Milking one last sick day while I kick this bout of bronchitis! I love J. Ryan Stradal & this book is proving to have the same heart as his other two! He's become a fast favorite of mine!!!

There was so little to like about this book for me.... I read it for next year's book club and will definitely need to dig deep for something to make the author feel good. The characters were all so unlikable and not in a good way.

This book is infuriating me... I can't believe the negligence of these people and absolute narcissism!!! These parents are the strangest people & I struggle to think that nobody reported them!!!
**Edit - I jumped the gun... lol

I wasn't sure what to expect with this book but Jill presents an extremely respectful and honest exposé of her family life, struggles with honesty from her father, situations that arose due to reports being leaked about her sexual abuse and the challenges they faced when they stood their ground. She does not mention her siblings by name when she recounts discussions and shows an incredible amount of growth. I respect that..⬇️⬇️⬇️

Getting this started today at work... really hoping things don't get too messy here!!! 😭😭😭

Omigosh, the only thing I really love about old school sci fi is when things become true!! This is just spot on from 1953!!!

One day I'll realize that not all books at library book sales are hidden gems... lol, this is amusing enough but a little too Southern and hokey for me. Dogwood County is mentioned at least every other page and all I can think of is Dogpatch USA. Not to mention those pesky Garrett boys... I don't know... maybe if you're used to people in small rural towns talking like this it would be more enjoyable?

An interesting story about what goes wrong in the most secure high end hotel in the world. An interesting narrator follows the path of destruction via security cameras. Far more spicy than I expected, but not off putting. I really enjoyed this one!!!

So this book has bits where you're getting 3 concurrent viewpoints, as if you're watching security cameras. I'm really impressed and think it's a super cool device!! Unreliable characters make it that much better!!

I suppose this still holds true... even more accurate if you've got a customer service job!!!!

WHY IS NOBODY TALKING ABOUT THIS BOOK?!?! Lol, I am only 18% in and I'm so creeped out! It's got such a great Twilight Zone vibe with a little extra violence... I am enjoying this so much more than I expected!!!!

Wow, this was brutal all around!!! Looking at my 11 year old daughter, I can't think of anything but what this poor girl missed out on. I thought I had a narcissistic mother but clearly she was small time!

What a wonderfully creepy book! When a bunch of kids break the rules playing Hide & Seek, they're brought one by one into Nowhere, where the Seeker is collecting children to break out of its universe. Themes of teamwork, believing in yourself, trusting others and facing your fears makes this relatable for any age group!!
#middlegrade

Omigosh, this book took over and did not let me go!!! Not my usual but it's got magical realism, a cold case & romance, not to mention a complicated mother-daughter relationship! The Moons have been independent women with special gifts for generations. Lizzy moves away from the farm to pursue life in NYC but returns after her grandmother passes. Did someone order several cans of worms and childhood trauma? Coming right up! 😍

Excellent haul at The Book Barn a few days ago!! It's one of our favorite places to travel to but I didn't have any print copies to sell back! 😵‍💫 #Bookspin hasn't been going as well as I'd like! Haha

Oooh, this was deliciously creepy!!! Lily & her family are forced to move to Florida. Their home is full of junk from the last owner who died there. Lily has a flair for the dramatic & her parents get angry when she talks about the ghost that's been giving her nightmares. I really loved this! The resolution wasn't terrible either, which is a bonus!

Another fun middle grade horror story! A boy with the ability to speak with ghosts gets a visit from Claire's mother. Claire's father has a TV show about banishing spirits that have been haunting people. They find that he's gone missing from a notoriously haunted town. Overall, a well told story with a good creep factor for MG readers!

Jasmine has been dreaming of an abandoned hotel that has all of its inhabitants disappear 33 years prior. She and her classmates go to spend a night on a dare & all is not as it seems. Cute for a middle grade horror and as a 12 year old, I would have read the cover off of it!!!

Finished up this daunting read for book club with the author. Alice & Ruby are running away to NYC and from men that are bad for them. Alice ends up being murdered and Ruby finds her body. Not a lot happens other than that. Bublitz has great storytelling abilities but I feel like she couldn't get out of her own way on this one.

I'm reading this for book club and we're meeting with the author, who lives locally. There is so much going on, the story is totally disjointed, every person who pops up is referred to by both a first and last name, and then this. I'm really struggling to finish this but I'm so confused and bogged down by superfluous information. More than that, I don't know how to turn that into constructive criticism for the author!!! 😫

This book is SOOO divisive!!! Either you totally hate it or you're obsessed and can't stop thinking about it... I'm quickly becoming the latter!! I love the sketchy lore being developed, I love that Johnny is so unreliable, I love that I'm questioning what I'm even reading!

I know Minka Kelly from her stint as Dove on the show Titans but I have the utmost respect for her, no matter she she finds herself! Growing up with a stripper mom, being bounced around from house to house, being financially insecure and witnessing domestic abuse to becoming a nurse and subsequently an actress! What a roller coaster of a life and she's come out on the other side!!!

I really enjoyed this book even if every person in it aggravated me to no end! A mystery wrapped up in grief, these complex characters find their way to resolution via a Great Pacific Octopus named Marcellus.

Guess this is a little new for the database... a horror "choose your own adventure" based on Duncan Ralston's Ghostland haunted amusement park!!! I'm so excited for this one!!!

I read this as an ARC years ago & still enjoyed it. Having older kids, I know young kids can think and say weird shit. Viscious, homicidal kids are a whole other story! I didn't love the narrator on this one and the parents are a bunch of horndogs, but overall a nice creep factor!!

Georgie & her husband Neil have a tense, busy parent type of relationship but when Neil takes their daughters to his parents for Christmas, Georgie stays home to work. Things go downhill until she finds an old phone that contacts Neil in the past. A little too long for me, asI thought it dragged and got repetitive at times, but a great what if type story. If you tried to change the past, could you or is destiny already set?

This feels raw and unfinished. The purple prose was so difficult to wade through. The characters were so flat amidst all these really complicated cultural references. I had to look up something on almost every page for at least half of the book. I'd read this if it was 3 times as long, less pretension, better character development and more description of the Japanese yokai that are casually referenced.

Started this while I'm working through some mindless stuff. I don't think I've connected to characters more in my adult life than these folks. 🥰🥰🥰🥰

This is the second most adorable audiobook I've ever listened to!! Betty White still has the top spot. I don't listen to country music but who doesn't love Dolly?! The audio has basically curated interviews with Dolly along with snippets of the songs she's talking about. That's super helpful because I really only know 3 or 4 songs.... 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

I have no words... I read this book in A DAY AND A HALF!!!!! I don't think I've read anything that fast, maybe since Harry Potter. What an amazing story about families, secrets, the restaurant business, the legacies we build and the lives that are both lived and trapped in those legacies. I love Stradal's style and this was all I could ask for and more!!! ❤️

This book was adorable! It felt familiar. Kind of like a Dan Gutman, Mr. Lemoncello, Westing Game mash up by what a fun story! Jake and his mom move to an apartment owned by his relatives but find that the building has more to offer than he thinks when he stumbles back in time to look for help to save the building from being demolished. Great narration by the author, which can go either way. Finished this today at work!

Having a super bad anxiety day today so I decided to go for a fun middle grade listen! It's distracting me but not working on the anxiety too much...

This too shall pass, I suppose! 🤞🦄

An interesting concept... Things on the island disappear and all memories of the objects disappear too. There is a gene that prevents people from forgetting and The Memory Police are tasked with rounding them up as enemies. Really odd because the scare tactics are power of suggestion. Lots of layers here but it's super sloooow, which I struggle with when reading Japanese writing. This book is really cerebral.

What a gut-wrenching memoir from Viola Davis, who was born into crippling poverty, lived in the most deplorable homes, watched the most horrific abuse, was abused herself, but clawed her way to success! This hit me in the most unexpected places but she's such an inspiration! Plus, I love her portrayal of Amanda Waller so much. 😁

Another book I wasn't expecting to love!! A motley cast of characters are collected in the Dellawisp Condos on Mallow Island, all sort of broken with their own sad stories. A tragedy brings everyone together and some truths to light about our past, what we desperately cling to and how that can affect our futures. There were more tears than I counted on but a solid & whimsical magical realism read.

This is a case of me totally judging a book by its cover. I expected to just take one for the team for book club but I ended up loving this story and relating to Meredith, her sister Fiona and their mean spirited mother who raised her girls with the tools she was given. After a serious trauma, Meredith becomes a recluse & decides to find her way back to health. This book addressed a lot of sore subjects for me & laid bare a lot of my own trauma.

I love everything about this book. Listening to it was such a different experience, too. I related so much to Eleanor's emptiness and feeling displaced, especially being familiar with Jackson's stories about motherhood and the loss of self that comes with it. This is one of those books you can grow with and see different perspectives at different stages of life. ❤️👻

A small craft encounters a luxury space cruise ship that disappeared 20 years ago. Upon closer inspection, it seems that the passengers died horrifically violent deaths. Can the crew of the LINA find out what happened considering their team leader Claire's sketchy past as the sole survivor of a colony wiped out by disease? A great story from start to finish! Extremely tense and atmospheric!

I will admit, I knew about Mr. Show but I didn't watch it when it was on. It's on my radar now, though! I was really interested in the writing process & how Odenkirk doesn't shy away from taking risks. 😁

Bob Odenkirk is describing the beginning of his relationship with David Cross. My dad, a retired NYPD sergeant, liked to talk about the time he arrested David Cross for urinating in public. 🤣🤣

I'm glad I got bamboozled into this by my coworker! It reminded me a lot of Hillbilly Elegy. We meet Damon who really can't get a leg up in life and then succumbs to the opioid dragon of the early 2000s. I'm not intimately familiar with David Copperfield but maybe that will make its way into my Libby list. Far more hopeful than I expected halfway through.

What a lovely soul Leslie Jordan had. I loved, more than anything, that his family embraced his homosexuality from day one and never asked him to be anything else. His storytelling is so rich and detailed that I felt like I was in the room with the folks he was talking about. ❤️❤️❤️

I did not expect to listen to Leslie Jordan talk about how moved he was by one of my favorite books in the universe!!! I haven't met anyone else who's read this but it's so wonderful to hear Leslie speaking so animatedly about these characters who feel like family to me!!! 😍😍😍😍

This is so wonderful and heartbreaking!!! A light snuffed too soon... Leslie Jordan was just the most incredibly adorable man. 💔

Darcy Coates tells the BEST ghost stories! Margot inherits her family's home after her parents death but she was sent away when she was young. What mysteries live inside her new house and will she be able to make it through a night on Gallows Hill?

Not only did we get to hang out with my cousins last night, who we never see, but I also went to a book signing at the same brewery! Lol, this was written by a local professor or archeology who had been studying plant archeology and noticed the connection between witchcraft accusations and herbal remedies!

An interesting perspective into what the British royal family is like. I was struck by how little Harry seemed to know about his family members and had such strange relationships with them, seemingly being quite far removed from them. He only found out that his father loved music so much after Megan started discussions with him about it. It appears that much of Kate and Meg's issues came from breach of protocol and the differences between...

There are 3 sides to every story, but I find this perspective quite interesting I was impressed with his army career and how he and William are financially beholden to their father. He doles out allowances! Lots of competition, lots of slander by the press.

This bordered on so-so for me. I felt it was super long and repetitive and I disliked Hannah for being so wishy-washy. A great whodunit by Ware but not the best. 17 hours of hearing the same paragraphs repeated was really not my cup of tea.

Great concept but a little too much London slang for me and some scenes were a bit too long winded. I feel like it could have had fewer tangents and had the story move along a little better. Josh's sister's body was found 10 months after she went missing and it turns out she was living in an alternate reality London? Josh and his girlfriend have an adventure traveling through various Londons for information.