in my heart. UGH. I cannot get over this trope. 

"- The Postmodern Viy".

I decided, as they say, to share my recommendation—this time, a book from my country (more specifically, from Ukraine). Well, if you’re familiar with Nikolai Gogol’s novella “Viy” (which is highly regarded among fans of strange prose and gothic literature alongside the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, Howard Lovecraft, and Mary Shelley)... or have seen the 1967 film or even the 2014 one then you’ll understand exactly what I’m talking about. The author of this work, Illarion Pavlyuk, uses the key elements and techniques of this genre, reinterpreting the classic and playing with the reader’s expectations...

At the heart of the novel lies a direct dialogue with Gogol’s novella. Pavlyuk takes familiar characters (Khomka Brut, Miss Solomiya, the centurion), recognizable locations (the farmstead, the church), and the classic plot, but completely deconstructs them. He turns Gogol’s plot inside out, transforming a mystical horror story into a dark detective noir where magic intertwines with psychological trauma.

But what I like is something else entirely: the book is a blend and imitation of various genres. It is at once a classic detective story in the spirit of Sherlock Holmes; an American noir with a cynical protagonist; a Gothic thriller; and a mystical horror story. If we’re talking about the meaning behind it without spoilers (there won’t be any)...

The author shows how easily a closed-off community of people, united by shared fears and secrets, succumbs to manipulation, begins to believe in demons, and commits monstrous acts, justifying them as the will of a higher power... The very image of the “white ash” covering the farmstead symbolizes both burnout and the heavy burden of the past, yet at the same time, purification and a chance for rebirth. However, according to the author himself, when describing the characters’ borderline and stressful states, he drew on his personal experience of military service, which is why the book feels like a powerful psychological statement about trauma, memory, and healing through pain.

And just so you know what the book is about without any plot twists: Pavlyuk doesn’t leave an open ending along the lines of “decide for yourselves—was it supernatural or not?” Every plot device set up throughout the story is resolved. Every supernatural event, including the three nights in the church, is given a clear, logical, and detective-style explanation. And the ending itself brings deep satisfaction. The resolution leaves a bittersweet but honest aftertaste, forcing you to rethink the entire story from the very beginning.

*P.S.

The story is published entirely in Ukrainian, but translating it into English isn’t that difficult. Of course, there’s some slang, but it adds a “Slavic flavor.” Read to your heart’s content and enjoy!*

Have you ever loved a book so much that you don’t know where to start praising it? This might be the best book about history and ideas that I have ever read, and it also won the Pulitzer Prize for biography. If you love incredibly well-written nonfiction, or books that are built around a great central question that pulls you in, or that offer you a perspective you never had before: this book has all of that.

This book has it all.

It’s structured around the rivalry between two men in the 1700s, both of them captivated by the idea of classifying all life. One of them, the madly ambitious Swede Carl Linnaeus, was a fabulously unpleasant human being who sent his apostles off to die in the jungle while he sat home in Sweden refusing to educate his daughters. Minerals confused him, he classed walruses as amphibians, and by the time he died he had been almost forgotten.

Meanwhile, in France, the polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, was running the King’s garden, correctly deduced the existence of both Pangaea and the Bering land bridge, was an abolitionist and supporter of women’s rights, made groundbreaking discoveries in metallurgy, and was hailed throughout Europe as the greatest genius of the 18th century.

But within a few decades after their deaths, LeClerc would be forgotten, and Linnaeus would be the one who was raised on a pedestal for posterity.

Why? And how did it happen?

The author brings both these men to life, along with the times in which they lived. He’s the kind of writer who’s got a fabulous eye for those anecdotes he knows will fascinate you – like the story of “Jean” Baret, a botanist’s assistant on France’s first attempt to circumnavigate the globe, who was only discovered to be a woman when they got to Tahiti! Jeanne was put ashore in Mauritius, but later managed to get back to France on another ship – making her the first woman to go around the world. I love that he makes room for her and other stories like that, he knows how to keep you engaged and interested.

He also writes, not from our current perspective, but starting from what people knew at the time, so that you can understand how their ideas evolved (and why those walruses ended up as amphibians…) There’s an intellectual line through to Lamarck – who it turns out has been misrepresented for two centuries – and eventually Darwin, and you can see how the ideas build one on the other. At the same time, there’s also a line straight through to British colonialism and to racism to this day, and he follows that as well, because this is also a political story.

(Personally I think my favorite thing in the book was Thomas Jefferson’s visit to Leclerc. In the US we were always taught Jefferson was an American genius, but LeClerc as an abolitionist of course was unimpressed from the start, and when Jefferson spent his visit insisting that there were mammoths roaming the American west Leclerc thought he was a fool. And you can see why. I loved that about the book too, that he consistently gives me new perspectives on people and events that I thought I knew well.)

Have I made it sound like a lot? Roberts makes it all so clear. It’s an absolute pleasure to read.

Really, if you love biography, or anything about the history of ideas or the history of science, or just the question of why we remember some people and not others, I bet you will love this!

I’m not a fan of grim dark books. Books are my escapism, even horror. To paraphrase so many authors, we need monster stories to remind us we are capable of defeating the monsters. Unfortunately, the grim dark genre delights in destroying that hope.

So I approached Between Two Fires with some concern that it might be yet another grim dark slog of horrible things happening to mostly decent people. While dark and horrible things do happen to mostly decent people, Buehlman also keeps a sardonic sense of humor and a line of hope running through the end.

My only minor disappointment was that I’d heard that this was a very scary book. Perhaps I’ve read too much horror to be scared, but it did not have any scenes that will linger and give me nightmares.

This is also a great book for picking up and reading a few chapters at a time without worrying about keeping up with the plot. It’s very episodic with our trio experiencing multiple adventures, at least until the final push to the climax.

- "Healing Self-harm"..

I read "Piercing" by the famous Japanese author Ryu Murakami (rest in peace)...

I started reading it because of Nicolas Pesce’s movie—which, by the way, I didn’t like... Sure, it has its own visual style and that neon vibe, but after watching it, I didn’t understand a thing...

And speaking of the book, it’s better! (Surprising, isn’t it?) Overall, I like the dynamic between the characters and, of course, the powerful monologues mixed with dark humor

The story itself is presented in an interesting way through two characters, each with their own traumas. Murakami shows that traumatized people instantly sense each other’s inner brokenness, forming a deep empathetic bond that strips them of their usual cruelty.

The author himself shows that even in a metropolis like Tokyo, there is a form of existential loneliness. The novel emphasizes that behind the prosperous walls of these apartments, dark human deviances may lurk—deviances that society doesn’t care about until someone sees a corpse or some other tragedy…

And the novel’s title is the central metaphor. For Tiaki, piercings and self-harm—just like Kawashima’s desire to pierce flesh—serve an important therapeutic (albeit destructive) function… they both survived the horror of childhood abuse. A piercing is pain that a person chooses for themselves.

It’s a way of declaring: “My body belongs to me, and only I decide when and how I will feel pain.”… and for Tiaki, cuts and piercings are a way to escape a state (where it feels as though she doesn’t exist).

That very pain brings her back to reality.

Naturally, the book doesn’t attempt to justify them or their deviant behavior.

It’s a ruthless psychological diagnosis of a society that ignores childhood trauma.

The author shows that violence against a child never goes unnoticed; it remains within a person like a time bomb that will go off sooner or later.

But of course, there are some downsides I should mention:

The novel’s ending leaves a sense of incompleteness, in my opinion; it cuts off at a climactic moment, offering no resolution or answers to the questions raised. The story is certainly short and intimate, and the downside is that I felt it lacked further exploration; but on the other hand, the open ending is just as it is.

In my view, the ending shows that they don’t become “normal” in that sense. However, the author offers hope: they cease to be alone in their madness.

Ryū Murakami shows that salvation from inner demons lies not in therapy, but in absolute, terrifying sincerity and acceptance of one’s partner’s dark sides.

Kawashima abandons the idea of killing his daughter, as his destructive impulse has found an outlet and understanding in Tiaki.

I Recommend

This is book 16 of 16 of the series that begins with Assassin’s Apprentice. The only thing I’ve read that comes close in complexity is Stephen King’s Dark Tower (half as many books, but many others that tie in to the main story).

The world building and character development are phenomenal. And there are so many layers, but everything ties together brilliantly.

I listened to these over the last three years. 16 books averaging 26 hours and 34 minutes each… 425 hours well spent!

Farseer Trilogy
Liveship Traders Trilogy
Tawny Man Trilogy
Rainwild Chronicles, 4 books
The Fitz and the Fool Trilogy

Just finished reading CUJO by Stephen King. It’s about this friendly Saint Bernard who, when bitten by a rabid bat while roaming about in the woods, goes on this vicious, violent rampage in town. This leads to his family that may or may not be the ones to take him down before Cujo racks up a higher kill count.

It’s one of those underrated Stephen King novels that immerses you right into the suspense and makes you feel like you’re confronted with Cujo’s presence. Not as brutal with the animal horror as Pet Semetary (that one kept me up) and it’s a slow burn of a novel at first but it’s well worth it.

For those who read it, what did you think?

The Full Moon Coffee Shop is a cozy fantasy about a magical coffee shop run by talking cats that only appears to people who need it. There’s no menu and no bill. Instead, the cats serve each person exactly what they need, both on the plate and through the conversations that follow. The stories are loosely connected, with each character carrying their own struggles and questions about where they are in life.

I’ll be honest, I’m not really a cat person, so I did judge this book a little by its cover. When I first read that it involved talking cats, I thought that it was probably not my cup of tea. It took me about four or five pages to get into it, but once I did, there was no going back.

I went into this after Dark Matter by Blake Crouch and honestly, I think I needed exactly this kind of read. It’s light, cozy and heartwarming without trying too hard to be any of those things. The food descriptions were also unfairly good. The trifle, pancakes and tea had me genuinely craving, despite not being much of a tea person or having much of a sweet tooth.

What I liked most was how the book uses astrology less as a way of predicting someone’s future and more as a way of getting them to look at themselves differently. I don’t particularly believe in astrology, but I thought there was just enough of it to make it interesting without overwhelming the story. In fact, somewhere along the way I actually became curious about what my own natal chart looks like. I might have to look it up just to see how much of this book I actually remember. I’m sure my parents would be thrilled that I’m finally giving astrology a chance. :))

The classical music references were nice too, although most of them went over my head. I’m not really into classical music, so I didn’t have much context for them.

More than anything, though, I liked the way the book made me think about second chances and the way we look at the difficult parts of our lives. Sometimes nothing external changes. You just start looking at the same situation differently, understand yourself a little better and decide what you want to do with it. The characters felt surprisingly real for a fantasy book. I couldn’t relate to all of them, but there were little pieces of each that felt familiar.

The last few chapters and especially the epilogue really brought everything together for me. The way the stories eventually circle back to the old man who started this whole chain of events, and the explanation around the cats, was genuinely lovely. I didn’t see the full circle coming, and I was smiling by the end of it.

A few lines also stayed with me:

‘Understand yourself, and you’ll be able to care for yourself. As long as you do that, you’ll shine like the star that you are’

‘But challenges aren’t barriers to confront. They’re doors waiting to be opened’

I think that’s what I’ll take away from this book more than anything. It’s not really about astrology for me. It’s about perspective, self-awareness and the idea that sometimes the things we see as failures or obstacles might simply be asking us to look at them differently.

The epilogue was probably what sealed it for me. After a very long time, this felt like a book that was less about the story itself and more about how it made me feel while reading it. Like a big, warm hug I didn’t know I needed.

I’m definitely going to continue with the other two books in the trilogy.

I’ve been chasing the high of Elena Ferrente’s My Brilliant Friend (and series) for a few years now, and this scratched a similar itch! It takes place in Uruguay throughout the 20th Century and through the viewpoints of three generations of women.

I thought it did a good job of balancing magical elements and lore with historical references and realness. There’s pain and suffering, but a lot of beauty, too.

I’m not normally a crier when reading, but this one had me tearing up.

Picked this up from a recommendation because it sounded like a tight murder mystery. And it does not disappoint!

Female barrister is asked to defend the accused murderer of a prominent judge. It's a big break for our protagonist but also a major minefield because: the judge is a beloved colleague and family man, the accused is someone she defended poorly in the past causing him to do time for a crime he was innocent of, and the prosecutor is her mentor/teacher and now husband.

The story is written from a couple of points of view. Our protagonist, Leila the barrister and Witness X.

The defendant refuses to talk or give any information to his legal team, thus forcing them to investigate the crime using every trick in the book. We learn of Leila's backstory (surprise! it's dark!), Witness X (also dark!), and the sordid secrets of Leila's husband, colleagues and others, while all the while trying to piece together what exactly happened, not to mention how on earth is she going to win this case.... Or is she? What is she willing to do? Who is Witness X? Did our defendant really do it? Why do all British barristers have so many secrets? 😂

Definitely twisty, captivating and with enough surprises and reveals to keep me hooked throughout a 3 hour train ride where I couldn't tear my eyes away from the book, not even to admire the beautiful Spanish countryside because I HAD to finish the book.

And the ending! Absolutely perfect! Can't wait to read more from this author.

I read this one a while back and it has really helped me grieve my late dad who passed on March 2025. Story follows an undead fox who ushers newly deceased woodland creatures into the afterlife. I laughed. I cried. I’ll read and continue recommending. This book is categorized as middle school fantasy. I enjoy it was an adult woman and say it’s worth checking out.

What memories would you remember for the 10 minutes and 38 seconds after you die that your brain is active?

For Leila, each minute after her death brings a vivid memory: the taste of spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the long-awaited birth of a son; the sight of bubbling vats of lemon and sugar which women used to wax the legs while men attend mosque; the scent of cardamom coffee that she shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each memory, too, recalls the friends Leila made at each key moment in her life - friends are now desperately trying to find her...

Reading this book compelled me to ask myself what would my brain deem as significant from the repository of memories we build through our lifetime.

Leila comes up with 13 memories through her time.

(I am an 18 yo rn, and honestly, my life has been pretty uneventful. So, my brain is only able to think of 3 memories)

So, I just wanted to ask y'all:

Q. What memories would you remember for the 10 minutes and 38 seconds after you die?

This is in fact a novella disguised as a novel (god I wish novellas were still a thing) but it is fantastic. I can't recall a novel I've read that does "creeping dread" better than Foe.

From the first page you get this unshakeable feeling that something is "wrong." Everyone reacts to the news of Junior's (for lack of a better word) "selection" entirely differently. Terrance with his menacing enthusiasm, Hen's frustration, Junior's resignation. But we, the audience, lack the context to know what to feel. So we instinctively feel dread.

And it gets worse from there. The hills and valleys of Junior and Hen's marriage (which, to our witless protagonist's confusion, creeps ever closer to a permanent end), Terrance moving in, the nigh-on body horror of the experimentation on Junior...boy howdy.

And then of course the twist. Halfway through, I was like "come on Iain, I clocked that a mile away." But then he got me in the end. For fans of a genre mashup of sci-fi, psychological thriller, and horror, I'd def put this on your list. Although my sources tell me to stay faaaar away from the movie adaptation.

This book won awards for journalism and I can see why. You see this family with eight children and you see two of the young sons' and their mother's efforts to better their circumstances or at least stay out of trouble, and you see all the things that are working against them to keep them trapped in poverty and degredation. The housing complex where they live is basically a war zone, shots being fired all the time; numerous people the family knows die violent deaths and one of the boys in the story is so stressed by his living circumstances that he develops a stutter. Living conditions are extremely poor; a lot of the apartments in the housing complex are vacant because there is no money to repair them and make them livable for new tenants, and occupied apartments often have broken plumbing etc. It's a whole different side of America and it made me feel ashamed. It is impossible to bootstrap oneself out of such a bad beginning.

I looked up online to see how the two boys who are the main characters in the story did, once they grew up. Unfortunately, the answer is: not great. The journalist helped them with their education and I think they did both graduate high school, but both of them got in trouble with the law later on. Given what they were up against it didn't surprise me.

My first crime book and also my first Korean book and I really enjoyed it!

It’s intense, cozy, somewhat relaxing and satisfying to read.

The story is about a woman who runs a plant shop in South Korea and the many ways she gets rid of men to help out people and cats.

It also reads as a short story collection with the plant lady and her shop being the main connecting point.

It was also great for the spooky season so I’d recommend!

I bought this book on Audible a year ago. I had an 8-hour road trip ahead of me, and I thought it would be good to be able to deep-dive into the story, as it's just under 16 hours at normal speed, about 12 hours at 1.2 speed, which is a perfect speed for me to understand and keep up.

What intrigued me about the story initially was the mystery, or quest, at its heart. The story takes place in England, starting in the early days of Queen Victoria. Our protagonist, Amy Snow, is an orphan, brought into the wealthy Vennaway family by their precocious 8-year-old daughter Aurelia, when she is found as an abandoned baby (guess!) in the snow. Amy is very much brought up as a second-class citizen by the family and is treated quite cruelly by Aurelia's mother, but she forms a strong friendship, a sisterhood, with Aurelia, who tragically dies at age 23.

Amy is asked to leave the household immediately after Aurelia's will is read, which she does. She is bequeathed 10 pounds, not a fortune, but not a pittance either, in these early years of the Victorian age. She is then secretly given a letter, written by Aurelia before her death, that starts Amy on her quest.

I loved the characters. Amy herself is interesting, and it's nice to see her grow in confidence and experience as the story progresses. She travels throughout England and meets a variety of people. She falls in love and has men pursuing her romantically. The driver of the story is her quest to uncover a secret Aurelia was keeping. One thing I thought of, that the author never addressed, was that the quest was also a great way for Amy to 1) learn to become independent after a lifetime sheltered at the Vennaway property and, 2) was an excellent way for Amy to work through her grief at losing her dear sister/friend during this quest she was on. Amy needed the structure Aurelia's quest provided her to learn how to navigate a world she had never lived in.

The story is complex and fulfilling. The first half of the book takes place on a dual timeline (Amy's upbringing and friendship with Aurelia and then her quest). Themes throughout the book are friendship, family, sisterhood, the place of women, romantic love versus arranged marriages. The author does a good job of having the characters speak and behave in what I would presume to be historically accurate ways. I particularly enjoyed the character of Mrs. Riverthorpe, who is a strong woman in a man's world and a prickly pear to beat!

I read a lot of non-fiction and mystery/thrillers. I greatly enjoyed this engrossing historical novel and bought into the story completely. I wouldn't recommend this to my husband to read as I think it's a "woman's book", nor would I recommend it to my very American friends who have no connection to England. As a woman, and as someone who loves stories based in England, this was right up my alley. A 5-star book for me. I hope you enjoy it!

In 1967, JRR Tolkien was receiving many fan letters about Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit. He was pleasantly surprised to receive a fan letter about Smith of Wooten Major. The fan, a 19 year old Terry Pratchett (yes, of Discworld fame) said “I don't know what there was in it that moved me to write this letter. It was something that 'The Lord of the Rings' never possessed except in very short measure, that feeling of recognition. You said something in 'Smith' which I hope I grasped, and there was a feeling almost of recognition. An odd feeling of grief overcame me when I read it. I cannot explain my feelings any clearer. It was like hearing a piece of music from way back, except that it was nearer poetry by Graves's definition. Thank you very much for writing it.”

There is something beautiful and sad and dreamy about Smith’s story. He receives a talisman that allows him to pass into faeryland and experience its wonders, but he still must return home in the end and live his life.

The closest narrative experience I can recommend this to is that it is the same experience I felt when I watched Miyazaki’s Spirited Away for the first time.

Along the way, we also experience many delightful moments of Tolkien’s dry humor. Consider: “There was one festival to which all looked forward, for it was the only one held in winter. It went on for a week, and on its last day at sundown there was a merrymaking called The Feast of Good Children, to which not many were invited.”

This is a sweet adult fairy tale that ignited a fire in a young Terry Pratchett. Lose yourself in it and see what its charms will do for you.

I went in blind, only knowing it was a witchy historical fiction with a bit of magical realism and was completely blown away by this epic tale of Mid-Western America during the Dust Bowl Era. Not only are the multiple (yet complex) characters from this novel still living rent-free in my head a week after finishing, I learned so much about a part of the country and time that I'd previous been unfamiliar with. Not wanting to post too much for others like me that enjoy going in with only a little information, but I cannot stop thinking about how beautifully this was written and it's been a genuine treat to read. A book hasn't affected me like this in many years.

I loved it, I loved it.

I postponed reading the second book for nearly a month, until one night I picked it up while going through it, and then I just couldn't put it down.
This book made me feel again when I was stuck and couldn't feel a thing for days.

I rarely give a five star rating, but this book pretty much had it all. the characters, the character development, the world, the plot, the adventures, My kind of romance and slow burn it was all of the above. It just kept getting better and better. I grew so attached and super amazed by the backstories, Evangeline's personality development, the plot twist when I seriously thought the book was over, the storyline, Stephanie Garber's descriptions and writing.

This is my favorite book, and the bane of my existence all at once

"Even when Evangeline was stoned, she was still soft. She cares too much, hopes too much, forgives too easily."

"Her gray eyes rake over me as if I'm the monster she would never touch, if that were true. She'd be better off.. but I watched her free hand betray the truth. It clamps into a fist. She's angry enough to hit me to hurt me. Either way. She still wants to touch me. I can't help taunting her now "

Just finished reading THE ROAD BACK, the sequel to Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novel ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. Set weeks after the events of the first novel, many of the remaining characters that we met in the first novel are now returning home after the war has ended.

That being said, after all they endured, they don’t really know what exactly they’re returning to and question whether they made any type of difference at all. They are disillusioned and disgusted as they struggle to adjust to postwar life and process their trauma.

Like its predecessor, it’s a haunting, demoralizing account of the irreversible trauma that molds soldiers once they return from the battlefield and how there can never be any true sense of normalcy as well as lingering questions struggling to make sense of the futility of war. The novel doesn’t promise to provide answers, maybe aware that there are no acceptable answers. Though written in 1931, in many ways the questions raised remain sadly relevant (and unanswered).

Also, I don’t want to spoil too much but if you knew how Paul Baumer, the narrator of All Quiet on the Western Front, ended up, this novel adds an even sadder yet realistic depth to his story. When reading about how characters like Tjaden are grappling with their trauma and trying to live life again, it’s hard to tell whether or not Paul Baumer may have been better off but to think about how close he may have been to surviving, it hurts yet his story is reminiscent of many soldiers who suffered the same unfair fate.

The Road Back is a dark yet important novel, a depressing sequel to a classic novel. For those who read it, what did you think? And how do you compare it to All Quiet on the Western Front?

Good Material is about Andy, a 35-year-old stand-up comedian trying to make sense of his life after his long-term girlfriend, Jen, leaves him. Most of the book is Andy trying to understand the breakup, himself, and what went wrong, before we finally get to hear Jen’s side of the story.

Spoilers ahead. If you haven’t read the book yet, I’d stop reading here.

I went into this book completely blind. I had no idea it was going to be a breakup story from a man’s perspective, and honestly, I think that made the whole experience more interesting for me.
It took me a little while to get into it, though. Getting used to the very British setting, humour and culture took me some time. Also, the amount of drinking in this book was v questionable. :) I genuinely lost count. Pubs, drinks, more drinks, drinking before going somewhere to drink. I don’t know if that’s just very British or if Andy and his friends were personally trying to keep the alcohol industry alive.
But somewhere around the 100-150 page mark, I was all in.

Being inside Andy’s head for most of the book was honestly an experience. He is obsessed with Jen, very self-involved at times and has this constant ‘why me?’ running in the background. There were so many moments where I wanted to tell him to just pull himself together. But at the same time, I did feel for him. He’s hurting, and people don’t always behave in the most sensible way when they’re hurting. I think that’s what worked for me about Andy. He could be frustrating and exhausting, but he also felt very human.

What I really liked was getting to see heartbreak from a man’s perspective. As a woman, I’m so used to breakup stories being told from a female perspective that I almost automatically know how to relate to them. With Andy, I had to look at it differently. I kept wondering if this is actually how men process heartbreak, because I obviously wouldn’t know. It was genuinely interesting to see.
And then came Jen.

Those last 40-ish pages completely caught me off guard. I genuinely thought I was going to finish the whole book inside Andy’s head, so suddenly getting Jen’s perspective felt like someone opened a window in a room I’d been sitting in for 300 pages. And I absolutely devoured it.

This part especially stayed with me:
“Did I want any of it? Did I want to be someone’s girlfriend? Was it something I could do?”

And then:

“I could never really understand whether I was in a good relationship or not. I couldn’t measure what the reality of long-term love was; what was settling for something when I should be asking for more.”

That really hit home for me. Not because I related to Jen completely, but because I understood her. I’ve been in a relationship where I slowly realised that loving someone and wanting to continue being with them weren’t necessarily the same thing. Sometimes you can love someone and still feel like the relationship is taking more from you than it’s giving you. And I think that’s one of the hardest things to accept.

Another line that I know I’ll think about for a long time was:

“You don’t let go once. That’s your first mistake. You say goodbye over a lifetime.”

I loved that. Because we somehow expect ourselves to be completely over someone once we’ve decided to leave, but that’s not really how it works. You can know something was the right decision and still miss the person. You can move on and still have a song, a place or some completely random memory bring something back for a second. You say goodbye more than once.

I also really liked that the book didn’t make the breakup as simple as one person being bad and the other being good. Andy genuinely loved Jen. Jen genuinely loved Andy. And yet the relationship still wasn’t right for her anymore. That felt very real to me.

If anything, Jen’s chapter made me look back at the entire book differently. For most of it, we’re hearing about Andy’s heartbreak, his confusion, his loneliness and his version of what happened. Then suddenly you realise there was another person living through that same relationship and experiencing it very differently. And that’s probably what I liked most about the book.

There were quite a few moments that made me laugh, some that frustrated me, and a few lines that I know will randomly come back to me months from now. I also really liked Morris and that whole part of the book. There was something unexpectedly warm about their relationship.

Overall, this was a bittersweet read for me. It took me a while to get into, but once I did, I was completely invested. I wouldn’t say I related to Andy, but I definitely understood him more than I expected to. And I probably related to Jen in ways I didn’t realise I would.

Also, completely random, but I went back and listened to Cigarettes and Coffee by Otis Redding after finishing the book because it was mentioned and it intrigued me. Definitely not my usual vibe, but I actually enjoyed the change. I like when a book casually sends you off to discover something you probably wouldn’t have otherwise.

So yeah, Good Material wasn’t a book I immediately fell in love with, but by the time I closed it, I was really glad I read it.