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5h

Loved One
Aisha Muharrar
When Julia’s first-love-turned-best-friend Gabe, a musician with a cultish following, dies unexpectedly at age twenty-nine, Julia launches herself into an intercontinental quest to recover the possessions he left with friends and acquaintances across the world. Along the way she encounters Elizabeth, Gabe’s effortlessly perfect and endlessly cool ex-girlfriend. Now Julia can’t stop talking to, thinking about, and googling Elizabeth. As the two women struggle to reconcile their respective claims on Gabe’s memory, can they find their way from rivalry to friendship?


astral.projection commented...
5h
Beautiful review, I was debating if I should read this one next and this sold me! I was concerned about the male centeredness of it all from the blurb so thank you for clearing that up 🙏


4.25 ⭐ While Loved One is a debut, Aisha Muharrar is a writer I won't forget.
I sometimes think literary fiction can get a bad rep, either because things are too predictable or not relatable enough. When the synopsis tells you one of the main character dies, tragically, unexpectedly, you think: "Well I obviously already know what this story is about." And then sometimes, you truly don't, and you're very grateful for that.
Loved One standouts not only in it's simple, yet effortless writing, or the "Are you me? Am I you?" relatableness in the characters, but in the true essence of the theme: how grief and life and our choices are so intertwined, how can you not reflect back on the what if's and find peace within the decisions made.
Julia is one of those characters that sits with you. That makes you think, "Would I do the same in her situation? Would I feel similarly?". Julia makes you think because she isn't sure either; she's figuring out her grief and her love and life, and the ways the simplest of things build up to the most grandest moments. And even those can feel like they are forever changing because so are we, and sometimes most importantly, so are the people in our lives. I'm stunned with how much I feel I know Julia adamantly. If you are someone who reflects on how one single choice could have changed the tracteroy of small to big things, you will know her adamantly too, flawed and loved and all.
I appreciate Aisha Muharrar's intention with messy, imperfect interactions. As a character-driven story, this is less of watching how the story unfolds, and more focused on having the reader at the table visibly uncomfortable, shaking with laughter, or gasping with the characters as they hash it out. While Muharrar's prose felt straightforward, I believed the authenticity to it. The genuine voice of each character felt rich, knowable, and familiar.
With the pacing spread out, Muharrar's choice of interweaving flashbacks of Julia and Gabe to connect the reader with their history, their relationship, and their friendship was impactful. It became quickly less about knowing Gabe as a character, and more about knowing him through Julia, and her reflection and changing perception of their history after his death. Some could say dual timelines can detract from the pace, but here it felt more astute in building the memory of Gabe through Julia's reflection, versus him as an actual, participating character in the story.
One of the unexpected things I loved (heh) about this story was how women-focused it was. The death of Gabe brought these different women together. The ways in which Muharrar showed women at various points in their life, with different desires, dreams, families, and also in their grief and their action/inaction with it. Loved One passes the Bechdel Test as the overall story is less about a single man, and more about questioning if every choice is connected, and if not, how do we accept love and loss without understanding the purpose.


astral.projection finished a book
6h

The Knight and the Moth
Rachel Gillig
From New York Times bestselling author Rachel Gillig comes a sensational romantasy, a gothic, mist-cloaked tale of a young prophetess forced on an impossible quest with the one knight whose future is beyond her sight. Sybil Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all. Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams she receives visions from six unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and common folk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum’s windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams. Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybil’s visions. But when Sybil’s fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them. For the world outside the cathedral’s cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking, and as much as she’d rather avoid Rodrick’s dark eyes and sharp tongue, only a heretic can defeat a god.


astral.projection is interested in reading...
20h

When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress
Gabor Maté
In this accessible and groundbreaking book--filled with the moving stories of real people--medical doctor and bestselling author Gabor Maté shows that emotion and psychological stress play a powerful role in the onset of chronic illness, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, multiple sclerosis and many others, even Alzheimer's disease. When the Body Says No is an impressive contribution to research on the physiological connection between life's stresses and emotions and the body systems governing nerves, immune apparatus and hormones. With great compassion and erudition, Gabor Maté demystifies medical science and, as he did in Scattered Minds , invites us all to be our own health advocates.


astral.projection commented...
2d
I DO!!! I’m adding this one bc a cute boy told me it was his favorite book and I found that incredibly adorable that it was Olivie Blake


astral.projection is interested in reading...
2d

One for My Enemy
Olivie Blake
In New York City where we lay our scene, two rival witch families fight to maintain control of their respective criminal ventures. On one side of the conflict are the Antonova sisters, each one beautiful, cunning, and ruthless, and their mother, the elusive supplier of premium intoxicants known only as Baba Yaga. On the other side, the influential Fedorov brothers serve their father, the crime boss known as Koschei the Deathless, whose community extortion ventures dominate the shadows of magical Manhattan. After twelve years of tenuous coexistence, a change in one family’s interests causes a rift in the existing stalemate. When bad blood brings both families to the precipice of disaster, fate intervenes with a chance encounter, and in the aftershocks of a resurrected conflict, everyone must choose a side. As each of the siblings struggles to stake their claim, fraying loyalties threaten to rot each side from the inside out. If, that is, the enmity between empires doesn’t destroy them first.


astral.projection is interested in reading...
2d

One for My Enemy
Olivie Blake
In New York City where we lay our scene, two rival witch families fight to maintain control of their respective criminal ventures. On one side of the conflict are the Antonova sisters, each one beautiful, cunning, and ruthless, and their mother, the elusive supplier of premium intoxicants known only as Baba Yaga. On the other side, the influential Fedorov brothers serve their father, the crime boss known as Koschei the Deathless, whose community extortion ventures dominate the shadows of magical Manhattan. After twelve years of tenuous coexistence, a change in one family’s interests causes a rift in the existing stalemate. When bad blood brings both families to the precipice of disaster, fate intervenes with a chance encounter, and in the aftershocks of a resurrected conflict, everyone must choose a side. As each of the siblings struggles to stake their claim, fraying loyalties threaten to rot each side from the inside out. If, that is, the enmity between empires doesn’t destroy them first.

This Story Might Save Your Life: A Novel
Tiffany Crum

good_girl_forever finished a book
3d

The Knave and the Moon
Rachel Gillig
Rachel Gillig, the queen of gothic romantasy, returns with higher stakes, darker mysteries, and deeper longings in this gorgeous sequel to the #1 New York Times bestselling sensation The Knight and the Moth. Aisling Cathedral is in ruins. Rodrick Myndacious, Bartholomew, and Maude Bauer are rumored to be dead—and the king has taken Sybil Delling as his bride. To show off their union and solidify his power over Traum, Benji proposes a series of tournaments throughout the hamlets. Captive and drugged, Sybil remains determined to vanquish him as she once did the Omens, even if she destroys the kingdom’s faith—and herself—in the process. But then a mysterious knave rises to the top of the tournament lists, a man with no name and no memory who may just be Sybil’s ticket to undoing Benji’s power. For in a land where stories repeat themselves, where a king can prove as cruel as a god, the only way to truly destroy the Stonewater Kingdom’s faith is to save it.


astral.projection started reading...
4d

This Story Might Save Your Life: A Novel
Tiffany Crum
A breathless thriller with the soul of a sweeping love story. For fans of Listen for the Lie and The Love of My Life. Best friends Benny and Joy like to say they’ve been saving each other’s lives since the moment they met. Until the day Joy disappears and Benny is suspected of murder . . . Benny Abbott and Joy Moore host one of the most beloved podcasts in the world. Each week, they delight listeners with a different “against all odds” survival story, gleefully finding the weird, life-affirming humor in near-death experiences. Since their first episode on Joy’s experience with severe narcolepsy, they’ve been the best friends everyone wants to befriend—and thanks to the meticulous management of Joy’s husband, Xander, they’ve built a lucrative empire. The problem is, their next survival story may be their own. When Benny arrives at Joy and Xander’s one morning to record, he finds shattered glass and an empty house. The one clue shedding light on the couple’s disappearance is the incomplete, previously unseen first draft of Joy’s memoir. Benny is desperate to find them, even when the police soon zero in on him as their prime suspect. Millions of devoted listeners think they know the “real” Benny and Joy. But as the hours tick by, and the odds seem increasingly stacked against Joy and Xander being found alive, not even the most devoted fans could guess the terrible secrets their favorite famous BFFs have hidden from the world—and from each other. "Both a riveting mystery and a love story, This Story Might Save Your Life is one of the best thrillers I’ve read this year." —Amy Tintera, bestselling author of Listen for the Lie “A heart-pounding thriller and a heart-melting romance, this is the most compelling novel I’ve read in years.” —Annabel Monaghan, New York Times bestselling author of It’s a Love Story “I truly loved reading This Story Might Save Your Life. The pace was terrific, and it was so smart and engrossing. The pages practically turn themselves in this nuanced thriller. I couldn't put it down!” —Nina Simon, bestselling author of Mother-Daughter Murder Night


Yesteryear
Caro Claire Burke


astral.projection commented...
1w
Omg the author of The Will of the Many wrote a standalone?! Where did he find the time?? I need him to finish his series first 😭


astral.projection is interested in reading...
1w

Scion
James Islington
John Wick meets Ghost in the Shell in this fast-paced cyberpunk thriller by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Will of the Many and The Strength of the Few. My job, when you think about it, isn’t so different from a lot of people’s. The more old-fashioned crowd do still get hung up on the "killing people" part of it, I guess, but that’s a them problem: it’s been perfectly legal to take out lifers for ages. Besides, once ultrawealthy morons realised they had a way to live forever—limited resources be damned—there was only ever going to be one genuinely practical deterrent. So, sure, I have to deal with a ton of boring planning. Inconvenient hours. Some pretty awkward face-to-face interactions. And like most of us, I’m really only clocking in to try to crawl out from beneath my debts. But someone’s got to do it. Luckily, my genetic compatibilities make me really, really good at doing it. Still. This next job...I don’t know. It’s something I haven’t had to deal with in years. Kind of the opposite of my regular duties. Strange, that it got thrown my way. I’m sure it’ll all go totally fine though.


astral.projection is interested in reading...
1w

Scion
James Islington
John Wick meets Ghost in the Shell in this fast-paced cyberpunk thriller by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Will of the Many and The Strength of the Few. My job, when you think about it, isn’t so different from a lot of people’s. The more old-fashioned crowd do still get hung up on the "killing people" part of it, I guess, but that’s a them problem: it’s been perfectly legal to take out lifers for ages. Besides, once ultrawealthy morons realised they had a way to live forever—limited resources be damned—there was only ever going to be one genuinely practical deterrent. So, sure, I have to deal with a ton of boring planning. Inconvenient hours. Some pretty awkward face-to-face interactions. And like most of us, I’m really only clocking in to try to crawl out from beneath my debts. But someone’s got to do it. Luckily, my genetic compatibilities make me really, really good at doing it. Still. This next job...I don’t know. It’s something I haven’t had to deal with in years. Kind of the opposite of my regular duties. Strange, that it got thrown my way. I’m sure it’ll all go totally fine though.


astral.projection commented...
1w
Amen to “the reader should understand how unreliable Natalie is as a narrator” - so many people are taking her literally 😭

Okay, okay. I'm going to admit I was suffering for the middle of the book. But the last quarter was so good, and the hook was there, the construction of all and everything.
This is not Kindred. Comparing anyone but Toni Morrison to Octavia Butler is crazy work. If you follow someone like that in booktok, that person doesn't read. They are like Natalie.
There's a little tiny bit too much of Ruby Franke and the eight passenger controversy in some parts, but art imitates reality. The result has enough tact, so that didn't bother me. However, this book relay a lot in the idea that the reader should understand how unreliable Natalie is as a narrator. If you don't get that, you are going to take everything at face value and lose a lot of the greatness of the craft process. I'm satisfied. I wish I didn't knew anything about the book before reading. I'll probably re-read it in the future.


astral.projection is interested in reading...
1w

The Knave and the Moon
Rachel Gillig
Rachel Gillig, the queen of gothic romantasy, returns with higher stakes, darker mysteries, and deeper longings in this gorgeous sequel to the #1 New York Times bestselling sensation The Knight and the Moth. Aisling Cathedral is in ruins. Rodrick Myndacious, Bartholomew, and Maude Bauer are rumored to be dead—and the king has taken Sybil Delling as his bride. To show off their union and solidify his power over Traum, Benji proposes a series of tournaments throughout the hamlets. Captive and drugged, Sybil remains determined to vanquish him as she once did the Omens, even if she destroys the kingdom’s faith—and herself—in the process. But then a mysterious knave rises to the top of the tournament lists, a man with no name and no memory who may just be Sybil’s ticket to undoing Benji’s power. For in a land where stories repeat themselves, where a king can prove as cruel as a god, the only way to truly destroy the Stonewater Kingdom’s faith is to save it.