Book cover of Please, Pretty Lights

Book description

An emotionally-charged urban cautionary tale with quirky characters who will stay with you: including Grandma Daney, a mystical star child who serves up universal inspiration with her milk and cookies.

It’s September when good girl Via Sorenson stumbles into a Seattle strip club, drunk and alone on her twenty-first birthday.…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Please, Pretty Lights as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

All the characters in this story—even the minor ones—are so three-dimensional and human that they must be based at least partly on real people. The protagonist, Via—who lost her parents to gun violence as a child and struggles with substance abuse and other things—isn’t a musician or a die-hard music fan, but music and the Seattle music scene play such a huge role in this story that I was compelled to include it on my list. Ina Zajac’s writing is impeccable. She doesn’t shy away from the gritty side of reality and demonstrates a deep understanding…

If you love Please, Pretty Lights...

Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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