I am good in planning,
except when I’m reading,
sometimes I follow
where my mood is swinging,
and here are the books
I’m glad I picked on a whim.
—
Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson
About: Memories define us.
So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love – all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story.
Welcome to Christine’s life.
Rating: (Good read, definitely!)
–
Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone
About: Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can’t turn off.
Second-guessing every move, thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn’t help that her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush. Yet Sam knows she’d be truly crazy to leave the protection of the most popular girls in school. So when Sam meets Caroline, she has to keep her new friend with a refreshing sense of humor and no style a secret, right up there with Sam’s weekly visits to her psychiatrist.
Caroline introduces Sam to Poet’s Corner, a hidden room and a tight-knit group of misfits who have been ignored by the school at large. Sam is drawn to them immediately, especially a guitar-playing guy with a talent for verse, and starts to discover a whole new side of herself. Slowly, she begins to feel more “normal” than she ever has as part of the popular crowd . . . until she finds a new reason to question her sanity and all she holds dear.
Rating: (GREAT READ!)
–
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
About: EVERY DAY THE SAME
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.
UNTIL TODAY
And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?
Rating: (GREAT READ!)
–
Kindred Spirits by Rainbow Rowell
About: If you broke Elena’s heart, Star Wars would spill out. So when she decides to queue outside her local cinema to see the new movie, she’s expecting a celebration with crowds of people who love Han, Luke and Leia just as much as she does. What she’s not expecting is to be last in a line of only three people; to have to pee into a collectible Star Wars soda cup behind a dumpster or to meet that unlikely someone who just might truly understand the way she feels.
Rating: (Good read!)
–
About: Two women, each cast adrift by unforseen events in their lives, meet by accident on a Nantucket beach and are drawn into a friendship.
Olivia is a young mother whose eight-year-old severely autistic son has recently died. Her marriage badly frayed by years of stress, she comes to the island in a trial separation to try and make sense of the tragedy of her Anthony’s short life.
Beth, a stay-at-home mother of three, is also recently separated after discovering her husband’s long-term infidelity. In an attempt to recapture a sense of her pre-married life, she rekindles her passion for writing, determined to find her own voice again. But surprisingly, as she does so, Beth also find herself channeling the voice of an unknown boy, exuberant in his perceptions of the world around him if autistic in his expression—a voice she can share with Olivia—(is it Anthony?)—that brings comfort and meaning to them both.
Rating: (GREAT READ!)
–
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
About: A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn’t thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she’d claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.
Rating: (GREAT READ!)
–
About: Suppose your life sucks. A lot. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your teenage stepson is being bullied and your math whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you can’t afford to pay for. That’s Jess’s life in a nutshell—until an unexpected knight-in-shining-armor offers to rescue them. Only Jess’s knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. But Ed has big problems of his own, and driving the dysfunctional family to the Math Olympiad feels like his first unselfish act in ages… maybe ever.
Rating: (Good read, definitely!)
–
The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch
About: In a war-torn village in Eastern Europe, an American photographer captures a heart-stopping image: a young girl flying toward the lens, fleeing a fiery explosion that has engulfed her home and family. The image wins acclaim and prizes, becoming an icon for millions—and a subject of obsession for one writer, the photographer’s best friend, who has suffered a devastating tragedy of her own.
As the writer plunges into a suicidal depression, her filmmaker husband enlists several friends, including a fearless bisexual poet and an ingenuous performance artist, to save her by rescuing the unknown girl and bringing her to the United States. And yet, as their plot unfolds, everything we know about the story comes into question: What does the writer really want? Who is controlling the action? And what will happen when these two worlds—east and west, real and virtual—collide?
Rating: (Good read!)
–
We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride
About: An immigrant boy whose family is struggling to assimilate. A middle-aged housewife coping with an imploding marriage and a troubled son. A social worker at home in the darker corners of Las Vegas. A wounded soldier recovering from an injury he can’t remember getting. By the time we realize how these voices will connect, the impossible and perhaps the unbearable has already happened. We Are Called to Rise is a boomtown tale, in which the lives of people from different backgrounds and experiences collide in a stunning coincidence. When presented the opportunity to sink into despair, these characters rise. Through acts of remarkable charity and bravery, they rescue themselves. Emotionally powerful yet tender and intimate, We Are Called to Rise is a novel of redemption and unexpected love.
Rating: (Good read!)
–
All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
About: Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.
Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.
When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.
Rating: (GREAT READ!)
—
Summary and Photo credit: Goodreads
In response to The Broke and the Bookish‘s Top Ten Tuesday today:
May 17: Ten Books I Picked Up On A Whim (however you decide to interpret that (bought or read or something else) — I know most people read based on recommendation but we want to know those books you picked up without really hearing about or knowing much about!)
P.S. What one book would you add on this list?
Share it to me!
~
[…] https://areadingwritr.wordpress.com/2016/05/17/ten-books-im-glad-i-picked-on-a-whime/ […]
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Thank you very much dear!!
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Did you have a change of mind about “After my demons win” that you took it down? If so then, you didn’t help your readers, Rose.
The bright and the dark depict our humanity and provides encouragement to those in similar situations that they can overcome too when they read about the aftermath.
Maintain your positive outlook that’s anchored on the Truth. It’s “great gain”.
Love from a brother.
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Hi! Thank you for your comment.
No, I never and I have no plans of changing my mind about my post. I encountered technical mistake yesterday, hence the post was deleted unfortunately.
I believe we all have our demons and I openly shared mine. Most of all, I want to share how I somehow felt better and thank those who offered wise and lovely words. That is why I wrote After My Demons Win. It is now published.
Thank you!
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I’ve been wanting to read Every Last Word, for a while now, but for some reason, I still haven’t picked it up! 😐 Hopefully I will get to it soon! Great Top Ten! 😀
My TTT!
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Geez! Please read it. Giovanna! 😀 I enjoyed it a lot! 😀
Thank you for sharing your link!
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It looks like you’ve picked up some great books on a whim. 🙂 Brilliant list!
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Yeah… sometimes the awesome cover means awesome content, too! 😀 Thanks, Chrissi!
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Great list – I enjoyed the Watson book and loved the Gaiman one – but I admit I already knew about both of those before picking them up.
Lynn 😀
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Nothing wrong with that, Lynn! 🙂 Thank you!
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It’s rare for me to pick books on a whim. Normally, I read the blurb, check reviews and then spends time deciding if maybe I’d like it or not… ha… I still end up not enjoying books though, so I don’t recommend doing that. Great list!! 🙂
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Geez. I would agree I am like that most of the time. I pick books on a whim when their covers look awesome! HAHA.
Thank you, Lola! ❤
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Woo! I really enjoyed “The Ocean at the End of the Lane”, but I’m a Neil Gaiman fan so I actively went searching for that one when it first released. Good stuff!
My TTT
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Hi Auggie! 😀 Thank you! Gaiman in a talented one. 🙂
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You have a number of intense selections here. I’m drawn to the story with the OCD character and The Children with Small Backs. I read The Ocean at the End of the Lane and found that a good friend and also my nephew really, thoroughly liked the story. I liked the story, too, though was surprised by their reactions. So much has to be accepted to enjoy the tale, and I thought only my eccentric tastes would savor it.
You are well-read, my friend, on a whim or as a plan.
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You mean Love, Anthony, right? 🙂 Please read them. They are both awesome. 🙂
Yes, I agree, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is really eccentric and a bit weird too. But it is great. 😀
Thank you, Christopher! 😀
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I love the Ocean at the End of the Lane. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s such a great read.
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It really is. 😀 Thank you, Alicia!
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wow what a list. I missed the Ocean and the End of the Lane. The audiobook was just on sale yesterday for a steal but I got so caught up in work that it ended before I got back to it. A lot of these books sound really good. I’m going to check them out since they have your seal of approval 🙂
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Oh! I hope the sale will be extended! I believe you will love it. 😀
thank you for believing in my seal of approval! 😀
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You’re welcome 🙂 I have a subscription to the audible site; so I just need to wait for my credits to accrue 🙂
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Ooooh. That’s awesome!
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It’s the only way I can afford to listen to audio books. Membership has a lot of perks plus I never pay full price for an audio book 🙂 audio books are really, really expensive otherwise.
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oooh. i bet more expensive than hardbound right.
P.S.
I have some questions for you about publishing. self-publishing. I checked out some packages and the cheapest is at $699 dollars which costs nearly Php 33,000 (that’s equivalent to almost my three-month salary) and I am so sure I cannot afford that. 😦 I hope you can share some tips with me? 🙂
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I didn’t pay much to publish mine. If you do all the work yourself, it’s pretty much free if you do print on demand; completely free if you do an ebook and sell on amazon. What did the service include? Which one did you look at? Are you making an e-book or a paperback? I learned that the larger the trim size of the book (length and width), the less pages are needed and the lower the cost. People who buy the hardcopy pay per page.
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I checked this out: http://www.xlibris.com/PublishingPackages/poetry.aspx.
It’s almost a complete service but I have no such budget. Even their cheapest cost a lot.
How’d you publish yours? You have a paperback and e-book right?
I would want to have paperback copies but that would cost a lot I think.. I am not sure though how can I publish on Amazon.
Geez. I am clueless. Sorry for bothering your supposed peaceful night dear.
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I used http://www.createspace.com for the paperback version. You can set up your book in an MS word doc. There’s instructions about how to set up the initial doc. Doing it yourself is free but the layout is time consuming.
The ebook is easy to make. There’s almost no formatting. Just a couple little things you need to do so Amazon can render it right but they aren’t hard to do.
I did it through amazon– https://kdp.amazon.com/
It cost me nothing. You only pay if you want to take out an ad, which I haven’t done. First though you need to edit your work. Easier to format after you edit the works to be published. I learned that the hard way 😉
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Oh wow! Thank you very very much for the tips, Mel! ❤ ❤ ❤ I really appreciate it!
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You’re welcome 🙂 I’m here any time you need advice. There’s this place online that you can order a cover for $5 US. Another blogger on here recommended them. He uses the service: https://www.fiverr.com/
There’s all kinds of services on there even editing. It’s worth taking a look though make sure you vet anyone you decide to work with.
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Thank you, Mel! 😀 😀 😀 This is such a hard task to do. My head is really aching now. HAHA. Now I am not sure if I can pursue this! 😀 Though, thank you dear!
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You can do it. I’m here if you need advice no coding involved in the ebook.
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Thank you for the encouraging words, Mel! Really. ❤ ❤ ❤ I will be bugging you in gmail when I finally decided on what to do! 😀
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Sure 🙂 I’ll be on the lookout for those emails. It’s a bit daunting at first. I fully understand. It was for me too. I did lots of research.
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Geez. And I think I will benefit on your research! 😉
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I am glad to be of service and to put that knowledge to good use.
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yay!! Thank you dear! Thank you very much! 🙂
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You’re very welcome 🙂 You have a wonderful day. I’m going to sign off for tonight.
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go dear! 😀 thank you!
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🙂 You’re welcome
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❤ ❤ ❤
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you can and should buy your own ISBN. I bought mine. That cost me $300 US for 10 but you can buy them individually. You don’t want anyone else buying them for you. You want to hold all the rights to your work.
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Geez! The single pack is so expensive. It’s better to but the pack of ten. But…yeah.. I have to think this through first. Geez. -_-
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I understand. You don’t need a ISBN for an ebook published on Amazon but you do for a print one. I rccommend doing the ebook first. It’s easier and there’s less cost associated with it.
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Oh.. al right. Even without the ISBN you have all the rights to your ebooks?
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Yes. That’s the beauty of it.
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oh. that’s awesome then!
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Isn’t it? I was surprised too but the nature of ebooks and the way that amazon lists them makes it all work somehow.
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Oh. I will familiarize my self first on how amazon lists books. 😀
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That’s a great idea. Kindle Direct Publishing is a great service. Some big name authors use it to self pub their books.
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Oooh. I will take note of that! Thank you!
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You’re welcome 🙂
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❤ ❤ ❤
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I agree that’s why I bought 10. Even if I am published by a big house, I can still use those ISBNs because they are mine 🙂
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yeah. that makes sense… but it cost a lot. It costs my one-month salary! HAHAH. So I have to think it through. I don’t want to publish a book without that. So this might take time.
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If you publish only as an ebook on amazon, you don’t need an ISBN. So keep that in mind.
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I will! 😀 Thank you!! 😀
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You’re welcome 🙂
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I won’t bug you now. 😀 Go and take some needed rest! 🙂
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Thanks I was just about to do that! You read my mind! Or maybe you heard my bed calling me? 😉
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YEAH! I heard its screams! HAHA. Go rest!
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It has been yelling louder and louder as I sit her and type 😉 going now… you enjoy your day. It’s friday for you!
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go ahead it might get angry! HAHA. Good night! 😀
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🙂
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🙂
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I want to read “The Ocean at the End of the Lane”–wow, sounds like a page-turner!
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Yes, it is my M! It is creepy, weird but great!
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Sounds great–now you know my dark side, hahaha!!
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and you know mine! 😀
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Hahaha 😉
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😉
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Thanks for the recommendations. I am always on the lookout for new reads ☺
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YAY! I hope you will love them, Kay! 😀
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Neil Gaiman ❤ ❤ I have a few books on my list from your list already 😀 But this year, I've been re-reading my books. There are so many books that reading just once is not enough. Although adding new books will prepare me for later 😉
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That is true! I am planning to have some re-reads, too! 😀 😀 😀
Thank you dear!
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The Ocean at the End of the Lane ❤
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Yeah! 😀 Thanks!
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Great list!! I had missed it. I already suggested one 😀 😀
Love!
Dajena ❤
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Yay! thank you darling Dajena! ❤ Love back to you! ❤
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Oh, I loved Every Last Word! Glad you did too. And I’ve been hearing about The Girl on the Train recently, since the movie trailer was released. Maybe I’ll have to give it a try.
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Geeez! I love that too. 🙂
Oh, thank you for the info! I didn’t know The Girl On The Train’s trailer is now out. 🙂
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Great list. Thank you for sharing. I have some new books on hold now.
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wow. you found this old one. thank you! what books are you reading now?
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Searching for Sylvie Lee
by Jean Kwok and recently finished American Dirt.
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sounds good!
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