My favorite Sager novel so far.
I love an unreliable narrator. Casey is PERFECT. 4 bourbons deep our MC saves her new neighbor‘s life, but is there more to the accident she suffered. Part Rear Window, part I don‘t know.
Love it, 10/10

Book barn is making a “bitey bus” 🧛‍♀️🚌 where all the paranormal romance/urban fantasy lives. Found some goodies!

House Across The Lake, at the beach

My Dad and I took a trip to a bunch of small bookstores in Southern NH and VT. This is my haul, I think I‘m most excited for the tagged book. The Classical Greek Reader I got because I have been reading probably too many Greek retellings and I have no idea what the inspiration material is.
It‘s obvious that I should have read Gone Girl by now.

How‘d I do? See anything you have liked?

I did not figure out how to start a Satanic Temple Congregation today but I did buy this shirt.

July‘s #Roll100 selections

Witching Hour has been on the physical TBR for over a year, so I‘m glad this will prompt me to get to it.

Unknown why I stacked Pollan‘s because I was really lukewarm on Omnivore‘s Dilemma.

And the Warhol bio was a freebie on audible, maybe I‘ll make some art while I listen.

The reviews I‘ve read on this are pretty mixed. Feyi, age 29, an artist from NY, has been through a major trauma and after 5 years is trying to put herself back out in the dating scene. And at first she is trying to make loose connections, focusing on the superficial, then maybe someone light who can help her forget. But then she meets someone who can understand all her soft spots and sharp edges.
Book is good enough to EAT in more ways than one.

The part in the story where the FMC and MMC have unnecessary conflict because someone lies about their feelings instead of just saying “I don‘t think we should get involved until we get out from under the thumb of the crime boss who would use our relationship to manipulate us” 🤪

I don‘t like the voices she does, and I do like her as an actress so I really had high hopes. Idk if it was Covid Brain or what but I‘m almost 3 hours in, have no idea what‘s happening or who the people are and I have no urge to listen again 😂 maybe another day in another format. But I gotta bail

#roll100

I didn‘t expect much,Just wanted a quick thriller. Very solid. Didn‘t disappoint.

25 y.o. Mia is kidnapped. She survives, returns to her family suffering from acute stress disorder, thinks her name is Chloe. Told from 2 timelines &multiple perspectives, her mother & the lead detective seek the truth about how &why she was taken.

I forgot this is a Christmas story & I meant to save this for #Wintergames 😅 but, it‘s book 7 for #BigJuneReadathon

🔥📖🍻
Kubica is hooking me immediately with this one.

Along the same truly confusing &intoxicating alchemical lines as Middle Game, but instead of Math & Language, the seasons are seeking to crown their North American avatars. I fell into this story fast, Harald March & Melanie Cosgrove are so charming. The cheerleader who has been dying since she was born &her sweetheart.

Ascendants &other Incarnates help &hinder them as the coronation approaches. Fascinating world building.

📚6 #BigJuneReadathon

Some bbq tofu and corn in the fire pit and kicking this off

Am I gonna bail? I kinda want to bail? The voices are throwing me over the edge and I don‘t think a normal amount of this has made its way to my brain.

Should I persevere?
#roll100

📚5 #BigJuneReadathon
WHY did we time jump again? Events in the last book which came out 1 year apart are several years ago.. with nothing in between it takes away from Kay‘s mentality, Lucy‘s “issues” & the return of an arch-nemesis. Botched a perfect hurt/comfort scene. trying to paint Lucy as a drunk when everyone else travels with a bottle of Dewars: pot/kettle. All the character development with Marino 🚮

Pacing & twists saved the story. ⬇️

I know there‘s lots of VE Schwab fans here, anyone watching this?

Memoir from the former President of Nintendo Of America. Follows his professional life from P&G, Pizza Hut, VH1 to Nintendo where he made a HUGE impact on the industry.

I may not be the target audience. I‘m not in marketing, I don‘t have an MBA, but I still found the leadership advice basic. It missed human touches:family is rarely mentioned &one of those times was his divorce, so work/life balance clearly wasn‘t a focus.
#BigJuneReadathon 📖4

This was really cute and 🌶. Exactly what it was supposed to be. Perfect beach read, quarantine misery buster, or date night with yourself 🥰

5‘ tall 2nd grade teacher who is obsessed with murder podcasts has her vacation interrupted by a murder and teams up with an unwitting bounty hunter to find the murderer and the bounty hunter‘s heart of gold.

Super cute. Corny, but I was really very honestly rooting for everyone.

(📸 from author‘s insta)

In ✨quarantine✨ so this is as wild as the weekend is going to get. Tessa Bailey, coffee & Baileys.

Book 3 for #BigJuneReadathon
(Please enjoy this photo of me 1/2 dead from exhaustion in a Denny‘s in San Juan in 2015)

I really enjoyed this. A very human, heartfelt &realistic story of how different political sides benefit and manipulate events, personal struggles impacting decisions for better or worse, &just trying to do your best in this crazy capitalist world. It‘s about identity, healing from trauma, making your own way. I loved Olga.

I‘ve been watching this Big Little Lies adaptation (which I‘ve wanted to watch since it came out and just remembered I have HBO) this is really good, I should actually read a Liane Moriarty instead of just watching.

There‘s a considerable amount of liberties taken in this feminist YA version of Apollo and Daphne, so if you are a stickler for that sort of thing, this may bother you. Stories are changed to put Daphne, a Spartan warrior charged with returning the power of Olympus, allied with or fighting against some well known Greeks.

Which is much cooler than turning yourself into a laurel tree to maintain your virginity. 🌳

Book 2 is out in September

Pineapple Chili Marg w/Olga 🌶

I made a lil glass 🌵while I finished this. I almost bailed. The world building seemed a bit… lazy… but the characters were pretty good, so I finished. Predicable ending though.

I don‘t love a lot of YA. Dystopian society, lower class girl uncovers the conspiracy that holds back her kind, discovers who she really is blah blah

#BigJuneReadathon #roll100

I got this at a book sale last year, it‘s been eaten by a dog. Which fits because a dog is part of the found family goodness.

The book starts with 12 year old Naomi finding out her dad is a serial killer, now 29 &living her dreams she settles down &lives a Hallmark movie life, until an eerily similar murder happens. I thought we were losing the plot in overly detailed food &art descriptions, but we wrapped back around.

Wait wait wait wait…

I DNFd East of Eden 120 pages in, and I do not care for Steinbeck, but East of Eden *is* a biblical story. It is. It‘s a Re-creation of Cain & Abel. C‘mon Nora.

I am learning how to do stained glass art but I get so childishly frustrated when I‘m not immediately good at something 😅

Anyway, I‘m a couple hours into this book, it‘s got some solid 🏳️‍🌈 rep but.. the story itself isn‘t thrilling me. And it is one of those examples of a white lady writing a dystopian universe based on things that already happened to Black or Brown people (in this case caste systems and human hair trafficking) 😬

My 1st Lucy Foley did not disappoint! I foresaw a couple things but the delivery was impeccable, great attention to detail. Massive credit to her for the writing of so many characters harboring dark secrets who are still mostly endearing and not horrible.

Overgrown school boys and the women who love them head out of civilization for a wedding. Secrets from the past haunt the guests, goes kinda Lord of the Flies.

Book 1 for #BigJuneReadathon

I only read one chapter of this book at the beach last week AND managed to get it soggy. 🎬 Two 😅

(Fanart by Amandadrawsz)
Hades and Persephone retelling. Set in a modern world where the gods are celebrities. Persephone is a college student trying to make her own path out from under her mother‘s thumb, Demeter has a very strict rule that she is to stay away from the gods, which she obeys until an encounter with Hades.

Tons of fun, many spicy scenes but it doesn‘t overtake the plot, I LOVE Persephone. Will def continue reading the series. 🌿

#BigJuneReadathon
My goal is to read 8 physical books off my TBR & 1 preordered. SO MANY goodies piling up on my TBR shelf &I have been reading a ton, but mostly ebooks (it‘s fine, but look at THESE). Only 3 of 12 (soon to be 13) books finished this month were physical (4 audiobooks, 5 ebooks - not including A Touch Of Darkness that will be finished today). So many good hard copies: seasonal fears, Hate U Give, Kay Scarpetta, Olga Dies Dreaming-

Definitely some quotable moments and inventive ideas. The majority did focus on job seeking and education choosing, which is not presently a concern for me, but I would be likely to go give some chapters more attention should I find myself on that path. Like any similar book some of the networking tips or other financial advice isn‘t the most practical, but I found the journaling exercises more fruitful from others in this genre.
#roll100

This was good! The audiobook is a fun listen. I knew a lot of the jokes because I have rewatched Seinfeld MANY times 😂 but I still liked it.

Oh yeah. I never posted my #roll100 selections

This is a super weird line up for me 😂

The story overall… is ok, pretty solid. Although, I feel like it would have benefitted from a darker twist. The 1790s timeline is much more interesting than the present day. Although with both timelines I was ready to yell through space, time and reality at some of the characters.

More thoughts below ⬇️

Beach day reading!

I might be being harder on this one because everyone loved it 😬 I did not.
Elektra follows Cassandra, Clytemnestra & Elektra around the events of the Trojan War.
Elektra is just the worst honestly.
Jumps to the next chapter left me wanting more from the last, time passes & the tone doesn‘t convey any difference in the characters.
My knowledge of Greek classics/mythos is Song of Achilles maybe I would have gotten more out is it w/more background?

Pardon my misandry, but men are so obtuse 😂

I started out iffy on this one, some of the MCs decisions were… interesting. But she grew on me. Lots of action, gore and twists.

Darby is traveling home on Christmas break, last minute to see her ailing mother, the snowy conditions force her to stop at a rest area where she discovers that there‘s a kidnapped young girl in the back of a van. With no cell signal, or way to get help. Who can she trust? And how can they survive until help arrives?

Enjoying this so far. I‘m trying to take my time and do the journal activities and reflect, there is some information and exercises that are not simply recycled from other self-help books.

Got out of work early for a dentist appointment, grabbed myself a late lunch and came to enjoy the beautiful weather with this one. I‘m reading what seems like a good amount of Greek retellings with absolute 0 foundational knowledge. I should probably rectify that at some point.

This book was wonderful. I feel that it will be and/or should be stuffed into American Literature coursework immediately. A nuanced look at race, colorism, classism, generational trauma, LGBT issues, what it means to be family and generally how people make their way in life.

Spoilers/my thoughts on the ending in the comments

I don‘t really get the premise of this book…
If I see a kidnapped child in a van, outside, while we are getting snowed in, so the child is out there in freezing conditions. The extent of my investigation is going to be 🏏🏏 Excuse meeeee whose van is thaaaaat 👊🥊🔪🔪
There are other people there who are also not kidnappers…

A serial killer is targeting strippers. This thriller follows multiple perspectives, the women at the club, the detectives investigating, a victim, suspects, the killer.

At first it was too many people. But the view points & tone changes between characters was spot on & as it continued I found that it wasn‘t muddled or confusing and I liked the callbacks to earlier situations from a new perspective. It ended up being really addicting & fun.

Soft pick, but I did end up enjoying it.
I liked Enne and Levi, but it took me a while to care about their tension. As for the world building, alternate Las Vegas the money is volts, certain people hold certain powers some of them make you better at gambling, or dancing, or acrobatics. A little silly & the villains and politics were kinda meh, but I might continue the series and see if it picks up steam.

This was good.

Jess sneaks into a study on morality lead by psychiatrist Dr Shields. Jess suspects there‘s more than DrS discloses, 1st she stays for the $$. But DrS knows her darkest secrets.

Jess was a very relatable character. The plot did meander. I called a couple of the twists and then wondered why it took a BIT to get to the reveal. But it was very immersive and creepy since it‘s told both from the perspective of Jess and Dr. Shields.

Bartender:do you like your storybook?
Me: Yes (impatiently, reading Anonymous Girl) this woman is being manipulated by her therapist to spy on her husband. I don‘t really know what‘s happening. It‘s a mystery.
Bartender: I only downloaded one storybook. (Tagged)
Me: oh cool, I love true crime, you never really know what people are capable of. Humans are the real monsters
Bartender: *watches me suspiciously from the corner*
Me: check please.

#SushiOfLitsy

Day off, just saw Doctor Strange Multiverse of Madness. The Boyfriend is going to see Weird Al and I‘m trying to do all the things I like at once 👍already stopped of at Barnes & Noble so mini-haul post to follow.

Happy Fridayyyy

I‘m not trying to be an Ahole about it because I‘m sure it took a lot for the author to write this book… but if you pitch to me that it‘s funny it should be funny, it‘s not funny. I audiobook‘d it and thought the delivery just may have been off but it was read by the author. I didn‘t learn anything and I didn‘t get any good advice.