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Good Reads

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Explore a captivating collection of books that will transport you to different worlds, challenge your perspectives, and ignite your imagination.
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Literary Fiction

Discover a thought-provoking selection of literary fiction masterpieces that delve deep into the human experience, offering rich narratives and unforgettable characters.

 
Emily Ousley profile picture
3/5 Theirs is a story soaked with the cold rain that falls endlessly on Disappointment, Oregon, the runt of a town where it takes place. But rays of humor and beauty shine through, and ultimately this is a book about hope.
Small Animals Caught in Traps - Books
 
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4/5 On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but th...
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A Novel
 
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5/5 One of the best books I've ever read, but also one of the most difficult books I've ever read. 
When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes crue...
A Little Life: Yanagihara, Hanya, Wyman, Oliver
 
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5/5 Bhima, the unforgettable main character of Thrity Umrigar’s beloved national bestseller The Space Between Us , returns in this triumphant sequel—a poignant and compelling novel in which the former servant struggles against the circumstances of cl...
The Secrets Between Us: A Novel
 
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4/5 Set in modern-day India, it is the story of two compelling and achingly real women: Sera Dubash, an upper-middle-class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide the shame and disappointment of her abusive marriage, and Bhima, a stoic illite...
The Space Between Us
 
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5/5 For all of Emory's life she's been told who she is. In town she's the rich one--the great-great-granddaughter of the mill's founder. At school she's hot Maddie Ward's younger sister. And at home, she's the good one, her stoner older brother Joey'...
You'd Be Home Now: 9780525708049: Glasgow
 
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5/5 In this riveting and immersive novel, bestselling author Thrity Umrigar tells the story of two couples and the sometimes dangerous and heartbreaking challenges of love across a cultural divide. Indian American journalist Smita has returned to Ind...
Honor: 9781616209957: Umrigar, Thrity: Books
 
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5/5 Can you stop a murder after it’s already happened? It is midnight on the morning of Halloween, and Jen anxiously waits up for her 18-year-old son, Todd, to return home. But worries about his broken curfew transform into something much more danger...
Wrong Place Wrong Time: A Reese's Book Club Pick
 
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5/5 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 son, Erik, mysteriously v...
Remarkably Bright Creatures: A Jenna Pick
 
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3/5 Chemist 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 early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very ...
Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel - Books
 
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3/5 Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the co...
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
 
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5/5 Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by. Since Gran died a few months ago,...
A Novel (Molly the Maid): 9780593356159
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Emily Ousley profile picture
5/5 One of the best books I've ever read. Feels odd to praise this book due to the nature of the content, but the writing is spectacular. Very dark, very triggering.

Exploring the psychological dynamics of the relationship between a precocious yet naïve teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher, a brilliant, all-consuming read that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer. 2000. Brigh...
My Dark Vanessa: A Novel by Kate Elizabeth Russell
 
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4/5 HER PERFECT LIFE IS A PERFECT LIE. As a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome blue b...
Luckiest Girl Alive: A Novel - Jessica Knoll
 
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5/5 Albert Entwistle is a private man with a quiet, simple life. He lives alone with his cat Gracie. And he’s a postman. At least he was a postman until, three months before his sixty-fifth birthday, he receives a letter from the Royal Mail thanking ...
The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle: Uplifting
 
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5/5 Life is over in an instant for sixteen-year-old Finn Miller when a devastating car accident tumbles her and ten others over the side of a mountain. Suspended between worlds, she watches helplessly as those she loves struggle to survive. Impossibl...
In an Instant: Redfearn, Suzanne
 
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4/5 Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful ser...
Verity: Hoover, Colleen: 9781538724736
 
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4/5 The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to...
The Lincoln Highway: A Novel: Towles, Amor
 
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5/5 *Note: I learned of the controversy surrounding this book after reading. I still think it was a great book and an important message for Americans. I would suggest maybe reading some true accounts or works written by Mexican or Mexican-American au...

Jeanine Cummins's American Dirt, the #1 New York Times bestseller and Oprah Book Club pick that has sold over two million copies, is finally available in paperback. Lydia lives in Acapulco. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful h...
American Dirt (Oprah's Book Club): A Novel
 
Emily Ousley profile picture
4/5 The first adult novel in almost fifteen years by the internationally bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug p...
Afterlife: Alvarez, Julia: 9781643750255
 
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5/5 Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and ...
The Summer I Turned Pretty (Summer I ...
 
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5/5 Belly finds out what comes after falling in love in this follow-up to The Summer I Turned Pretty from the New York Times bestselling author of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (soon to be a major motion picture!), Jenny Han. Can summer be truly ...
It's Not Summer Without You: Han, Jenny
 
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5/5 It's been two years since Conrad told Belly to go with Jeremiah. She and Jeremiah have been inseparable ever since, even attending the same college—only, their relationship hasn't exactly been the happily ever after Belly had hoped it would be. A...
We'll Always Have Summer (Summer I Turned Pretty)
 
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5/5 In Oak Knoll, a verdant, tight-knit North Carolina neighborhood, professor of forestry and ecology Valerie Alston-Holt is raising her bright and talented biracial son. Xavier is headed to college in the fall, and after years of single parenting, ...
A Good Neighborhood: A Novel: Fowler, Therese Anne
 
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4/5 Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love. Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow...
People We Meet on Vacation: Henry, Emily
 
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5/5 nfused with the emotional power of Me Before You and the irresistible charm of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and Be Frank with Me, a moving and joyous novel about an elderly woman ready to embrace death and the little girl who reminds her w...
The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett: A Novel
 
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5/5 The unforgettable love story of a mother blinded by loss and her husband who insists on their survival as they undertake the Syrian refugee trail to Europe. Nuri is a beekeeper; his wife, Afra, an artist. They live a simple life, rich in family a...
The Beekeeper of Aleppo: A Novel ...
 
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5/5 A Palestinian American woman wrestles with faith, loss, and identity before coming face-to-face with a school shooter in this searing debut. A uniquely American story told in powerful, evocative prose, The Beauty of Your Face navigates a country ...
The Beauty of Your Face: A Novel - Books
 
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5/5 From debut author Asha Lemmie, a sweeping, heartrending coming-of-age novel about a young woman's quest for acceptance in post–World War II Japan. Kyoto, Japan, 1948. "If a woman knows nothing else, she should know how to be silent. . . . Do not ...
Fifty Words for Rain: A Novel - Kindle edition
 
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5/5 Vivid and compelling in its portrait of one woman’s struggle for fulfillment in a society pivoting between the traditional and the modern, The Henna Artist opens a door into a world that is at once lush and fascinating, stark and cruel. Escaping ...
The Henna Artist: A Reese's Book Club Pick
 
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5/5 On the afternoon of October 12, 1990, my twin brother, Thomas, entered the Three Rivers, Connecticut, public library, retreated to one of the rear study carrels, and prayed to God the sacrifice he was about to commit would be deemed acceptable. ....
I Know This Much Is True: A Novel (P.S.)
 
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5/5 The instant New York Times bestselling memoir of a young Jewish woman’s escape from a religious sect, in the tradition of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel and Carolyn Jessop’s Escape, featuring a new epilogue by the author. As a member of the strictly r...
Unorthodox: Rejection of My Hasidic Roots
 
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5/5 A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection...
Such a Fun Age: Reid, Kiley
 
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5/5 Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their belov...
Winter Garden
 
Emily Ousley profile picture
5/5 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2014 Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by...
The Goldfinch: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize Winner)
 
Emily Ousley profile picture
5/5 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2014 Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by...
Ask Again, Yes: A Novel: Keane, Mary Beth - Books
 
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5/5 This riveting psychological suspense debut by Alex Dahl asks the question, "how far would you go to hold on to what you have?" Cecilia Wilborg has it all--a loving husband, two beautiful daughters, and a gorgeous home in an affluent Norwegian sub...
The Boy at the Door: Dahl, Alex: Books
 
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5/5 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove returns with a dazzling, profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true. People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep i...
A Novel (Beartown Series): Backman, Fredrik
 
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5/5 Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my ...
The Sun Is Also a Star: Yoon, Nicola: Books
 
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5/5 Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summe...
Educated: A Memoir: Westover, Tara - Books
 
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5/5 For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her. But Kya ...
Where the Crawdads Sing

Thriller/Horror/Suspense

Dive into heart-pounding suspense and spine-tingling chills with these gripping thriller, horror, and suspense novels that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

 
Emily Ousley profile picture
5/5 Hen and her husband Lloyd have settled into a quiet life in a new house outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Hen (short for Henrietta) is an illustrator and works out of a studio nearby, and has found the right meds to control her bipolar disorder. ...
Amazon.com: Before She Knew Him: A Novel
 
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5/5 Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connec...
Local Woman Missing: A Novel of Suspense
 
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5/5 In this dark, suspenseful thriller, Alex North weaves a multi-generational tale of a father and son caught in the crosshairs of an investigation to catch a serial killer preying on a small town. After the sudden death of his wife, Tom Kennedy bel...
The Whisper Man: A Novel by Alex North
 
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5/5 Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it...
Sometimes I Lie: A Novel by Alice Feeney
 
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5/5 Marin had the perfect life. Married to her college sweetheart, she owns a chain of upscale hair salons, and Derek runs his own company. They're admired in their community and are a loving family—until their world falls apart the day their son Seb...
Little Secrets: A Novel eBook by Jennifer Hillier
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Nonfiction

Expand your knowledge and gain fresh insights with these compelling nonfiction books, covering a wide range of topics from history and science to personal development and thought-provoking essays.

 
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4/5 “Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.” So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to a...
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: Memoir