notbella
bella (she/they) | 31 | đłď¸âđ bookseller at a local indie bookstore I love queer books, unsettling books, and anybody who will yap about books with me đ
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Yesteryear
Caro Claire Burke
A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified in the brutal reality of 1805âwhere 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 Republican equivalent of a Kennedy? What Natalieâs followersâall 8 million of themâdonât know wonât hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? Theyâre sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isnât simply living the good life, sheâs living the idealâand just so happens to be building an empire from it.
Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isnât hers. Her home, her husband, her childrenâtheyâre all familiar, but somethingâs 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 sheâs expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a brutal 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.
9
2Reply
notbella finished a book
19h
Yesteryear
Caro Claire Burke
A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified in the brutal reality of 1805âwhere 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 Republican equivalent of a Kennedy? What Natalieâs followersâall 8 million of themâdonât know wonât hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? Theyâre sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isnât simply living the good life, sheâs living the idealâand just so happens to be building an empire from it.
Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isnât hers. Her home, her husband, her childrenâtheyâre all familiar, but somethingâs 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 sheâs expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a brutal 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.
9
2Reply
notbella started reading...
4d
Yesteryear
Caro Claire Burke
A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified in the brutal reality of 1805âwhere 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 Republican equivalent of a Kennedy? What Natalieâs followersâall 8 million of themâdonât know wonât hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? Theyâre sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isnât simply living the good life, sheâs living the idealâand just so happens to be building an empire from it.
Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isnât hers. Her home, her husband, her childrenâtheyâre all familiar, but somethingâs 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 sheâs expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a brutal 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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notbella finished a book
6d
Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage
Belle Burden
A gorgeous memoir about the sudden end to a seemingly happy marriageâan aching, love-filled, and transcendent account of surviving betrayal and discovering joyOn a chilly day in early spring, Belle Burdenâs husband of twenty years announced, with no prior warning, that he was leaving her. Belle was shocked; he had always been a committed partner and a devoted father to their three children. She thought they were in love. She thought heâtheyâwere living the life they'd always professional success, summers at their beloved beachside home, a vibrant social life. But overnight, her caring, steady husband became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume.In Strangers, Belle revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. Through all of it, she is transformed. The discreet, compliant woman she once wasâsomeone whose nickname was âBelle the Goodââgives way to someone braver, someone determined to use her voice.With unflinching honesty and profound grace, Burden charts a path through heartbreak to show the power of a woman who refuses to give up on love and rediscovers trust in herself. Strangers is a stunning, deeply moving, compulsively readable memoir heralding the arrival of a thrilling new literary talent.
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notbella started reading...
6d
Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage
Belle Burden
A gorgeous memoir about the sudden end to a seemingly happy marriageâan aching, love-filled, and transcendent account of surviving betrayal and discovering joyOn a chilly day in early spring, Belle Burdenâs husband of twenty years announced, with no prior warning, that he was leaving her. Belle was shocked; he had always been a committed partner and a devoted father to their three children. She thought they were in love. She thought heâtheyâwere living the life they'd always professional success, summers at their beloved beachside home, a vibrant social life. But overnight, her caring, steady husband became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume.In Strangers, Belle revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. Through all of it, she is transformed. The discreet, compliant woman she once wasâsomeone whose nickname was âBelle the Goodââgives way to someone braver, someone determined to use her voice.With unflinching honesty and profound grace, Burden charts a path through heartbreak to show the power of a woman who refuses to give up on love and rediscovers trust in herself. Strangers is a stunning, deeply moving, compulsively readable memoir heralding the arrival of a thrilling new literary talent.
2
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notbella started reading...
1w
Monstrilio
Gerardo SĂĄmano CĂłrdova
A literary horror debut about a boy who transforms into a monster, a monster who tries to be a man, and the people who love him in every form he takes
Grieving mother Magos cuts out a piece of her deceased eleven-year-old son Santiagoâs lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her familyâs decaying Mexico City estate. Eventually, Monstrilio begins to resemble the Santiago he once was, but his innate impulsesâthough curbed by his biological and chosen familyâs communal careâthreaten to destroy this fragile second chance at life.
A thought-provoking meditation on grief, acceptance, and the monstrous sides of love and loyalty, Gerardo SĂĄmano CĂłrdova blends bold imagination and evocative prose with deep emotional rigor. Told in four acts that span the globe from Brooklyn to Berlin, Monstrilio offers, with uncanny clarity, a cathartic and precise portrait of being human.
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notbella finished a book
1w
Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve
Drew Afualo
Drew Afualo is best known as the internetâs 'Crusader for Women' and is at the head of a new generation of entertainmentâs rising stars, with more than nine million followers across her social platforms. She soon realized that men on social media were creating sexist content aimed at disparaging women, and also containing rampant fatphobia, racism, and other forms of bigotry with very real-life consequences. It didnât take long for her to step into the role of unofficial watchdog for misogyny, and her signature laugh is now recognized as a feminist call to arms.Loud is part manual, part manifesto, and part memoir. It is a summoning cry to rid the internet (and our hearts, minds, and lives) of 'terrible men' and create a space to fight outdated patriarchal ideals. Above all, it makes it clear that behind Drewâs fearsome laugh is a mission and a life philosophy, a strategy for self-confidence from the inside out, and a pathway to once and for all remove men from the centre of how women and fems think about themselves.
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notbella made progress on...
1w
Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve
Drew Afualo
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notbella made progress on...
1w
Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve
Drew Afualo
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notbella finished a book
1w
London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth
Patrick Radden Keefe
From the New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing - a stunning story of corruption and tragedy in one of the world's great London."A new book by Keefe means drop everything and close the blinds; you'll be turning pages for hours" Los Angeles Times'Patrick Radden Keefe [is] one of the top narrative nonfiction authors of his generation' TIMEIn 2019, a London teenager, Zac Brettler, mysteriously fell to his death from a luxury apartment building on the banks of the Thames. When his grieving parents began their desperate quest to understand how their son had died, they made a terrible Zac had been leading a fantasy life, posing as the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch.In his inimitably gripping and forensic prose, Baillie Gifford Prize winner and New Yorker writer Patrick Radden Keefe follows Zac's parents on a dark journey to find out what brought Zac to the balcony that night - and how a teenager's world of make-believe drew him into the city's terrifying underworld.London Falling is at once a devastating family tragedy, a riveting story of greed, power and deception, and an indictment of the culture that has transformed London into a haven for the malignant forces that have come to influence us all.
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notbella made progress on...
1w
London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth
Patrick Radden Keefe
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