Weekly Completionists - Week 15 & 16 [One Book A Week]

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04/08 - 04/22

Hello everyone! Welcome to our weekly list of challenge completionists! If you would like to be recognized in one of these posts, please read our Chatroom ! You do not have to be a member of the club to participate; however, every club member must participate.

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╔═══*.·:·.☽✧    ✦    ✧☾.·:·.*═══╗

Challenge Completionists

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✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* Knoxy *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

False Start (Playing For Keeps #2) by Riley Hart & Neve Wilder

04/08 - 04/09

If only my feelings were as fake as this "relationship" with my former teammate.

CULLEN: I’ve been the NFL’s “problem child” since my rookie year. If there’s trouble, I’ll find it.

But my biggest weakness has always been Houston McRae. We were secretly together in college before it blew up in our faces.

So, when I see him again years later, you’d think I’d know better than to end up in an airport bathroom stall tearing his clothes off.

To make matters worse, because of mistakes I’ve made, I find out afterward I’m being traded… to Denver.

Where Houston lives. Because of course.

I’m not taking responsibility for the two of us ending up in a fake relationship. That’s all on him, but I can’t pretend I won’t enjoy it. As long as I don’t let myself fall for him again, I’ll be fine, right?

HOUSTON: I lived, breathed, and slept football until an injury sidelined me for life. Now I’m solely focused on finding my place again… until Cullen Atwood walks back into my life and tempts me into an airport bathroom stall, where every ounce of ion for him I thought I’d buried returns with a vengeance.

Now he’s playing for the Rush…

And staying in my apartment.

And did I mention he’s also my fake boyfriend who makes it clear he still wants me every chance he gets?

I’ve got my future to think about, though, and we’re one wrong move from becoming a tabloid headline. I can’t afford to think of Cullen as anything more than a casual hook-up.

So why do I keep wishing this relationship was real?

False Start is a low angst, high-heat sports romance in the Playing for Keeps series.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* Celine *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

04/05 - 04/11

Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.

As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a US marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.

Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they’re also building a new future—one neither of them could have anticipated.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* Celine *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

04/12 - 04/14

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club s and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* Nerd *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Nura and the Immortal Palace by MT Khan

04/16 - 04/17

Aru Shah and the End of Time meets Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away in this mesmerizing portal fantasy that takes readers into the little-known world of Jinn.

Nura longs for the simple pleasure of many things—to wear a beautiful red dupatta or to bite into a sweet gulab. But with her mom hard at work in a run-down sweatshop and three younger siblings to feed, Nura must spend her days earning money by mica mining. But it’s not just the extra rupees in her pocket Nura is after. Local rumor says there’s buried treasure in the mine, and Nura knows that finding it could change the course of her family’s life forever.

Her plan backfires when the mines collapse and four kids, including her best friend, Faisal, are claimed dead. Nura refuses to believe it and shovels her way through the dirt hoping to find him. Instead, she finds herself at the entrance to a strange world of purple skies and pink seas—a portal to the opulent realm of jinn, inhabited by the trickster creatures from her mother’s cautionary tales. Yet they aren’t nearly as treacherous as her mother made them out to be, because Nura is invited to a luxury jinn hotel, where she’s given everything she could ever imagine and more.

But there’s a dark truth lurking beneath all that glitter and gold, and when Nura crosses the owner’s son and is banished to the working quarters, she realizes she isn’t the only human who’s ended up in the hotel’s clutches. Faisal and the other missing children are there, too, and if Nura can’t find a way to help them all escape, they’ll be bound to work for the hotel forever.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* Nerd *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Once upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber

04/17 - 04/19

How far would you go for happily ever after?

For as long as she can , Evangeline Fox has believed in true love and happy endings... until she learns that the love of her life will marry another.

Desperate to stop the wedding and to heal her wounded heart, Evangeline strikes a deal with the charismatic but wicked Prince of Hearts. In exchange for his help, he asks for three kisses, to be given at the time and place of his choosing.

But after Evangeline’s first promised kiss, she learns that bargaining with an immortal is a dangerous game—and that the Prince of Hearts wants far more from her than she’d pledged. He has plans for Evangeline, plans that will either end in the greatest happily ever after or the most exquisite tragedy...

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* Celine *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Quiet by Susan Cain

04/15 - 04/22

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over working in teams. It is to introverts—Rosa Parks, Chopin, Dr. Seuss, Steve Wozniak—that we owe many of the great contributions to society.

In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts—from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. ionately argued, impeccably researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.

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