ashel's 3 favorite reads in 2024

Why do we assume romantic relationships are more important than friendships? What do we lose when we expect a spouse to meet all our needs? And what can we learn about commitment, love, and family from people who put deep friendship at the center of their lives?

In The Other Significant Others, NPR's Rhaina Cohen invites us into the lives of people - spanning age and religion, gender and sexuality and more - who have defied convention by choosing a friend as a life partner. Their riveting stories unsettle widespread assumptions about relationships and reveal how freeing and challenging it… show more.

'This book is bloody brilliant'
V.E. Schwab 'A ripping read'
Joe Abercrombie

The SUNDAY TIMES and NEW YORK TIMES bestseller from the award-winning author of the Nevernight Chronicle

It has been twenty-seven long years since the last sunrise.

Ever since, vampires have waged war against humanity building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Gabriel de Leon, half man, half monster, and last remaining silversaint - a sworn brother of the holy Silver Order dedicated to defending the realm from the creatures of the night - is all that stands between the world and its end.

Imprisoned… show more.

“I adored this novel. It’s a story about being an awkward, misfit girl with big dreams in a man’s world. It made me laugh out loud, and it made me really, really want a tattoo.” —Clare Pooley, New York Times bestselling author of The Authenticity Project
 
An uplifting, feminist coming-of-age love story about a young woman who dreams of becoming a tattoo artist, and living life on her own terms

Introvert Gina Mulley is determined to become a tattoo artist, and to find somewhere she belongs in her conventional Long Island town. But this is 1985, when tattooing is still… show more.