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: Bear Witness; The Pursuit of Justice In A Violent Land  Author: Ross Halperin  Publisher: Liveright Publishing Date: 2025 ISBN: 9781324090786 Summary: “The reporting is really remarkable—it’s detailed, it’s in depth, it’s cinematic....This book is a triumph. You should all get it.” ―David Grann, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Wager Amazon Editors' Pick: A Best History Book of May A high-octane true-crime story, Bear Witness follows two Christians who refuse to let fear or conventional wisdom stand in the way of their altruistic mission. The vast majority of Hondurans would have never dared to set foot in Nueva Suyapa, a mountainside barrio that was under the thumb of a gang whose bravado and cruelty were the stuff of legend. But that is precisely where Kurt Ver Beek, an American sociologist, and Carlos Hernández, a Honduran schoolteacher, chose to raise their families. Kurt and Carlos were best friends ...

  Name of Book: Solimeos Author: Rhoda Lerman ISBN:9781637587638 Publisher: Wicked Son 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: 2023 Summary: Fleeing post-World War II Germany, an aristocratic young man and his Nazi officer father are spirited away to the Brazilian jungle to help create a new, occult-obsessed, German Reich…but love, ambition, and vengeance interfere. In the waning days of World War II, fourteen-year-old Axel, his family, and their servants are cold and hungry in Pappendorf Castle. Baron Dietrich von Pappendorf, Axel’s father, is away, having spent much of the war traveling the world in search of an ancient, pre-Babel language that his occult-obsessed, Nazi masters believed would solidify Aryans as the master race. But when the baron returns to the family castle, it’s not in triu...

  Name of Book: Eating Ashes Author: Brenda Navarro (trans Megan McDowell)  ISBN: 9781324096085 Publisher: Liveright Type of book: Grief, sibling bond, parentify, Mexico, Spain, migration for work, demeaning jobs, grandparents, suicide, dating, performative liberalism, lethargy  Year it was published:  2022 (2026)  Summary: An arrestingly beautiful, award-winning novel about separation, migration, and love left behind. Alone and adrift in Barcelona, an unnamed narrator is haunted by the death of her teenage brother, Diego. Diego, the little boy she helped raise in Mexico while their mother struggled to make a living in Spain. Diego, who loved Vampire Weekend and dreamed of becoming a pilot. Diego, who hated Madrid as much as she did. Now, his ashes in hand, she must return to Mexico. Plagued by memories, she recounts their young lives leading up to tragedy in blistering detail: the acute loneliness that accompanied their emigration; the siblings’ ...

  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: The nightshade god Author: Hannah Whitten ISBN: 9780356521572 Publisher: Orbit 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: 2025 Summary: The Nightshade Crown is in the hands of a ruthless god. Lore will stop at nothing to defeat him and save the troubled prince and tortured priest ensnared in his wicked plot, in this final installment of this lush, romantic, New York Times bestselling fantasy series from breakout star Hannah Whitten. Lore has failed. She couldn’t save King Bastian from the rotten god speaking voices in his mind. She couldn’t save her allies from being scattered across the continent—their own lesser gods whispering to them in their dreams. ...

 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...