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2023 Reading Challenge: 2023 AViD Author
2024 Reading Challenge February Bonus Category: Nonfiction by a Black Author
2024 Reading Challenge February Bonus Category: Nonfiction by a Black Author
Description
"One morning, Tophs, Taylor Harris's round-cheeked, lively twenty-two-month-old, wakes up listless and unresponsive. At the hospital, her maternal instincts are confirmed: something is wrong with her boy, and Taylor's life will never be the same. With every question the doctors answer about Tophs's increasingly troubling symptoms, more arise, and Taylor dives into the search for a diagnosis. This is a stirring and radiantly written examination of...
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Description
"Sonya used to perform on stage. She used to attend glamorous parties, date handsome men, ride in fast cars. But somewhere along the way, the stage lights Sonya lived for dimmed for good. And then, in their absence, came darkness--blackouts, empty cupboards, hazy nights she can't remember. Haunted by her failed career and unresolved childhood trauma, Sonya has fallen deep into an alcoholic abyss. What keeps Sonya from losing herself completely is...
Author
Publisher
Blackstone Publishing
Pub. Date
2024
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"After their mother passes, three estranged siblings reunite to sort out her estate. Beth, the oldest, never left home. She stayed with her mom, caring for her until the very end. Nicole, the middle child, has been kept at arm's length due to her ongoing battle with a serious drug addiction. Michael, the youngest, lives out of state and hasn't been back to their small Wisconsin town since their father ran out on them seven years before. While going...
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English
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10 Most Requested Books of 2023
2023 Reading Challenge: A Reese, Jenna, Oprah, or Good Morning America Book Club Pick
2025 Reading Challenge—New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (Reader Favorites)
More Lists...
2023 Reading Challenge: A Reese, Jenna, Oprah, or Good Morning America Book Club Pick
2025 Reading Challenge—New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (Reader Favorites)
More Lists...
Description
"For fans of A Man Called Ove, a luminous debut novel about a widow's unlikely friendship with a giant Pacific octopus reluctantly residing at the local aquarium-and the truths she finally uncovers about her son's disappearance 30 years ago"--
After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Meghan Michaels is trying to find balance between being a single mom and working full time as an ICU nurse, when a patient named Caitlin arrives in her ward with a traumatic brain injury. They say she jumped from a bridge and plunged over twenty feet to the train tracks below. When a witness comes forward with new details about Caitlin's fall, it calls everything they know into question. Was a crime committed? Did someone actually push Caitlin, and...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Tilly was a bright, outgoing little girl who liked playing with ghosts and matches. She loved fizzy drinks, swear words, fish fingers and Catholic churches, but most of all she loved living in Brighton in Queenie Malone's magnificent Paradise Hotel with its endearing and loving family of misfits - staff and guests alike. But Tilly's childhood was shattered when her mother sent her away from the only home she'd ever loved to boarding school with little...
8) Bridge
Author
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
Description
"Twenty-four-year-old Bridge is paralyzed by choices: all the other lives she could have lived, the decisions she could have made. And now, who she should be in the wake of her mother's unexpected death. Jo was a maverick neuroscientist fixated on an artifact she called the "dreamworm" that she believed could open the doors to other worlds. It was part of Jo's grand delusion, her sickness, and it cost her everything, including her relationship with...
Author
Language
English
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2025 Reading Challenge—New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (Reader Favorites)
Audie Award Finalists
New Releases—August 1, 2023
Top 10 General Fiction Books of 2023
Audie Award Finalists
New Releases—August 1, 2023
Top 10 General Fiction Books of 2023
Description
Recalling the past at her daughters' request, Lara tells the story of a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance, which causes her daughters to examine their own lives and reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
10) Summer romance
Author
Pub. Date
2024.
Language
English
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Description
"Benefits of a summer romance: It's always fun, always brief, and no one gets their heart broken. Ali Morris is a professional organizer whose own life is a mess. Her mom died two years ago, then her husband left, and she hasn't worn pants with a zipper in longer than she cares to remember. No one is more surprised than Ali when the first time she takes off her wedding ring and puts on pants with hardware-overalls count, right?-she meets someone....
Author
Language
English
Description
"Best friends Unity and Ellen are in serious ruts. High school teacher Ellen, whose son's dream of going out of state for college is arousing financial anxiety, hasn't dated since she became pregnant on the night of her junior prom. Unity, a successful handyman, is grieving after her soldier husband was killed three years ago. Each woman goads the other to venture out of her restrictive comfort zone, daring the other to take on a list of challenges,...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Connecticut, 2022. Mallory Dunne has spent her life trying to be a good mother to her son, Sam. Raising him alone is hard, even with the help of her sister. Two years ago, Sam ingested a toxic mushroom and fell into a coma. Now recovered, he needs a new kidney to live a normal life, forcing Mallory to track down his father in the hope that they're a match. Her journey to find him again transports her back to the summer they spent on the paradise...
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2022.
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5 - AR Pts: 13
Language
English
Description
"Lily and her ex-husband, Ryle, have just settled into a civil coparenting rhythm when she suddenly bumps into her first love, Atlas, again. After nearly two years separated, she is elated that for once, time is on their side, and she immediately says yes when Atlas asks her on a date. But her excitement is quickly hampered by the knowledge that, though they are no longer married, Ryle is still very much a part of her life--and Atlas Corrigan is the...
Author
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English
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2024 DMPL Reading Challenge June Bonus Category: Vacation and Travel Books
2024 Reading Challenge: Book with a place in the title
Readalikes for 'The Life Impossible'
2024 Reading Challenge: Book with a place in the title
Readalikes for 'The Life Impossible'
Description
"The New York Times bestselling author of the "heartwarming, heartbreaking, and hard to put down" (Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author) modern classic In Five Years returns with a moving and unforgettable exploration of the powerful bond between mother and daughter set on the breathtaking Amalfi Coast. When Katy's mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn't just Katy's mom, but her best friend and first phone call. She had all the...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Juniper Baker had just graduated from high school and was deep in the throes of a summer romance when Cal and Beth Murphy, a childless couple who lived on a neighboring farm, were brutally murdered. When her younger brother became the prime suspect, June's world collapsed and everything she loved that summer fell away. She left, promising never to return to tiny Jericho, Iowa. Until now. Officially, she's back in town to help an ill friend manage...
16) Where she went
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Maggie McFarrell is still reeling from her police officer husband's suspicious death when she sends her only child, Emma, off to college in the city, leaving a very empty nest and a palpable sense of dread. After 18 years of knowing where her daughter was every minute of every day, sending her out into the world alone is almost unthinkable. But Maggie forces herself to back away from constant texting and Facetiming, to give her daughter the space...
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
10 Most Requested Books of 2023
2023 Reading Challenge: Made into a movie or TV show
2025 Reading Challenge—New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (Reader Favorites)
More Lists...
2023 Reading Challenge: Made into a movie or TV show
2025 Reading Challenge—New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (Reader Favorites)
More Lists...
Description
"Set in 1960s California, this blockbuster debut is the hilarious, idiosyncratic and uplifting story of a female scientist whose career is constantly derailed by the idea that a woman's place is in the home, only to find herself starring as the host of America's most beloved TV cooking show. Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it's the...
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
2025 Reading Challenge—New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (Reader Favorites)
Readalikes for 'Martyr!'
The Sentence "Totally Biased List of Tookie's Favorite Books" Book Discussion
Readalikes for 'Martyr!'
The Sentence "Totally Biased List of Tookie's Favorite Books" Book Discussion
Description
"Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original - poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in...
20) The Chain
Author
Language
English
Description
She just dropped off her child at the bus stop. A panicked stranger calls her phone. Her child has been kidnapped. The stranger then explains that their child has also been kidnapped, by a completely different stranger. The only way to get her child back is to kidnap another child, within 24 hours. Her child will be released only when the next victim's parents kidnap yet another child. And most importantly, the stranger explains, if she don't kidnap...
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