Providence by Caroline Kepnes

Providence
by Caroline Kepnes

Find out more about this book and author:
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Just released: June 19, 2018
Publisher: Lenny
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Horror
Hardback: 384
Rating: 5

First sentence(s):
I brung Pedro home for Thanksgiving break and tomorrow I have to bring him back to school. You're not supposed to say brung. You're supposed to say brought.

Best friends in small-town New Hampshire, Jon and Chloe share a bond so intense that it borders on the mystical. But before Jon can declare his love for his soul mate, he is kidnapped, his plans for a normal life permanently dashed.

Four years later, Chloe has finally given up hope of ever seeing Jon again. Then, a few months before graduation, Jon reappears. But he is different now: bigger, stronger, and with no memory of the time he was gone. Jon wants to pick up where he and Chloe left off... until the horrifying instant he realizes that he possesses strange powers that pose a grave threat to everyone he cares for. Afraid of hurting Chloe, Jon runs away, embarking on a journey for answers.

Meanwhile, in Providence, Rhode Island, healthy college students and townies with no connection to one another are suddenly, inexplicably dropping dead. A troubled detective prone to unexplainable hunches, Charles “Eggs” DeBenedictus suspects there’s a serial killer at work. But when he starts asking questions, Eggs is plunged into a whodunit worthy of his most outlandish obsessions.

In this dazzling new novel—and with an intense, mesmerizing voice—Caroline Kepnes makes keen and powerful observations about human connection and how love and identity can dangerously blur together.

Zombie sighting:
"… If Jon loved you, he would want you to be happy. You look like a zombie."
-chapter Chloe, page 63

My two-bits:

Mostly likeable characters however warped they may have been.

Got a tinge of H.P. Lovecraft horror throughout and many references to his works.

Found out Providence, Rhode Island is the place to be for the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon as well as the NecronomiCon.

~*~
* part of BookSparks Reading Challenge, Summer (here)

Lovely Books and Things - 7.14.18

Lovely Books and Things
My Weekly Books and Films Update
Linking up with:
Stacking the Shelves (details)
Sunday Post (details)
Mailbox Monday (details)

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HAPPY THINGS:

1. Finding summer dinner recipes online: Chicken Burger with Avocado Corn Salsa (here)

2. Enjoying the pianos scattered at the Flower Piano event in the San Francisco Botanical Garden (here) - loved the Quinta Tango performance

3. Late night drinking: Double Chocolate Boba Tea from Purple Kow
fyi: gotta finish reading Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan before the film release next month

~*~
Library:

When Dimple Met Rishi
by Sandhya Menon
-YA, Romance, India American
Amazon | Goodreads
ADDING this to my World Reads challenge - India (here)

Providence
by Caroline Kepnes
-Mystery, Thriller
Release date: June 19, 2018
Amazon | Goodreads
PART of the BookSparks Summer Reading Challenge 2018 (here).


FREEBIE:

The Tenth Island
Finding Joy, Beauty, and Unexpected Love in the Azores
by Diana Marcum
-Memoir, Travel, Spain
courtesy of Amazon Kindle First -Thanks!
Amazon | Goodreads
LOOKS like a good one for summertime.


Author event:

GREEN Apple Books on the Park hosted a reading and Q&A with Ottessa Moshfegh to present her latest, My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Ottessa shared some experiences on living in New York and China.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation
by Ottessa Moshfegh
-Literary, Mental Illness
Release date: July 10, 2018
Amazon | Goodreads
From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman's efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes

Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.


OTHER things (kinda book-related):

Dewey's
Reverse Summer Readathon
July 28-29, 2018
11pm to 11pm PST (details)
GOING to try the new timing for this one.

RECENT fascination with miniatures has prompted me to create the first of a few Miniatures posts (here).


AND watched: in theatre

That Summer (2017)
Director: Göran Olsson (as Göran Hugo Olsson)
Stars: Peter Beard, Lee Radziwill, Edith Bouvier Beale
-Documentary | imdb | my rating: 5
Montauk, East Hampton, New York, 2016. Peter Beard discusses his work as a photographer, artist and diarist before reminiscing about his attempt to make a documentary in the summer of 1972 with his friend Lee Radziwill (younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis), focusing on their childhood and the 20th- century history of East Hampton.

BEING a fan of the documentary Grey Gardens, this was special treat to see. More of the same kind of footage but most especially scenes of the gals interacting with Lee Radziwill.

Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or The Bottom? (2017)
Uchiage hanabi, shita kara miru ka? Yoko kara miru ka? (original title)
Directors: Akiyuki Shimbô, Nobuyuki Takeuchi
Writers: Shunji Iwai, Hitoshi Ône
Stars: Suzu Hirose, Masaki Suda, Mamoru Miyano
-Animation, Drama, Family, Japan | imdb | my rating: 4
Schoolchildren Norimichi, Yûsuke and Jun'ichi want to know if fireworks look round or flat from the side. They make a plan to find the answer at a fireworks display, while Nazuna schemes to run away with Norimichi or Yûsuke, whoever wins at the pool.

This film tells the story of a schoolgirl who finds a pretty transparent ball by the sea, on the day of a fireworks display of a religious festival in a seaside town in Japan. She plans to run away from home to escape from her unhappy home, as her mother is about to remarry for the third time. However, her escape fails until her male classmate finds out the supernatural power that the transparent ball has.

GROUNDHOG day kind of experience but unique in its own way. Certainly sparked fun conversation with the people I went to see this with.

Blindspotting (2018)
Director: Carlos López Estrada
Writers: Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs
Stars: Daveed Diggs, Rafael Casal, Janina Gavankar
-Comedy, Drama | imdb | my rating: 5
Lifelong friends Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal co-wrote and star in this timely and wildly entertaining story about the intersection of race and class, set against the backdrop of a rapidly gentrifying Oakland.

THIS screening included a Q&A with director, Carlos, and David, Rafael, Janina and Utkarsh Ambudkar. A lively conversation with lots of laughs described the process and origination of the story and some people involved with the production.

Loved the innovative style and presentation of the main character in this story, Oakland.


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* comment and TELL me what you have acquired for your shelves recently

Thanks for stopping by :-)

Holiday Song & Book Want 1

Instead of an advent calendar, for the holiday season I will share some holiday music and books on my want list for the days before Christmas.

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All I Want for Christmas is You
sung by Fifth Harmony
lyrics by Mariah Carey

I don't want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree

I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is you, yeah.

I don't want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
And I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree

I don't need to hang my stocking
There upon the fireplace
Santa Claus won't make me happy
With a toy on Christmas Day

I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is you
You, baby

Oh, I won't ask for much this Christmas
I won't even wish for snow
And I'm just gonna keep on waiting
Underneath the mistletoe

I won't make a list and send it
To the North Pole for Saint Nick
I won't even stay awake to
Hear those magic reindeer click

'Cause I just want you here tonight
Holding on to me so tight
What more can I do?
Baby, all I want for Christmas is you
You, baby

Oh, all the lights are shining
So brightly everywhere
And the sound of children's
Laughter fills the air

And everyone is singing
I hear those sleigh bells ringing
Santa, won't you bring me the one I really need?
Won't you please bring my baby to me?

Oh, I don't want a lot for Christmas
This is all I'm asking for
I just want to see my baby
Standing right outside my door

Oh, I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
Baby, all I want for Christmas is you
You, baby

All I want for Christmas is you, baby
All I want for Christmas is you, baby
All I want for Christmas is you, baby
All I want for Christmas is you, baby

~*~
This would be a treat to see under the xmas tree...

You
by Caroline Kepnes
Amazon | Goodreads
From debut author Caroline Kepnes comes You, one of Suspense Magazine’s Best Books of 2014, and a brilliant and terrifying novel for the social media age.

When a beautiful, aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he Googles the name on her credit card.

There is only one Guinevere Beck in New York City. She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight—the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.

As Joe invisibly and obsessively takes control of Beck’s life, he orchestrates a series of events to ensure Beck finds herself in his waiting arms. Moving from stalker to boyfriend, Joe transforms himself into Beck’s perfect man, all while quietly removing the obstacles that stand in their way—even if it means murder.

A terrifying exploration of how vulnerable we all are to stalking and manipulation, debut author Caroline Kepnes delivers a razor-sharp novel for our hyper-connected digital age. You is a compulsively readable page-turner that’s being compared to Gone Girl, American Psycho, and Stephen King’s Misery.

-----> Books on the Nightstand says the audio version is OMG! It is narrated by Santino Fontana (fyi: voice of Hans from Frozen)

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* image source: 1920s xmas card