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Katya Cengel

Goodreads Author

Website

http://www.katyacengel.com

Twitter

kcengel

Genre

Nonfiction, Psychology, Memoir

Influences

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Member Since

August 2012

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Katya Cengel is the author of four non-fiction books, including most recently Straitjackets and Lunch Money, which the San Francisco Chronicle called “incredibly affecting” and Kirkus Reviews called “harrowing but engrossing”. Cengel’s earlier titles cover everything from minor league baseball in Bluegrass Baseball to falling in love at Chernobyl in From Chernobyl with Love. She has received an Eric Hoffer Academic Press award, an Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY), and a Foreword INDIES.

As a journalist Cengel has written for New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine and Atavist Magazine among others. Her writing has taken her to Utah to search for Bigfoot (she didn’t find him) and to Mongolia to write about female street artists. ...more

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Katya Cengel’s books

Average rating: 3.86 · 174 ratings · 71 reviews · 5 distinct works • Similar authors

	From Chernobyl with Love: Reporting from the Ruins of the Soviet Union 3.60 avg rating — 89 ratings — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Straitjackets and Lunch Money: A 10-year-old in a Psychosomatic Ward 4.52 avg rating — 29 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Bluegrass Baseball: A Year in the Minor League Life 3.76 avg rating — 34 ratings — published 2012 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Exiled: From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to California and Back 4.23 avg rating — 22 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Down syndrome students get a taste of college life.: An article from: Community College Week 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Katya Cengel's Blog

Unreliable narrators

Unreliable narrators are intriguing. In AMORALMAN author Derek DelGaudio plays around with this style and it works well considering he is writing about how the time in his life he spent living a lie. You can read my New York Journal of Books review here

https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book... Read more of this blog post »

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Published on March 08, 2021 11:28

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Katya is Currently Reading

Katya Cengel is currently reading

The Sugar King of Havana: The Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon

by John Paul Rathbone

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Jun 01, 2019 09:28AM

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Katya’s Recent Updates

Katya Cengel is now friends with Margaret Anne
May 21, 2026 06:36PM · like
Katya Cengel rated a book it was amazing The Poster: A family torn apart by war and The State: can they reunite? by James Marshall (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A gripping account of a dystopian future that both entertains and challenges the reader. The not unfamiliar premise of an all-controlling state is made fresh with characters who act in unexpected yet very human ways. By following the trials of two yo ...more
Apr 12, 2026 11:30AM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Poster by James Marshall. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Poster by James Marshall <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Katya Cengel rated a book it was amazing Before & After You & Me by Dallas Woodburn (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Through gripping story lines Dallas explores the deeper questions young and old must deal with in life. I may not be a teen anymore but Dallas' YA books always pull me in and teach me something. In this book the main character's struggle with art and ...more
Apr 04, 2025 10:58AM · like · see review
Katya Cengel rated a book it was amazing Vivaldi's Virgins by Barbara Quick (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
In this historical novel secret upon secret, unraveled like the layers of an onion, keep you absorbed until the last page. Through the imagined letters and remembrances of Anna Maria dal Violin readers are offered an inside look at the hidden life of ...more
Dec 26, 2024 08:21PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Vivaldi's Virgins by Barbara Quick. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Vivaldi's Virgins by Barbara Quick <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Katya Cengel is now following Barbara Quick Author of Vivaldi's Virgins
Dec 26, 2024 08:21PM · like
Katya Cengel rated a book it was amazing Rottenkid: A Succulent Story of Survival by Brigit Binns (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Rottenkid is a wild ride. From author Brigit Binns almost feral childhood to the wilds of mid-20th century California, this memoir encapsulates not just one woman’s story of childhood hurt and heartache but a time when California still seemed within ...more
Oct 27, 2024 03:02PM · like · see review
Katya Cengel rated a book it was amazing In This Ravishing World by Nina Schuyler (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Although linked, the characters, plotlines and settings for each story in this collection are distinct enough to stand alone – and absolutely absorbing. The author’s talent for bringing to life different people and scenes is on full display in “The O ...more
Sep 21, 2024 03:36PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of In This Ravishing World by Nina Schuyler. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — In This Ravishing World by Nina Schuyler <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Katya Cengel and 1 other person liked Ilana's review of Straitjackets and Lunch Money: A 10-year-old in a Psychosomatic Ward: "The title expresses the horrific contradiction at the heart of this memoir – a ten-year-old girl, who should be jumping rope or spending lunch money on ice cream, is confined to a closed-door, straitjacket-using psychosomatic ward. It also refers to " Read more of this review »
Sep 12, 2024 07:47AM · see review
Katya Cengel liked Eileen O.'s review of Straitjackets and Lunch Money: A 10-year-old in a Psychosomatic Ward: "COMPELLING AND HIGHLY RECOMMENDED This book is absolutely recommended. "Strait Jackets and Lunch Money" was one of the hardest, easiest and best books I’ve ever read. It was painfully hard to picture little Katya suffer and deteriorate, with one paren" Read more of this review »
Sep 12, 2024 07:46AM · see review
Katya Cengel rated a book it was amazing Shaken Loose by Ilana DeBare (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Shaken Loose is truly a novel that defies definition, an imaginative escape that both questions how we think while telling a gripping story. At the heart of the book is Annie, an aimless young San Franciscan who ends up in Hell, despite not being Chr ...more
Sep 09, 2024 02:22PM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Shaken Loose by Ilana DeBare. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Shaken Loose by Ilana DeBare <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">