fox-glove
Books are my passion, and that's the only interesting thing about me.
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2d
Introducing Genetics: A Graphic Guide (Graphic Guides)
Steve Jones
60%
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fox-glove wrote a review...
2d
I recognise that this book is semi-autobiographical and I apologise for having to give it a low rating, but I am honest above all else.
The premise of this book sounded very fascinating to me, but the writing style is truly abysmal. It is awkward at times, with odd choices of wording and phrases that don’t make sense. There are attempts at being quirky that fall flat due to sudden uses of formal language, and the character reads like a teenage girl half of the time instead of the 40-something year old Hannah is. There are grammatical mistakes galore, punctuation missing or overused, and several misused words. I am shocked that the author is apparently an English teacher.
The story is uninteresting at best and downright implausible at worst. There are unrealistic plot points and every single character is unbelievably bland. I usually have a lot to discuss in terms of what I liked and didn’t like in every character, but I can’t even manage that in this case.
The reason I am giving this one point five stars instead of one is because I at least appreciate what the author was attempting to do, and I do appreciate the attempt to show an alcohol dependency. I believe this could have been a decent story about friendship and finding yourself in a world that seems set against you, but unfortunately the execution was lacking.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
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fox-glove finished a book
2d
Films Have Given Me Trust Issues
Ben Tobler
No self-belief, no direction, a job she hates and a love life comparable to that of a dead fish...Hannah feels like a red-hot mess.At forty, Hannah lives alone, depends far too much on booze and prescription painkillers, and has her mother breathing down her neck about 'finding the perfect son-in-law'. Her love for Hollywood happy endings is her only source of comfort in the chaos of reality.That is until serendipity brings beautiful, mysterious, and seemingly perfect Katie into her life.A fast friendship forms over drunken escapades, weekends away and shared demons. Despite her new lease on life, Katie's friendship forces Hannah to confront all that she knows - about herself, her past and her world.Hollywood happy endings may not be all they seem...
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fox-glove TBR'd a book
1w
Lights Out
Navessa Allen
The viral TikTok stalker dark romance, burning with high heat, hilarious banter, and a love story like you’ve never seen before. Can you handle the ride?
I want someone with a soul as black as night. Someone who would burn the world down for me and not lose a single minute of sleep over it.
Trauma nurse Aly Cappellucci doesn’t need any more kinks. She likes the one she’s landed on just fine. To her, nothing could top the masked men she follows online. Unless one of those men was shirtless, heavily tattooed, and waiting for her in her bedroom. She dreams about being hunted by one in particular, of him chasing her down and doing deliciously dark things to her willing body. She never could have guessed that by sending one drunken text, those dreams would become her new reality.
I want things most people don’t, craving darkness and depravity instead of light and love.
Josh Hammond has spent his life avoiding the limelight, but his online persona is another story. At night, he posts masked thirst traps for his millions of fans to drool over, but one follower has caught his eye: Aly. After reading a comment begging him to break into her house wearing a mask, he decides to take her up on her offer.
Together, Aly and Josh live out their darkest fantasies, unaware that Aly has captured the attention of someone else. Someone with far more sinister intentions than a little light stalking. As Josh turns from predator to protector and the stakes heighten, he must ask himself how far he’s willing to go for the woman he’s obsessed with.
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fox-glove is interested in reading...
1w
Confessions of a Shopaholic (Shopaholic, #1)
Sophie Kinsella
Becky has a fabulous flat in London's trendiest neighborhood, a troupe of glamorous socialite friends, and a closet brimming with the season's must-haves. The only trouble is that she can't actually afford it–not any of it.
Her job writing at Successful Savings not only bores her to tears, it doesn't pay much at all. And lately Becky's been chased by dismal letters from the bank –letters with large red sums she can't bear to read–and they're getting ever harder to ignore.
She tries cutting back. But none of her efforts succeeds. Becky's only consolation is to buy herself something ... just a little something....
Finally a story arises that Becky actually cares about, and her front-page article catalyzes a chain of events that will transform her life–and the lives of those around her–forever.
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fox-glove TBR'd a book
1w
My Sister’s Keeper
Jodi Picoult
New York Times best-selling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness.
Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age 13 she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate—a life and a role that she has never challenged ... until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister—and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.
My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity.
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fox-glove TBR'd a book
1w
The Shawshank Redemption
Stephen King
#1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King’s beloved novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption—the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award–nominee The Shawshank Redemption—about an unjustly imprisoned convict who seeks a strangely satisfying revenge, is available as a standalone book.
Suspenseful, mysterious, and heart-wrenching, Stephen King’s extraordinary novella, populated by a cast of unforgettable characters, tells a powerful tale of crushing despair and liberating hope through the eyes of Ellis “Red” Redding. Red’s a guy who can get you whatever you want here in Maine’s corrupt and hard-edged Shawshank State Penitentiary (for a price, of course), but the one thing he doesn’t count on is an unexpected friendship forged with fellow inmate Andy Dufresne—an inscrutable one-time banker perhaps falsely convicted of brutal, calculated murder who will go on to transform everyone’s lives within these prison walls.
Originally published in the 1982 collection Different Seasons, it was adapted into the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, this modern classic has become one of the most beloved films of all time. A mesmerizing work of unjust imprisonment and strangely satisfying revenge, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption remains one of Stephen King’s most beloved and iconic stories.
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fox-glove is interested in reading...
1w
The Devil Wears Prada (The Devil Wears Prada, #1)
Lauren Weisberger
A delightfully dishy novel about the all-time most impossible boss in the history of impossible bosses.
Andrea Sachs, a small-town girl fresh out of college, lands the job “a million girls would die for.” Hired as the assistant to Miranda Priestly, the high-profile, fabulously successful editor of Runway magazine, Andrea finds herself in an office that shouts Prada! Armani! Versace! at every turn, a world populated by impossibly thin, heart-wrenchingly stylish women and beautiful men clad in fine-ribbed turtlenecks and tight leather pants that show off their lifelong dedication to the gym. With breathtaking ease, Miranda can turn each and every one of these hip sophisticates into a scared, whimpering child.
THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA gives a rich and hilarious new meaning to complaints about “The Boss from Hell.” Narrated in Andrea’s smart, refreshingly disarming voice, it traces a deep, dark, devilish view of life at the top only hinted at in gossip columns and over Cosmopolitans at the trendiest cocktail parties. From sending the latest, not-yet-in-stores Harry Potter to Miranda’s children in Paris by private jet, to locating an unnamed antique store where Miranda had at some point admired a vintage dresser, to serving lattes to Miranda at precisely the piping hot temperature she prefers, Andrea is sorely tested each and every day—and often late into the night with orders barked over the phone. She puts up with it all by keeping her eyes on the prize: a recommendation from Miranda that will get Andrea a top job at any magazine of her choosing. As things escalate from the merely unacceptable to the downright outrageous, however, Andrea begins to realize that the job a million girls would die for may just kill her. And even if she survives, she has to decide whether or not the job is worth the price of her soul.
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fox-glove started reading...
1w
Films Have Given Me Trust Issues
Ben Tobler
No self-belief, no direction, a job she hates and a love life comparable to that of a dead fish...Hannah feels like a red-hot mess.At forty, Hannah lives alone, depends far too much on booze and prescription painkillers, and has her mother breathing down her neck about 'finding the perfect son-in-law'. Her love for Hollywood happy endings is her only source of comfort in the chaos of reality.That is until serendipity brings beautiful, mysterious, and seemingly perfect Katie into her life.A fast friendship forms over drunken escapades, weekends away and shared demons. Despite her new lease on life, Katie's friendship forces Hannah to confront all that she knows - about herself, her past and her world.Hollywood happy endings may not be all they seem...
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fox-glove finished a book
1w
Friends of Dorothy
Sandi Toksvig
The funny, wise and brilliant new novel from the star of QI and the author of Between the StopsAfter much searching, the happily married young couple, Amber and Stevie think they have found the perfect spot in Grimaldi Square. Despite the rundown pub across the way, the overgrown garden and a decidedly nosy neighbour, number 4 is the house of their dreams. Stevie, a woman who has never left anything to chance, has planned everything so nothing can spoil their happiness. But ... upstairs in their new home, seated on an old red sofa is the woman they bought the place from - eighty-year-old foul-mouthed, straight-talking, wise-cracking Dorothy - who has decided that she's not going anywhere. It turns out that Dorothy will be only the first in a line of life-changing surprises. Friends of Dorothy is a touching, funny novel about a family that is not biological, but logical; a story close to Sandi Toksvig's heart.<
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1w
Half His Age
Jennette McCurdy
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died comes a sad, funny, thrilling novel about sex, consumerism, class, desire, loneliness, the internet, rage, intimacy, power, and the (oftentimes misguided) lengths we’ll go to in order to get what we want. Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Forceful. Hurting. Perceptive. Endlessly wanting. And the thing she wants most of Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher with the wife and the kid and the mortgage and the bills, with the dead dreams and the atrophied looks and the growing paunch. She doesn’t know why she wants him. Is it his passion? His life experience? The fact that he knows books and films and things that she doesn’t? Or is it purer than that, rooted in their unlikely connection, their kindred spirits, the similar filter with which they each take in the world around them? Or, perhaps, it’s just enough that he sees her when no one else does. Startlingly perceptive, mordantly funny, and keenly poignant, Half His Age is a rich character study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles—or attempts to overcome them—in her effort to be seen, to be desired, to be loved.
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fox-glove started reading...
2w
Friends of Dorothy
Sandi Toksvig
The funny, wise and brilliant new novel from the star of QI and the author of Between the StopsAfter much searching, the happily married young couple, Amber and Stevie think they have found the perfect spot in Grimaldi Square. Despite the rundown pub across the way, the overgrown garden and a decidedly nosy neighbour, number 4 is the house of their dreams. Stevie, a woman who has never left anything to chance, has planned everything so nothing can spoil their happiness. But ... upstairs in their new home, seated on an old red sofa is the woman they bought the place from - eighty-year-old foul-mouthed, straight-talking, wise-cracking Dorothy - who has decided that she's not going anywhere. It turns out that Dorothy will be only the first in a line of life-changing surprises. Friends of Dorothy is a touching, funny novel about a family that is not biological, but logical; a story close to Sandi Toksvig's heart.<
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fox-glove wrote a review...
2w
Okay I’m sorry, I get that this book is important and influential and etc, but this was so horrific to read. Heavy topics need to be explored in literature but not like that. Why are there so many descriptions sexualising minors? Yes, child SA happens and it needs to be addressed, but it shouldn’t be explored in this much graphic detail in a fictional piece of writing. Most readers will see it as horrific but some won’t, some awful people will flock to this book just to read those scenes. You can do this in a nuanced way and still make your point. And as much as I appreciate what was trying to be discussed in terms of race, I can’t rate this book highly and call it valuable and just ignore the graphic sexualisation of children when they don’t need to be sexualised.
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fox-glove finished a book
2w
The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye is Toni Morrison's first novel, a book heralded for its richness of language and boldness of vision. Set in the author's girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the year the marigolds in the Breedloves' garden do not bloom. Pecola's life does change—in painful, devastating ways.
With its vivid evocation of the fear and loneliness at the heart of a child's yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment. The Bluest Eye remains one of Toni Morrison's most powerful, unforgettable novels- and a significant work of American fiction.
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Little Brother (NHB Modern Plays)
Eoin McAndrew
'I'd like you to promise me that you're not going to try and set yourself on fire again.'
It's 3 a.m. and Brigid's phone rings. Her brother Niall is by the river with a plastic bag and lighter fluid. Sometimes being there for people you love is very, very difficult.
Little Brother is a darkly comic play about sibling love, self-destruction, and what it means to save someone who doesn't want to be saved. Set in modern-day Belfast, it asks what happens when the systems designed to help us fall short, and love is doing more heavy lifting than it should.
Winner of the 2024 Verity Bargate Award, Eoin McAndrew's play premiered at Soho Theatre, London, in 2025, directed by Emma Jordan.
'A masterfully crafted, heart-wrenching play... a rare gem' Anupama Chandrasekhar, Verity Bargate Award judge
'Great theatricality, humour and compassion. It stayed with me long after I had finished reading' Moira Buffini, Verity Bargate Award judge
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