Welcome back to Get Rec’d, with me, your lovely host, Amanda!
I give a lot of book recommendations outside of SBTB, as I have a couple other book-related jobs. While I often give suggestions to readers on romance, I frequently recommend books in other genres too!
Here are a few things I’ve recommended since last time! And, if you’d like to share your own recommendations that you’ve given to people in your life, or even strangers, I’ve love to hear about them!
Ghost Cat
This is one of my staff picks for October and I loved the Tim Burton-esque art style. It’s about a lighthouse keeper and her very helpful ghost cat named Sailor Boy. Be warned this one, I think, is going for a reprint and with the supply chain as borked as it is, physical copies may be hard to come by.
Miss Maggie McCullen has been the keeper for the Port Carrick lighthouse for many years. She has never missed a night, keeping the big light going. And while the people in Port Carrick are grateful to her, they worry about her lonely life at the lighthouse. But they don’t know that she has her cat, Sailor Boy, for company. Because Sailor Boy is no ordinary cat. He’s a ghost cat. He can make himself visible or invisible, especially when visitors come to call and he wants to be mischievous. But when a fierce storm comes and Miss Maggie needs special assistance, Sailor Boy proves his worth.
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I’m Waiting for You
I’m slowing getting into works in translation and this was recommended to me by a good friend and translation nerd! This is sci-fi collection of four stories (each pair is connected). My favorite duo is about a couple of time traveling agents who need to arrive back on earth on the same day and within the same timeline to make it to their wedding.
“Her fiction is a breath-taking piece of a cinematic art itself. Reminiscent of the world we experienced in Matrix, Inception, and Dark City, still it leads us to this entirely original structure, which is a ground-breaking, mystic literary and cinematic experience. Indeed, powerful and graceful.”—Bong Joon-ho, Oscar-winning director of Parasite
Two worlds, four stories, infinite possibilities
In this mind-expanding work of speculative fiction, available in English for the first time, one of South Korea’s most treasured writers explores the driving forces of humanity—love, hope, creation, destruction, and the very meaning of existence—in two pairs of thematically interconnected stories.
In “I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way,” an engaged couple coordinate their separate missions to distant corners of the galaxy to ensure—through relativity—they can arrive back on Earth simultaneously to make it down the aisle. But small incidents wreak havoc on space and time, driving their wedding date further away. As centuries on Earth pass and the land and climate change, one thing is constant: the desire of the lovers to be together. In two separate yet linked stories, Kim Bo-Young cleverly demonstrate the idea love that is timeless and hope springs eternal, despite seemingly insurmountable challenges and the deepest despair.
In “The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life,” humanity is viewed through the eyes of its creators: godlike beings for which everything on Earth—from the richest woman to a speck of dirt—is an extension of their will. When one of the creations questions the righteousness of this arrangement, it is deemed a perversion—a disease—that must be excised and cured. Yet the Prophet Naban, whose “child” is rebelling, isn’t sure the rebellion is bad. What if that which is considered criminal is instead the natural order—and those who condemn it corrupt? Exploring the dichotomy between the philosophical and the corporeal, Kim ponders the fate of free-will, as she considers the most basic of questions: who am I?
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As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!I’m Waiting for You by Kim Bo-Young
Mooncakes
This is my ultimate light fall-vibes recommendation. Pretty all ages and just really adorable. It has witchy and paranormal elements without being too spooky, and is a sweet story about friendship and queer love.
A story of love and demons, family and witchcraft.
Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers’ bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town.
One fateful night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods, and she comes across the unexpected: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. As a werewolf, Tam has been wandering from place to place for years, unable to call any town home.
Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help. Their latent feelings are rekindled against the backdrop of witchcraft, untested magic, occult rituals, and family ties both new and old in this enchanting tale of self-discovery.
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As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker
Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts
The Westing Game was a favorite book of mine going up and this book feels like an adult version of that. Set in the Boston area, an X-Files-loving heroine enters in a city-wide scavenger hunt to win an inheritance.
A handsome stranger. A dead billionaire. A citywide treasure hunt. Tuesday Mooney’s life is about to change…forevermore.
Tuesday Mooney is a loner. She keeps to herself, begrudgingly socializes, and spends much of her time watching old Twin Peaks and X-Files DVDs. But when Vincent Pryce, Boston’s most eccentric billionaire, dies—leaving behind an epic treasure hunt through the city, with clues inspired by his hero, Edgar Allan Poe—Tuesday’s adventure finally begins.
Puzzle-loving Tuesday searches for clue after clue, joined by a ragtag crew: a wisecracking friend, an adoring teen neighbor, and a handsome, cagey young heir. The hunt tests their mettle, and with other teams from around the city also vying for the promised prize—a share of Pryce’s immense wealth—they must move quickly. Pryce’s clues can’t be cracked with sharp wit alone; the searchers must summon the courage to face painful ghosts from their pasts (some more vivid than others) and discover their most guarded desires and dreams.
A deliciously funny ode to imagination, overflowing with love letters to art, from The Westing Game to Madonna to the Knights of the Round Table, Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts is the perfect read for thrill seekers, wanderers, word lovers, and anyone looking for an escape to the extraordinary.
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia
I AM A GENIUS OF UNSPEAKABLE EVIL AND I WANT TO BE YOUR CLASS PRESIDENT by former Daily Show executive producer Josh Lieb is a fun and trenchant middle grade read with both kid and adult appeal. Twelve-year-old Oliver Watson poses as a dim-witted middle schooler, but he’s really an evil mastermind bent on world domination, the third-richest person in the world, and the leader of a small army of minions – most of whom have no idea who they work for. When a fellow students makes a crack at him, Oliver bends all his vast resources to face his greatest challenge yet: winning the class presidency! He makes lots of witty trenchant observations about the children and adults around him, does wacky schemes – such as orchestrating a foreign coup in order to get a rare Boba Fett figure he uses to bribe a school official – and maybe, just maybe, impresses his distant father.
Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts is completely outside of what I usually read and I enjoyed it tremendously.
I loved TUESDAY MOONEY – enough to track down the author’s backlog. They were lovely, but TUESDAY MOONEY ended up my favorite. Bonus side character appearance from another of her books’ main characters, all grown up. That was still delightful to discover, even backward. This one has such a great adult/child dynamic for me.
Thanks for these great recs!
After revisiting I AM A GENIUS OF UNSPEAKABLE EVIL after many years, I have to warn about some unfortunate ableist language that hasn’t aged well. I still tentatively recommend it, so long as you have a conversation with your young reader about the r-slur and why they shouldn’t use it – and not just because their intellectually/developmentally – disabled classmates might be secret geniuses ready to dose them with fart-inducing, puberty-slowing chemicals.
Ghost Cat looks adorable! The kindle sample has more of the illustrations.
The “about the author” caught my eye, she was born in 1928(!), started her writing career in midlife in 1969, and is still creating and living her best life to this day. I wanna be her when I grow up.
I would love more books in translation recs! i think this is a wonderful way to experience new literature that you might love! and finding a great book with a matching translation is so wanted. it could be a whole series
I recently loved A TOUCH OF RUCKUS, a middle-grade Appalachian ghost story with a first-tentative-crush romance between the protagonist, Tennessee, and her non-binary new friend Fox. Tennessee is one of those quiet peacemaker kids who’s managed to bury her own wants in order to serve the pressing needs of her own chaotic and demanding family. It’s lovely to see Tennie coming into her own over the course of the story. (It’s also a VERY good spooky fall read!)