I listened to this book, read by the author. It is a letter to his mother telling her how he viewed his childhood with her. She is Vietnamese and brought him up in America alongside her own mother. His American father was aware but not involved in his upbringing. His mother is quite abusive to him and he also has a relationship with a boy called Trevor so it is quite a difficult book to listen to, but beautifully written.

I actually listened to this book and am glad I did as, Lin-Manuel Miranda actually hums, sings and raps through quite a lot of his sections. The story is about how his play In The Heights was first a small off Broadway production, then how it progressed to Broadway and finally to a film which is currently out (but delayed due to Covid 19). Each chapter is narrated by one of three people involved in this process and it is very interesting.

WOW! This was a very fast read: I finished the book within 2 hours. Great thriller book that involves the paranormal as well. You really start to feel connected to the main character. It was not like anything I had read prior. Great young adult read.

This book was fairly repetitive. There are three storylines that it follows, so you can see everyone's perspective. It definitely kept me guessing until the end. The book did a good job with character development. I would recommend it if you are looking for a different type of thriller book.

I like reading Harlan Coben books. They are always interesting. Wilde was found in the woods as a young child. As an adult he still doesn't know who he belongs too. He has done 23andme, will it give him the results he is longing for. In the meantime he helps his godson Matthew search for his friend Naomi. She turns up and then goes missing again! It was a good read, wasn't too happy with the ending hope there is a sequel.

Trials Of Apollo Book 2 was awesome. It had some of the same characters from the Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus series, which was great. Also I love that the chapter titles are haiku poems because Apollo is the god of poetry, and in the Percy Jackson books everyone hated his haikus.

I expected this book to be a light beach read but it was actually more complex. I enjoyed the writing and how each chapter was from a different characters point of view. I also liked the way the timeline was organized and how it all came together in the end.

Eileen is a dark and disturbing Christmastime story about a young woman living in an unnamed New England town, sometime in the 1960s, caring for her alcoholic father while working at a prison for boys. Is Eileen an unreliable narrator or are things really about to go off the rails? Moshfegh's writing paints a vivid picture of this bleak winter, and the doomed friendship that gives Eileen a sliver of hope for her future.

I've read many Lisa Jewell books and consider myself a fan. She does a great job of creating a realistic and vivid picture of her characters and their lives, and I usually enjoy following along as she tells their stories and gradually puts pieces together to solve a mystery or a puzzle of some kind. This book felt like Lisa Jewell "light," and read more like a romance novel. The book alternates between the lives of two young women making their way in London 70 years apart - Betty in the 1990s and Betty's step-grandmother Arlette in the 1920s. Both of them are extraordinarily beautiful, and other characters comment on this so often that it starts to seem ridiculous. I liked the story of Betty more than that of Arlette, but overall the characters in both time periods were flat, their problems were predictable and the book dragged on way too long. I had to force myself to finish it.

This was great. Jo is a Chinese-American girl living in the South. Her and her adoptive father, Old Gin, face rampant discrimination, especially considering the fact that they are treated as "in-between" - they are not colored, but they are not white, either. They are treated poorly, while also facing the realization that many segregation rules do not seem to specifically apply to them. When Jo is fired from her job, she takes up her previously position as lady's maid for a girl she grew up being mistreated by. At the same time, the newspaper shop they live under is at risk of going out of business if they don't come up with some great new idea to get a whole lot of subscribers. Enter Jo, who under the anonymous name of Miss Sweetie decides to start writing an advice column that challenges many of the racist and sexist ideas her society is filled with. Of course, this brings with it a whole host of problems - Jo's writing is a crime in and of itself, and she will be chased out of town if anyone finds out that she is Miss Sweetie. She also has to balance staying hidden underneath the printshop, bite her tongue when it comes to the cruel things her mistress says, and ignore the fact that Old Gin seems to be doing something sneaky that she worries may have to do with marrying her off to a stranger. And, of course, she's still curious about where she came from - who were her parents, and why did they abandon her with Old Gin to begin with? Jo is a great role model for young girls to look up to - she is spunky and has her own thoughts and opinions that she is not afraid to share with others. She is a big risk taker, and an absolute delight to read about.