#megan giddings

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Indie Bookstore Day 2024!

I can hardly be expected to have shelf control if Indie Bookstore Day and my birthday are within, like, a week of each other, right?? ESPECIALLY not if one of them was doing a Buy 3 Get 1 Free on paperbacks (evidenced by the bottom row), and if ARCHANGELS OF FUNK and TRANSLATION STATE were Birthday Gifts To Myself (pre-ordered in December and everything!)??

Anyway! Great week for books! Good thing we gave up on the moderated book buying ban, huh.

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Women Could Fly | Author: Megan Giddings | Publisher: Amistad (2022)

[sassyalone]

The bird told me when I returned here, I would have to bake a loaf made out of the finest grains, write thank you into the dough. I would owe them everything if I didn't pay up. Its mouth smelled like cut grass and something rotting in a refrigerator crisper. It told me birds and people were alike because we couldn't tell the difference between glass and air. And Linden couldn't tell the difference between the power of seven and nine and that was why she kept failing. And in the middle of the universe was a great big hole and we all had inherited emptiness. You could either embrace loneliness or try to make something new. That was the way of people.

The Women Could Fly, Megan Giddings

[book-repository-for-ducks]

"There was something about conspiracy theories that she'd always liked. How a person's brain could find the smallest threads to reaffirm a creative, false truth about the world."

― Megan Giddings, Lakewood

[iphidionysia]

Megan Giddings, ‘Brief Important Moments Where I Was the Only Person on Earth’ (The Lonely Stories, edited by Natalie Eve Garrett)

[tigger8900]

Lakewood, by Megan Giddings

⭐⭐⭐ 1/2

In the wake of her grandmother's death, Lena finds herself faced with a mountain of debt, not to mention the ongoing expense of her mother's chronic seizure condition. During her desperate job search she receives an unsolicited letter in the mail, offering her a position in a clandestine experimental study that seems almost too good to be true. But it would more than cover her bills, as well as providing the health insurance that her mother desperately needs. She accepts — what choice does she have? — and travels to the small town of Lakewood, intending to take advantage while she can and skip out if, when, things get too dangerous. But that moment might come sooner than she thinks, and will she be able to make her escape when the time comes?

I picked this book up because I'd read and enjoyed The Women Could Fly last year, and was interested to see what else Giddings had written. It wasn't bad by any means, but I didn't enjoy it as much. I have a difficult time pinpointing what exactly my issue with it was. The characters were compelling, and I was invested in the setting, central problem, and mystery. I had no disagreement with the writing style or the pacing. It was just fine, and as much as I turn it over in my mind I can't articulate why it wasn't better.

This novel's strongest point were the characters, both Lena and her friends and family. I cared and worried about her, as I was watching her make mistakes that she knew were mistakes, yet felt desperate enough to pursue anyway. It was a disturbingly plausible situation, one that plays out — albeit with uncaring capitalism in place of conspiracy — all the time in this country. The experimental sections(for lack of a better term, if you know you know) were also very well-written, trippy and mind-bending but at the same time easily able to be followed. This story definitely put the psychological in the thriller, leaving you doubting every scene after a point.

If you're looking for an ending with answers, I'll be upfront with you: you're not gonna find any here. I personally thought it was a good ending, but it pretty much drops a bombshell on you and then leaves you hanging to form your own theory about what exactly happened. So, I recognize that's not everyone's cup of tea. After reflecting on it for a day or so, though, I found it to be appropriately horrific. Since I don't think I can do a spoiler tag on tumblr, I'll stash my interpretation in the notes, in case anyone's interested! Be warned, it's kinda spoilery.

[adriabailton]

Twenty-Five Minute Wait

by Megan Giddings

via Smokelong Quarterly

[holley4734]

The Women Could Fly: #bookreview

@megiddings #booktwitter #bookblog @BibliophileRT @BlazedRTs @bloggingbeesRT @LovingBlogs @MondayBlogs #mondayblogs

The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings is set in an alternate world where witches exist and women’s rights are limited. It is a scary scenario since women’s rights are being challenged at every turn. Josephine Thomas, aka Jo, is nearing the time in her life when the State wants a woman to be married and/or tested for being a witch. She is a descendant of a witch but doesn’t think that she has any…

[vivian-bell]

Sometimes, though, we would be watching a movie in my bedroom, sitting together on the gray loveseat, and I would be so aware of the space between our hands on the couch, her juicy apple shampoo, the way our thighs would touch against each other, her toenails painted almost always hot pink, her long fingers, the nails cut short, the gleam in the blue television light of the clear manicures she preferred.  I felt sure saying something to her would only put distance between us; and more than having a crush on Angie, more than thinking it could be fun to be her girlfriend, I needed someone other than my dad to feel like family."

The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings

[read-alert]

Another crosspost from my bookstagram! Full titles under the cut!

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone -> The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

Finna by Nino Cipri -> Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

Legendborn by Tracy Deon -> Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom -> Bad Girls by Camila Sosa Villada translated to English by Kit Maude

We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia -> Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan

The Ghosts of Rose Hill by RM Romero -> Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon -> Lakewood by Megan Giddings

The Unbroken by CL Clark -> The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg -> The Gods of Tango by Caro De Robertis

[woodsdyke]

so i finished my MA last year and during that time read solely nonfiction for class and my thesis. but now that's over. and ive gotten into this cool thing called "fiction" have you read this shit? it goes hard

if anyone has any recommendations pls throw them my way. i like horror and fantasy that isn't high fantasy. not rly interested in YA. also not rly into anything romance focused, if it's There it's fine but i don't want to specifically read a romance genre book, u feel me

[nevinslibrary]

Mystery/Thriller Monday

Is Lena’s job way too good to be true? She has dropped out of college and gotten a job in a small and weird Michigan town to help support her family after she finds out about just how in debt her family is. The job is really good, pays well, good medical, and even provides somewhere for her to live. It’s a secret research program (I mean, where could that go wrong) that everyone says may change the world. But… these are humans participating in the research, and slowly the real truths are revealed about the program, and it’s intense.

As I said, it was an intense book. It doesn’t shy away from the ‘is it worth it, how much is Lena willing to sacrifice for her family?’ questions either. A definite enjoyable read.

You may like this book If you Liked: The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson, Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon, or Nano by Robin Cook

Lakewood by Megan Giddings

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Lakewood | Author: Megan Giddings | Publisher: Amistad (2020)

[book-repository-for-ducks]

"I am a thousand percent sure there are plenty of white women who think America is great to them. But America is only routinely good to women, especially black women, when it wants something from them. I think men can be absolutely useless and a lot of people will find a way to say something nice about them. Especially white men. But a woman has to be something. If she's not considered hot or the right amount of smart or good at cooking, people don't see her. And if shes's too much of something, many people hate her."

― Megan Giddings, Lakewood

[honeybakedhams]

we love a horror book that features medical malpractice without psychiatric care taking part in it

[poppletonink]

Anne Shirley: An Inspired Reading Recommendations List

The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Tennyson

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Emma by Jane Austen

Things A Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

The Haunting Of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Better Than The Movies by Lynn Painter

The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Anne Of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery