If you’ve been through something
horrible, how do you go back to living your life? This question (a familiar one for me) is at the center of Dark Room Etiquette, in which a teen is kidnapped
and brainwashed by a lonely man with religious delusions.
It’s a top-notch abduction
thriller but also a fearless depiction of living with trauma; if
anything, the story becomes more gripping once Sayers is rescued. Plus,
the character arc is stunning. Sayers transforms from an entitled
rich kid to withdrawn and helpless, and finally to destabilized and haunted.
It’s
profound, sensitive, and completely believable. I can’t wait to read it
again.
Popularity, good looks, perfect grades—there's nothing Sayers' family money can't buy.
Until he's kidnapped by a man who tells him the privileged life he's been living is based on a lie.
Trapped in a windowless room, without knowing why he's been taken or how long the man plans to keep him shut away, Sayers faces a terrifying new reality. To survive, he must forget the world he once knew, and play the part his abductor has created for him.
But as time passes, the line between fact and fiction starts to blur, and Sayers begins…
Stephanie Foo and I are the same age, grew up
in the same place, and both live with complex PTSD as a result of our
tumultuous childhoods. We have never met, but this memoir felt
like a hug.
Years after distancing herself from her parents,
Stephanie Foo can’t stop panicking or criticizing herself despite provable
success. Foo deals with a subject by learning all about it, and
she has brilliant feedback about the literature and therapeutic methods introduced for C-PTSD.
Ultimately, she provides clarity and hope
for those of us who made it through hell but still expect disaster and want to
respond to compliments with, "Oh, pshaw, you’re so nice, but I’m actually a
fetid sewer marsupial."
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life
“Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, NPR, Mashable, She Reads, Publishers Weekly
By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and…
Socially conscious thrillers? Reluctant detectives
with tragic histories? A setting (in this case, Catalina Island) that impacts
everything? I was sold on Rachel Howzell Hall’s latest novel by
the end of the intro, in which teenage Coco comes home to find her family massacred
after a home invasion.
Twenty years later, Coco returns during a divorce with
designs on selling her family’s abandoned house. Then, she receives threats. Then there’s a series of
deaths, and rumors swirl about them being less natural than they look. Oh, and
the man convicted of her family’s murder—who the cops encouraged her to
implicate—has been freed due to new evidence.
What Never Happenedis
intense but also great fun, especially if you’ve been to Catalina. Yes, the
bison are important.
It's murder in paradise as a woman uncovers a host of secrets off the rocky California coast in a gripping novel of suspense by New York Times bestselling author Rachel Howzell Hall.
Colette "Coco" Weber has relocated to her Catalina Island home, where, twenty years before, she was the sole survivor of a deadly home invasion. All Coco wants is to see her aunt Gwen, get as far away from her ex as possible, and get back to her craft-writing obituaries. Thankfully, her college best friend, Maddy, owns the local paper and has a job sure to keep Coco busy,…
When Cassie's family moves into a decrepit house in New Orleans, the only upside is her new best friend. Gem is witty, attractive, and sure not to abandon Cassie—after all, she's been confined to the old house since her murder in the 60s.
As their connection becomes romantic, Cassie must keep more and more secrets from her religious community, which hates ghosts almost as much as it hates gays. Even if their relationship prevails over volatile parents and brutal conversion therapy, it may not outlast time.
