Scared someone away from our book club Whatsapp group chat yesterday. In my defense, I was making a joke about our December pick. It wasn't totally random.

This isn't nearly as funny as her other books. But one part had me laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. This is much more serious and I think she's actually growing as an author. It is mostly about mental health and chronic illness.

This is an interesting collection of essays by and about people who faced adversity in their lives. Some famous ish and others less so.

I liked this a lot. It was really hard not to devour this book in one sitting. I made myself just listen to 1 at a time. I love this cover. The look on her face is awesome.

This was the bonus December book for my IRL book club. I picked this and feedback from the guys isn't exactly positive. But the girls seem to love it.

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It's a mess. Whatev. Half of it's in pencil anyway.

I finished the bingo board yesterday.

Tagged is my favorite of the 25 listed (somehow also read 10 extra books).

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And can I just be a total rando and complain that those stupid smiley face stickers keep falling off? I've been gluing them back on all month which is why they're going every which way. I still have another sheet of them. They may end up in my niece's xmas card.

This book was so weird and I kind of loved everything about it, including this cover.

I really liked this. It's not exactly a retelling of The Cherry Orchard but there are similarities. This is about a group of friends living in and around Moscow during the 80's. And it's kind of beautiful and sort of heartbreaking. I don't want to give anything away.

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US pub date is 3/15/2022
#ARC #Netgalley

This is a weird self-help book masquerading as a novel. It wasn't what I expected. No idea what I expected. The title in English is Your Second Life Begins When You Realize You Only Have One. I'm actually surprised this was translated to English and that they kept that long title.

I really liked this. It was a book club pick and I hadn't ever heard of it, though apparently I read a different book by this author at some point.

A group of siblings find a boy in a field. He's been stabbed so they try to save him. It makes them all examine their lives.

Done. I have no idea how to rate this. I'm going with neutral.

#DecemberChill with @Cinfhen and @BarbaraBB

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Ordered these online yesterday. Obviously they didn't come directly from France. They came in the regular mail from New Hampshire. I'm feeling really happy right now.

I couldn't stop reading this. It's historical fiction but also a love story. Rose answers an ad in the paper on her birthday basically because her life is at a loose end. She becomes the nanny of a 4yo boy and the plan is to take him to his family in Australia and it's the middle of WWII, so complicated.

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US pub date is 3/15/2022
#ARC #Netgalley

This is the second in a series. And it's possible that I didn't give it my full attention. But it's a good follow up to the first book.

I ended up liking this a lot. It's pretty slow paced though. It's historical fiction about the US Virgin Islands. And there's some incest which may not even be necessary to the story. I'm really selling this. I want to read the author's new book and this has been on my TBR forever.

I understand why this is a classic. The advice is still very relevant. The #audiobook is really well done though it could probably use a refresh. The cover could use an update also.

This was incredibly well researched but the delivery is really dry.

#SheSaid with @Riveted_Reader_Melissa
Final discussion Sunday. Until then 🤐🤐🤐

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This book is ridiculously fun. A reality show heads to an island in Washington state. Think Bachelor, not Survivor. And things begin to go very wrong.

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Pub date is 6/28/2022
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These are very good. They're new translations of older stories by this author (whom I had never actually heard of). I think they pulled me in with the cover. Well written short stories are kind of magical imo.

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US pub date is 1/4/2022 (2022 yikes!)
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I thought this #audiobook was thoroughly entertaining. I may have liked it better than the previous book, despite the absence of the bird character. It's only 2 hours ish. I got a lot of #audiostitching done without really noticing the time flying by.

I really enjoyed this. But maybe not so much that I'm ready for the next book. I think they got me with the beautiful cover art on these.

Nirrim has lived her whole life behind the wall. When she meets Sid she begins to want something more. She also sees the people around her for what they are, though that takes significantly longer.

Well, this book is most definitely a thriller. I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen. I make it sound like a movie. So a young woman answers an ad for an apartment sitter in a very fancy building in Manhattan. But there might be a reason this is too good to be true.

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I had an #ARC from #Netgalley from 2019. Trying to sort out my pre-pandemic mess. I definitely read more now.

This is very good. It's normally a little creepy to read a teenage girl's diary. But this girl's story is important. And she was an incredibly good writer especially for a teen. The diary is full of poetry. The book also includes context provided by her sister. The world lost so much in the Holocaust but it definitely includes this lovely girl that probably would have become an incredible author.

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This #audiobook is very good. It's about a young woman programmer who marries her high school crush object, starts a company with him and a friend and how it all sort of spirals out of control. It's very funny. A bonus at the end is an interview between the author and the narrator that provides a lot of insight.

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I basically read the last half of this book on the train today. I need to find something more cheerful for my next adventure to the office. I have no idea if this has an English translation but this title roughly translates to the scent of happiness is stronger in the rain. Basically a woman is left by her husband and it takes the reader a while to find out why.

#BookSpin done!
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This is interesting and well written as well as being well researched. The #audiobook is read by the author.

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This is a fun little book. I think it's technically a novella (under 100 pages). The unreliable narrator is a 7yo boy, obsessed with hats, samurai films, and Liberian pygmy hippos, but is also the son of a Mexican drug lord. It's funny and slightly horrifying when you actually think about it. I kind of loved it. I immediately added another book by the author to my library wish list.

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This was hard to put down. I love a good mystery. It's the second in a series and I'd definitely recommend reading the other one first.

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This book is a giant lovely metaphor for what it's like to be a mother, specifically of a child with special needs. And how isolating it is. Not that I have any personal experience with the subject. But this book is beautiful.

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Pub date is 11/16/2021
#ARC #Netgalley

This is a great story. The author basically creates all these lovely characters and then kills them off slowly and in unexpected ways. It's possible I am exaggerating. It's good that you don't seem to need to have read the previous book in the series because it's been a long time. And it'll probably be a long time before I adventure into another one.

#AuthorAMonth @Soubhiville

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This #audiobook is truly lovely. The story is awesome but the descriptions of food take this to the next level.

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This is a fictionalized account of what happened to the author's grandmother in Warsaw during the holocaust. The action centers around the Jewish ghetto. It's heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time.

I had an ARC but this was published in 2019 (trying to clean up my Netgalley mess).

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I love Roxane Gay. This book is a little out of date but only in the sense that the author's situation has changed. One weird thing about the #audiobook is that it's read by Bahni Turpin instead of the author. Which is maybe only weird when she's talking about having an accent. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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In case anyone is interested, this new book by our #AuthorAMonth pick for December is currently available for request on #Netgalley. US pub date is January 2022.

@Soubhiville

This book contains a lot of really important ideas. The author also gives a lot of context for the state of women's lives in many predominantly Muslim countries. And on a lighter note, she reads the #audiobook and has a really lovely accent.

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This was really very good. It's entertaining. The characters are lovely. There's something very simple and pleasing about it. Did it blow my mind? No.

This was my IRL book club pick for November.

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Somehow this book manages to be both heartbreaking and confusing AF. Maybe it's just the #audiobook but every time the narrator changes it's hard to get your mind wrapped back up into the story. But overall it is very good and the story is important.

My IRL book club picked this as their second November pick (it's possible I picked this and no one protested).

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This book was really good. It's sort of a mystery. A woman inherits a house where a tragedy happened. She was a baby and the only person found alive in the house. But what happened to everyone else that was living there?

#DoubleSpin done ✔
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This is so funny. Listening to her giggling while trying to do accents is awesome. Obviously #audiobook this one.

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This is thoroughly enjoyable. I love a good space adventure.

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This is basically a memoir. She talks about Creed and Jersey Shore, basically guilty pleasures, but frames them around her own story. I ended up really liking it but it started off as a hard sell.

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Pub date is 11/2/2021 (today, actually)
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This is pretty fun. The author/narrator is pretty funny. She basically debunks myths and answers really random questions about dead bodies. I think this is actually meant for a younger audience but I enjoyed it. And the title is awesome.

This isn't the easiest to get into. But like all the other books by this author, if you stick with it, the story is actually quite good. This is a soft pick for me. The author reads the #audiobook which actually works pretty well. I like this cover but I'm not 100% sure what it has to do with the book.

Before I forget....
#BookSpin #DoubleSpin #BookSpinBingo list for November (how that happened is beyond me)
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❤❤❤❤❤

#BookSpinBingo blackout!
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I really liked most of these but nothing totally blew my socks off.

This book is really good. It's a YA thriller with an unreliable narrator. I had no idea where it was going until the reveal. I love when that happens.

Terra is a little bit crazy. Terra was abducted and kept in the woods for several days. No one believes her.

It's very clever.

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This is a fun book about what was previously believed about a variety of animals. The author is very funny. She loves puns. And the thing she does best is make humans look really foolish.

This is a typical Dumas. Lots of action. Plenty of ridiculousness. This one honestly wasn't as exciting as some others. And there's a lot less death and gore than normal. Actually, the only notable thing about it is that its theme is racism and it's the only book he wrote about it despite the fact that he probably experienced quite a lot in his own life. Also, this may be the first book I've read set in Mauritius.

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This was a new to me author. I really liked this. It is highly engaging. It's like a mystery adventure. I'm not sure what I expected.

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#ARC #Netgalley