Due to global warming, arctic ice is melting at an exponentially higher rate than previously thought which leads to sea rise which leads to dying coastal ecosystems as the ground becomes inundated with salt water versus freshwater. Rush‘s writing is accessible and I think she did a great job connecting all the dots from the environmental to the socioeconomic to the personal. Scary to read but better to be knowledgeable. Pick!

This book has brought it home that we are never going back and can‘t come back from climate change. I mean, we know, but we‘re in denial. This book is so informative, but it‘s a downer. I needed this paragraph.

@Jas16 Thank you so much for the books and this lovely postcard! I loved this book. An unnamed Indian woman is shot in her driveway. The book is her thinking about her life as she bleeds out. It is nonlinear. She is a woman who simply just wants to “be” while living in a world all too eager to inform her who she should be based on her gender and the color of her dark skin. I thought the writing was lovely. I ached for her and her children. Pick!!

This science fiction/fantasy mashup had everything. It made me laugh, I saw a clear movie with all the action going on in my head, and it even punched me in the heart a couple of times. It all starts off with Gary, a half unicorn half man getting out of jail after having been there for 10 years on a murder charge. He hooks up with his old ragtag crew and they head off into space hoping their pasts won‘t eat them ALIVE!!!Super Pick!!!

The MC, in the present, is depressed, preventing him from #fixingahole in his life. Then he gets a phone call from someone that takes him back to the 90‘s in his 20‘s when he left school to go to Paris where he got #hookedonafeeling about a girl. I thought about this book a lot when I read Milkman because of the repetitive sentences just switched around. But Middle Sister was no cocaine addicted alcoholic. #BeatleMaynia #MayMovieMagic

#Blackbird #LeTempsdeLAmour #BeatleMaynia #MayMovieMagic

This feeling of #sweetdisposition is one I always wanted #8daysaweek but was lucky enough to have experienced a couple of times in my 20‘s. P.s. this book is wonderful! #BeatleMaynia #MayMovieMagic

This colorfully dark story is about an unnamed woman hurtling towards the edge of her sanity. I spent most of this book in an upper body clench because of how awkward this got. And then I was afraid of and for this woman. Laura Sims is a great writer who you can tell is also a poet. This rich character study won‘t be for everyone but it was a pick for me! Thanks @collegecatlady for this selection. #groupZ

This unnamed narrator, who is an English professor is probably thinking “#SaveMe from these future wannabe #paperbackwriter (s)!” Just started this book tonight and thought it was a straight up stalker book by its description but it‘s so much more. #BeatleMaynia #MovieMayMagic

This was alright. This collection of short stories ran the gamut from horror to science fiction to fantasy. Lucy Snyder does not lack imagination. From zombie tigers to voodoo to planetary disasters to what has got to be a nod to Clive Barker in a story that contains what can only be the Le Marchand box she kept me reading. My only complaint is that half these stories are show and the other half are tell.

In the story “Antumbra,” the #spaceoddity doesn‘t hit Earth but flies right by us. A lot of people weren‘t able to say #whenIm64 because shortly after the rotation of Earth stopped, 4 billion people died. This story starts out with this event but then goes FULL. TILT. BOOGIE. #BeatleMaynia #MayMovieMagic

#immigrantsong I chose Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni #because she‘s is one of my all time favorite authors. These two books are her collections of short stories that talk about the Indian-American experience and the struggle that happens while trying to exist between two cultures. Her writing is poetic and lovely. I love her. #BeatleMaynia #MayMovieMagic

Lucy and Owen think they‘re being #modernlove (ers) by opening up their marriage. Owen finds Izzy, someone seemingly easy who turns out to have boundary issues and Lucy becomes what starts out as a #daytripper to the city to be with Ben but she ends up breaking the rule of “no falling in love.” This was hilarious with plenty of deep issues underneath. #BeatleMaynia #MayMovieMagic

The main character‘s namesake all starts when his father purchases a #tickettoride the train in India. #BeatleMaynia

So Lucy Snyder is one of the authors from the vampire anthology I liked so I thought I‘d check out more by her and it‘s already intense. But it seems that these two infected, with what, we don‘t know yet, individuals have #alustforlife. #MayMovieMagic

Thanks @rohit-sawant for this rec!!! It totally scratched that itch for vicious vampire stories. I liked all the stories in here and there were some new to me authors that I‘m gonna check out. There was a nice variety of story, mind bending, suspenseful, eerie, some even had heart, and others were all action. My favorites were Mrs. Popkin, The Separator, and The Yellow Death. I give it an enthusiastic 5 incisor puncture wounds to the neck!!!🧛‍♂️

#Youcannevertell what‘s gonna happen in a Clive Barker novel. In this sequel to The Great and Secret Show, woman named Phoebe is dreaming of her lover, Joe, whose spirit happens to be in the room. Her dream partially brings back his body that later on gets finished by the Shu which are creatures from the sea of Quiddity who are believed to be pieces of God. It‘s complicated. #Allmyloving. #BeatleMaynia #MayMovieMagic

Each of the characters in the beginning of this book are probably praying to God to #gimmeshelter because there‘s a tornado and not everyone has made it home in time. It‘s a very intense and horrifying start and not everyone makes it. #MayMovieMagic

#adayinthelife of reader me at work has had enough!!!I‘m gonna have to start taking my breaks and lunches in our office to avoid people just so I can read. The book in front of my face is almost like a beacon telling people I wanna talk. Maybe I‘ll buy one of these partitions. #BeatleMaynia

#RedRightHand always makes me think of Scream, which always makes me think of Sidney Prescott, played by Neve Campbell, which makes me think of Final Girls by Riley Sager, which I thought was meh, but was more me than the book. In all these horror situations you think, if they‘d just #cometogether they‘d be ok, but everyone likes to go check out that noise outside, in the dark, by themselves, after having lost their virginity. The background 👇🏼

This short story is called “Mrs.Popkin” and I don‘t exactly know who or what is the vampire in here, yet, but there‘s multiple POV‘s and it‘s all very compelling. This passage has a little of #letitbe and some #dontstopmenow. #BeatleMaynia #MayMovieMagic

This is definitely a #herecomesthesun to save the day kind of vampire short story. In it, Kristen thinks “I can‘t believe #howfarIllgo.” She‘s a librarian, who after a vampire kills her boyfriend on a secluded mountain late into the day, has to spend the night in a dead elk carcass for warmth on some rocks in the middle of a stream. Side note: did you guys know vampires can‘t cross water? I had no idea. #MayMovieMagic #BeatleMaynia

We never questioned whether Noah would love Allie after she was no longer #youngandbeautiful, but we had no idea he would spend his last years telling her about their #yesterday(s)......😭😭😭. #BeatleMaynia #MayMovieMagic

#AcrosstheUniverse #WeveOnlyJustBegun this novel as Maria wakes up on a ship in space in her clone body looking out at 5 other murdered cloned bodies. In this future, you can download your mind into a clone and live forever. The only problem? Nobody has any recollection of how their clone bodies were murdered. This was such a good space mystery that had to do with a lot of cloning issues. Good stuff!! #BeatleMaynia #MayMovieMagic

Natalie and Sophie go to a local bar to see a musician named Whistler who happens to be a vampire who just happens to turn them. After Natalie resists the urge to eat her baby, #shesleavinghome #behindthewheel of her car determined to find out how she can find Whistler to save her and Sophie‘s life. This book turned out to be darker than expected. Good stuff. #MayMovieMagic #BeatleMaynia

This was really safe YA that deals with MC Ariel (hard r, boys name, we‘re not talking mermaids) Stone puts so much pressure on himself to be perfect and be valedictorian and get into Harvard. But with all that pressure maybe he‘s missing the important stuff. There is a very cute Harry Potter-themed gay romance. Beautiful Jewish culture in here (ever since watching Kissing Jessica Stein I‘ve been on the lookout for that Jewish family in NM I 👇🏼

It‘s nice to know almost 12 years later after the last book came out, kids use Harry Potter to flirt with each other over tutoring.

For 72yo Johnny Ribkins it may seem like a #Long&windyroad driving all over Florida with a niece he never knew he had, trying to find money he buried all over the state, while visiting relatives along the way which make it feel like he‘s on the #HighwaytoHell, all so he can pay off a mob boss. Also, the Ribkins each have a superpower. Shout out to The Road which I have overused but would also fit these prompts. #BeatleMaynia #MayMovieMagic

This was muppet babies, as if they were mutants of the X-men universe, caught up in a slavery allegory written by the writers of The Walking Dead. Rough.

I‘m so fcking angry right now. This is what I want to do to this book. #whenthrowingitacrosstheroomisntenough. It‘s good. I just didn‘t realize how invested I was until a certain part happened. #deepbreaths

@Parvez Thanks for putting this out there. I really liked it!! A mining dig discovers an ancient structure beneath the desert of Rajasthan. Soon after, horrific “accidents” take place. Five experts in their field are brought in to assess the situation. These five experts are not aware of how their pasts have now brought them to this place of evil. Great pacing, great characterization, lots of twists. And even if I had a few ‘but how....‘s in👇🏼

A man looking back on the lawn that once held court to his wife(no longer there, dead or separated we don‘t know), his father (deceased), his daughter(dead or is alive in some kind of slave trade), and his brother, the only one who is left, a simple man after suffering a prolonged fever as a child. It‘s the obligatory “feel for this man!!!!” paragraph right before he goes off to wherever to get killed. I‘m a sucker for these.

This was like watching something grow. It‘s a little slow but at the end, beautiful and very worth. Taking place in the early 1900‘s, Mexico, a young baby is found alive covered in bees. He is saved by the local wet nurse. His name is Simonopio. He and his bees will forever change the lives of the godparents who care for him, Francisco and Beatriz, as well as their son, Francisco Jr. This is one of those books about life I didn‘t know I👇🏼

This book is slow going, but has some really nice moments of people realizing certain moments in life. There‘s one where the mother realizes the times she grew up in are not the times she‘s living in. Which sounds simple but there‘s an emotional adjustment that comes with such things. There‘s this other moment where her and her husband realize they are getting older. Just nice. However, I‘m reading a mindless slasher after this.

I loved this book!!! We follow Sugihara, a young Japanese born Korean who lives in Japan, has changed his nationality from North Korean to South, left his North Korean school to go to a Japanese school. Sounds complicated? It is. So much discrimination due to race and ethnicity. But the journey is filled with colorful characters such as his parents and plenty of friends, and The Girl, cause there‘s always A Girl. This was entertaining and hopeful.

This kid‘s a hoot. I‘m a little further but so far it‘s too cool for school.

I honestly don‘t think we needed the camp aspect in here. This was five different stories of girls and their journeys to womanhood. Each just happens to have had a linking incident at camp. Each story is filled with uncertainty, disillusionment, and the swallowed articulations of what could make their lives better. Even though I felt cheated on the last girl‘s story this was a compelling pick overall.

This was a different kinda of mystery. Isaiah Quintana, better known as IQ, lives in East Long Beach and usually accepts a live chicken and an arroz con pollo recipe and the like as payments for helping out people but now he needs cash to help out a friend. Through a person from his past, Dodson, he picks up a case trying to figure out who‘s trying kill a rapper. This book was full of interesting characters who all had backstory. I was hooked.

This book for me stayed strange throughout but became something very special by the end. An 18yo girl living through what they call The Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1970‘s finds herself the victim of stalking by someone called the Milkman, and also, the victim of unrelenting gossip by her community. Burns has a talent for the wonderfully kooky characters that make up a community and a strong sense of time and place. I really enjoyed it.

This book totally has its hilarious moments. I‘m glad I stuck with this book. It took me a good quarter to get comfortable.

Lol.

Hmm, had you handed me this with no author name I would have said a man wrote it. One day, girls find out they have the ability to produce and manipulate electricity. There‘s an immediate power shift with women at the top and men on the bottom. At first I was excited about it, until Naomi shows us that the love of power, never mind who has it, is what will always doom us. This was political. It was clever. It had a surprisingly good mafia arc.👇🏼

I should have chosen this for my #screamsbymail horror reading group. I think reading soft and tender Miriam Toews right before this ruined this book a little for me. I was expecting lambs and got bloodthirsty wolves. Lol Also, I think Mario Puzo would have loved this book very much.

I know it‘s early April but this will probably be one of the best books I read this year. Eight women gather in a loft of a barn to decide what must be done once they find out that a group of men in their Mennonite colony have been drugging them and attacking them at night for years. This could have been a one note book of anger and rage but it‘s quite the opposite. I was in awe of Toew‘s writing, her women, and their ability to love and 👇🏼

In the middle of all deciding what to do about the horrific events that have transpired, Toews breaks things up with girls talking about if a boy likes you in the colony, he will intentionally miss when throwing animal turds at you. And sometimes it‘s poetry and sometimes it‘s this. I remember John Cage from college and how this piece of his, 4‘33” is him just sitting at the piano not playing but whatever happens during that time is the music👇🏼

There were so many airplanes circling the airport I thought for sure Priest would land a few. At least land the ones I was interested in. And then, there was one that landed that wasn‘t even on the fcking map. That didn‘t make sense because it came outta nowhere. Lol new drinking game my #screamsbymail ladies. Take a shot every time you read the words 13 years or 48 hour rule. The So-So was because it was entertaining in a bad B movie kinda way.

It‘s June 1983, a very gritty 42nd St. in NYC. We follow Ginny, a smart, top prostitute, in charge of keeping the girls in line for her pimp. We start to see the very fabric of who she is start to rip as she makes the hard decisions while assuaging her conscience with alcohol. And this 75% of the book was pretty good made even better when you add the 25% that is Nicolette, the serial killer who believes she‘s the Minotaur. Ginny and Nicolette 👇🏼

Ginny here is one of 8 streetwalkers who is also their enforcer, their muscle when guys harass. She also leads bookclub in the morning. They‘re on the 3rd chapter of The Great Gatsby. It sounds crazy but the more I‘m reading this book the more I‘m liking and appreciating it.

It makes me sad to say, but I bailed. I got to page 50 and just didn‘t care. Which is crazy to me because his holy trinity for me is Choke, Haunted, and Invisible Monsters. I loved those books. And even liked his books Snuff, Runt, and Beautiful You. Maybe it was wrong time, wrong book.

#90‘sSpringFling The playlist. Lots of memories came back thinking about this list. How funny.