Others: Mixed "Kathy is a writer. Kathy is getting married. It's the summer of 2017 and the whole world is falling apart. From a Tuscan hotel for the super-rich to a Brexit-paralysed UK, Kathy spends the first summer of her 40s trying to adjust to making a lifelong commitment just as Trump is tweeting the world into nuclear war. But it's not only Kathy who's changing. Political, social and natural landscapes are all in peril. Fascism is on the rise, truth is dead, the planet is hotting up. Is it really worth learning to love when the end of the world is nigh? And how do you make art, let alone a life, when one rogue tweet could end it all? Olivia Laing radically rewires the novel in a brilliant, funny and emphatically raw account of love in the apocalypse. A Goodbye to Berlin for the 21st century, Crudo charts in real time what it was like to live and love in the horrifying summer of 2017, from the perspective of a commitment-phobic artist who may or may not be Kathy Acker . . ."--Provided by publisher.
Genres: literary fiction
Lists: …
Mia Ballard
2024 · 2 reviews
Others: PositiveLove, betrayal, murder, and witchcraft. When 35-year-old Satara Stratton discovers her husband Dean’s treacherous affair with her best friend, Lilah, she plunges into familiar deceit and death. Having disposed of men before without a hitch, she finds a new thrill in this betrayal. But with Lilah on a crusade to expose her guilt, Satara must outpace everyone to keep her secrets safe. Her fate intertwines with a Love Witch whose tempting spells seem a perfect solution to Satara’s woes. With newfound power at her fingertips, she gleefully manipulates the affections of those around her. Yet, Satara's lust for love proves her ultimate vulnerability. She soon learns that while it’s easy to bend others to her will, controlling her own heart is a perilous art indeed. Prepare for a darkly compelling journey where the boundaries of desire and devastation blur, and the quest for love becomes Satara's most lethal game. For fans of A Certain Hunger, step into the twisted, psychedelic world of SUGAR, a story about a femme fatale hooked on love and acid in this gripping tale of 1970's suburban chaos where nothing is as it seems.
What made the match, strongest first
Stephen King
1979 · 391 pages · 7 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveThe Long Walk is a dystopian horror novel by American writer Stephen King, published in 1979, under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. It was collected in 1985 in the hardcover omnibus The Bachman Books, and has seen several reprints since, as both paperback and hardback. Set in a future dystopian America, ruled by a totalitarian and militaristic dictator, the plot revolves around the contestants of a grueling, annual walking contest. In 2000, the American Library Association listed The Long Walk as one of the 100 best books for teenage readers published between 1966 and 2000.
What made the match, strongest first
Nussaibah Younis
2025 · 352 pages · 2 reviews
Others: PositiveNadia is an academic who's been disowned by her puritanical mother and dumped by her lover, Rosy. She decides to make a getaway, accepting a UN job in Iraq. Tasked with rehabilitating ISIS women, Nadia becomes mired in the opaque world of international aid, surrounded by bumbling colleagues. Sara is a precocious and sweary East Londoner who joined ISIS at just fifteen. Nadia is struck by how similar they are: both feisty and opinionated, from a Muslim background, with a shared love of Dairy Milk and rude pick-up lines. A powerful friendship forms between the two women, until a secret confession from Sara threatens everything Nadia has been working for.
What made the match, strongest first
Beatriz Serrano
2025 · 216 pages · 3 reviews
Others: PositiveLa vita di Marisa sembra invidiabile: abita in un appartamento nel centro di Madrid, ha un vicino sexy che all'occorrenza si presta a farle da amante e ha scalato i vertici di un'importante agenzia pubblicitaria. Eppure, negli ultimi tempi le pare di star annegando in un baratro di terrore esistenziale: odia il suo lavoro e trascorre le ore chiusa in ufficio guardando video di gatti su YouTube e assumendo tranquillanti. Fino a quando il suo dubbio successo professionale non rischia di essere scoperto durante il team building dell'azienda. Isolata nelle foreste di Segovia, Marisa si ritrova a condividere un fine settimana con capi psicopatici e a fare i conti con il ricordo di una tragedia che torna a tormentarla. Giorno dopo giorno, la sua maschera sociale, accuratamente lucidata nel corso degli anni, finisce per incrinarsi, spingendola sull'orlo di una spirale distruttiva.
What made the match, strongest first
Oisín McKenna
2024 · 336 pages · 6 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveSummer in London stops for no-one. Not the half-naked boozers, stoners, and cruisers, the hen parties glugging from bejewelled bottles, the drag queens puffing on hurried fags. It’s June 2019, and everyone has converged on the city’s parks, beer gardens and street corners to revel in the collective joys of being alive. Everyone but Maggie. She’s 30, pregnant and broke. Faced with moving back to the town she fought to escape, she’s wondering if having a baby with boyfriend Ed will be the last spontaneous act of her life. Ed, meanwhile, is trying to run from his past with Maggie’s best friend Phil and harbouring secret dreams of his own. Phil hates his office job and is living for the weekend, while falling for his housemate, Keith. But there’s a problem: Keith has a boyfriend and there might not be room for three people in the relationship. Then there’s Rosaleen, Phil’s mother, who’s tired of feeling like a side character in her own life. She’s just been diagnosed with cancer and is travelling to London to tell Phil, if she can ever get hold of him. As Saturday night approaches, all their lives are set to change forever. It’s the hottest summer on record and the weekend is about to begin…
What made the match, strongest first
Saō Ichikawa
2025 · 112 pages · 5 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveA bombshell bestseller in Japan, a provocative, defiant debut novel about a young woman in a care home seeking autonomy and the full possibilities of her life. Born with a congenital muscle disorder, Shaka spends her days in her room in a care home outside Tokyo, relying on an electric wheelchair to get around and a ventilator to breathe. But if Shaka's physical life is limited, her quick, mischievous mind has no boundaries: She takes e-learning courses on her iPad, publishes explicit fantasies on websites, and anonymously troll-tweets to see if anyone is paying attention (“If I were to live again, I’d want to be a high-class prostitute”). One day, she tweets into the void an offer of an enormous sum of money for a sperm donor. To her surprise, her new nurse accepts the dare, unleashing a series of events that will forever change Shaka's sense of herself as a woman in the world. Hunchback has shaken Japanese literary culture with its skillful depiction of the physical body and unrepentant humor. Winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, it's a feminist story about the dignity of an individual who insists on her right to make choices for herself, no matter the consequences. Formally creative and refreshingly unsentimental, Hunchback depicts the joy, anger, and desires of a woman demanding autonomy in a world that doesn't always grant it to people like her. Full of wit, bite, and heart, this unforgettable novel reminds us all of the full potential of our lives, no matter the limitations we experience.
What made the match, strongest first
Mixedat its best moments this book reads more like a political essay and because of that I'm more interested in trying out Olivia Link's non-fiction work because it's making me believe that she is a good non-fiction writer but the story of Kudo honestly didn't really stick with me
