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LillianFrost

I am an avid reader with a crazy long TBR, (honestly not sure how long anymore) and the delusion that I'll someday run out of books to read.

13657 points

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Pride 2025
Horror Starter Pack Vol I
Level 9
My Taste
A Man Called Ove
Butcher & Blackbird
Once We Are Safe: A Novel
Into the Drowning Deep
The Thirteenth Tale
Reading...
Spread Me
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Fruit Fly
2%
108 Psychopaths and Me
12%
The Hive
4%
Murder With a Hint of Pumpkin Spice (Whisper Hollow #1)
16%
Agent 21 (Agent 21, #1)
0%
The Book Club for Troublesome Women
17%
Psychology: The Fundamentals of Human Adjustment by Munn Norman L. (1966-12-01) Hardcover
7%
Triskellion (Triskellion, #1)
0%
The Blue Guitar
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LillianFrost commented...

3h

Ysyy congrats šŸ‘ šŸ’– šŸ’“

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LillianFrost is interested in reading...

3h

Little Necromancers: A Novel

Little Necromancers: A Novel

Emma Devlin

Blending a twisted murder mystery in the vein of Knives Out with some dark magic, Little Necromancers is a YA ghostly whodunnit perfect for fans of The Inheritance Games and The Invocations.Eighteen-year-old psychic Mercy Hawkins is drowning in the exorbitant debt she owes to the necromancers who resurrected her parents. Ghost therapy is an unreliable source of income, and her death predictions never come to fruition, meaning no payout. So when those same necromancers—the powerful and affluent Granville family—come to her with an opportunity to wipe the slate clean, Mercy can’t afford to refuse.The Granvilles task her with convincing their youngest and most obstinate member, Julian, to come back to life after a brutal fall from his bedroom window. With her ability to see ghosts, only Mercy can reach him. But Mercy has her own reasons to believe that Julian’s death was no accident, and one look at his bloodied ghost confirms her suspicions.As her employers become her suspects, Mercy reluctantly teams up with the strange and hostile ghosts haunting the Granville estate. Together, they surreptitiously investigate Julian’s murder, entrenching Mercy into a decades-long feud between the house’s two factions—the ghosts, who invisibly cook, clean, and toil for the Granvilles, and the Granvilles themselves, who must acquiesce to the ghosts’ every material demand in exchange for their service. Both sides are anxious to point the finger at the other . . . and both sides have secrets to kill for.

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LillianFrost commented...

14h

Yayy congrats šŸ‘ šŸ’– šŸ’“

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LillianFrost commented...

1d

Wowow well done

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LillianFrost commented...

1d

Wow so glad to hear you enjoyed this one!!! It is so eye opening and interesting and it deserves more hype so, I am so glad you liked it.

  • Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
    Sep 13, 2026
    Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern IrelandPatrick Radden Keefe
    5.0
    Enjoyment: 5.0Quality: 5.0Characters: Plot:
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    "But I think the violence isn't just a moral thing. It's not just a moral choice at this stage. It's a kind of reflex, and there's a great deal of establishment violence, as well."

    I went into this book basically not knowing anything about the Troubles and I came out of it fully supporting the IRA. I'm not sure if Keefe wanted to write a pro-IRA book, but that is essentially what it read as to me, and while the later parts of the book detailed the ways in which the IRA perhaps became twisted from its original aims, the fact remains that to me, the IRA did what they did because of what the British started. When you have a majority colonizing force that is armed and violent, what other option do you have to get the them off your soil? Is there really another option, especially when they use violence against you and ignore your peaceful protests? I truly don't think the Sinn FƩin party could have achieved the political success and prominence in politics that it did after the Troubles without the Provos IRA paving the way by forcing the British to take their aims (somewhat) seriously.

    This book was well-researched, well-written, and never boring. There were twists and turns to the point where I would occasionally forget that this was actually a nonfiction book, because some of the things that happened, especially after the Good Friday Agreement, seemed to come right out of a political thriller (also fuck Gerry Adams!!) I feel like Keefe really dove into this topic and was able to draw from a variety of sources, including some of the oral history and recordings or transcripts that he did have access to, so we were able to read quotes straight from the sources of people who had been intimately involved with the IRA, like Dolours Price and Brendan Hughes.

    I was shocked (but not surprised, let's be real) at the amount of crimes that the British state essentially got away from in the years before and during the Troubles, including state-sanctioned assassinations and situations where people who committed crimes during that period were just never prosecuted. Of course, when the oppressed rise up with violence, it’s always decried as ā€œterrorism.ā€ When the government does it, it’s always ā€œself-defenseā€ and ā€œjustified.ā€ However, I was not shocked by certain people's attempts to rewrite history, particularly to paint the IRA negatively after the unification of Ireland actually began to be a talking point that people took seriously. The way that Price, Hughes, and other ex-IRA members were discarded and struggled with PTSD, alcoholism, and more made me think of the veterans who went through the exact same thing—and it really was the exact same thing, because they were basically in a war throughout their teens and early 20s, but without government (from the Sinn FĆ©in party) recognition of what they had gone through or support to manage the fallout. Instead, it was all about how to appear squeaky-clean in the eyes of the press by denying, denying, denying.

    I will say though, that I did not come away from this book with sympathy for the abduction and murder of Jean McConville, which is one of the stories that this book is woven around. At least one reason for that is because I felt so much sympathy for Price and Hughes, and they both stated that she was an informant for the British state. The book stated that more ex-IRA and supporters were prosecuted for their crimes than loyalists and British supporters, and it feels like this was another situation where the official powers spent a lot of time trying to bring her murderers to bring more ex-IRA people to "justice" when the British 1) started it and 2) did the same and worse to people.

    Anyway, my own leanings and opinions aside, I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the Troubles, the players who were intimately involved, and the subsequent political fallout after the peace talks and Good Friday Agreement. This book goes into both an overarching picture and the small details and events that happened throughout the many decades of upheaval with thorough research and engaging writing. I know that I, for one, will definitely be seeking out Keefe's other books, because with this one book, he has definitely established himself as a non-fiction great!

    [tw: Alcoholism, child abuse, eating disorders, gun violence, murder, pedophilia, sexual assault torture, war]

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