Svetlana's Reads and Views

  Title of the book: Over-thinking about you; Navigating Romantic Relationships When You Have Anxiety, OCD and/or Depression  Author: Allison Raskin  Publisher: Workman Publishing Company Publishing Date: 2022 ISBN: 9781523513222 Summary: Dating is hard. But pursuing love and relationships when you live with mental illness can be even more overwhelming. Allison Raskin knows this challenge firsthand and shares her journey with perfect candor. She’s learned from her experiences, and we get to learn from her, discovering new ways to form healthy dating and relationship habits. How do you talk to a partner about your mental health? What is the potential impact of SSRIs on your body? What is the difference between having valid concerns and catastrophizing? It’s all here, from meeting online to how to handle a breakup, from recognizing and avoiding unhealthy relationships to the big one—sex. Woven in throughout are interviews with clinical psychologists, a psychiatris...

  Name of Book: Florenzer Author: Phil Melanson ISBN: 9781324095033 Publisher: Liveright  Type of book: Italy, Renaissance, 1464, 1471-1483, coming of age, LGBtQ character, church, banking, money, legacy, charge, scheming  Year it was published: 2025 Summary: Set in Renaissance-era Florence, this ravishing debut reimagines the intersecting lives of three ambitious young men—a banker, a priest, and a gay painter named Leonardo. Leonardo da Vinci, twelve years old and a bastard, leaves the Tuscan countryside to join his father in Florence with dreams of becoming a painter. Francesco Salviati, also a bastard and scorned for his too-dark skin, dedicates himself to the Catholic Church with grand hopes of salvation. Towering above them both is Lorenzo de’ Medici, barely a man, yet soon to be the patriarch of the world’s wealthiest and most influential bank. Each is, in his own way, a son of Florence. Each will, when their paths cross, shed blood on Florence’s streets. Bras...

  Title of the book: Author: Publisher: Publishing Date: ISBN: Summary: Author Info: Personal Opinion: Normally when reading a nonfiction book the author often does a preface or introduction in describing on why they chose to write this book. This one doesn't have neither and I had to look in the first chapter to find as to why the book is written: "Among the infinitude of lessons that have been drawn from this tale is a warning that justice can be miscarried and that childish simplifications like 'good and evil' and 'hero and villain' do not always neatly correspond to the punisher and the punished" (11) Simply put the story is divided into three parts; introduction to the most dangerous barrio in Honduras and to our would be heroes and how they conceived of trying to help people who lived there. The second part is dealing with legal aspects as the charity grew bigger and the third part is taking on the biggest fish in Honduras as well as trying to influe...

 Name of Book: Author: ISBN: Publisher: Type of book: WWII, Germany, Brazil, 1941 or 1942 to 1961, father/son relationship, loyalty, Jewish woman/German male relationships, blood, language, race, family, yearning, forbidden love, taboo, loss  Year it was published: Summary: Characters: Main characters are Axel, Lyuba/Raven and Dietrich. At the start, Axel is an eleven year old who hasn't matured sexually yet and is quite often an innocent when it comes to life. He is best described as sheltered yet is also an untrained prodigy when it comes to languages. His strengths would be innocence and loyalty which he displays a lot throughout the book. Lyuba is of Jewish origin and a bit older than Axel and is antithesis to Axel's innocence. She is extremely prickly and tends to push people away from her and is also extremely jaded by life. There is also Axel's father, Dietrich von Pappendorf who is an aristocrat, proper and often refuses to see others as human beings. His relationsh...

 Name of Book: Author: ISBN: Publisher: Type of book: Grief, sibling bond, parentify, Mexico, Spain, migration for work, demeaning jobs, grandparents, suicide, dating, performative liberalism, lethargy  Year it was published: Summary: Characters: Main characters are the Woman and Diego. (Woman is never named in the book.) Woman is a parentified girl who was forced to care for her younger brother when their mother moved to Spain to work, with little help from grandparents. Woman had to deal with feelings of being unwanted, not knowing about her father and of being seen in terms of Diego's caretaker instead of someone as human. From Woman's memories, Diego is a true teenager who also has to struggle with a lot of trauma, namely immigrating to a country that looks down on him, and leaving comfort and grandparents behind as well as being othered and not being understood by neither mom nor Woman. There are secondary characters such as Woman's Scottish boyfriend or a lot of ...

  Name of Book: Jean Author: Madeleine Dunnigan ISBN:  9781324105640 Publisher: W.W. Norton Type of book: England, summer of 1976, LGBtQ, relationships fragments, character study, microaggressions towards Judaism, outsider vs conformity, high school, desires, trauma,  Year it was published: 2026 Summary: (From goodreads) Seventeen–year–old Jean, a troubled Jewish boy caught in the countercultural swirl of 1970s London, arrives at Compton Manor, a rural alternative boarding school for boys with “problems.” Though he is an outcast among these outcasts, he is befriended by Tom, a much wealthier, more popular classmate, and it seems as if Jean’s world might change. When things turn romantic, Jean is tipped into a heady, overwhelming infatuation. What before seemed odd now brims with promise—the compulsory farming at school, reading poetry aloud, pagan ritual—and Jean thinks he might even pass his exams. But the differences between Tom and Jean—Tom is tuition–paying, Jean is ...

 Name of Book: Author: ISBN: Publisher: Part of a Series: The Nightshade Crown (THE FOXGLOVE KING and THE HEMLOCK QUEEN are prequels)  Type of book: Fantasy, MFM, throuple, royalty, gods, taking over, possessing, histories, legends, myths, secret fountain, stories, roles, loosely based on 17th century France (think King Louis XVI, the Sun King) relationships  Year it was published: Summary: Characters: The main characters would be Lore, Gabe and Bastian plus Alie. In this one it seemed as if Lore has really grown up because she wasn't just looking out for herself but she loved and cared enough about Bastian and Gabe to try to sacrifice herself for them. Gabe, I think he was wrestling a lot with duty and desires and it seemed as if he was growing up realizing that desires aren't bad. Bastian, who also was incredibly selfish the last two books (as well as extremely hedonistic) I think he also had grown up moments in realizing the importance of having true friends outside of...

 Name of Book: Author: ISBN: Publisher: Part of a Series: Rook and Rose (prequels are THE MASK OF MIRRORS, and THE LIAR'S KNOT)  Type of book: Fantasy, LGBtQ romances, marriages, found family, connections, real family, forgiveness, Venice based city, Roma based people, magic  Year it was published: Summary: Characters: Main characters are Ren, Vargo and Grey. They did have quite a bit character growth from first and second books. While in first and second book Ren was willing to use people as tools, at least if they aren't her siblings, in this one she grew up and expanded her circle of family a lot. She also realized of the precarious position that she is caught in between Vrazsenian world and the world of Gentry. I think out of all the characters, Vargo also had amazing growth. A bit like Ren, he was out for himself and saw connections as sort of weaknesses. He also (understandably) refused to share himself with others and allowed people to make false conclusions. In th...