Discover new books on Goodreads
See if your friends have read any of Amy Gentry's books
Amy Gentry

year in books

Amy Gentry’s Followers (558)

member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
member photo
Jacob
5,089 books | 220 friends

Nigeyb
2,127 books | 497 friends

Luke
6,004 books | 63 friends

lark be...
1,918 books | 1,426 friends

Tara Mc...
5,330 books | 197 friends

Ramona
781 books | 136 friends

Will
5,284 books | 197 friends

Rebecca
14,808 books | 1,284 friends

More friends…

Amy Gentry

Goodreads Author


Born
in Houston, The United States
Website

Twitter

Genre

Member Since
September 2007

URL


Amy Gentry is the author of the novels Good as Gone, Last Woman Standing, and Bad Habits, as well as the 33 1/3 book about Tori Amos's Boys for Pele. Also a critic, she has reviewed for the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Review of Books, Paris Review, LitHub, and Electric Literature, as well as writing introductions for two books in the NYRB Classics line. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Chicago and lives in Austin, Texas. ...more

Average rating: 3.48 · 45,615 ratings · 4,713 reviews · 13 distinct worksSimilar authors
Good as Gone

3.45 avg rating — 39,583 ratings — published 2016 — 55 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
My Death

by
3.86 avg rating — 6,605 ratings — published 2004 — 22 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
Good Behaviour

by
3.87 avg rating — 4,345 ratings — published 1981 — 13 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
Bad Habits

3.50 avg rating — 1,589 ratings — published 2021 — 8 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
Last Woman Standing

3.24 avg rating — 1,576 ratings — published 2019 — 3 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
Boys for Pele

4.20 avg rating — 222 ratings — published 2018 — 3 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
I Am Stronger than Frustrat...

by
4.61 avg rating — 36 ratings4 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
Be-Hezkat Ne'ederet

it was ok 2.00 avg rating — 1 rating
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Habit of Rising Early

0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Sparrow Sisters

0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings
Rate this book
Clear rating
More books by Amy Gentry…
The Go-Between
Rate this book
Clear rating

 
Clarissa, or, The...
Rate this book
Clear rating

 
Appetites
Amy Gentry is currently reading
bookshelves: currently-reading
Rate this book
Clear rating

 

Amy’s Recent Updates

Amy Gentry rated a book really liked it
The Juniper Tree by Barbara Comyns
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
"You know how it is with a Murial Spark book, you start off reading ' oh this is so witty, my fingers are getting singed from her sparky humour' that you don't notice her sliding the knife in until she chooses to twist it.

I am a little in awe of her r" Read more of this review »
Amy Gentry rated a book it was amazing
Independent People by Halldór Laxness
Rate this book
Clear rating
Breathtaking and unique; I don't think it's oversold. I liked it best when it was bleak, bitter, funny, expansive, unpredictable, hag-ridden, and cruel; around the point when (view spoiler) ...more
Amy Gentry is now following Julai's reviews
1350506
Amy Gentry and 1 other person liked Julai's review of Open Marriage:
Open Marriage by Nena O'Neill
"Oh, way to go, O'Neills. You totally tricky-tricked me. 250 pages on "Open Marriage," and only two pages even mention the possibility of sleeping with other people. I paid a really good Nebraska quarter for this book! I could've turned that money int" Read more of this review »
Amy Gentry wants to read
The Tree of Hands by Ruth Rendell
Rate this book
Clear rating
Amy Gentry wants to read
Marlena by Julie Buntin
Marlena
by Julie Buntin (Goodreads Author)
Rate this book
Clear rating
Amy Gentry entered a giveaway
Anita Brookner by Hermione Lee
Anita Brookner: Art and Life
by Hermione Lee
25 copies available, ends on October 05, 2026 Enter to win »
Amy Gentry wants to read
Jane Austen and the Morality of Conversation by Bharat Tandon
Rate this book
Clear rating
More of Amy's books…
Quotes by Amy Gentry  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“This is why people need God—because people are awful, even the good ones.”
Amy Gentry, Good as Gone

“Maybe once you've been left by the most important person in your life, you can never be unleft again. Maybe you're destined to be abandoned even by your own guts, maybe your foot walks off with your thighbone, why not, stranger things have happened.”
Amy Gentry, Good as Gone

“Maybe once you’ve been left by the most important person in your life, you can never be unleft again.”
Amy Gentry, Good as Gone

Topics Mentioning This Author

“All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.”
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“Beautiful writing becomes beautiful when it loses its harmony and has the desperate power of the ugly.”
Elena Ferrante, In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing

“Where have you been?" she cried. "Damn you, where have you been?" She took a few steps toward Schmendrick, but she was looking beyond him, at the unicorn.

When she tried to get by, the magician stood in her way. "You don't talk like that," he told her, still uncertain that Molly had recognized the unicorn. "Don't you know how to behave, woman? You don't curtsy, either."

But Molly pushed him aside and went up to the unicorn, scolding her as though she were a strayed milk cow. "Where have you been?" Before the whiteness and the shining horn, Molly shrank to a shrilling beetle, but this time it was the unicorn's old dark eyes that looked down.

"I am here now," she said at last.

Molly laughed with her lips flat. "And what good is it to me that you're here now? Where where you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you, how dare you come to me now, when I am this?" With a flap of her hand she summed herself up: barren face, desert eyes, and yellowing heart. "I wish you had never come. Why did you come now?" The tears began to slide down the sides of her nose.

The unicorn made no reply, and Schmendrick said, "She is the last. She is the last unicorn in the world."

"She would be." Molly sniffed. "It would be the last unicorn in the world to come to Molly Grue." She reached up then to lay her hand on the unicorn's cheek; but both of them flinched a little, and the touch came to rest on on the swift, shivering place under the jaw. Molly said, "It's all right. I forgive you.”
Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

“Canadians, do not vomit on me!”
Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights

“It really is a sign of appalling feebleness, I thought, if people fill their apartments with furniture belonging to past ages rather than their own, the harshness and brutality of which they are unable to endure. What they do, it seems to me, is surround themselves with the softness of the dead past that cannot answer back.”
Thomas Bernhard, Woodcutters

220 Goodreads Librarians Group — 340267 members — last activity 1 minute ago
Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more
110567 Literary Horror — 2169 members — last activity 8 hours, 21 min ago
A group for fans of literary horror. We will be discussing all things horrible and literary but especially those horrible volumes that either aspire t ...more
277227 Reading the 20th Century — 1711 members — last activity 7 minutes ago
Welcome to 'Reading the 20th Century', a friendly and inclusive group that explores and discusses the literature, history, culture and music of the ye ...more
179584 Our Shared Shelf — 222909 members — last activity 17 hours, 4 min ago
OUR SHARED SHELF IS CURRENTLY DORMANT AND NOT MANAGED BY EMMA AND HER TEAM. Dear Readers, As part of my work with UN Women, I have started reading ...more
97302 The BURIED Book Club — 968 members — last activity Feb 27, 2026 06:22PM
TODAY BOOKS ARE NOT BURNED. THEY ARE BURIED. WE SHALL UNEARTH THEM.
245555 Suspenseful Clues and Thrilling Reviews — 2689 members — last activity Aug 11, 2026 03:41PM
An online book club hosted by Chelsea @ The Suspense Is Thrilling Me and Sam @ Clues and Reviews for readers to discuss their current reads and monthl ...more
2083 NYRB Classics — 1600 members — last activity 20 hours, 8 min ago
For friends of NYRB Classics
963939 Horror Spotlight — 1406 members — last activity Mar 20, 2023 07:29AM
We read diverse horror. Our readalongs take place on our discord server each month.
186163 The Mookse and the Gripes — 2276 members — last activity 49 minutes ago
Forum for spirited and convivial discussion of fiction from around the world, with particular though not exclusive focus on 20th and 21st century fict ...more
95230 Innovative Horror — 313 members — last activity Oct 18, 2023 01:37AM
E.T.A. Hoffman, H.P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson and (arguably) Clive Barker all moved horror fiction forward in their time. Who's doing so today? I t ...more
More of Amy’s groups…
Comments (showing 1-2)    post a comment »
dateDown arrow    newest »

message 2: by Amy

Amy Gentry Fionnuala wrote: "It wasn't me who gave the five stars to The Sacred Fount, Amy—it's the only HJ that didn't work for me. And I don't use star ratings at all. Maybe you meant the friend request for someone else? Tho..."

Ha! I may have mixed you up, but I definitely meant the friend request--I've followed you for a while and love your reviews and shelves. And I certainly don't blame anyone for disliking The Sacred Fount--it is perverse, nearly unreadable and utterly ridiculous! I am totally fascinated by it but I would never argue that it's a successful book.


Fionnuala It wasn't me who gave the five stars to The Sacred Fount, Amy—it's the only HJ that didn't work for me. And I don't use star ratings at all. Maybe you meant the friend request for someone else? Though it's true I've read all the other writers you mentioned as inspirations: Spark, Woolf, Highsmith, Brookner. I've even read Gone Girl:-(


back to top