GPL Blog

Book Review | Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

From the publisher: Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold. Now, eleven years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find.

I grabbed this for airport/plane entertainment because I wanted an adrenaline rush and I’m really good at freaking myself out, and I’m a local woman! But… no adrenaline rush. Bummer. This required way too much suspension of disbelief…

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Book Review | The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

From the publisher: Follow a motley crew on an exciting journey through space—and one adventurous young explorer who discovers the meaning of family in the far reaches of the universe—in this light-hearted debut space opera from a rising sci-fi star.

LOVE THIS.

Has the past year and a half-ish broken you into a thousand tiny pieces? Or beaten you down with so much heat and pressure that you wonder how in the world you haven’t turned into a diamond yet? Cool, me too. This book is the perfect warm-fuzzy-feeling-generator to combat that. Follow up question: do you like to play the comparative suffering game? “I should quit…

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Book Review | A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan

From the Publisher: Remy and Alicia, a couple of insecure service workers, are not particularly happy together. But they are bound by a shared obsession with Jen, a beautiful former co-worker of Remy’s who now seems to be following her bliss as a globe-trotting jewelry designer. In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia’s entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and new age mantra they know by heart.

Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons with her wealthy boyfriend and their group. Once there, Remy and Alicia try (a little too hard) to fit into Jen’s exalted social circle, but violent desire and class resentment bubble beneath the surface of this beachside…

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Book Review | They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

From the publisher: Scarlett Clark is an exceptional English professor. But she’s even better at getting away with murder.

Every year, Dr. Clark searches for the worst man at Gorman University—professor, student, or otherwise—and plots his well-deserved demise. Thanks to her meticulous planning, she’s avoided drawing attention to herself…but as she’s preparing for her biggest kill yet, the school starts probing into the growing body count on campus. Determined to keep her enemies close, Dr. Clark insinuates herself into the investigation and charms the woman in charge. Everything’s going according to her master plan…until she loses control with her latest victim, putting her secret life at risk of exposure.

Meanwhile, Gorman student Carly Schiller is just trying to survive her freshman year…

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Book Review | Hot Stew by Fiona Mozley

From the publisher: London has changed a lot over the years. The Soho that Precious and Tabitha live and work in is barely recognisable anymore. And now, the building they call their home is under threat; its billionaire-owner Agatha wants to kick the women out to build expensive restaurants and luxury flats. Men like Robert, who visit the brothel, will have to go elsewhere. The collection of vagabonds and strays in the basement will have to find somewhere else to live. But the women are not going to go quietly. They have plans to make things difficult for Agatha but she isn’t taking no for an answer.

Fiona Mozley writes with a voice that feels like the consistency of cornstarch and water–you know, if you poke at it too fast it’s like hitting concrete, but if you ever-so-gently dip…

Book Review | A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

From the publisher: Hugo Award-winner Becky Chambers’s delightful new series gives us hope for the future.

Becky Chambers has written the perfect little blanket fort for 2021. Reminiscent of Plato’s Symposium with a hearty dose of Whitman-esque musings, it’s basically a conversation about the why of life. Sibling Dex is a tea monk who has lost their sense of purpose and is on a journey to find it, and Mosscap is an optimistic robot who runs into Dex along the way.

Non-binary main character alert! Yes!!

This is a short 160 pages with very little plot. Dex is tired of the city, so Dex becomes an…

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Book Review | The Family Plot by Megan Collins

From the publisher: From the author of The Winter Sister and Behind the Red Door, a family obsessed with true crime gathers to bury their patriarch—only to find another body already in his grave.

Dahlia’s family is… unnatural. Residents of Blackburn refer to the Lighthouse family’s home as “Murder Mansion,” where Dahlia and her three siblings were homeschooled. Their curriculum? All about murder, of course. She was named in honor of Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. Black Dahlia, and each of her siblings were also named for famous murder victims. It’s safe to say her parents are obsessed with murder.

Now Dahlia is 26, and she’s been away from home for years. The only reason she came…

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Book Review | Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

From the publisher: An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets. . .

Silvia Moreno-Garcia has written quite a few novels, but this is the first of hers that I’ve read. I’m glad I read it, and it was a quick read, but it wasn’t blow-your-mind-amazing. It was predictable, pulling from many of the gothic foremothers and forefathers, but that set this up to be a softer texture of spooky. I wish I would have saved it for a cool fall evening, so if you’re reading this and I end up convincing you to read Mexican Gothic, please do yourself a favor and wait until it’s at least below 65 degrees and you have hot cocoa and flannels handy…

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Book Review | All’s Well by Mona Awad

From the publisher: From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny, a darkly funny novel about a theater professor suffering chronic pain, who in the process of staging a troubled production of Shakespeare’s most maligned play, suddenly and miraculously recovers.

Miranda Fitch is the literal example of “those who can’t do, teach.” Because she can’t act the way she used to–an accident involving a bone-crunching fall off the stage during a production of Macbeth left her with a bad back, hip, and leg, and now she can barely walk from her office to the stage at her job as a college theater director.

Mona Awad does here what she did with Bunny and brings the macabre and magical realism into the picture. Miranda is quickly losing all hope with everything: the doctors and…

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September is Library Card Sign-up Month!

September is Library Card Sign-up Month, and the Galesburg Public Library is celebrating with libraries across the country!

Let’s start off with an important question: Do YOU have a library card?

If you answered no, here’s who can get a Galesburg Public Library card:

– If you live within Galesburg city limits, you’ve already paid for your library card (and the goods and services it unlocks for you) through your property taxes.
– If you are a student in Galesburg, which includes public and private school students along with Carl Sandburg College students and Knox College students, you are eligible for a…

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