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The Trouble with Fairy Tales A Memoir [electronic resource] : by Johnson, Plum.aut; CloudLibrary;
The long-awaited second memoir from Plum Johnson, bestselling author of They Left Us Everything. The Trouble with Fairy Tales is a wise and insightful reflection on the relationships that sprawl across a lifetime. In it, Plum explores how we often sacrifice our independence and identity in our love lives, falling for the fairytale notion of “happily ever after”, and how it can take years, and many detours, to fulfil the most important relationship—the one with ourselves. Ripe with the humorous anecdotes, charming insights, and aching revelations so characteristic of Plum’s style, the book is our window onto her reinvention of self as she moves through the various roles that many women inhabit: from compliant child to loving mother, rebel wife, artist, and successful writer. Plum’s writing urges her readers to turn inward to reach a deeper understanding of their own tangled relationships. Funny and resonant, The Trouble with Fairy Tales is the kind of striking personal narrative that will stir and inspire women of all ages.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Personal Memoirs; Inspiration & Personal Growth; Women;
© 2025., Penguin Canada,
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Parade A Novel [electronic resource] : by Cusk, Rachel.aut; cloudLibrary;
Crafted by the exhilarating mind of Rachel Cusk, author of the Outline trilogy, Parade disturbs and defines the novel. Midway through his life, an artist begins to paint upside down. Eventually, he paints his wife upside down. He also makes her ugly. The paintings are a great success. In Paris, a woman is attacked by a stranger in the street. The attacker flees, but not before turning around to contemplate her victim, like an artist stepping back from a canvas. When a woman dies, her children confront her legacy: the stories she told, the roles she assigned to them, the ways she withheld her love. Her death is a kind of freedom. An artist takes on a series of pseudonyms to conceal his work from his mother and father. His brother does the opposite. They share the same parents, but they have inherited different things. Parade is a story that confronts and demolishes the conventions of storytelling. It surges past the limits of identity, character and plot to tell a true story—about art, family, morality, gender and how we compose ourselves. A writer and a visionary like no other, Rachel Cusk turns language upside down to show us our world as it really is.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Literary;
© 2024., HarperCollins Canada,
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Visitations [graphic novel] / by Egbert, Corey,1988-author,illustrator.;
Corey's mom has always made him feel safe. Especially after his parents' divorce, and the dreaded visitations with his dad begin. But as Corey grows older, he can't ignore his mother's increasingly wild accusations. Her insistence that Corey act as his sister's protector. Her declaration that Corey's father is the devil. Soon, she whisks Corey and his sister away from their home and into the boiling Nevada desert. There, they struggle to survive with little food and the police on their trail. Meanwhile, under the night sky, Corey is visited by a flickering ghost, a girl who urges him to fight for a different world--one outside of his mother's spoon-fed tales, one Corey must find before it's too late.
Subjects: Autobiographical fiction.; Coming-of-age comics.; Graphic novels.; Egbert, Corey, 1988-; Children of divorced parents; Children of mentally ill mothers; Dysfunctional families; Latter Day Saints; Parental kidnapping; Siblings;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Warlight / by Ondaatje, Michael,1943-author.;
"From the internationally acclaimed, bestselling author of The English Patient: a mesmerizing new novel that tells a dramatic story set in the decade after World War II through the lives of a small group of unexpected characters and two teenagers whose lives are indelibly shaped by their unwitting involvement. In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory itself--shadowed and luminous at once--we read the story of fourteen-year-old Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war, all of whom seem, in some way, determined now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel. But are they really what and who they claim to be? And what does it mean when the siblings' mother returns after months of silence without their father, explaining nothing, excusing nothing? A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all that he didn't know and understand in that time, and it is this journey--through facts, recollection, and imagination--that he narrates in this masterwork from one of the great writers of our time."--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Brothers and sisters; Abandoned children;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Stolen child : a mother's journey to rescue her son from obsessive compulsive disorder / by Gough, Laurie,1964-author.;
"Laurie Gough's son was a regular, bright, unicycle-riding kid, until the day his grandpa died, when a tidal wave of uncontrollable thoughts consumed him. He became an echo of himself, a near-stranger dominated by bizarre rituals dreamed up to bring his grandpa back to life. Gough's family took on the battle against OCD and won."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Gough, Laurie, 1964-; Mothers and sons.; Obsessive-compulsive disorder in children.; Obsessive-compulsive disorder; Obsessive-compulsive disorder;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Mamaskatch : a Cree coming of age / by McLeod, Darrel,1957-author.;
"A powerful story of resilience-a must-read for all Canadians. Growing up in the tiny village of Smith, Alberta, Darrel J. McLeod was surrounded by his Cree family's history. In shifting and unpredictable stories, his mother, Bertha, shared narratives of their culture, their family and the cruelty that she and her sisters endured in residential school. Darrel was comforted by her presence and that of his many siblings and cousins, the smells of moose stew and wild peppermint tea, and his deep love of the landscape. Bertha taught him to be fiercely proud of his heritage and to listen to the birds that would return to watch over and guide him at key junctures of his life. However, in a spiral of events, Darrel's mother turned wild and unstable, and their home life became chaotic. Sweet and innocent by nature, Darrel struggled to maintain his grades and pursue an interest in music while changing homes many times, witnessing violence, caring for his younger siblings and suffering abuse at the hands of his surrogate father. Meanwhile, his older brother's gender transition provoked Darrel to deeply question his own sexual identity. The fractured narrative of Mamaskatch mirrors Bertha's attempts to reckon with the trauma and abuse she faced in her own life, and captures an intensely moving portrait of a family of strong personalities, deep ties and the shared history that both binds and haunts them. Beautifully written, honest, and thought-provoking, Mamaskatch-named for the Cree word used as a response to dreams shared-is ultimately an uplifting account of overcoming personal and societal obstacles. In spite of the traumas of Darrel's childhood, deep and mysterious forces handed down by his mother helped him survive and thrive: her love and strength stay with him to build the foundation of what would come to be a very fulfilling and adventurous life."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; McLeod, Darrel, 1957-; McLeod, Darrel, 1957-; Cree Indians; Native men;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The school for good mothers : a novel / by Chan, Jessamine,author.;
"Set in near-future America, The School for Good Mothers introduces readers to a government-run reform program where bad mothers are retrained using robot doll children with artificial intelligence. Protagonist Frida Liu, a 39-year-old Chinese-American single mother in Philadelphia, loses custody of her 18-month-old daughter, Harriet, after she leaves Harriet home alone for two hours on one very bad day. To regain custody, Frida must spend a year at a newly-created institution, where she practices parenting with bad mothers from all over the county. There, she learns to love an uncannily life-like toddler girl doll in order to demonstrate her maternal instincts and prove to her family court judge that she deserves a second chance. Frida is an outsider in every way: better educated, more affluent, and the only Asian. The mothers, whose transgressions range from benign to horrific, are under constant surveillance. If they don't pass all the school's tests, their parental rights will be terminated. Inspired by dystopian classics such as 1984, Never Let Me Go, and The Handmaid's Tale, the novel eviscerates the dominant American parenting culture, while highlighting the tragedy of state-sponsored family separation. Is there one right way to mother? Can a bad mother ever be redeemed? With warmth, heart, and dark humor, the novel tells a timeless story of a mother fighting to win back her child, and her struggle to hold onto her integrity while being indoctrinated"--
Subjects: Dystopian fiction.; Chinese American women; Motherhood; Single mothers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The city of stardust / by Summers, Georgia,author.;
"For centuries, the Everlys have seen their best and brightest disappear, taken as punishment for a crime no one remembers, for a purpose no one understands. Their tormentor, a woman named Penelope, never ages, never grows sick--and never forgives a debt. Violet Everly was a child when her mother left on a stormy night, determined to break the curse. When Marianne never returns, Penelope issues an ultimatum: Violet has ten years to find her mother, or she will take her place. Violet is the last of the Everly line, the last to suffer. Unless she can break the curse first. Her hunt leads her into a seductive magical underworld of power-hungry scholars, fickle gods and monsters bent on revenge. And into the path of Penelope's quiet assistant, Aleksander, who she knows cannot be trusted--and yet to whom she finds herself undeniably drawn. With her time running out, Violet will travel the edges of the world to find Marianne and the key to the city of stardust, where the Everly story began."--
Subjects: Fantasy fiction.; Novels.; Blessing and cursing; Civilization, Subterranean; Families; Man-woman relationships; Magic; Missing persons; Monsters;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A sorceress comes to call / by Kingfisher, T.,author.;
"Cordelia knows her mother is ... unusual. Their house doesn't have any doors between rooms-there are no secrets in this house-and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend. Unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don't force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren't evil sorcerers. When her mother unexpectedly moves them into the manor home of a wealthy older Squire and his kind but keen-eyed sister, Hester, Cordelia knows this welcoming pair are to be her mother's next victims. But Cordelia feels at home for the very first time among these people, and as her mother's plans darken, she must decide how to face the woman who raised her to save the people who have become like family."--
Subjects: Fantasy fiction.; Novels.; Families; Good and evil; Magic; Mothers and daughters; Wizards; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Love forms : a novel / by Adam, Claire,author.;
"For much of her life, Dawn has felt as if something had been missing. Now, at the age of fifty-eight, with a divorce behind her and her two grown-up sons busy with their own lives, she should be trying to settle into a new future for herself. But she keeps returning to the past and to the secret she's kept all these years. At just sixteen, Dawn found herself pregnant, and -- as was common in Trinidad back then -- her parents sent her away to have the baby and give her up for adoption. More than forty years later, Dawn yearns to reconnect with her lost daughter. But tracking down her child is not as easy as she had thought. It's an emotional journey that leads Dawn to retrace her steps back home and to question not only that fateful decision she'd made as a teenager but every turn in the road of her life since. Love Forms is a powerfully moving story of a woman in search of herself -- a novel that rings with heartfelt empathy through the passages of a mother's life, depicting the enduring bonds of love, family, and home"--
Subjects: Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Adopted children; Divorced women; Mothers; Self-actualization (Psychology) in women; Trinidadians;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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