The Next Best Book Club discussion

Book 30 was used against "Diminished" because it was a collection of short stories.

(Some Possible Solutions - Helen Phillips)


Book 31 was pretty easy to place too... it takes place primarily on the ocean, so I used it to wipe out "Undertow".

(At Ocean - Oliver Serang)

Book 32 was used against "Strange Currencies" because the protag has an unusual obsession with Zombies and suffers from a mental tic where, when she experienced anxiety, she repeats peoples' appearances in her head.

(Jordan's Brains - J Cornell Michel)

Book 33 was used against "I Took Your Name" because the main character loses a piece of her memory every time she gets hurt. It seemed fitting...

(I Have Blinded Myself Writing This - Jess Stoner)

Book 34 was a toss up. It has twists and turns but I felt it was better suited to "It's the End of the World As We Know It" - lots of corruption going on in this book!

(The Big Sheep - Rob Kroese)

Book 35 was tough to place. I almost thought I wouldn't have an appropriate title for it. But I'm using "These Days" since it does take place in current time.

Ugh. That was stretching it a bit.

(Zero Lives Remaining - Adam Cesare)

Book 36 was a collection of poetry, but they weren't love poems. I had discovered it on a happy accident as I was browsing goodreads, so "Stumble" it is...

(Bridget Fonda - Elizabeth Ellen)

Book 37 was used against "Boy in the Well". I could have used it against a few of the other non-ya young protag novels, so it was really just a toss up

(The Bad Game - Adam Millard)

Book 38 was made for "Belong". Both main characters had their babies taken from them and play a large role in who the protagonists are.

(Each Vagabond By Name - Margo Orlando Littell)

Book 39 fits in so many different challenges that it was hard to choose. There is an unrequited love, it revolves around drugs, takes place in a different country, but ultimately I landed on "Radio Free Europe" since it takes placed specifically in Europe and I wasn't sure when I'd read another book that specific to location again....

(Everything I Found on the Beach - Cynan Jones)

Book 40 fits snugly into "Sweetness Follows". It's called The Shooting, so naturally there is a death and a funeral. Right?

(The Shooting - James Boice)

Book 41 had a crazy revenge scene at the end and fits perfectly with "Living Well is the Best Revenge".

(8th Street Power & Light - Eric Shonkwiler)

Book 42 seems like an obvious fit. "Green Grow the Rushes" - for a book that takes place in the hottest summer ever!!

(The Summer That Melted Everything - Tiffany McDaniels)

Book 43 could have fit in so many places. It was a really tough choice. The book deals with pain, loss, and bereavement; it has a comma in it; the main character leaves home for a long time; I can go on and on...

I went with Near Wild Heaven, though - because ultimately, it does deal with the end of a relationship.

(First, You Swallow the Moon - Kipp Wessel)

Book 44 was actually one I read back in March in manuscript form. It fits in quite a few spots. Even though it is a Non YA book about a young child, and it deals with oppression, and can be a little bit scary at times, I really felt it fit best with Moral Kiosk.

(Puppet Skin - Danger Slater)

Book 45 had to be used against "Summer Turns High" because this was the second book I've read this year with Summer in the title and I don't think I'll be reading another : )
This was just too coincidental!

(The Summer She Was Under Water - Jen Michalski)

Book 46 was tough. It's hard to place a collection of short stories because each story can be so different from one another. But I felt this collection fit best with "Kohoutek" because quite a few of them dealt with space, and stars/moons/meteors.

(Maybe Mermaids and Robots Are Lonely - Matthew Fogarty)

Book 47 was a collection of poems that all revolve around the end of the world, so "Under the Bunker" was a no brainer : )

(Field Guide to the End of the World - Jeannine Hall Gailey)

Book 48 was just luck. The story collection had 9 stories total, so "9-9" it is!!

(It Came From Anomaly Flats - Clayton Smith)

Book 49 was placed against "Stand". It deals with direction in a few ways. The two main characters are sort of swimming against the tides of their own lives, feeling directionless, and after they accidentally cross paths, their parallel lives are forever poised just on the edge of converging again.

(Reel - Tobias Carroll)

Book 50 was placed against "Shaking Through" because essentially, it is a horror novel. It could have fit in a couple of other spots too, because its protag is an old(er) man, and it revolves around music, but if I'm being honest, I'm placing it where I think I might be able to get some albums completed at this point, rather than which song title I think it fits the absolute best with... hahaha

(Once Haunted - JW Bouchard)

Book 51 was put against "Crazy" because it appears as though our main character Larry/Jack is crazy. This book was crazy confusing, otherwise.

(The Last Projector - David James Keaton)

Book 52 was a no brainer. It's all about questioning who you are, what you are, and why you are, and so it goes perfectly with "Crush With Eyeliner".

(The Warren - Brian Evenson)

Book 53 was also a no-brainer. Placed it against "The Apologist" because I highly doubt I will read another book this year that ends in -ist.

(The Night Cyclist - Stephen Graham Jones)

Book 54 could have been plugged into a few spots but I threw it against "Low" - morning after/regrets. It's about a guy whose having relationship troubles with his girlfriend and ends up sleeping with, and then regretting, his next door neighbor, who just happens to be a giant fucking spider.

(Arachnophile - Betty Rocksteady)

Book 55 was thrown against "Finest Worksong". In all the hullabaloo, the main group of characters start up a band. And one of the members is the sentient severed arm of the drummer from Def Leppard.

(The Hottest Gay Man Ever Killed in a Shark Attack - Douglas Hackle)

Book 56 - I hadn't heard of Paul Tremblay prior to reading an article that claimed his book was one of the lesser read novels that everyone should read. So I did : ) and put it up against "Good Advices"

(Swallowing a Donkey's Eye - Paul Tremblay)

Book 57 - whoa. Listened to this one on audio and man was it a mind fuck. It played on your emotions, staying just this side of creeeeepy, keeping your gut in knots the entire way through, in a good way. I put it up against "Let Me In".

(I'm Thinking of Ending Things - Iain Reid)

Book 58 - Fits perfectly with "horse to water" because it is actually about just that, a fight!

(The Longshot - Katie Kitamura)

Book 59 is totally fitting with '"Cuyahoga" - the dead find their way into the Land of the Dead by way of a River Lethe. It acts as the gateway between the world of the living and that of the dead.

(Dead Boys - Gabriel Squailia )

Book 60 is best matched up with "One I Love" because though it appears to be about a guy who goes searching for a woman he loves, who really doesn't love him back, it's totally not a love story at all....

(Ice - Anna Kavan)

Book 61 was thrown against "Star 69" because Joshua Mohr is absolutely an author I am made crazy obsessed with!

(Sirens - Joshua Mohr)

Book 62 was put up against "ignoreland" - a book that has the word land in it.

(Agents of Dreamland - Caitlin Kiernan)

Book 63 was used against "There She Goes Again" - a book that features prostitution. While the woman the protag initially meets up with is a prostitute, that quickly becomes background noise and after we first meet her, is rarely referenced.

(Firework - Eugene Martin)

Book 64 was packaged in a VHS clamshell and was set partially in the late 80's, early nineties, when video stores and photo printing shops were on the brink of collapse. So I put it up against "Toys in the Attic".

(Universal Harvester - John Darnielle)

Book 65 is perfect for "Monty Got a Raw Deal". It's about a woman who dies and is followed into death, and subsequently continuously re-murdered, by her murderer.

(Shit Luck - Tiffany Scandal)