Victxria
A language learner who loves reading sci-fi, speculative fiction and in multiple languages!
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Victxria commented on thetravellingcat's update
6h
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9h
Arsenic and Adobo (Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery, #1)
Mia P. Manansala
The first book in a new culinary cozy series full of sharp humor and delectable dishes—one that might just be killer….
When Lila Macapagal moves back home to recover from a horrible breakup, her life seems to be following all the typical rom-com tropes. She’s tasked with saving her Tita Rosie’s failing restaurant, and she has to deal with a group of matchmaking aunties who shower her with love and judgment. But when a notoriously nasty food critic (who happens to be her ex-boyfriend) drops dead moments after a confrontation with Lila, her life quickly swerves from a Nora Ephron romp to an Agatha Christie case.
With the cops treating her like she’s the one and only suspect, and the shady landlord looking to finally kick the Macapagal family out and resell the storefront, Lila’s left with no choice but to conduct her own investigation. Armed with the nosy auntie network, her barista best bud, and her trusted Dachshund, Longanisa, Lila takes on this tasty, twisted case and soon finds her own neck on the chopping block…
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9h
Catching Fire
Suzanne Collins
Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just earned for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules, and now there are rumors of rebellion in the districts. Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.
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Stoner
John Williams
William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.
John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.
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9h
Unseen: How I Lost My Vision but Found My Voice
Molly Burke
From social media star and disability activist Molly Burke, a vulnerable and witty memoir on navigating the challenges of being a legally blind woman in an ableist worldWhen Molly Burke was four years old, she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare degenerative eye disease that causes gradual and complete blindness, forcing Burke to conceptualize the world differently. Growing up disabled didn’t stop her from playing sports, speaking publicly, or becoming a rock-climbing instructor, but it was other people’s narrow perceptions of her that held her back. Today, Burke is a speaker, content creator, model, author, and advocate whose mission is to help foster community for anyone feeling isolated, misrepresented, or misunderstood. Unseen is Burke’s story in her own words and an inspiration to those who have been stigmatized or are feeling alone in their struggles to speak out. Burke chronicles her journey as a disabled woman, business owner, and entertainer, illuminating not only what her experiences have taught her, but also what she wishes the world understood about her world and the world of others in the blind community. Part memoir, part rallying cry for better representation, Unseen recounts Burke’s life and experiences fighting against the expectations society set for her as a blind woman, and in doing so, helps readers find their voice, strength, and inner purpose.
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Victxria commented on Victxria's update
9h
Victxria commented on a post
2d
Thoughts from 54% (page 145)
Reading this one in French. I'm enjoying it overall, although I sometimes have a hard time with the verb tenses for some reason. I don't know, maybe I'm just not used to having a story told like that. 🧐
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Victxria commented on a post
3d
French Reading | Thoughts from 100%
I cannot believe I read this all in French (with the help of dictionaries and word lookups). Surprisingly, it was a great book to read intensively because of how disconnected the character was. I kept having to ask myself if it was just me not getting it due to the language or if it was the story.
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Victxria wrote a review...
5d
I couldn't put this book down. I was thoroughly engaged while reading it. I decided to sit down and enjoy the ride instead of trying to speculate too much.
I went into it thinking it was horror and expected to be scared, but I really wasn't.
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Victxria is interested in reading...
5d
The Yellow Wall-Paper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Diagnosed by her physician husband with a “temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency” after the birth of her child, a woman is urged to rest for the summer in an old colonial mansion. Forbidden from doing work of any kind, she spends her days in the house’s former nursery, with its barred windows, scratched floor, and peeling yellow wallpaper.
In a private journal, the woman records her growing obsession with the “horrid” wallpaper. Its strange pattern mutates in the moonlight, revealing what appears to be a human figure in the design. With nothing else to occupy her mind, the woman resolves to unlock the mystery of the wallpaper. Her quest, however, leads not to the truth, but into the darkest depths of madness.
A condemnation of the patriarchy, The Yellow Wallpaper explores with terrifying economy the oppression, grave misunderstanding, and willful dismissal of women in late nineteenth-century society.
First published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine.
Excerpt:
Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try.
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Post from the Yesteryear forum
5d
Victxria
Edited
End of Part 1 | Thoughts from 8%
I've seen a few people who didn't like this so I was nervous when my library hold finally came in. I've read the first part and I'm loving it! It's fast paced and easy to read. I've been annotating while reading as well. I feel that I'm really engaging with the story.
Natalie is triggering me to no heavens though. She reminds me of my old boss who was (is) had her own business which I was the supervisor of. It was a preschool and everytime she'd come in she'd try to engage with the children and the minute it was too much to deal with she would look to me or the other staff to take over. It's just like how Natalie looks to her nannies to do the real work while she only shows up for whatever makes her look good.
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Victxria commented on Victxria's update
5d
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5d
Yesteryear
Caro Claire Burke
A traditional American woman, a “tradwife” influencer, suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.
My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.
Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.
Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.
A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.
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Victxria started reading...
5d
Yesteryear
Caro Claire Burke
A traditional American woman, a “tradwife” influencer, suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.
My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.
Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.
Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.
A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.
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