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Sorry for posting two days in a row, but I’m trying to get my blog back on track and today is Show Us Your Books with Steph and Jana. I’ve always wanted to join in but I always forget. So, today’s the day!
Three and a half years ago, I lost all of my books when I moved. Now I have so many books they don’t fit on my shelves and it’s driving me crazy. I’ve been trying to work my way through what I have so that I can donate/give away the books I don’t need to keep. Here’s what I’ve been reading lately.
I finally read An American Marriage and I could not put this book down. Roy and Celestial are married for a year when he is accused for a crime he didn’t commit. We know he didn’t commit the crime. Yet he is sentenced to 12 years in prison. The novel is written both through letters they write each other in prison and through the perspective of different characters. There are so many layers to this book – race, wrongful imprisonment, marriage, identity, and so much more. Highly recommend.
2. An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks
I thought that this book was a little too predictable. I read it quickly and I enjoyed it. But for a thriller, I thought that everything was revealed a little too slowly and there weren’t any really big shocking moments. Jessica signs up for a morality study with psychologist Dr. Shields. The study moves from survey to real-life experiments and it quickly becomes clear that Dr. Shields is using her in a sick way. However, I enjoy thrillers that involve therapists so if that part intrigues you I say give it a shot!
3. Nine Perfect Strangers by Lian Moriarty
I know, I know, I’m slow to the game on a lot of these books. But a friend gave me Nine Perfect Strangers and I was honestly a little hesitant to read it because I didn’t love Big Little Lies (I am obsessed with the show though!). This book was super weird, unlike anything I’ve read before, and I really liked it. A group of people embark on a health retreat which seems to be super luxurious but turns out to be a health retreat from hell. It’s not scary or anything, but it is long. It can be a little slow because it alternates between so many characters, including the people running the resort, which adds a lot to the story. But if you’re a Liane Moriarty fan, or if you just find the plot intriguing like I did, this book is worth trying!
4. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
This is another book about a manipulative therapist. Alicia Berenson is an artist who, one night, shoots her husband. After that day, she stops talking. To anyone. She is in a mental facility instead of jail and has become one of those infamous criminals. Enter Theo Faber, a psychologist who positions himself to work at the facility specifically so he can work with her. He goes against his boss’s instructions to try to get her to talk and to try to learn more about her by interviewing her family. This one has some good twists and turns. I really liked it!
5. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
This was my second time reading this book. I just love it so much and I wanted to re-read it before watching the series that just came out on Amazon Prime. It’s about a lot of things, but mainly about an angel and a demon, Aziraphale and Crowley, who have known each other since the days of Adam and Eve. They have developed a friendship, an understanding of each other, where they kind of help each other out and also don’t really make each other’s work any harder than it has to be.
They both love life on Earth and don’t want to see it end, so they come up with a plan to switch the Anti-Christ at birth, hoping that if none of the demons know where he is, they won’t be able to influence him to bring out Armageddon. This book brings up so many questions about good and evil and nature vs. nature and it’s one of my favorites. The TV show is exceptional, too, if you aren’t into reading the book.
Favorite quote: “Crowley had always known that he would be around when the world ended, because he was immortal and wouldn’t have any alternative. But he hoped it was a long way off. Because he rather liked people. It was major failing in a demon. Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse. Over the years Crowley had found it increasingly difficult to find anything demonic to do which showed up against the natural background of generalized nastiness. There had been times, over the past millennium, when he’d felt like sending a message back Below saying, Look we may as well give up right now, we might as well shut down Dis and Pandemonium and everywhere and move up here, there’s nothing we can do to them that they don’t do to themselves and they do things we’ve never even thought of, often involving electrodes. They’ve got what we lack. They’ve got imagination. And electricity, of course. One of them had written it, hadn’t he…”Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”
Currently, I’m reading Recursion by Blake Crouch. What are you reading?
The Silent Patient has been on my list for a while, I really need to read it! An American Marriage sounds really good!
I loved Nine Perfect Strangers and An American Marriage!
Man, I really want to read Good Omens. I think the TV show looks really good, too. I remember enjoying Nine Perfect Strangers, although it was definitely odd. Haha.
I started watching Good Omens on Prime and I like it. I don’t think it’s “binge worthy” but it’s a good show.
Thanks for joining us!
An American Marriage was AMAZING
The first two are on my TBR, so it’s great seeing more positive reviews for them. I’m on the wait list for Silent Patient an can’t wait to read it! Nine Perfect Strangers was very different from Moriarty’s other novels and I loved it, so I’m glad you enjoyed it too! I couldn’t get in to the book version of Good Omens, but I’m liking the show quite a bit!
The silent patient is on my ever growing to be read list!
“Slow” is the perfect word to describe Nine Perfect Strangers. I wanted so much more from a Moriarity book!
I want to reread Good Omens before watching the show as well. I won’t be watching it until it comes out in the BBC though so I have time.
I liked The Silent Patient more than I thought I would. I liked Anonymous Girl too.
Loved loved loved An American Marriage
I have the silent patient and an anonymous girl on my list. I won the silent patient so will likely get to that soon.
Loved an american marriage. Didnt care for nine perfect strangers.