Slicey's 75 Books Challenge for 2019 - Maiden Voyage

I'm new to LibraryThing and this will be my first year setting a reading goal for myself.

I used to be a voracious reader and I found reading to be especially easy and rewarding during the 5 years that I worked in a bookstore. In recent years, however, I have hardly read at all. I've spent much more time immersed in the stories created for television and much less time between the pages of a good book. And while my goals for the types of books I would like to read are fairly lofty, the books I actually tend to complete are more likely to be complete fluff.

Therefore, my goal for this year is to tackle my multiple Mt. TBRs, to read more non-fiction (that I tend to buy and never read), and to read more culturally diverse books and more books of literary significance.

I recently returned to BookCrossing and that has successfully spurred me to read more, especially from my TBR stack, so I've already gotten a jump-start from the last two months of 2018. I hope to continue this streak for the year.


This is just one of 6 overflowing bookshelves in my house of books I haven't read yet.

Favorite Books from 2018

I didn’t really start keeping track of my books until November (or even start reading), so I had limited books to choose from for this list.



The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Walking the Bridgeless Canyon – I actually read this one twice. I’m in a lesbian book club at my church and we first read this title over the course of a month. It was so in-depth and there was so much good information in it, that when we started a new book club we decided to read this one again, only slower. I’ve read a lot of books by gay and straight authors about being a gay Christian or about the Church and sexuality, but this is by far the best of the bunch. Incredibly well-researched with a lot of historical context, this book would encourage both religious and non-religious people to examine with fresh eyes the role that religion, politics, and culture have had on the discrimination of and acceptance of LGBTQ persons.

Book-Related Goals for 2019
1. Dig deep into my TBR shelves and clear out as many books as possible, especially those that have been in the pile for more than 5 years.
2. Read books by black authors or featuring black characters, as well as from the African diaspora. (Goal to read most of these by the end of February 2019)
3. Read books that empower women. (Goal to read by end of March 2019)
4. Read books by LGBTQ authors of featuring LGBTQ characters. (Goal to read by end of June 2019)
5. Read books from TBR pile that other members are requestiong via swap.

What I’m Currently Reading



Missing Incorporated by Tess Pendergrass
Thousand Pieces of Gold by Ruthanne Lum McCunn
The Man Who Ate the 747 by Ben Sherwood
Shameless: A Sexual Reformation by Nadia Bolz-Weber
Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story by Mac McClelland
leap: Leaving a Job... by Tess Vigeland
Next Up…

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Best Staged Plans by Claire Cook

Want to Read

This list will be updated this month with books I currently own or plan to buy that I realistically want to read this year. Not ALL of my TBRs, but the ones that I honestly hope to get to. (Do they fulfill any of my goals from above? 1,2,3,4)

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North
Inspired by Rachel Held Evans (3)
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (1,4,5)
Twilight of the Elites by Chris Hayes
Little Bee by Chris Cleave (2)
Incendiary by Chris Cleave (2)
Who By Fire by Diana Spechler
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
Jewel by Bret Lott (1)
Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult (1)
Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult (1)
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (1)
The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons
Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult (1)
Great Small Things by Jodi Picoult(1)
Fat Angie by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo (1,3,4)
Ash by Melinda Lo (1,3,4)
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (2)
Leap: Leaving a Job with No Plan B by Tess Vigeland (3)
This May Sound Crazy by Abigail Breslin (3)
The Japanese Lover: A Novel by Isabel Allende (5)
A Widow for One Year by John Irving (1,5)
Neuromancer by William Gibson (1,5)
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion (5)
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (2)
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (1,5)
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (1,5)
Cold Mountain by Charles Frasier (1,5)
An American Marriage: A Novel by Tayari Jones (2)
The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee (3,5)
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Shameless by Nadia Bols-Weber

2019 Books Read

January



Lucky Alan: and Other Stories by Jonathan Lethem
Delicious Vegetarian Food (Step-by-step) by Bay Books
A Paris Affair by Tatiana de Rosnay
Dead After Dark by Sherrilyn Kenyon
This May Sound Crazy by Abigail Breslin
The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee
Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland by Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus
Mountain to Mountain: A Journey of Adventure and Activism for the Women of Afghanistan by Shannon Galpin
Enlightenment (Book One: The Bathala Series) by Reno Ursal
Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block
The Awakening by Kate Chopin (re-read)
February


The Blind Side by Michael Lewis
The Crossing by Mandy Hager
March

Bitch Factor by Chris Rogers
This Case is Gonna Kill Me by Phillipa Bornikova

April

The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks

May

The Weeping Ash by Joan Aiken
My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger

2019 Book Stats
Fiction
Non-Fiction
Authors

I include books with multiple authors in my count, but do not count co-authors or ghost writers whose names do not appear on the book cover.

It is not always possible to determine an author's race or sexuality, and diverse authors may write stories without any diversity, and vice versa.

January:
Fiction: 6
Non-Fiction: 5
Male Authors: 2
Female Authors: 12
Minority Authors (POC, LGBT): 3

Welcome! Your goals line up well with a bunch of us, so I don’t think we’re going to help you shrink the TBR much... 😀 Anyway, please join us on the nonfiction challenge each month - that should help you bump up the nonfiction reading!

Welcome and happy reading in 2019!

I'm supposed to be getting rid of books from my house, but I accidentally just bought 30 new books during my lunch break today. Oops.

I hate it when that happens... 😂

Happy 2019
A year full of books
A year full of friends
A year full of all your wishes realised

I look forward to keeping up with you this year.

1.
Lucky Alan: and Other Stories by Jonathan Lethem

I read half of these stories and skimmed the other half. I found this collection to be very "NYC" and a bit pretentious.
There is one story about a couple who loves well-crafted sentences and I felt like this book was mostly the author in love with his own sentence creation. This is probably a good fit for some readers, but not for me (1 star for my enjoyment, 1 star for the well-crafted sentences, even if I didn't enjoy them).

2.
Delicious Vegetarian Food (Step-by-step) by Bay Books

This is a UK printing, but the ingredients and instructions seem easy to change to U.S. versions. It's a little recipe-heavy on the tofu and eggplant, but I enjoy that there are a lot of Asian recipes included. Keeps it from being boring. There are some good passages about protein, fat, and carbohydrates and their role in your body and how the vegetarian diet can get the proper nutrients.

3.
A Paris Affair by Tatiana de Rosnay

I didn't really expect to enjoy a collection of short stories about infidelity, but I found this surprisingly good. Each story managed to be different and interesting. They are well-written and I would be interested in the author's other writings.

4.
Dead After Dark by Sherrilyn Kenton and J.R. Ward

I hadn't read these authors before, but it's obvious why they are so popular. I thought the first story by Kenyon should have been a full novel - there were plenty of characters and the story was big enough it could easily have been 300 pages instead of 90 pgs. And it's obviously part of a series. The second story was really intriguing and had plenty of twists I've not seen in this genre before that increased my enjoyment of it. The third story was historical romance, and some of the rules in this fantasy world building I didn't understand. There were a lot of fantasy beings that were only partly explained. The fourth story started out with the two most interesting individuals with unique powers, but it lagged when the fantasy world intruded. The "big bads" were ancient Hindu gods, I think. Once more, lots of named beings, whose relationship with their world and ours I didn't really understand, and frankly they were more cheesy than scary. There were also several inconsistencies in the writing with continuity errors that took me out of the story a bit. I would still recommend this collection to fans of the genre.

5.
This May Sound Crazy by Abigail Breslin

This was sort of terrible. I bought it because I was planning on reading some strong female empowerment books this year, and I like Abigail Breslin as an actress. The vast majority of this book did not seem empowering. It seemed like a super privileged, Upper West Side teenager with only "first world problems" giving relationship advice. I don't know how many boyfriends and different relationship experiences a 19-year old can have, but she managed to fill a whole book with them. I am definitely not the target for this book, but I think a 14-15 year old might find this empowering. There was one or two good chapters on breakups - getting over them and also how to break-up with someone in a kind way. There were some good tips on friendship as well, but the entire thing reads like a personal Tumblr account - complete with emojis and text speak. There also wasn't anything her that you couldn't find in Seventeen magazine or Teen Vogue articles, but like most teenagers, Abigail thinks her life is interesting enough that you would want to read about it. But we don't get much of her life, just first names of friends and guys she likes. I'll skip the books by teen authors in the future.

6.
The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee

This was so good and incredibly easy to read. You think you know what North Korea is like - with the propoganda and lies, keeping people in check, worshiping the "great leader" - but you don't really know. The author was born in the late 1970s, before North Korean experienced the worst famines, and she was fairly insulated from a lot of the worst of life in this country due to the job her father held, the strong-willed mother who bribed her family's way out of any punishment, and the location of their home - on the border with China - only a small river separating them from smuggled goods that kept them in pocket money that others in their country didn't enjoy. To learn that to not properly dust your photo Kim Jong-Il is a grave offense - much worse than dealing opium or even illegally crossing into China - really highlights the bizarre dystopian lives North Korean people lead. The chapters are short, the author tells a story amazingly well in a language that isn't her first, second, or third language; the plot is engaging, and nearly unbelievable. I highly recommend this book, or at the very least, to watch the author's Ted Talk. The injustice in this world and the cruelty that human beings can inflict on each other is almost too much to bear at times, but it is important to know that these things happen and that people endure this and some can survive it.

7.
Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland by Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus

This is the true story of the 3 teenage girls abducted in Cleveland, Ohio in the early 2000s by Ariel Castro. Their escape captivated the nation, but they didn't speak much publicly about what they endured during their captivation. This story is written in their own words (by 2 of the 3 survivors), aided by the diary kept by Amanda Berry during the 10 years she was held prisoner. The story is rounded out by reporters who lend details about what was happening in their community during this time. The story is fascinating in its details, especially in the coincidences and tiny, seemingly insignificant decisions that led to the abductions, and in the sheer volume of interactions that their captor had with their friends and family members while the women were missing.

The book is easy to read. Each short chapter is headed by a date. It is both heartbreaking and voyeuristic without being too graphic. And the title "hope" is fitting because so many of the people involved maintained hope in the face of adversity.

8.
Mountain to Mountain: A Journey of Adventure and Activism for the Women of Afghanistan by Shannon Galpin
I got so frustrated with this author the more I read. It's like a diary from a self-centered person who tries to blame everyone else for their circumstances and isn't being honest with her therapist. She's one of those women who talks about all her male friends and claims she has never had many female friends because she's not a "girl's girl" when in reality it's a way to distance herself from the fact that she's probably a selfish a-hole and that's why no women want to be friends with her. I kind of want to hear the viewpoints of her "colleagues" in the middle east and of her ex-husband and of her friends. I have no problem with someone wanting to spend all their time in a foreign country, evading adult responsibility. But don't do it under the guise of being a women's activist and humanitarian.

Pass on this book and watch the movies "He Named Me Malala" and "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" or read the books that inspired them. You'll get more out of it than you would from this mess. See Full Review

9.
Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block

This YA book is a beautiful, small format hardcover. It's a retelling of the Odyssey story in a present/future day Los Angeles. The protagonist is a teenage girl who is dealing with an apocalyptic event and its aftermath. She is strong, determined, and passionate. She forges her own path, convinces others to listen to her, and shows great bravery in adversity.

It's written in a beautiful magical realism style that makes the story part Dream-world, part fantasy. The young characters are interesting and diverse. The drawback is that it is confusing as a reader because the book starts out in a realistic style. A girl with a family. A girl who survives an earthquake and flood. A girl who wonders how far this event stretches and wonders if it has been locally catastrophic or wholly apocalyptic. A girl who flees for her safety from a real-world threat of looters. A girl who then immediately enters a world outside the doors of her home that is suddenly fantastic. Is this Odysseus, magical dreamworld real or imaginary?

I would have preferred the story to stay realistic or for the magical realism to have been present from the beginning. I love authors Isabelle Allende and Gabriel Garcia Marques, but they keep the reality suspended the entire time. Or not suspended, but rather seamlessly intertwined with the magic. It is an imperfect read (3 stars), but the book itself is pretty and there are queer characters, so those elements add an extra half-star for me.

10. Enlightenment: The Bathala Series by Reno Ursal *

Early Reviewer Copy: This novel suffers from too many footnotes and a multi-layered supernatural story that I believe it too complex for a teen audience.

I was excited to read this book based on the premise. I've never seen a romance or YA book with Filipino characters before and I liked the idea of the main characters being Filipino. We need more diversity in literature and this is a great culture to explore. The Filipino-American culture integrated into the story and the Filipino history and mythology(?) was great for the first few chapters, but all the footnotes to read got tedious pretty fast.

*I gave it two stars for effort in my official review, but just 1.5 here because I actually didn't finish the book.

11.
The Awakening by Kate Chopin

This was a re-read. This was one of my favorite reads from high school and a while ago I bought a copy from a used bookstore. Decided to include this in a feminist bookshop because what I remembered from this book was that the protagonist wasn't interested in sitting at home and tending house for her husband and taking care of her kids. I remembered that she only saw one way out from the restrictive box that women were put in.

Upon re-reading this, I viewed it differently and found I had less sympathy for Edna. Her decisions were less motivated by what was expected of her as a woman and more motivated by her desire for a love affair and apathy towards her husband. Her status and wealth meant she had freedoms that other women didn't, if only she would take advantage of them. Her imprisonment was one of social conventions, and I think that should be the real lesson from this book. That social norms that dictate our actions based on fear and conformity are ridiculous. Instead of being motivated to abandon life as a traditional wife and mother, the motivation should be to not care what others think of you and to realize that happiness can be found outside of the approval of polite society, if we are brave enough to pursue it.

The face that this book manages to hold up - and need little in the way of translation or explanation more than 100 years later is testament to the fact that perhaps American society hasn't changed all that much since the late 1800s.

12.
The Blind Side by Michael Lewis

13.
The Crossing: Blood of the Lamb by Mandy Hagar

This book is the first book in a dystopian trilogy featuring a young, female, African protagonist. The story is set in a sort of post-apocalyptic future where colonialism and religious fervor rules the land and everyone who resides here is affected by it. Interesting premise of dystopian fiction. Just not sure if I like it or not. The story ends just when that which I want to discover more about starts happening. So, I'm willing to check out the second book in the series, but it isn't the strongest YA dystopian writing out there. Gave me some creepy vibes of privileged men and women (white colonizers) controlling young women (uneducated, native villagers) for purposes of exploitation. But instead of exploiting the land, they are exploiting the reproductive capabilities of young women (girls, really) under the guise of religious authority. Very Handmaid's Tale, but with a disturbing colonial/missionary/racial component.

14.
Bitch Factor by Chris Rogers
I liked this story and the characters. It felt like a mix of Stephanie Plum and Jack Daniels. More serious than the Plum novels, yet not as graphic as the Daniels mysteries. I've had it on my TBR shelf for ages from a Half Price Books clearance sale and finally got around to it. It was a quick read and I liked it well enough to look for other books in the series.

15.
This Case is Gonna Kill Me by Phillipa Bornikova

16.
The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks

17.
The Weeping Ash by Joan Aiken

Wow. Where do I begin. I had a newer publication of this book with a classic historical romance book cover and a book blurb to match. This is how the book jacket reads:

New bride Fanny Paget experiences shame and torment in her loveless arranged marriage, finding solace only in her budding friendship with estate gardener Andrew Talgarth. He never seems too busy to listen and sympathize.

But Fanny is trapped, until her husband's cousins arrive from India and a series of explosive events unfold that change the lives of all involved. Andrew is there through it all, strong and steadfast, awaiting Fanny's greatest self-discovery-no matter how long it takes.

What readers say:
"Romance and high adventure flow at a rapid pace!"
"Cracking entertainment, with lots of romance and thrills."
"A fast, satisfying read."
"Vivid and vibrant!"

---
Why is this wrong? Well, first and foremost, there is no romance in this book! I was sold a romance and what I got was a loosely connected family saga, a gothic, historical novel taking place on two continents. Set in a time period where men make the rules and women are virtual prisoners - the property of either their fathers or their husbands. I got a 16-yr-old girl married to a 48-year-old tyrant of a man. 200+ pages in I still couldn't tell who the supposed love interests were supposed to be. The book jacket claims Fanny and Andrew, but Andrew is barely in 10 pages of the entire book. And half the book centers on Scylla, Cal, Miss Musson, and Col. Cameron - only two of whom (the cousins) are given the barest mention on the book jacket.

It was enough of an adventure that I found myself immersed it in anyway, but with much confusion seeing as how I was sold a romance and given something very different.
---
A previously published version of the book actually gives an appropriate description of the book as follows:

Two extraordinary tales, and many fates, intertwine in this magnificent novel of India and England in the last years of the eighteenth century.

Sixteen-year-old Fanny Paget, newly married to the odious Captain Paget, had come to live with him and his grown daughters at the Hermitage, a house lent to them by distant relatives. There Fanny will suffer at her husband's hands almost inconceivable humiliation and torment. But trained in duty by a clergyman father, she endeavors to make the best of her loveless marriage and is befriended by Lord Egremont, the local Grandee, and his charming mistress.

Meanwhile, many thousands of miles away, in northern India, two remarkable people, Scylla and Carolman Paget, twin cousins of the hateful Captain, have begun a seemingly impossible flight for their lives, pursued by the soldiers of a vengeful maharajah. On their journey, by foot, elephant, camel, horse, raft and sail, they are helped by the dashing Colonel Cameron, and American adventurer.

After crossing the savage kingdoms of Kafiristan, Afghanistan, Persia, and Turkey, the twins encounter further dangers by sea but finally arrive at their cousin's house in England. In the Hermitage, though, a dark and violent confrontation awaits them -- and a series of passionate acts ensue which are to change forever not only Fanny Paget's life but also the lives of her two cousins and all involved with the household.
---
I'm not really sure about my 3-star rating. A lot of the book stuck with me because it is much more involved than your typical easy romance read, but it was more devastating than I imagined based on the historical romance premise I was sold. It was incredibly well-written. The vocabulary was so historically accurate that I had to google much of it. It really set a realistic tone. Don't go in expecting Johanna Lindsey, though, this is much more Sarah Waters inspired by Jane Austen. If you like gothic fiction and adventure novels then you may want to pick this one up. I was surprised to find out it is part of a series. It is very much a stand-alone novel.

18.
My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger

I loved this book. It's a teen coming-of-age novel with super likeable characters. Not only are the main three teens great friends, they're just great people. And it's not just their relationship that's fleshed out, the relationship with each of the parents is really genuine and sweet. Reading this made me want to be friends with them and be part of their world. I usually don't care too much for books written in the format of diary/journal entries, emails, or text messages, but this format worked really well for this book. The POV alternates back and forth among the three teens (and sometimes the POV of the parents as well) while they each tell about their "most excellent year." First loves, coming out, new relationships, school successes -- it's all those things that at age 14-15 make you feel innocent and grown at the same time, feel like anything is possible.

It's completely unbelievable that three teenagers in 2009 would have great knowledge and love of 1910's baseball, 1940's Hollywood and obscure musical theatre, and 1960's politics. But these are the trio's favorite topics of conversation. It's obviously the author's loves, but somehow, though unlikely and difficult to believe, it still works. I really enjoyed the writing and want to read more from this author (especially gay, teen fiction!)

Ah! I'm so behind at logging my books. Let's see if I can even remember what I've read since May.

These will likely be out of order.

19.
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

I really enjoyed this book. I cried a lot, but in a cathartic way. This novel doesn’t actually spend a lot of time in Paris and probably should have been named “The Parisian Bookseller” or “The Book Apothecary” since the story revolves around Jean and a sort of midlife change of course both for him and for his little bookshop that lives on a barge. He meets new friends and learns to come to grips with his past while traveling through the south of France.

This book made me think about what I want to do with my life, with my passions, and what can happen negatively in your life if you don't live honestly and fully. Life is short. People are complex. Emotions can overwhelm us. I wish I had someone who could prescribe a book to me to heal my soul.

This may be just the book for what ails you.

20.
Jumping the Picket Fence by Lydia Deal

An inspiring read that makes you want to leave home and travel, and not just in 4-star resorts. I enjoyed all of the details about the author’s family and how they came to decisions as a family about where to live and what kind of life to lead. Their style of independence along with philanthropy sounds like my dream life.

Written in an honest manner and I didn't feel like the author was just patting herself on the back for her good deeds or lauding her lifestyle as better than the reader's. Some philanthropy memoirs come off rather self-righteous. I really envied her family, their flexibility and adaptability, and their drive. Great book. Recommend this as a gift for people who love "gifts that give back," have a passion for either service or travel, and who want to do good int he world.

21.
Deliver Us From Evie by M. E. Kerr (re-read)

A very good teen book about small town life and how parents, siblings, friends, and townspeople react to a queer teen in their midst. 25 years after being written, this book still feels relative today. Evie is the girl who likes sports, wearing "boys' clothes," and driving fast cars. She isn't "ladylike" and she doesn't care what people think about her. She just is who she is. A story that teaches how to love people for who they are and who they want to be.

22.
When Love Comes to Town by Tom Lennon (re-read)

I really enjoyed this gay coming-of-age novel set in 1990s Dublin, Ireland. I really connected with this story even though I'm not male, Irish, and it's 25 years after the setting of this book. There is a nice forward that explains a little bit about the times to help young readers get a sense of the importance of this story. I love the writing style. The stream-of-consciousness style from the narrator really does a great job of communicating the inner turmoil of someone who is hiding their identity from their friends and family. The fear and loneliness that comes along with being closeted is the major theme of this book. Acceptance comes from some unlikely sources, but the inner turmoil really shows how someone can look fairly "normal" on the outside, like they are functioning and content, but on the inside they can be drowning.

I can really imagine this novel as a movie. Preferably starring a young Taron Egerton (and Richard Madden - hey, maybe they should have made this film instead of Rocketman ;-) .)

Mayor Pete Buttigieg recently gave an interview with Rachel Maddow where they discussed being closeted and being out. There was a really interesting quote where it was said (paraphrased) that straight people see "coming out" as an action - a beginning, but that in reality, being closeted is an "active state of being." It isn't an absense of something, rather it is active. As in, heterosexuals only find you interesting after you come out, but there is a whole world of emotion happening inside you while closeted. It isn't like a void or a state of limbo before coming out. This book clearly illustrates that state in an incredibly believable and relatable way.

23.
Little Princes by Conor Grennan

I'm still in the middle of the book, but from the first chapter I could tell it was going to be waaaaaaaaaaay better than Mountain to Mountain: A Journey... and that I'd also likely enjoy it more than Jumping the Picket Fence as well. I was right. Mountain to Mountain isn't worth reading at all, but I'm already trying to decide who I'm going to give this beat up copy of this book to - really enjoyable narrator.

24.
One Summer Night by Caridad Pineiro

This is a very typical romance novel. Very by the numbers. Everyone is impossibly rich and impossibly beautiful (in the same breath they would mention the female's fit, toned body and "luscious curves" - to me, these are two different things. Or plastic surgery). They have some sort of silly obstacle that is keeping them apart. They have friends and/or siblings who are also beautiful, rich, and successful who will undoubtedly get together in future books by this author.

I found the two protagonists to be rather boring and I was much more interested in the developing background relationship between Owen's brother and Maggie's friend than I was in the relationship between Owen and Maggie. I've been a romance fan for a while, but I skimmed most of this book.

25.
Thousand Pieces of Gold by Ruthanne Lum McCunn

This is a fascinating story - a novelization of a real-life Chinese immigrant in the late 1800s in the American West. Broken by famine in Northern China, Lalu's family sells her to a brothel, who then passes her to a slave merchant bound for America. There she is transported to the mostly male West Coast where gold is being panned and trains are being built. Auctioned off to a saloonkeeper, she learns English and interacts with the kind of rough people who make their lives in a saloon. Later offered as a prize in a poker game and finally becoming a wife, she manages to earn back some of the dignity taken from her after being property for most of her life. In fact, all women were property of one sort or another in those days. Much of the quality of their life was highly dependent on whose care they were in and how much they were valued.

Not the strongest historical fiction, but still interesting.

26.
Wife For Hire by Janet Evanovich

27.
Love in Maine by Connie Falconeri

28.
Einstein's Beach House by Jacob M. Appel

29.
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

30.
As Simple As Snow by Gregory Galloway

It's an unusual coming-of-age novel. The narrator is a young man who sees himself as unremarkable and forgettable, not part of any group at school. He meets, Anna, a new girl and part of the goth group and begins a friendship/romance with her.

This book is a mystery with every one of the characters hiding something. The kids all seem adrift, lost, hurting. The parents all seem bad or absent. You find out things about the characters little by little, but you never really find out enough.

This is a love it or hate it type of book depending on whether you like plot-driven or character-driven novels, or whether you can just get lost in the writing style. This is the author's first book and I think it is very well-written. Fans of YA may see similarities to other others/plotlines of books-turned-movies from the past ten years or so.

31.
Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen

32.
Lucky Girls by Sasha Gregory

33.
Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It by various

34.
Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr

35.
Last Nights of Paris by Philippe Soupault

36.
Stranded with a Spy by Merline Lovelace

37.
The Man Who Ate the 747 by Ben Sherwood

38.
21:Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich

39.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

40.
Thousand Pieces of Gold by Ruthanne Lum McCunn
I basically skimmed this one.

41.
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

42.
The 15:17 to Paris by Anthony Sadler

43.
Hot Dog Girl by Jennifer Dugan

44.
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman

45.
Girl Parts by John M. Cusick

Boys/men want women who are as gorgeous as possible, with the body type they most desire, who will agree with them on everything, be utterly devoted to them, and be available for sex at any moment - regardless of how little time they have known each other. That's what I got out of this story. About halfway through this book, I flipped back to the front cover to double-check the author's name. (look) *sigh* (Yep, written by a man. Obviously.) I can't actually imagine a female enjoying this book. Reading it just gave me an icky feeling all over.

The premise is that a bunch of kids watch a girl livestream her suicide and they don't contact the police. This could have been a FANTASTIC opening concept in another author's hands. John Green or Jay Asher, maybe. It's never explained why, but for some reason, the new school counselor decides some of these boys are "disassociated" because they spend too much time in the virtual world (all of their classes are online as well). To fix their inability to connect with humans in socially acceptable ways they give the boys expensive, lifelike, artificial intelligence-equipped robots. Teenage girl robots. Ughhhh... see how flawed this concept is already? How is a robot supposed to help someone connect with real people? Especially when that robot (a teenage girl) is programmed to like what the boy likes, agree with what the boy says, wait at home all day for the boy to arrive, and GIVE THE BOY PHYSICAL INTIMACY after an appropriate period of time. Seriously? So, you think teenage boys are going to be BETTER at interacting with real live girls if this is where their expectations lie? And we haven't even gotten to the part about the boys' first instinct being to find a way to get around the mandated timeframe before allowing said sexual intimacy.

Every part of this story is problematic. Why don't they make lifelike boy dolls? Why are only teenage boys given these girl robots? Surely, out of the 175 people who supposedly watched this suicide play out in real-time online there were some females who watched it and did nothing as well. Were they offered counseling? The other main plot point of "teenage boys disassociating" likewise could have been great opening material if handled by a different author. But we never even really see evidence of this supposed disassociation. We have one boy, seemingly sweet, who doesn't have many friends and is bullied by the rich, mean boys at school. And we have another boy, the rich, mean boy, who is just an asshole. That doesn't mean he is disassociated. He's just an entitled jerk.

By the end of the story, the only "person" who has shown any growth at all is the robot. (um, okay) There is no arc of these boys learning how to connect (really there was no evidence of them not connecting in the first place) or growing in their understanding of the female half of the population. There was a sort of side story about the company who made the robots and some sort of nefarious intentions on their part, but that part of the story is never fleshed out, either (a third plotline that could have been good book on its own).

I'm not really sure for whom this book is written. It was short enough and an easy enough read (took me maybe three hours) for middle-grade readers, but the subject matter contains a lot of adult references: smoking, drinking, drunk-driving, sex, and sexual thoughts, so I have to assume it's meant for high school age. Besides the author being a competent writer - grammar-wise, sentence structure, voice of the characters, etc - I really cannot recommend this book to anyone. And please, for the love of future mankind (and womankind), don't buy this book for a teenage boy.

46.
The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

>43 originalslicey: I get the impression the author just wanted to write a story about sex robots and built a house of cards around the topic...

47.
Rotten Reviews by Bill Henderson

I first picked up this little book and thought I would glance through it. I flipped to a few random pages and read a few one-sentence reviews - mostly from 100 years ago. I decided this was rather boring and I would leave the book where I found it.

I'm here to tell you, don't just pick this book up and flip to a random page. You won't get very much out of it that way. Start from the beginning.

I wanted to take a book with me to read while I was waiting ond day. I picked this one because it is small enough to fit in a pocket. I read the intro and that's all it took. I was hooked. The intro mentions the history of book reviews, how being a reviewer is a thankless profession, and how negative reviews affected some of the most well-known authors.

There are no modern books reviewed here, most are classics. Some I had never heard of. Most I have never read. But I at least know enough about them to be able to find humor (or horror) in the words lobbed at the authors of these works. My favorite reviews were ones written by other authors or famous persons. John Quincy Adams believed Lord Byron's "verses would soon rank with forgotten things." Lord Byron calls Chaucer "obscene and contemptible." Edgar Allan Poe calls the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson "twaddle." Charlotte Bronte throws shade at Jane Austen, there is no shortage of writers that Virginia Woolf dislikes, and it seems everyone hated Shakespeare.

Some of the reviews are laughable in hindsight. It can't feel good as a reviewer to predict that a work will fade into obscurity, but decades later it is being taught to students all over the world. Other reviews you might agree with. I mean, just because something is a classic doesn't necessarily mean that it's enjoyable to read.

But besides the reviews by other authors, the ones that most fascinated me were the reviews of female writers. Almost all reek of misogyny. No wonder so many women wrote under pseudonyms. How many female voices have we missed over the years because they weren't valued the way that male writers were?

Take for instance, what Emerson has to say about Austen: "I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen's novels at so high a rate, which seem to me.....imprisoned in the wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. The one problem in the mind of the writer.... is marriageableness....Suicide is more respectable." Obviously, Emerson missed the entire point of Jane Austen's novels and shows a distinct lack of understanding of what life was like for women of the time. He's so disgusted that marriage is top in mind of their worries -- that even suicide is a more worthwhile pursuit. Oh, if only women had the luxury to think about something else.

Hemingway's paragraph is so full of insults toward Gertrude Stein, but it's written with so much misogyny that I wonder if he actually thought he was being kind. "It's a shame you never knew her before she went to pot. You know a funny thing, she never could write dialogue. It was terrible. She learned how to do it from my stuff.... she was afraid people would notice it, ....so she had to attack me. It's a funny racket, really. But I swear she was damned nice before she got ambitious." Geez. Insulting her talent, but also claiming credit for her talent, then drawing attention to her seeming dislike of him, laughing it off as if she's a silly, petulant child, then throwing in a back-handed compliment to boot. All while making sure you know that women are much more pleasant to be around if they have no ambitions and wouldn't dare take on the same field as you. Ughhhhhhhhhhh.

I don't know where the author found all of these reviews. There's even one from 411 B.C.! But it's enlightening and is like reading an old gossip column or someone's diary. I love everything about this book.

48.
The Secret, Book & Scone Society by Ellery Adams

The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip by George Saunders

Way Down Deep by Ruth White

Looking for Alaska by John Green

manicpixiedreamgirl by Tom Leveen

The Only Girl in School by Natalie Standiford