Volkameria's (remainder of 2025) Reading Log

What better time than the last 2.5 months of the year to start a reading log? I began tracking the books I read when I began reading again in earnest in 2022, assigning each of them a star rating (1 through 5) and just writing a few paragraphs of what I thought about them, quotes I liked, etc. Fell out of habit of doing that, but would like to get back into it as I find it makes the books stick in my head more, and I get more out of reading as a result.

Some loose reading goals:
* Read some more classics
* Read some more non-fiction
* Maybe hit 100 books for 2026?

Form (for ease of copy/pasting):
Name:
Rating:★★★☆☆
Read as: (Audiobook/ebook/physical)
Favorite quote:
Thoughts:

>1 winterhugel: We're happy to hear from you no matter what time of year it is.

>1 winterhugel: hi! Always great to see new readers. 🙂

Thank you both Carol and genesisdiem! :)

Name: How We Learn To Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith by Mariann Edgar Budde
Rating:★★★★★
Read as: ebook
Favorite quote: "It is possible to make a lasting difference in the world by tending to one small corner of it." / "To pretend that we can get to helping, generous, and brave without navigating through tough emotions like desperation, shame, and panic is a profoundly dangerous and misguided assumption."
Thoughts: This was a short, lovely book that served as both an autobiography and an advice/inspirational text, cataloguing the life choices of Bishop Budde that led to her being able to stand up to President Trump during the COVID pandemic and how everyone has moments to build our internal sense of bravery upon. It also talked at length about her relationship to civil rights leaders and how she drew inspiration from their actions - much of that was new to me, so it was fascinating to read. I appreciate that her writing style is gentle yet firm, and I could get a sense of who she is by reading this book. Right book at the right time for me, and I highly recommend it to others as well!

Name: Maid-sama! Vol. 1 and 2 by Hiro Fujiwara
Rating:★★★
Read as: physical, library
Favorite quote: N/A
Thoughts: Maid-sama is a well known 2000s shoujo manga that's held in high regard with the likes of its peers, Fruits Basket and Ouran High School Host Club. I like those other 2 manga, but this one wasn't quite as appealing to me. It follows the exploits of Misaki and Takumi - Misaki is a stressed, overworked high school student who secretly works at a maid cafe to help her family pay the bills, and Takumi is a mysterious, overly competent guy who's head over heels for Misaki and discovers her secret. Misaki and Takumi's relationship develops as they tackle things like a school culture festival, a rival rich school threatening Misaki, and more. I like Misaki and Takumi as individual characters, but their relationship leaves a lot to be desired. If I was a teenager I'd definitely enjoy it, but I can't quite suspend my disbelief enough to really get into it. The art is a bit rough and some panels look a bit off model, but the mangaka takes a lot of joy in putting in details and small gags into each panel. All in all, not for me, but I can tell why it got really popular.

Name: Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Rating:★★★.5
Read as: Audiobook
Favorite quote: Basically anything Vera says.
Thoughts: One time, when I was in a bookstore, I passed up the first Vera Wong book because it used single quotes for dialogue instead of double quotes and it deeply annoyed me. Listening to it in audiobook form made me realize I would have missed a great book. Eunice Wong does an amazing narration and pays very close attention to pronunciation, so there's a lot of new Chinese terms I know how to properly say now.
The second Vera Wong is still pretty good! We follow Vera as she adopts another group of estranged, depressed 20 and 30-somethings while solving a murder that's not what it looks like at first glance. One thing that got on my nerves in the first book is everyone being a suspect because they take ownership of the man dying, despite the fact that they didn't kill him - each person would be like "I basically killed him because I turned him down on a date/didn't help him with something!" - and in a murder investigation you'd think they'd be a bit more open about that, but especially not in the 2nd book. I didn't find the characters as strong in the 2nd book as the 1st book, either, and there were a lot of moments that felt incongruous. TJ's depressed because his 13 year old daughter stole his phone and tanked his business and he's mad at himself for that - and at no point does the 13 year old get even a talking to about it? And Vera goes on a wonderful feminist rant against the 13 year old's principal, and is extremely aware of gender differences and stereotypes, yet doesn't know what the word sexist means??
It's a good book that makes the first one look great. Firmly 3.5 stars, leaning closer to 3. I'd preordered this book, but am very on the fence about the telegraphed sequel.

Name: The Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Windspear
Rating:★★★
Read as: e-book
Favorite quote: N/A.
Thoughts: The Maisie Dobbs books swing between "Aggressively OK" and "Phenomenal historical fiction" and this one ended up much more on the former end of the pendulum. Maisie takes on a case involving an American who served in WWI, and proceeds to try and juggle the case (which itself flits between a romantic entanglement and hereditary land rights), Maisie's former and soon-to-be beaus, and major developments in the side plots for every minor character, including the sudden death of her mentor figure Maurice, which seemed to be more out of a sake of character development for Maisie rather than anything else. The best Maisie Dobbs books are tight and don't try to do too much, and I think this one wanted to do a bit much. It either needed to be longer, or some of the extraneous developments needed to be cut. Still enjoyable, because Jacqueline Windspear is amazing at evoking the sense of post-WWI England in her writing, but not a great installment in the series.

Name: White Night by Jim Butcher
Rating:★★★★
Read as: Audiobook
Favorite quote: N/A.
Thoughts: I love a good Dresden book, especially the audiobooks (James Marsters is iconic and one of my top narrators in general), and this was another great entry in the series. I forgot a lot of what happened in the eighth book and some of the overarching plot developments (especially with the vampires), but this book did a great job re-introducing various characters and concepts without necessarily talking down to the reader. Solid entry, not much else to say, excited to continue the audiobook series!

Name: Isaac's storm : a man, a time, and the deadliest hurricane in history by Erik Larson
Rating:★★★★
Read as: Physical Book
Favorite quote: "Young was a member of that class of mostly landlocked men who believed God put storms on the earth expressly for their entertainment."
Thoughts: I love books on weather phenomena and books on history, so this was catnip to me from the moment I picked it up. Erik Larson has a way of contrasting peoples' perceptions of reality with reality itself that was so impactful to read. As the book progressed through the development of the storm and initial history, to the actual landfall of the hurricane, each line felt like a punch to the gut with the added benefit of hindsight and knowing what would happen next. Honestly, I think it could have been a bit longer and delved more into what happened to the reconstruction efforts in Galveston; the last few chapters felt a bit rushed. Overall though, a phenomenal book.

Name: The Village Beyond the Mist by Sachiko Kashiwaba
Rating:★★★★
Read as: e-book
Favorite quote: "I wouldn't expect you to believe something just because someone told you it was true."
Thoughts: I've been in a major reading slump lately. Can't tell you how many times I've started and stopped a book, or felt like I had to continue with a book I didn't want to finish just to say I stuck with it. So when I logged into Libby and saw my library was doing a readalong of the book that inspired one of my favorite movies of all time, I checked it out unsure if I'd actually stick with it. Turns out, I finished it in a day (given it's a middleschool book that's 200 pages or so, not surprising, but still!) The Village Beyond The Mist is a wonderful fantasy about a girl named Lina going to a new place - Misty Valley - for her summer vacation, meeting all sorts of odd people, and learning how to work hard and relate to others in the process. The lessons are simple and straightforward without beating the reader over the head with them, and it was so easy to picture and imagine how Misty Valley looks and feels. I'm not 100% sure if it cured my reading slump, but I'm glad I took to this book and finished it!

Name: The Sirens' Call by Chris Hayes
Rating:★★★★★
Read as: Audiobook
Favorite quote: "Attention is not a moral faculty. Without concerted effort, habit, and training, what we are drawn to focus on and what we believe to be important and worthy bear no intrinsic relation to each other." / "The promise of the information age was unparalleled access to every single last bit of human knowledge at every moment, and the reality is a collective civic mental life that permanently teeters on the edge of madness."
Thoughts: This was a book previously DNFed this year - checked it out from the library, read a chapter, figured "Huh, neat", and put it back. Picked it up again because of a dissatisfaction with most discourse around smartphone/internet addiction simply being around the presence of social media. I really enjoyed his central thesis that the way our attention and focus has been splintered is the core problem, exacerbated by the brand new phenomenon of an informational glut. The parallels to how work was transformed in the Industrial revolution, while not quite 1:1, helped connect the dots on a lot of his finer points. I can't say for certain that there are many, if any, actionable steps recommended, it added a lot of needed context and overarching views of the internet, social media, and the weird moment we live in currently.

Definitely one to listen to via the audiobook, I think! The author is also the narrator, and as a TV host he has a great voice for reading. I couldn't help but enjoy the slight affected accent he'd put on each time he'd quote someone from more than 100 years prior, and you could tell he had fun reading the book.

Name: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
Rating:★★★★.5 (rounding to 5)
Read as: Audiobook
Favorite quote: "Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights." / “What is truth?" Sometimes people ask this question because they wish to do nothing. Generic cynicism makes us feel hip and alternative even as we slip along with our fellow citizens into a morass of indifference. It is your ability to discern facts that makes you an individual, and our collective trust in common knowledge that makes us a society." / “Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of political parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. DO NOT FALL FOR IT.”
Thoughts: A phenomenal, actionable (!!), and blunt survey of how modern fascism works, and how as individuals in a democratic society we can do something about it in our day to day lives. I appreciated how spelled out each topic was - from changes in communication, to restriction of expression - and how to identify it, as someone who often gets really confused in general by social constructs. The laying out of Putin's rise to power and how he slowly disabled state institutions was shocking, and a bit dire to think about.

I'm not giving it a 5 star rating because some of the subjects probably could have benefited from further details, or discussion of more multifaceted/complex cases. For example, one of the points is advocating for defending institutions that are important to us. However, there are plenty of institutions that have done harm to some, and good to others (higher education, for example, or numerous religious institutions); how do we ensure that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and abandon the good the institutions do, while recognizing that we can't assume they're perfect since fascism will want to use mistakes or harm the institutions do as an excuse to get rid of them? Still, in terms of giving a lot to think about and do, it's a great book and well worth reading!

Name: Love Wins: A book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived by Rob Bell
Rating:★★★.5 (rounding down to 3)
Read as: e-book
Favorite quote: But in reading all of the passages in which Jesus uses the word "hell," what is so striking is that people believing the right or wrong things isn't his point. He's often not talking about "beliefs" as we think of them--he's talking about anger and lust and indifference. He's talking about the state of his listeners' hearts, about how they conduct themselves, how they interact with their neighbors, about the kind of effect they have on the world.
Thoughts: This is a book that's a emotional and logical argument for the concept of Christian Universalism, the belief that everyone will inevitably be united with God in Heaven even after they die. I'm trying to sort through what makes the most sense: infernalism (the belief that those who die without accepting Jesus/God will go to Hell), annihilationism (the belief that those will simply cease to exist), or universalism (the belief that those who die will eventually get to Heaven even if they didn't believe). The book itself reads like a long sermon, which can be a bit jarring if you're going into it expecting more of an academic text as I was. I also don't quite buy some of the arguments he makes, mostly because emotional appeals don't work in convincing me of things.

However, the parts where he explained the translations of Hell, and went in depths about the concept of overall purification, were compelling and made me reconsider the concept of Purgatory. I appreciate the ways he addressed common questions and rebuttals, like how to reconcile universalism with divine justice given the sheer amount of horrors that people are able to commit. As someone who grew up with infernalism preached (which freaked me out so badly), this concept of universalism matches more with what I would expect from God - but I think I'd want to read a more thorough text on it to be able to argue for it and have a stronger foundation for faith in that sort of system.

Name: A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Rating:★★★★★
Read as: e-book
Favorite quote: Perhaps to be able to learn things quickly isn't everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people...Lots of clever people have done harm and have been wicked.
Thoughts: Simply delightful! This was a sweet story of kindness and the power of imagination. I loved Sara and how she relates to all the other children, especially Becky, and how she kept going even when facing brutal unfairness and injustices. What was especially compelling was the fact that there were many times where she would break down crying, but keep going - never did she give up, but she felt downtrodden and often ashamed even with her coping mechanisms. I'm going to have to watch the movie soon.

Name: Digital Minimalism: On Living Better With Less Technology by Cal Newport
Rating:★★★
Read as: physical book
Favorite quote: N/A
Thoughts: There's a review about this book that essentially says it screams that it was written by an affluent white man, and I couldn't agree more. A lot of points in this book are well thought through: be more intentional and aware with your time, get outside, set hard limits for your usage, etc. etc. But many of the strategies won't work for those who aren't working flexible, white collar jobs, or who are parents of children heavily involved in school programs. I also firmly disagree with his very odd tilt into the sort of Reddit stoicism of "let your loose online connections drop off and stop texting people because it's not meaningful." By his logic, most of my friends and family would fall into this category as I don't see them in person frequently and text them a few times a day. Also the endless pursuit of "high meaning activities" above all else makes me think of that one Calvin and Hobbes strip about the folly of trying to always be adding to your personal pleasure. I'm not saying this as someone who disagrees with the concept of digital minimalism; I wholeheartedly agree with it (my phone usage time tends to average below 1 hour a day). But according to the author, my weekly digital board game nights with my family would be a "low value activity" because it's socializing without seeing the person on a video game. This book was published before the pandemic, and it... shows.

I applaud what the book is trying to do, and a lot of the review is for that. And honestly, the first half of the book is pretty good! But the second half is where the smugness, the lack of lived experience, and the inability to see past the author's own ideals turn it into a slog with only a few good takeaways.

Name: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
Rating:★★★★
Read as: physical book
Favorite quote: They were taking something familiar to the viewers, like these interstellar dumbass octopus monsters, and combining them with an Earth analog in an effort to both teach the watchers about Earth culture and to lampoon interstellar cultures they felt deserving of scorn.
Thoughts: I'm happy that the LitRPG genre is really taking off in the mainstream in the US now, and Dungeon Crawler Carl is a phenomenal standard bearer in that regard. I love how ridiculous the setting is, while making all the individual pieces make sense - and still leaving room for jokes! Princess Donut is an incredible character, and her slow growth through the book is delightful. Carl is an excellent main character too: he's believably intelligent and skilled in some areas, and incredibly dumb in others that Donut covers for, which makes the two of them play off each other very well. While the dungeon does take center stage, there is a larger plot in the background about capitalism, flawed humanity, and the inherent worth of people that is just... *chef's kiss*. Truly good.

The book can lean a bit too heavily on the gameplay elements. You'll read a lot about characters tabbing through menus and grinding levels, which can detract from the overarching plot. Additionally, a lot of the jokes can be pretty crude (there's a recurring joke about one of the dungeon masters having a major foot fetish, for example) and the writing is not the best. However, the characters, scenes, and overarching plot make up for any jokes that don't land and writing that needed another editing pass.

Name: Subversive Sabbath: The Surprising Power of Rest in a Nonstop World by A.J. Swoboda
Rating:★★★★★
Read as: physical book
Favorite quote: This means that the litmus test for true Christian ethics is how those who follow Christ love and serve and bless those who do not. / We think we can fulfill all our own needs with the click of a button. And in many cases we can. Because of this, we trade the kind of community that is forged around a Sabbath for a “sense” of community wherein we are not vulnerable to each other in real and tangible ways.
Thoughts: This book took me quite a few months to get through, just because the author puts so much thought and care into each word, sentence, and paragraph. The idea of keeping a Sabbath - a day focused on the worship and enjoyment of God, without work - was kinda bonkers to me because so much emphasis was put on doing things (overachieving, etc.) The book walks the reader through several ways Sabbath is good for our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual health, as well as the health of those around us, including the animals and Earth. Because of this book, my family has actually started keeping a Sabbath, and it's improved our lives significantly! Probably my favorite Christian book of the year, bar none.

Name: Cibola Burn by James S. A. Corey
Rating:★★★★
Read as: physical book
Favorite quote: N/A
Thoughts: The Expanse is a really fun sci-fi romp that I've been reading with my husband. Halfway through the series now, and there's something to be said for delightfully consistent, long, action packed sci-fi. Book 3 wasn't my favorite, but Book 4 is great, even though my favorite character is decidedly dead now. Not sure if I have much else to say about it, honestly.

And now, a brief list of the ones that didn't make it (my DNFs of the year), and why:

Not in It to Win It: Why Choosing Sides Sidelines The Church by Andy Stanley - I got the main points within the first 20 minutes of the audiobook, and grew more irritated by the author's examples as he lost credibility and made some aggressively sweeping and vaguely racist statements. DNFed within the first 3 chapters.

Modern Villainess: It's Not Easy Building a Corporate Empire Before the Crash (Light Novel) Vol. 1 by Tofuro Futsukaichi - Love the concept! There is 0 introduction to basically anything. You've got a story about a villainess being reincarnated into an economic sim/dating game, but it's also an alternate history, and the author assumes you're well versed in both modern Japanese history and economics, and makes the questionable decision to define some terms but not others in a chapter by chapter glossary. I just found myself bewildered and confused, and the translation makes everything feel stilted. DNF'd at 50%.

When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s by John Ganz - A fascinating look at neoconservative think tanks and how the post-Reagan years laid a lot of the groundwork for what we're seeing today. I paused the book 40% of the way through, picked it up again 6 months later, and realized I'd need to start the book over again to pick up on the through-lines connecting each disparate story. May pick it up again in the future, but not right now. DNF'd at 40%.

Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews - Modern urban fantasy set in a post-apocalyptic Atlanta. Love the protagonist, love a modern fantasy, the setting and rules were fascinating, but the story was too crapsack depressing to be believable. Suspension of disbelief broken upon reading the most insane backstory for a minor character discussed as if it was the weather, and if my suspension of disbelief wasn't broken I would have still dropped it because the content was personally disturbing. DNF'd at 30%.

Stargate Atlantis: Entanglement by Martha Wells - Love Martha Wells, love SGA, something about this book just didn't grab me like her other SGA book. May come back to finish it at some point, but I'd rather finish up Murderbot first if I want another Martha Wells. DNF'd at 30%.

Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs by Jaime Loftus - Aggressively irritating narrator who proceeded to get everything about my hometown comedically wrong. I thought this was going to be a comedic history of hot dogs, not a memoir about a bad roadtrip by someone I can't relate to whatsoever. DNF'd very early on.

Winter of Ice and Iron by Rachel Neumeier - Interesting high fantasy that really drops you into the setting and makes you figure out a lot of things for yourself. Once I understood the magic system and the different wars, I kind of stopped caring as none of the characters gripped me except for the mysterious murderprince guy, and it was clear they didn't want to focus on him. It's a good book, just not for me. DNF'd at 25%.

All Rhodes Lead Here: A Novel by Mariana Zapata - Heard amazing things about this author, and love a slowburn romance, so I picked up this book and was immediately smacked in the face with the least capable protagonist I've seen. Holy crap, I don't have high expectations, but when a 16 year old shy boy actively going through appendicitis is more mature and on top of the situation than you are (there's a long scene where *he's* the one trying to calm *her* down as she's driving him to the hospital), it's time to rethink a few things. DNF'd at 10%.

The Explorers: A New History of America in Ten Expeditions by Amanda Bellows - I picked this book up to read more about different types of explorations in America, not graphic details of mass rape. May return to it because it's a fascinating subject, but I'm a bit sensitive to discussions of assault, so who knows. DNF'd at 10%.

The Stadium: An American History of Politics, Protest, and Play by Frank Andre Guridy - The role of the stadium as a gathering place for Americans and how it turned into capitalist statements and political arenas is one I hadn't considered at all. Unfortunately my lack of sports knowledge really hurt as the book moved into modern day sport events later on, and I had a hard time understanding some of what was written. DNF'd at 60%.

Ha, I thought that was going to be my last post for 2025, but I managed to sneak one last book in, bringing my total this year to 82 books, of which 29 were manga.

Name: Six Feet Deep Dish by Mindy Quigley
Rating:★★★
Read as: physical book
Favorite quote: N/A
Thoughts: A good introduction to a new cozy mystery series about a woman going through everything that could go wrong for her restaurant's opening week - including the murder of her elderly relative's caretaker right on the property. The mystery was straightforward, even by cozy mystery standards, but a lot of the charm comes from the characters. I adore the entire restaurant staff, but dislike the main protagonist and her relational conflicts, so I don't think I'll be keeping up with this series. However, I can see a lot of people enjoying this, especially people who like character focused books! Super easy and breezy read, too, perfect for a vacation.