{via Amazon}
Welcome to the very first CKDC Book Club! I was chatting with a friend recently about how my blog lets me talk about and do everything I love - food, cooking, wine, writing... but the one thing I hadn't figured out how to work in was books. I'm an avid reader, to the extent that my whole family has a shared Kindle account that I've been banned from because I spend too much money on books for our purchases to ever even out. I love to read and think it's an amazing way to connect with people - even my most unruly high school students would sit down to chat with me about a book I read after they recommended it. Actually, on that note, I should probably admit: I unabashedly love young adult fiction. From being a nanny in college to a high school teacher, I've been exposed to it more than most and have come to love it. So, don't judge me when you see books geared towards teenagers in my recommendations!
Once a month, I plan to recommend a few books that I've read and loved - most will probably be fairly recent releases, but I'll sneak in a few old favorites here and there. If you read any of them, please use the comments section or email me to let me know what you think! Also, if you have recommendations, please let me know - I'm always on the search for new books. And so, without further ado, the first monthly CKDC Book Club!
A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara. I've recommended this book here before but wanted to again, officially. Everyone I've talked to about this book hasn't been able to express their emotions about it. It's completely striking and heartwrenching and one of the most affecting books I've ever read. If just to know what everyone is talking about, read this (but make sure you have tissues)!
Red Rising, by Pierce Brown (and sequels Golden Son and Morning Star). I told you there'd be some young adult fiction in here! Set in the future on dystopian Mars, this series has been reminding me of an intergalactic Hunger Games so far. I can't put it down (at the expense of my social life, oops)! Edit: I wrote this description on Friday. It's now Monday, and I'm on the final book in the trilogy. Can't. Stop. Reading.
The Nest, by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney. About adult siblings squabbling over their inheritance, this book started out with a lot of very unlikable characters, but you grow to love (most of) them by the end.
Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins. I bet a lot of you have already read this, but with the movie trailer just out it's back on my radar. I better understood why people would compare it to Gone Girl (which, by the way, a friend of mine JUST read and never had the twist spoiled for her! How'd she go four years without having the ending ruined?!) once I finished it, but I would just describe it as a thriller featuring a drunken antihero and people who aren't what they seem.
Delicious Foods, by James Hannaham. This book is insane. It's about drug addicts working as modern-day indentured servants on a farm, and one of the narrators is heroin. That alone made it unique enough to draw me in, and the story keeps you reading til the end.
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