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Little Library by Laura

@littlelibrary.bylaura

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always reading, eating, sipping + living ✷
📍Awabakal/Newcastle
📖 Fruit Fly by Josh Silver
💌 [email protected]

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a little re-introduction on here - hi friends 👋🏻 so happy to be in this special little corner of the internet

it’s been a little while since I’ve dumped some personal bts pics on here - a few of my favourite people (and my favourite floofy boi) + of course most importantly, coffee

a few facts about me ~

and a few more little moments w my favourite people and favourite things ⭐️ by @littlelibrary.bylaura

STRANGERS - 5/5 ⭐️

I absolutely adored this memoir. Truly harrowing, terrifying and thought-provoking - I couldn’t put this one down, and implore every woman to pick this up.

Strangers begins with the sudden, devastating collapse of Belle Burden’s 20-year marriage, but it becomes so much more than a story about divorce. It’s a deeply fascinating exploration of marriage, relationships, friendship, motherhood, family, money, identity and what happens when the life you thought was secure suddenly isn’t.

There were moments where I felt genuinely horrified reading this. Not because it was sensationalised, but because of how quickly everything can change. One day you can feel completely certain about the life you’ve built, and the next you can find yourself questioning what you actually know about the person beside you, and how well you’ve protected yourself if everything falls apart.

The financial aspects of this memoir particularly stayed with me. It is such a powerful reminder of the importance of financial independence and financial literacy, especially for women. Love, marriage and trust don’t mean you shouldn’t understand your own money, your assets, your finances and what would happen if your circumstances suddenly changed. That message alone makes this a book I’d recommend to so many women.

But what I loved most was that Burden doesn’t just focus on the marriage itself. She examines the friendships that change, the people who show up, the people who don’t, the complicated impact on children, and the strange social expectations that surround divorce. It made me think about how much of our lives can be built around the assumption that things will always stay the way they are.

And despite everything, there’s something incredibly powerful about watching her slowly reclaim her independence, her voice and her story - we love seeing women heal!!! 🥹🤏🏻

I found Strangers equal parts fascinating, heartbreaking and infuriating. It reads at times like a psychological thriller and an intimate examination of what it means to rebuild your life when the person you thought you knew becomes a stranger.

100% recommend this one!!! by @littlelibrary.bylaura

a slow start to the week, but a great reading week nonetheless! by @littlelibrary.bylaura

⭐️ SEPTEMBER TBR IS HERE FRIENDS ⭐️

happy spring! a little something from every corner of the bookshelf this month - we’ve got classics, thrillers, memoirs, historical fiction, literary fiction & romance.

let me know which books you’d love to see reviewed —

Strangers byBelle Burden (on kindle)

A raw memoir about a marriage that slowly unravels, and the complicated reality of loving someone who becomes a complete stranger. Intimate, honest, raw and heartbreaking.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

A second-chance romance about love, regret and the one that got away. Quietly swoony, beautifully witty and very much giving yearning across a ballroom 🥹

Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater

Two booksellers become unlikely friends as their shared love of books draws them together - with a darker edge lurking beneath the shelves. A sharp, messy little story about friendship, obsession and the sometimes ugly side of loving books.

Butter by Asako Yuzuki

I loved reading a translated book last month, so we’ve added another to this months’ lineup. A journalist becomes fascinated by a mysterious woman whose relationship with food, pleasure and life challenges everything she thinks she knows. Sensual, thought-provoking and guaranteed to make you very hungry.

Fruit Fly by Josh Silver (on kindle)

A queer coming-of-age thriller about a young man whose life takes a dark turn after a chance encounter. Twisty, tense and full of secrets - this one sounds like it’s going to get a little crazy.

Educated by Tara Westover

A powerful memoir about growing up in a strict, isolated family and eventually finding a world beyond the one she was raised in. A moving story about education, identity, family and the complicated cost of becoming your own person.

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Beyond excited for this one after reading The Women! Two sisters navigate love, loss and survival in Nazi-occupied France as war transforms their lives forever. An emotional, sweeping story of courage, sacrifice and the extraordinary strength of ordinary women.

The Things We Do to Our Friends by Heather Darwent

It wouldn’t be me without a thriller or two (or three)! A group of friends arrive in Ox by @littlelibrary.bylaura

⭐️ today’s recommendation: the number 5 sandwich from @arno.deli + a side of ‘Strangers’ by Belle Burden by @littlelibrary.bylaura

august wrapped 👋🏻

6 books finished in August - an insane reading month!

this TV show is absolute CRACK - so good - binge it IMMEDIATELY

celebrated my beautiful bestie’s 30th bday + drank A LOT of vino

signed up to my local library + explored some bookshelves

a v busy (but fun!) work month

sade on repeat - snagged her vinyl last month and it’s been so dreamy

even more special memories + moments w my fave people

see you next month friends !!! ⭐️ by @littlelibrary.bylaura

THE NOCTURNALS - 4/5 ⭐️

Oh, I absolutely ADORED this!!!

The Nocturnals tugged at every single heartstring and somehow managed to make me feel every emotion under the sun. It’s warm, nostalgic, funny, heartbreaking and deeply human.

I LOVED the super short chapters and fast pace of this. I flew through it, and the little surprise chapters from side characters were such a clever addition - they gave the story so much more depth and made these characters feel like fully formed people with lives and stories beyond the five at the centre of it all.

Frances Whiting absolutely nailed the friendships in this novel. The Nocturnals are messy, complicated, flawed and completely lovable, and I loved watching the layers slowly peel back as we moved between their teenage years and adulthood. There’s something so bittersweet about seeing who people were, who they became, and all the things that can happen in between.

Rebecca Sparrow’s comparison of The Breakfast Club meets The Great Gatsby was BANG ON. The unlikely group of friends, the teenage nostalgia, the glamour, the secrets, the larger-than-life personalities - it truly works.

But more than anything, this book has SO much heart. It’s about friendship, family, grief, growing up, the people who shape us and the people we choose to keep in our lives. There’s such a beautiful warmth to Frances’ writing, even when she’s absolutely breaking your heart.

I will 100% be picking up more from Frances Whiting after this. She is such an incredible talent and writer, and I completely understand why this book has been so loved.

A gorgeous, emotional, very Australian story about friendship and the strange, beautiful mess of growing up. I enjoyed every single minute of it 💖 by @littlelibrary.bylaura

a very busy week, with a 16 hour workday on Friday - but we still managed to get some pages complete! ✨⭐️👏🏻

sad about this DNF - was really hoping to love this one!

⭐️

absolutely LOVING this read by @frankywhiting !!!

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HUGE event day at work! ✨

girls night - there was absolutely NO pages being read today

and capping off the week with an extra special early bday celebration for one of my favourite people on the planet 🎉✨ by @littlelibrary.bylaura

THE UNKNOWN - 4/5 ⭐️

SUCH a good thriller!!! Riley Sager is back and absolutely swinging with this one.

If you don’t already know - Sager is one of my favourite thriller authors, so this was such a delight to come back to. I actually didn’t plan on picking this up this month, but then I heard “witchy concept, mysterious island, missing women and séances” and obviously I had no choice. I am extremely predictable when it comes to this type of spooky premise 😂

This one had everything I want from a Riley Sager thriller - an eerie, isolated setting, a seriously intriguing mystery, a creeping sense that something is very, very wrong, and twists that genuinely kept me guessing. I loved the way the past and present timelines slowly came together, and there were several moments where I was convinced I had it all figured out, only to be completely wrong.

The atmosphere was SO well done too. There’s something about an isolated island, an old disappearance, a mysterious diary and a group of people who probably shouldn’t be holding séances that just works. I was fully invested in trying to work out what was really happening and whether there was something supernatural at play.

The twists were clever without feeling completely predictable, and I really appreciated how much the story kept shifting beneath you. It had that classic Sager quality of making you think you’ve finally cracked the mystery, only to realise you absolutely haven’t.

Is it my favourite Riley Sager? Probably not, I think ‘The Last Time I Lied’ probably still has that crown firmly secured but this was SUCH a fantastic addition to his back catalogue and definitely felt like a return to the kind of eerie, twisty thriller I love from him 👏🏻❤️

Absolutely recommend this one if you’re a Sager fan, or if you’re looking for a spooky, atmospheric thriller that will keep you guessing - pick it up, IMMEDIATELY. by @littlelibrary.bylaura

visited @thepressbookhouse last week for a mid-week coffee (whilst at work, during a bonkers event week) - and it reminded me that I need to come in here more often! The most beautiful little cosy space ⭐️✨ by @littlelibrary.bylaura

admittedly, this was a really bloody great reading week for me! ⭐️ by @littlelibrary.bylaura

THE DEATH ROW CLUB - 3.5/5 ⭐️

Okay, this was SUCH a great concept! Helllloooo serial killer’s children, a secluded mountain lodge and a weekend getaway that goes very, very wrong. I was hooked from the first page and absolutely flew through this one 👏🏻

What I really loved was the idea at the heart of the story - what happens to the children left behind by these horrific crimes? Can you separate the person you knew and loved from the monster everyone else sees? And, perhaps most unsettlingly, how much of your parent’s legacy becomes your own?

Add an isolated setting, a suspicious group of people who all have something to hide and a murder that leaves everyone wondering who they can actually trust, and you’ve got a pretty addictive thriller!!

Was this the most mind-blowing, life-altering thriller I’ve ever read? Definitely not. But was it a bloody good time and exactly the kind of book I’d recommend to anyone stuck in a reading slump? ABSOLUTELY!

Fast-paced, intriguing and so easy to get swept up in. A really fun debut novel from V.A. Vazquez, and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for whatever they come out with next! by @littlelibrary.bylaura