Karen Cheung

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Hong Kong Memoir

A boldly rendered—and deeply intimate—account of Hong Kong today, from a resilient young woman whose stories explore what it means to survive in a city teeming with broken promises. “Hums with the thrill of being lost in this massive, haunted, mythologized, neon city, yet finding oneself in the end.”—Hua Hsu, author of A Floating Chinaman Hong Kong is known as a place of extremes: a former colony of the United Kingdom that now exists at the margins of an ascendant China; a city rocked by mass protests, where residents rally—often in vain—against threats to their fundamental freedoms. But it is also misunderstood, and often romanticized. Drawing from her own experience reporting on the politics and culture of her hometown, as well as interviews with musicians, protesters, and writers who have watched their home transform, Karen Cheung gives us a rare insider’s view of this remarkable city at a pivotal moment—for Hong Kong and, ultimately, for herself. Born just before the handover to China in 1997, Cheung grew up questioning what version of Hong Kong she belonged to. Not quite at ease within the middle-class, cosmopolitan identity available to her at her English-speaking international school, she also resisted the conservative values of her deeply traditional, often dysfunctional family. Through vivid and character-rich stories, Cheung braids a dual narrative of her own coming of age alongside that of her generation. With heartbreaking candor, she recounts her yearslong struggle to find reliable mental health care in a city reeling from the traumatic aftermath of recent protests. Cheung also captures moments of miraculous triumph, documenting Hong Kong’s vibrant counterculture and taking us deep into its indie music and creative scenes. Inevitably, she brings us to the protests, where her understanding of what it means to belong to Hong Kong finally crystallized. An exhilarating blend of memoir and reportage, The Impossible City charts the parallel journeys of both a young woman and a city as they navigate the various, sometimes contradictory paths of coming into one’s own.

The Impossible City

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Never been read! Owlcrate exclusive edition, signed by the author.

I Hope You Get This Message

Nikki May

A Novel

"An incisive and exhilarating debut novel following three Anglo-Nigerian best friends and the lethally glamorous fourth woman who infiltrates their group-the most unforgettable girls since Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha"--

Wahala

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Akwaeke Emezi

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, Vulture, Harper's Bazaar, Thrillist, Essence, Good Housekeeping, Glamour, Marie Claire, Parade, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Refinery29, Business Insider, The Guardian, Financial Times, PopSugar, Book Riot, LitHub, Bookish, LGBTQ Reads, and more!

"A deeply heartfelt romance novel." --Marie Claire

"Riveting...emotional." --Book Riot

A New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and "one of our greatest living writers" (Shondaland) reimagines the love story in this fresh and seductive novel about a young woman seeking joy while healing from loss.

Feyi Adekola wants to learn how to be alive again.

It's been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life and she's almost a new person now--an artist with her own studio and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best friend, Joy, who insists it's time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene. Feyi isn't ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical island, decadent meals in the glamorous home of a celebrity chef, and a major curator who wants to launch her art career.

She's even started dating the perfect guy, but their new relationship might be sabotaged before it has a chance by the overwhelming desire Feyi feels every time she locks eyes with the one person in the house who is most definitely off-limits--his father.

This new life she asked for just got a lot more complicated, and Feyi must begin her search for real answers. Who is she ready to become? Can she release her past and honor her grief while still embracing her future? And, of course, there's the biggest question of all--how far is she willing to go for a second chance at love? Akwaeke Emezi's vivid and passionate writing takes us deep into a world of possibility and healing, and the constant bravery of choosing love against all odds.

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

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Marissa Levien

Unread, looks like new but does have a couple creases in the dust jacket

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

"In fifty years, Myrra will be free. Until then, she's a contract worker. Ever since she was five, her life and labor have belonged to the highest bidder on her contract--butchers, laundries, and now the powerful, secretive Carlyles. But when one night finds the Carlyles dead, Myrra is suddenly free a lot sooner than she anticipated--and at a cost she never could have imagined. Burdened with the Carlyles' orphaned daughter and the terrible secret they died to escape, she runs. With time running out, Myrra must come face to face with the truth about her world--and embrace what's left before it's too late"--

The World Gives Way

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Gabrielle Union

In excellent condition, gently read once.

Stories

"Activist, actress, and ... author Gabrielle Union is back with an even more intimate, revealing, and powerful collection of essays"--

You Got Anything Stronger?

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signed first edition! never read but the cover is really prone to dust and marks. #hardcover #youngadult #signed #fiction #ya 

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

“The cinema-worthy rom-com of your summer reading dreams.” —Bustle Father of the Bride meets Sixteen Candles in the latest novel from New York Times bestselling author Morgan Matson. Charlie Grant’s older sister is getting married this weekend at their family home, and Charlie can’t wait—for the first time in years, all four of her older siblings will be under one roof. Charlie is desperate for one last perfect weekend, before the house is sold and everything changes. The house will be filled with jokes and games and laughs again. Making decisions about things like what college to attend and reuniting with longstanding crush Jesse Foster—all that can wait. She wants to focus on making the weekend perfect. The only problem? The weekend is shaping up to be an absolute disaster. There’s the unexpected dog with a penchant for howling, house alarm that won’t stop going off, and a papergirl with a grudge. There are the relatives who aren’t speaking, the (awful) girl her favorite brother brought home unannounced, and a missing tuxedo. Not to mention the neighbor who seems to be bent on sabotage and a storm that is bent on drenching everything. The justice of the peace is missing. The band will only play covers. The guests are all crazy. And the wedding planner’s nephew is unexpectedly, distractingly…cute. Over the course of three ridiculously chaotic days, Charlie will learn more than she ever expected about the family she thought she knew by heart. And she’ll realize that sometimes, trying to keep everything like it was in the past means missing out on the future.

Save the Date

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#hardcover #fiction #youngadult #youngadultfiction 

8 starred reviews ∙ William C. Morris Award Winner ∙ National Book Award Longlist ∙ Printz Honor Book ∙ Coretta Scott King Honor Book ∙ #1 New York Times Bestseller! "Absolutely riveting!" —Jason Reynolds "Stunning." —John Green "This story is necessary. This story is important." —Kirkus (starred review) "Heartbreakingly topical." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) "A marvel of verisimilitude." —Booklist (starred review) "A powerful, in-your-face novel." —Horn Book (starred review) Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life. And don't miss On the Come Up, Angie Thomas's powerful follow-up to The Hate U Give.

The Hate U Give

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Gently read once! #hardcover #fiction #youngadult #youngadultfiction 

After leaving her life behind to go to college in New York, Marin must face the truth about the tragedy that happened in the final weeks of summer when her friend Mabel comes to visit.

We Are Okay

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#hardcover #fantasy #youngadult #fiction #mythology 

After losing everything when her father's kingdom is brutally and suddenly taken over, sixteen-year-old Princess Amrita flees the royal palace with her companion, the seer and former slave Thala, and together they hope to find the legendary Library of All Things, where they can access the stories of their lives and their loved ones, change their future, and save the kingdom.

The Library of Fates

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Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Originally published in hardcover in 2016 by Emily Bestler Books/Atria.

The Regulars

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A hilarious debut novel about a perfectly imperfect love story that will delight fans of Evvie Drake Starts Over. Even the smartest people can be stupid at love. When Stacey Lane writes a feminist take on Frankenstein, she never imagines it will catch the eye of unbelievably sexy Hollywood star Tommy DeMarco. Tommy’s passion for her book—and for her, a recently widowed poet, mom, and certified mess—threatens to turn her life upside down, or maybe right-side up. From their first poolside meeting the two are set on a collision course as they go about making the book into a movie, making each other crazy, and making love, if only in secret. Fueled by desire, love, grief, expertly poured cocktails, and crackling dialogue, Monsters: A Love Story is a witty portrait of a relationship gone off the rails and two people who are made for each other—even if they’re not so sure they see it that way. **A Summer Beach Read Pick for Harper’s Bazaar, the Associated Press, Purewow, and Refinery29** “This fast-paced novel will have readers immersed in the heady feeling of an alcohol-fueled affair with one of the sexiest men alive.” — “An addictive page-turner, ripe with seduction and charm, that drops insights into this messy, crazy, wonderful thing called love.” —Washington Independent Review of Books “Entertainingly dyspeptic.” —Vogue “A perfectly imperfect love story.”—Bookpage

Monsters: a Love Story

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gently read once!#hardcover #nonfiction #memoir


A Memoir

A daughter returns home to the Navajo reservation to retrace her mother’s life in a memoir that is both a narrative and an archive of one family’s troubled history. “In this transcendent story, Geller refuses to look away from the agonizing cycles of abuse and addiction, while also writing with deep compassion about the limitations of the people we love.”—Esquire (One of the Best Books of the Year) When Danielle Geller’s mother dies of alcohol withdrawal during an attempt to get sober, Geller returns to Florida and finds her mother’s life packed into eight suitcases. Most were filled with clothes, except for the last one, which contained diaries, photos, and letters, a few undeveloped disposable cameras, dried sage, jewelry, and the bandana her mother wore on days she skipped a hair wash. Geller, an archivist and a writer, uses these pieces of her mother’s life to try and understand her mother’s relationship to home, and their shared need to leave it. Geller embarks on a journey where she confronts her family's history and the decisions that she herself had been forced to make while growing up, a journey that will end at her mother's home: the Navajo reservation. Dog Flowers is an arresting, photo-lingual memoir that masterfully weaves together images and text to examine mothers and mothering, sisters and caretaking, and colonized bodies. Exploring loss and inheritance, beauty and balance, Danielle Geller pays homage to our pasts, traditions, and heritage, to the families we are given and the families we choose.

Dog Flowers

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"An eventual American classic that is unrelenting in its beauty and incisive cultural critique." - KIESE LAYMON A chilling and blisteringly relevant literary novel of social horror centered around a brutal killing that takes place in a full-contact haunted escape room--a provocative exploration of capitalism, hate politics, racial fetishism, and our obsession with fear as entertainment. On April 27, 1997, four contestants make it to the final cell of the Quigley House, a full-contact haunted escape room in Lincoln, Nebraska, made famous for its monstrosities, booby-traps, and ghoulishly costumed actors. If the group can endure these horrors without shouting the safe word, "reprieve," they'll win a substantial cash prize--a startling feat accomplished only by one other group in the house's long history. But before they can complete the challenge, a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the contestants. Those who were present on that fateful night lend their points of view: Kendra Brown, a teenager who's been uprooted from her childhood home after the sudden loss of her father; Leonard Grandton, a desperate and impressionable hotel manager caught in a series of toxic entanglements; and Jaidee Charoensuk, a gay international student who came to the Unites States in a besotted search for his former English teacher. As each character's journey unfurls and overlaps, deceits and misunderstandings fueled by obsession and prejudice are revealed--forcing all to reckon with the ways in which their beliefs and actions contributed to a horrifying catastrophe. A startlingly soulful exploration of complicity and masquerade, Reprieve combines the psychological tension of classic horror with searing social criticism, and seamlessly threads together trial transcripts, evidence descriptions, and deeply layered individual narratives to present a chilling portrait of this tangled American life.

Reprieve

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From the Booker Prize-winning author of the Regeneration trilogy comes a monumental new masterpiece, set in the midst of literature's most famous war. Pat Barker turns her attention to the timeless legend of The Iliad, as experienced by the captured women living in the Greek camp in the final weeks of the Trojan War. The ancient city of Troy has withstood a decade under siege of the powerful Greek army, who continue to wage bloody war over a stolen woman--Helen. In the Greek camp, another woman watches and waits for the war's outcome: Briseis. She was queen of one of Troy's neighboring kingdoms, until Achilles, Greece's greatest warrior, sacked her city and murdered her husband and brothers. Briseis becomes Achilles's concubine, a prize of battle, and must adjust quickly in order to survive a radically different life, as one of the many conquered women who serve the Greek army. When Agamemnon, the brutal political leader of the Greek forces, demands Briseis for himself, she finds herself caught between the two most powerful of the Greeks. Achilles refuses to fight in protest, and the Greeks begin to lose ground to their Trojan opponents. Keenly observant and cooly unflinching about the daily horrors of war, Briseis finds herself in an unprecedented position to observe the two men driving the Greek forces in what will become their final confrontation, deciding the fate, not only of Briseis's people, but also of the ancient world at large. Briseis is just one among thousands of women living behind the scenes in this war--the slaves and prostitutes, the nurses, the women who lay out the dead--all of them erased by history. With breathtaking historical detail and luminous prose, Pat Barker brings the teeming world of the Greek camp to vivid life. She offers nuanced, complex portraits of characters and stories familiar from mythology, which, seen from Briseis's perspective, are rife with newfound revelations. Barker's latest builds on her decades-long study of war and its impact on individual lives--and it is nothing short of magnificent.

The Silence of the Girls

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Gently read once. Minor creasing at top and bottom of spine and some uneven page edges as pictured. #hardcover #youngadult #fiction 

A wealthy Chinese teen is sent to America on her own to attend private school. Claire is a rich 11th grader in Shanghai; Dani is a scholarship student at a private school in Southern California who helps her mother clean houses. When Claire is parachuted into America to finish high school and Dani's mother needs the income from a boarder, they become unlikely housemates.

Parachutes

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Never read but does have some sort of residue at the top of the pages (not sure if it’s glue from the spine or ink) #paperback #youngadult #ya #yascifi #scifi 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

"The planet Kerenza is attacked, and Kady and Ezra find themselves on a space fleet fleeing the enemy, while their ship's artificial intelligence system and a deadly plague may be the end of them all"--

Illuminae

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Never read but does have some damage to the corners and spine. #hardcover #youngadult #youngadultfiction 

"The Renegades are a syndicate of prodigies--humans with extraordinary abilities--who emerged from the ruins of a crumbled society and established peace and order where chaos reigned. As champions of justice, they remain a symbol of hope and courage to everyone--except the villains they once overthrew. Nova has a reason to hate the Renegades, and she is on a mission for vengeance. As she gets closer to her target, she meets Adrian, a Renegade boy who believes in justice"--Amazon.com.

Renegades

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Gently read once! #paperback #fiction #tifmarcelo 

"From the author of Once Upon a Sunset andThe Key to Happily Ever After comes a heartwarming women's fiction about three Army wives--and estranged friends--who must set aside their differences when one of them sends out a cry for help"--

Browse by categories

Karen Cheung

The Impossible City

Farah Naz Rishi

I Hope You Get This Message

Nikki May

Wahala

Akwaeke Emezi

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

Marissa Levien

The World Gives Way

Gabrielle Union

You Got Anything Stronger?

Morgan Matson

Save the Date

Angie Thomas; Nikki Giovanni (Foreword by)

The Hate U Give

Nina LaCour

We Are Okay

Aditi Khorana

The Library of Fates

Georgia Clark

The Regulars

Liz Kay

Monsters: a Love Story

Danielle Geller

Dog Flowers

James Han Mattson

Reprieve

Pat Barker

The Silence of the Girls

Kelly Yang

Parachutes

Amie Kaufman; Jay Kristoff

Illuminae

Marissa Meyer

Renegades

Tif Marcelo

In a Book Club Far Away

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