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By: Caroline Kepnes

Review by Lois Plale

Guinevere Beck (“Beck” to her friends) is an aspiring author, who drops into a bookstore run by Joe Goldberg, who immediately believes she is The One for him.  After she makes a purchase and leaves, he Googles her name from her credit card and discovers she is on both Facebook and Twitter.  Joe finds out everything he needs to know about her and gradually and obsessively takes control of her life – convincing her that he is the perfect man for her.  He sets up and orchestrates a series of events to make sure she falls for him, removing anything and anyone who gets in his way – even if he has to kill to do it.  Continue reading →

Everything I Never Told You

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Everything I Never Told YouEverything I Never Told You

By Celeste Ng

Review by Zoey Mills

I was recommended Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng based on my enjoyment of Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things. While both novels are arguably different, Celeste Ng cited Roy’s 1997 work as inspiration—and I quickly picked up on subtle similarities. In Everything I Never Told You we follow the story of Lydia Lee, the events leading up to and after her sudden, gruesome death, and how her family copes with their loss. The novel seems almost as though it were written backwards, by beginning with Lydia’s death and then jumping to the beginnings of the Lee family. Ng, like Roy, jumps around on the timeline of the story and explores how the family’s past and present influenced the events leading up to Lydia’s death. I’m not much of a mystery reader, but Ng had me instantly hooked and I finished the book in two days (despite my finals desperately begging for attention). Continue reading →