Anri (fredanria) gets back in the swing of things in 2018

Hello! My name is Anri. I'm a year and a half out of college, living in Chicago, and beginning to (maybe) figure out adult life. Traditionally, my favorite genres are fantasy and magical realism, though I've been exploring mystery and POC-focused adult contemporary recently.

Last year, I returned to using the 75 Books Challenge after a college-induced hiatus. Throughout 2017, I went through a lot of intense highs/lows of commitment - I'd have one month where I finished 5-6 books, then another where I barely got halfway through one. This year, rather than setting myself a number goal, I'm going to focus on two other goals that I'm hoping will help me continue reading throughout the year:

1. Documenting books, including summaries/thoughts, within a week of finishing them
2. Reading at least 10 pages of my current book a day

Since my biggest struggle seems to be consistency, I'm hoping these two will help me keep my head in the game, so to speak.

Welcome back! Looks like good goals.

Last year, I set myself 7 categories, with the intention of reading 10 books in each and letting myself have 5 "floaters". It helped me read a more diverse selection than I would have normally, so I'm going to be trying a slightly modified version this year. This time, I'll be focusing on 5 categories, and aiming for a minimum of 5 in each category by the end of the year.
(if anyone has any LGBTQ+ recs, this was the genre I struggled the most to find books I wanted to read in in last year - I'm particularly looking for one that are focused on women and don't end tragically)

Mystery
1. In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
2. The Moor by Mary Russell
3. The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer
4.
5.

Nonfiction
1. Code Girls by Liza Mundy
2. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
3. I've Got This Round by Mamrie Hart
4. How to Fall in Love with Anyone by Mandy Len Catron
5. The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison
6. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

POC (written by/about)
1. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
2. American Street by Ibi Zoboi
3. On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee
4. Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcon
5.

LGBTQ+ (written by/about)
1. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
2. Marrow Island by Alexis M. Smith
3. Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
4. My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book One by Emil Ferris
5.

Fantasy/scifi
1. Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake
2. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
3. Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner
4. Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett
5. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

Adult contemporary
1. The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
2. Big Little Lies by Lianne Moriarty
3.
4.
5.

Etc.
1. Grendel's Guide to Love and War by A. E. Kaplan
2. One Dark Throne by Kendare Blake
3. Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart
4. What Girls Are Made Of by Elana K. Arnold
5. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
6. The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
7. The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
8. A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner
9. Here There Be Gerblins by the McElroy Brothers

>2 drneutron: Thanks! Setting better goals was a 2017 goal :)

1. Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake
Book one of 2018!
On the island of Fennbirn, every generation the queen gives birth to triplets, each possessing her own magic. Mirabella can control the elements; Arsinoe, the natural world (plants/animals); Katharine is a poisoner, able to ingest any poison without consequence. These three sisters are raised separately, and on their sixteenth year, they begin to compete for the throne. The last one alive becomes Queen Crowned, to rule until she gives birth to the next set of queens.
The first in a series, this book focuses on the months leading up to their sixteenth birthday, and how the three sisters prepare for the time when they will either kill or be killed.

I enjoyed Three Dark Crowns, which sets up a believable, interesting world/concept. There are set to be four books in total in the series (plus at least two other novellas), and I'm glad, because there's quite a bit that Blake introduces about Fennbirn that gets touched on in this novel, but isn't fully explored.
A minor concern, because I'm a nitpick who can never be satisfied: with this amount of world-building to do, and the number of characters three (separated) queens demands, there isn't a whole lot of space to make each character distinct. They end up falling into a few major archetypes - The Love Interest, The Best Friend, The Mother Figure. Throughout this book, I occasionally had difficulty remembering who was who. On the whole, I'm not yet concerned, but it will depend on the role some of them end up playing in the rest of the series.

(My major concern is that this is a series that isn't yet completed, and the final book isn't set to come out until sometime in 2019 - meaning I need to make a decision about whether to read the second book immediately, or try to ration it out with the third to last until then.).

>1 fredanria: I can relate to the struggle to resume reading after college. I graduated last February and still have not gotten back to reading on a consistent basis, Anri.

I like your goals! I agree with you that consistency is key.

Do you read YA? I've been really impressed with the diversity of the most popular YA titles over the past year or so—many of the best books I read last year were diverse YA. The Hate U Give and Dear Martin are both written by women of color, and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and They Both Die at the End are excellent LGBTQ+ books. (But those last two both have male protagonists, and They Both Die at the End isn't exactly the best choice for not ending tragically.)

I'm looking forward to seeing what you read!

Happy reading in 2018, Anri!

>6 alcottacre: It's been difficult, especially with Netflix providing constant temptation

>7 _Zoe_: I do read YA! I recently went through CPL's top ten list from 2017 for YA, marking which ones I was interested in, and I'm very excited by how many of them feature protagonists who are LGBTQ+ or of color. The Hate U Give specifically has been on my TBR list for awhile.

>8 FAMeulstee: Thanks!

Happy New Year
Happy New Group here
This place is full of friends
I hope it never ends
It brew of erudition and good cheer.

>10 PaulCranswick: Thanks for the poem Paul!

Have a great year of reading!

>12 thornton37814: Thanks Lori!

2. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
A series of short stories focused on the lives of various Indian and Indian Americans that won the Pulitzer in 1999. Though most of the stories end on a sad or bittersweet note, the final story is a bit more hopeful.
Overall, I think I tended to enjoy the stories that were set in the U.S. more than the ones set in India, in particular "Mrs. Sen's" and "The Third and Final Continent". It was a quick read, and while I enjoyed it, I'm not sure that it really made much of an impression, but that may be because of the recent new media that's focused on first and second generation Indian Americans, which meant a lot of the experiences being documented felt very familiar.

3. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
If you're looking for an adventure novel set in the 18th century that features:
- a bi main character, who's in love with his mixed race best friend
- a Grand Tour that goes life-threateningly wrong
- PIRATES
...then that's very specific, but here you go!
The Gentleman's Guide manages to cover a lot of diverse ground in its pages - from social issues, to the political climate, to historical medicine. It addresses the sexism, racism, and homophobia that all existed at the time, without ever becoming entirely bleak for the main characters. While I appreciated the book for its ambitions, I don't think I'll be rereading anytime soon.

4. Grendel's Guide to Love and War by A. E. Kaplan
The second book of the year to proclaim to be a guide, though this one couldn't be in a more different setting. When new neighbors move in who insist on disrupting the peace of the neighborhood, Tom Grendel sets out to stop their nightly parties with the help of his sister and best friend.
Grendel's Guide falls pretty solidly into the John Green/Sarah Dessen style of YA - Grendel's got some personal family stuff he's dealing with, there's a best friend and a girl and a girl the best friend likes, some quirky old people...etc, etc. It was a quick read, fairly interesting, but I ultimately actually had some major ~bones to pick~, namely:
1. Willow - Grendel's love interest, who makes it a point to tell him, "I'm not your manic pixie dream girl," despite the fact that...that's exactly how she's written? Her character motivations were utterly unclear to me throughout the book.
2. "Relationship" between a 17-year-old and a 22-year-old - Grendel's older sister comes home partway through the book, and her and his best friend flirt for the rest of the novel. It's unclear if something actually happens between them, but either way - it's a very, very upsetting relationship to me. One thing a lot of contemporary YA will do is normalize relationships between kids in high school and adults in college or post-college, and it's not okay. Especially since I look back, and the idea didn't bother me at all in high school - kids aren't necessarily able to tell that it's predatory unless you make it VERY clear in the novel.
Overall, the novel wasn't unique or funny enough for me to forgive those sins, which is a shame because the idea of a prank war is deeply appealing to me.

5. American Street by Ibi Zoboi
When Fabiola's mother is stopped by border control on their way to the U.S. from Haiti, Fabiola is left on her own to learn to navigate Detroit and her American cousins.
Some of the YA books I've been reading have felt a bit off, maturity-wise - while I love YA and continue to read it, a lot of the less strong YA novels will make me think that maybe I need to move on to "adult" books. This is not the case with American Street, which had a great sense of setting and interesting, dynamic characters.
(As is often the case when I enjoy a book, I don't have a lot to say :/ )

6. One Dark Throne by Kendare Blake
A continuation of the Three Dark Crowns series. I continue to enjoy the world Kendare Blake weaves, though I also stand by my earlier critiques of the book, since I still don't feel like the characterization of everyone in the novel is very strong. I'm still looking forward to the next installment though!

7. Genuine Fraud by e. lockhart
I don't know that I've ever been disappointed by an e. lockhart book - they're consistently suspenseful and well-written, and I think her characters are fascinating. It's a bit hard to describe this book, which works mostly backwards, from the end to the beginning, slowly revealing who Jule/Imogen are/were - but it's primarily about two women, and works with a lot of the themes from her other books. Specifically, it returns to the theme of The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks of how society treats women, especially women who are more ambitious/strong/smart than what they're "supposed" to be.

EDITED TO ADD: I just found out that Genuine Fraud is very, very similar to The Talented Mr. Ripley, though gender-swapped. Given that, if you've read the book you may not find it as interesting as I did - however, since I've never read it or seen the movie, I'm still satisfied, and I do think that gender-swap gives it a different view.

8. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
When Yeine is summoned to the city of Sky to be declared an heir of her grandfather's, she knows she will have to learn to navigate the palace if she wants to survive. But that won't be easy when she's living with two other contenders for the rule of the world, as well as four other immortal gods who have their own plans for the succession.
The Good: Unlike a lot of fantasy, Kingdoms features many characters who are coded as POC (except, not in a slightly questionable way like with some of Tamora Pierce's books). There's a rich history and world that Jemisin has clearly thought through that build the foundation for all this, and her writing related to the gods is interesting.
The Less Good: The book largely takes place in one main location, meaning we don't actually get to see the rest of this world - the characters only leave the palace twice, and these scenes are largely dominated by action/dialogue, and don't give a great sense of place. From what I've seen, the second/third books might explore this all a bit more, but I'm not sure I was engaged enough to continue with them, honestly.
The Personal: My biggest issue with adult-oriented fantasy is that it usually includes some sort of in-depth, kind of weird sex scene, and this was not an exception. It wasn't poorly written or anything - but something about the way the genre approaches it bothers me.

9. Marrow Island by Alexis M. Smith
As a child, Lucia grew up on one of the coastal islands in northwest Washington. After a major earthquake caused a refinery fire that killed her father, she and her mother moved to the mainland. Twenty years later, Lucie returns to Marrow Island to visit an old friend and learn about the colony of people living there now that are trying - and succeeding - at environmental remediation on this toxic site.

I've been steadily making my way through this one over the past month or so. Usually a slow read means I didn't like the book, but not in this case. This was well-written, with a great haunting quality to it that feels like it fits the setting perfectly. In many ways, the style/atmosphere reminded me of Station Eleven, though this was much shorter.

10. In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
This mystery novel focuses on a bachelorette party that takes place in - you guessed it - a dark, dark wood.
The set-up: Nora hasn't talked to Clare for years - and then suddenly, she's invited to her bachelorette party. One issue: she wasn't invited to the wedding. So what gives?

Coming off Marrow Island, this book was disappointingly written. It's gripping - I finished it in pretty much one go - but a bit silly. The writing definitely leaves something to be desired. A lot (and I mean quite a lot) of showing instead of telling. The main character isn't very sympathetic, and neither is anyone else in the book. Even the "mystery" element of it is a bit ridiculous.

11. What Girls Are Made Of by Elana K. Arnold
This novel centers around 16-year-old Nina, someone understands that unconditional love doesn't exist. She knows this, because her mother told her so - "I could stop loving you at any time." She believes this, because she sees it when she volunteers at a high-kill shelter - the dogs' lives depend on love that is conditional on their looks, their temperaments.

Her boyfriend's love was conditional on two things: sex, and ignoring what happened between her and Apollonia Corado the previous year. When he breaks up with her, Nina is left to figure out what it means to love and be loved as a girl.

Wow, what a book. This is one I want to give to my sister and my cousins, and maybe one day a daughter - it's one I want to talk about to every girl/woman who has ever loved a boy/man. It deals with the kind of love girls are taught and shown, the ways that girls twist parts of themselves to fit into a relationship, the ownership or lack thereof that girls have over their own bodies, all these things that I think many women instinctively understand or feel, but don't know how to put into words.

(Honestly, I think this would be such a good book for a book club - there's a lot to talk about, and I have a feeling there's a lot of different opinions on it)

GAVE UP ON: Artemis by Andy Weir
Oof. I managed to get...I don't know, maybe four or five chapters in? It was bad. I thought that maybe the action would pick up and it would get better but it wasn't worth it.
I haven't read The Martian, but from some of the reviews online it sounds like the main character in that novel and the main character in this one are essentially the same - and that makes sense. This main character read a lot like a white male scientist - except she was supposed to be Saudi and, you know, a woman. Also, apparently this was more natural in The Martian, but Weir has this tendency to put Science Facts into the story and it does not work in this book.

12. The Moor by Laurie R. King
Another Mary Russell novel. This time Mary and Sherlock are called to help an old friend when sightings of a ghostly carriage are seen around Dartmoor - the same place where Holmes investigated the infamous Hound of the Baskervilles.
I didn't find this one all that gripping. I felt the same way about the last one I read (A Letter of Mary), and I think I might take a brief break from the series. I still haven't read any Agatha Christie, so that will probably be my next mystery venture.

13. The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
The Alice Network tells two stories in parallel - one is of Charlie, an unmarried, pregnant, upper society woman, who's trying to find out what happened to her cousin Rose during the second World War. The other is of Evelyn, who worked as a spy during World War I, part of the eponymous Alice Network. When Charlie shows up at Eve's doorstep, asking about a name and a restaurant Eve hasn't heard of since the end of the war, they track Rose's last known whereabouts, and by extension, parts of Eve's thrilling and tragic wartime experience.

This book was hard to put down, and like all books I enjoy, it's hard for me to write a lot about it afterwards. I did love Eve's character. The refusal to make her more "relatable" or to bring her closer to Charlie's niceness was refreshing. Charlie was a bit saccharine or obvious at times with her narration, but Eve's just had this vein of fire and ambition to it.

Perhaps my most major quibble is this: I wish the book had made these characters a little more at fault for some of their actions. I'm not specifically speaking to Charlie, but I think the most of these critiques also apply there, but for Eve in particular, I'm struck by how the book summary builds up this big betrayal...and then it turns out that the betrayal she thought she caused was after surviving torture and only under the influence of opium. And then it turns out oh happy day! She didn't actually ever betray her friend! It just felt...I don't know. Like her forgiveness was unearned. Because she didn't need it! Same with Charlie - she needs to learn to love herself, and forgive herself, but in the process she didn't do anything we'd blame her for! She's not cruel, or mean, or even all that weak/helpless. In short, it doesn't really feel like she fully grows. Basically, this feels like I got a bunch of redemption for two people who I don't think needed it in the first place.

Mid-year goal update: I have been doing pretty terribly at these goals. I got "stuck" in a couple books, and predictably slowed my reading rate significantly as I avoided finishing them. However, summer is upon us, which means it's time to start rereading some of my favorites, so fingers crossed that I get through a good number in the next few months to catch up! The breakneck starting speed for this year really has helped, so I'm not too far behind.

14. Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
This was NOT one of the books I got stuck on. A collection of short stories with a lot of magical realism as well as a bit of horror - as always I struggle to summarize properly. One story was a take on the girl-with-a-ribbon-around-her-neck that I think everyone heard as a child, another was a collection of summaries of reimagined Law & Order episodes, etc.
This book was amazing - I flew through it. The stories are a bit dark, but they do an excellent job of using magical realism to reflect the actual ways the world feels as a woman, and I feel similarly to how I felt about What Girls Are Made Of. Plus, some of her work is online, so it's possible to get a taste if you're interested - the first story is here.

15. Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett
The third installment of the Moist von Lipwig series focuses on trains, and to be honest, it was a bit hard for me to get into. It wasn't quite as hijinks-filled as the other two, and the internal dwarf politics were somewhat confusing to me as someone who hasn't read any of the other books dealing with them. It was still good - it is Pratchett, after all - but not quite as engaging, and it took me awhile to finish.

16. Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcon
In the capital city of an unnamed South American country, Norma has been hosting a radio program that aims to reconnect lost loved ones for ten years since the end of an insurrection that led to the disappearance of her husband. When a boy from the village where her husband was last seen arrives, clutching a list of names to be read, Norma is forced to confront what truly happened to her husband.

This novel was the one I really got stuck on. I've had it since the beginning of the year, and was approaching my limit on renewals when I finally finished it. Once I realized Norma's husband has cheated on her, I started to lose some of my motivation. It's a beautifully written book, don't get me wrong, but this kind of confusing is-war-happening-or-isn't-it narrative isn't really my cup of tea I've found.

Number 14 sounds pretty good! Onto the wishlist it goes...

17. The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer
The first in a series centered on Enola Holmes, the (much) younger sister of Sherlock Holmes. In this book, Enola sets out to figure out what happened to her mother, who disappears on the day of Enola's fourteenth birthday.

It feels a bit like cheating to add this one on for the year - I didn't realize that it was an elementary/middle school grade book until I went to find it at the library. I could have sworn I heard about the series through someone's thread, but I can't seem to find it now, so maybe I just dreamed the whole thing. In any case, I did end up enjoying the book, which dealt with more mature themes than I was expecting, but I don't think it was enough for me to finish out the series.

18. - 20. The Thief, The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
I hadn't reread these books in a year or so, so it was time again! Plus, a new novel just came out - Thick as Thieves. These books are just as wonderful as I remember them, and I'm very excited for the newest in the series!

>21 drneutron:. I look forward to hearing what you think!

21. A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner

22. Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner
I'm always afraid when there's a new book in a series that has over 3 books that it's not going to live up to my expectations of it. I was doubly nervous for this book, because I liked A Conspiracy of Kings so much - "Surely this one will be bad; she already successfully pulled off a fourth! There's no way this streak can continue!"
I should have had more faith. While this still hasn't surpassed my favorite of the series, The King of Attolia, it was a solid addition, expanding the world of the original four books and coming very very very close to some homoerotic subtext. Though maybe that was just wishful thinking.

23. Big Little Lies by Lianne Moriarty
!!!! Wow! I went into this book expecting it to be engaging but ultimately fairly dark - something similar in tone to In the Woods, which I read last year and finished but...I'm not sure I enjoyed fully. Instead, while the book certainly touches on dark themes, it generally takes a view on humanity that's ultimately pretty hopeful. I'm excited to read more by this author!

24. My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book One by Emil Ferris
The first in a series, this comic book focuses on Karen Reyes, a girl living in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago in the late 1960's. After her upstairs neighbor mysteriously dies, Karen sets out to figure out who might have killed her.
We all know how much I love a mystery, so I was excited to start reading this. The entire story is written/drawn from Karen's point of view, which brings up some interesting perspective questions, and overall I really loved all the different layers to this story. My only quibble is that the words can be hard to read at times, since the whole thing is ostensibly done in a lined notebook.
Looking forward to picking up the second!

25. Code Girls by Liza Mundy
This non-fiction book explores the American women who performed code-breaking work during World War II. It was really interesting, and quick to get through, even despite the fact that I didn't understand any of the descriptions of the actual codes and how they worked.

26. We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samantha Irby
Okay, so confession: I actually finished this a long long loooong time ago. Yes, I have once again fallen off the bandwagon; no, I am not surprised.
Anyway, this was a collection of humorous essays, spanning a number of topics from throughout Irby's life, including dating, owning a cat, and going to a wedding in a redneck-probably-racist-probably-homophobic part of the great state of Illinois. Samantha Irby is from Chicago, and it was cool to recognize aspects of the city in the book. Overall, I liked the book, though I'm not sure I needed to buy it - I'll probably donate it in the next move.

27. On Such A Full Sea by Chang Rae-Lee

28. The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins by Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, Travis McElroy, and Carey Pietsch

29. I've Got This Round: More Tales of Debauchery by Mamrie Hart
I've followed Mamrie's YouTube channel for awhile, and while I didn't read her first book, I was still excited to try this one. It wasn't bad, but it also wasn't something I'd recommend to another person. Some of the stories were amusing, and it certainly helped that I could hear her particular voice describing them, but it felt like a lot of them were forced to have a "conclusion" for the sake of the book, and overall I'm not sure that it had an overall journey to it.

30. How to Fall in Love with Anyone by Mandy Len Catron
This is the woman who wrote the article in the NYT "Modern Love" column about the 30 questions to fall in love experiment she did. It chronicles the end of a long term relationship, and both how that relationship started and how she grapples with questions of how/why we fall in love the way we do.
If you've ever seen the meme where there's a football player being interviewed, and he says, "Not gonna lie, they had us in the first half"? Because that would be my reaction to this book. In the beginning and middle, it seems like she's going somewhere when she talks about the ways we need to push back on stories of love, especially when she talks about the issues with the beginning of her long-term relationship and her parents' relationship. But ultimately, it doesn't really feel like the book goes anywhere. By the end, she's in a new relationship, and I'm not sure she's done a great job of convincing me that the reason this one works is because she abandoned those old ideas of what love should look like. In the end, she's still given us a happy ending - the main character gets the boy.
That said, there were parts of this that I really did connect with, and I do think reading it and the next two books concurrently/back-to-back really made for a powerful trio - they all delve a little into shared themes, in a way that I'm currently at a place to appreciate.

31. The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison
I first fell in love with a quote from this book -

Empathy isn't just something that happens to us - a meteor shower of synapses across the brain - it's also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves. It's made of exertion, that dowdier cousin of impulse. Sometimes we care for another because we know we should, or because it's asked for, but this doesn't make our caring hollow...This confession of effort chafes against the notion that empathy should always rise unbidden, that genuine mean the same thing as unwilled, that intentionality is the enemy of love. But I believe in intention and I believe in work. I believe in waking up in the middle of the night and packing our bags and leaving our worst selves for our better ones.

Oof. Even now, that gets to me.
Like the title implies, the book is comprised of a bunch of different essays, all surrounding this topic of empathy, and it was so good. A book I would recommend to anyone/everyone, and which I think I especially appreciated because some of the ideas she addresses are ones I'd been thinking about but unable to vocalize - the last essay, called "Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain" was perfect for this.

32. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
Caitlin Doughty is a mortician, and this is a book about death - about our relationship with it, and what goes on "behind the curtain" in places like funeral homes and crematoriums. And along the way, it's also about a woman in her mid-twenties trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life, which made it particularly resonate for me.

I really enjoyed this book, much like I enjoyed Stiff by Mary Roach years ago. I love the science descriptions, gross as some of them are, and the cultural practices around death are fascinating. The book also focuses quite a bit on our relationship with death, and how that affects us, and as someone who's been trying to figure out how I feel about death/life for a few years now, it was great to read.

33. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
It's been awhile since I've read a new fantasy author and been excited to read more, and I'm very pleased to announce that this book was great! Well-developed plot, characters, magic - and it's got some sequels, so I know what I'll be reading next!

This might be a retelling, or its a combination of a few fairy tales, or maybe it just draws on some of them - to be honest, I'm not as familiar with the Russian fairy tales, so I'm not sure. I vaguely remember the Nightingale from a ballet I once read about, but I don't remember the story associated with it, unfortunately.

And that concludes 2018! I didn't hit 75 - didn't even hit 50 - but I am really happy with the books I ended the year on. I'll be making a new thread in the 2019 group, and valiantly striving, once again, to reach 75!

34. The Glad Hand of God Points Backwards by Rachel Mennies
I literally completely forgot about this book!

The story: I went to a poetry reading, and absolutely loved one of the poets there. She had a book, and I was so excited, I just bought it, without really looking at it. Five minutes later, I realized - it's very much focused on the experiences of a Jewish American woman. Which is great, and I did end up reading it and really enjoying the poems, but I'm also not Jewish, so it didn't seem like a book I was going to revisit a whole lot. I gave it to a friend who is Jewish who I thought would enjoy it (coincidentally on the first night of Hanukkah!)