pickI enjoyed this collection of pandemic stories, even though---like the days during lockdown---the stories tend to blend into one another. In these stories, Doyle explores with sensitivity issues of connection, estrangement, vulnerability, mental illness, substance abuse, and grief. I know a lot of people still don't like revisiting that time, but I find it intriguing and therapeutic to look back at those years that have influenced so much.
pickThis reads very YA, but the type of YA I actually enjoy. (Plucky female heroine!) However the will they/won‘t they romantic subplot really wore on me by the end.
Sophie is a very sheltered virginal Catholic high schooler. Her parents have been hiding that a deadly disease is spreading across the country that causes victims to viciously attack and rape others. Sophie must find her way out of this hellscape on her own. #aardvark
Trying to get out of an upcoming road trip? No sweat, just lend them your copy of MEMORIALS 😉🚐
#aardvarkbookclub #memorials #thescholarandthelastfaeriedoor #americanrapture #perfectfit #eleanoreofavignon #likemotherlikemother
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Apocalyptic stories aren‘t really my favorite, but this is a timely and challenging take on that genre. Blending with horror, these narrative frameworks serve as a brilliant vehicle to deconstruct religious trauma and purity culture. C.J. Leede creates fantastic characters and intense emotions while incisively skewering the hypocrisy and absurdity of some religious teachings. 🎧
(Trigger warning under a spoiler tag below)
The instant USA Today bestseller from CJ Leede, author of Maeve Fly—a scorching and sweeping new novel about the end of the world as we know it.
A virus is spreading across America, transforming the infected and making them feral with lust.
Sophie, a good Catholic girl, must traverse the hellscape of the midwest to try to find her family while the world around her burns. Along the way she discovers there are far worse fates than dying a virgin…
Well, I filled my #aardvarkbookclub box, I added 2 for #bookofthemonth #botm (bog wife being one I‘d missed last month), and yes, I sucke… er, *subscribed* to botm‘s volume 0 set. Bc. I… had to? 😳
And then I also joined #belletrist 😨🫣 (paired w Tertulia, a book coop)
Good times…. 😁🥰😎
Combat your Halloween hangover with our official November squad 🤺 Don‘t forget to grab a *signed* copy of American Rapture ✍️😉
#aardvarkbookclub #americanrapture #memorials #thescholarandthelastfaeriedoor #likemotherlikemother #perfectfit #eleanoreofavignon
Damn! Aardvark coming in hot again! And the tagged one is signed. I just couldn‘t help myself. 😂 #aardvark
so-soThis has everything I usually love in a book…and yet, I didn‘t love it. I have no idea why really. Wrong timing? I know nothing about Our Town, the play the story centres around (but I never want to read about Emily or the Stage Manager again), I felt nothing much for the characters and just felt distanced from the whole thing. In fact I nearly gave up. The last 50 pages or so kind of won me round but I still feel ambivalent.
pickLargely set in a haunted bookstore, the actual ghost is but a fraction of what looms over and around Tookie… addiction, incarceration, “rehabilitation” vs isolation; generational traumas both cultural and personal; the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd.
It‘s a lot to unpack.
But worth the emotional time and effort.
