Category: family-life
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This novel is a true national treasure for those in the know. Set in the early 1930s in a small town in Mississippi, the brilliant and smooth storytelling, along with the wonderful characters you’ll meet—especially little Meg and Birdie—will have you turning chapter after chapter until you’ve lost all track of time. It may be…
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This literary novel is likely one of the first I have read regarding Pakistan’s caste system. It weaves a tale among four or five different people, all with different circumstances but ties to Pakistan. I liked the novel but found it lacking and incomplete in certain areas. While I have a limited understanding of Pakistan’s…
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It seems like I can always count on Ken Follett’s Kingsbridge series if I want a good story where the line between good and evil is clearly drawn. We have the guys and gals to root for and the villains who drive our blood pressure and anxiety levels to dangerous heights. The Evening and the…
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The story, action, and pacing here are exactly what I had wished for in “When the Wolf Comes Home” by Nat Cassidy. Both stories involve a child possessed with incredible powers. However, The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ Klune is the much more fun read between the two and has more memorable characters. I…
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A while ago, I had tried to read The Women, also by the same author, but I had to drop it at just around the 15%-20% mark. There was just something that bugged me. This turned out to be the flat and uninspiring writing. It just felt like a chore to read, and I was…
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Of the many historical fiction novels I’ve read, I don’t believe I’ve read one set during WWII in Malaya. The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan piqued my interest with its positive reviews, beautiful cover, along with it being a literary novel based on espionage and how it can tear a normal family apart. Upon…
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The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a Russian literary novel first published in 1880. The version I’ve read, newly translated in 2024, is from Michael R. Katz. I first heard of this novel after having read The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong, in which the main character attempts to read the hefty novel.…
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The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong is a literary fictional novel set in a town called East Gladness in Connecticut. The novel depicts a boy on the verge of ending his own life by jumping off a bridge when he’s saved unexpectedly by an old lady. The story tackles issues such as poverty, drug…
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The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt is a coming-of-age fiction novel that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. It’s a wonderful novel but one that requires patience, being that it is over 700 pages long. It explores the grief and sadness of a young boy as he is forced to grow up having lost his mother…
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Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy is a literary novel set entirely on a remote island where a family of four has been tasked by the government to safeguard and protect the seeds of the many species of plants and flowers known to man. The idea is that with climate change getting worse, the planet…
The Mindless Catalog 